Victims of success? (editor's note).(Industry Overview)

It's no secret that computer gaming is big business. Last year, sales and rentals worldwide totaled more than $14 billion. And this year, that figure is expected to top $16 billion.

What may not be so obvious are the dramatic changes rippling through the gaming industry as a result of its unprecedented success. Indeed, as the stakes have risen, so has the competition among game companies to meet the growing expectations of sophisticated players with increasingly powerful gaming platforms.

Until now, many game developers have spared little time, money, or effort developing code to deliver innovations to a hungry audience. One recent example is The Getaway, the newest game from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, which took 3.5 years and some $8 million dollars to complete (see "Character Driven," April 2003, pg. 14). Unfortunately, except for companies with resources to burn, the days of building games from the ground up with proprietary programming are rapidly drawing to a close.

The problem with the roll-your-own approach is that producing ever richer and more realistic gaming experiences requires ever more resources. But the retail cost of games hasn't increased to support the added development expenses, nor have production cycles expanded to accommodate the extra development time required.

"Game development is changing," says Samantha Staples, principal of Acacia Research Group. "The focus now is not just on bringing a hit title to market; it's on bringing a hit title to market within budget and on time. Increasingly, publishers are going to insist that game developers concentrate on business goals and not just bragging rights."

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