Does the game industry need a Radar?

(Well, posting blog entries on the Radar site was somewhat hassle-filled, so we've decided to bounce the blog back to my original home.  For completeness, here's my original entry from about six weeks ago, duplicated below.)

One way to answer this question is to look at what’s currently wrong with the game industry:

o Too many licensed games. Not enough original IP.
o Independent game studios are mostly work-for-hire operations with no ownership in their work.
o Too many financial execs and attorneys leading inherently creative businesses.
o Too many games being created without building in cross-media elements.
o Studios eventually lose their identity, name, culture and eventually their passion when purchased.

This is just a partial list, but a strong one nonetheless.

And while Radar can’t fix all of these issues, we bat the first four out of the park:

[1] Radar creates only original properties—no licenses. This is something of a revelation for the game industry, which has leaned heavily on the broken crutch of film and TV licenses. It doesn’t take a lot of research to show that other than sports licenses—which make total sense—most of the game industry’s mega-successful properties are born from within: The Sims, Mario, World of Warcraft, Bioshock, Halo, Max Payne, GTA, Tetris, CoD, Final Fantasy, Gears of War, Half-Life, Diablo, Elderscrolls, Duke Nukem, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Doom, Tomb Raider, and so on. The bottom-line is that Radar will only create original properties, much like Pixar has done. Original properties have the advantage if they’re purposely designed with the game industry in mind, with unique, memorable gameplay hooks, strong characters, and the potential to create what I call a compelling Storyverse^TM.

[2] Radar strongly believes in shared ownership of properties with game studios. With ownership comes passion and a dedication to do the best work possible. Shared ownership also allows studios to better share in the IPs success and to become financially stable and gain true independence. For Radar, sharing the pie is a no-brainer. It’s a win for everyone involved.

[3] Radar is founded and led by a team with extraordinary industry experience, especially on the creative side. Would you trust a film studio lead by Steven Spielberg or Alan Greenspan? ‘Nough said.

[4] Finally, Radar co-creates (with our studio partners) concepts that support both the game industry AND linear entertainment. In effect, Radar does more than develop a game concept, we also develop a deep Storyverse^TM (what I consider to be the "story universe"). This storyverse is rich and broad, full of characters and story possibilities—in effect, a storyverse is the possibility space for stories. Three of the best known examples of what I consider storyverses are Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. And while it’s nearly impossible to create storyverses this rich time and time again, at least we attempt to think in terms of the big picture, so that our properties have a history, and more importantly, a long future in the game industry and hopefully other entertainment branches.

Radar is specifically set-up to take advantage of our storyverse design focus by running all of our properties through Depth Entertainment. Depth is Radar’s cross-media partner, based in Hollywood, and run by a capable, experienced, well-connected team. Max Payne is Depth’s first co-production project, a movie due out later this year.

Depth has another role, too. It will provide Radar with a deep talent pool for our projects, as well as be a good potential source for new concepts that can then be further developed into both game concepts and linear concepts. The Radar/Depth connection is likely the best yet conceived between the game industry and Hollywood, with both sides being equal partners and on equal footing. Everyone knows Hollywood and the game industry have been oil and water in the past. Depth will prove—and is already proving—that the proper collaboration can be highly beneficial. We promise that Uwe Boll will never direct one of our movies!

Does the industry need a Radar? Let’s examine the key players and what I think their answers will be…

o Developers—Yes! And why not, we offer them the opportunity to create original projects and co-own them, the Holy Grail in this industry.

o Publishers—Yes! As public companies publishers are always under the gun for the next quarter. There is a lot of pressure put on them to make safe bets on licensed IPs because developing new ideas is a messy creative business, and they must justify the large fixed costs of internal teams. Radar is thus a powerful connection for publishers looking to increase their hit percentage by acting as an incubator of ideas. Ideas that we will presenting to them only when the titles have made it through our selection filter/process.

o Gamers—Yes! While many won’t care, those who do likely realize that the long-term pay-off is an industry more populated by independent developers who can call their own creative shots, like Epic, Id, Remedy, Valve and Gearbox. That can only be a good thing.

So, that’s the short of it. There will be plenty of future blogs to fill in the many details.

Comments

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This is something of a revelation for the game industry, which has leaned heavily on the broken crutch of film and TV licenses.I enjoyed reading thanks for the infotmation.

bjdenise

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thanks for the great news you posted here.

"And why not, we offer them the opportunity to create original projects and co-own them"

One does always own what he creates. You can't give away your IP, you can only license it someone (and you can license it as often as you like to whoever you like, CR != IP).

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I somehow think that the game industry does require Radar. They do real good jobs as far as games are concerned.

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