Auteurs Make Horrible Economists: The Subtle Costs of Creative Control

The intention of this post is not to pick on auteurs. Nor is it a commentary on the quality of work auteurs produce. That’s a subjective conversation best had over beers. You won’t solve it, but at some point you’ll be drunk enough to forget what you were talking about.

This post is about a more empirical issue: the economic cost of being an auteur. Stories about auteur-led projects are rife with anecdotes about decision bottlenecks and wasted work. So what? If the end result is great, who cares how inefficient the production was? Why should we restrict the creative process of game designers with decidedly non-artistic concepts like budgets or ROI?

TOUCH THAT AND I’LL KILL YOU: The Amazing Power of Loss Aversion

Image taken from twodashstash.com

Resident Evil 4 is the best game ever made. Hands down.

You don’t agree? Well then, let me rephrase: I think Resident Evil 4 is the best game ever made.

No dice? Fine: I think Resident Evil 4 is the best game ever made, but I could be wrong.

There is nothing materially distinct about those statements. They all express an opinion that Resident Evil 4 is the greatest game ever made. But I’m going to guess that your reaction to each of them was incrementally less severe (unless you also think RE4 is the greatest game ever made). Why? Loss aversion.

What the Hell is It That You Actually Do Anyway, Mr. Marketing Guy?

Ahhhh, marketing. Few professions are as maligned as marketing. When I say the word “marketing”, no doubt your mind is flooded with images of sleezy skags in suits talking about how transmedia synergies are really hot with the teen male demo. Nobody could say it better than Bill Hicks:

But here’s the question: what IS marketing? Do you know? Do you really know? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that if you absolutely, fundamentally hate marketing folks without reservation, you probably don’t actually know what marketing is. Or, rather, what it’s supposed to be. I’m a student at a graduate school that made it’s reputation on marketing, and I didn’t actually know what marketing was supposed to be until I took a marketing class. Marketing isn’t just advertising. It isn’t just focus groups and lowest common denominator bullshit.

Five-Forces Analysis has Grim Tidings for Free-To-Play on Mobile

Image from http://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy/ar/1

Let me start by saying I like all kinds of video games. I like console games. I like PC games. I like shooters. I like RPG’s. Basically, I enjoy anything except sports games (and that’s really a comment about my attention span for professional sports rather than sports games themselves). I also like mobile games and free-to-play games. And I like F2P on mobile. I’ve had some great experiences with that combo when it’s done well. I still periodically dip back into Avengers Alliance*, and I had some great times with Hay Day and Tiny Trains.

My point is THIS IS NOT AN ANTI-F2P/ANTI-MOBILE/ANTI-MOBILE-F2P RANT.

The intention of this post is not to castigate mobile-F2P, but to point out a structural flaw in the current direction the market is taking. In general, it’s healthy for the industry to have a wide swath of business models, platforms, and vectors for people to games (or consume them, in business terms). There is a massive amount of potential in the mobile/F2P combo, but the market seems to be cannibalizing itself for short-term gains.