Long a go there these crazy tech heads who pushed the idea of everyone should have a voice , without publishers, TV executives, news editors , radio producers. Where a little hard work and a little tech knowledge would give anyone a voice. This was the Internet revolution in the mid 1990’s , where anyone would type up some HTML and make a website. Then later came the search engine and then the epitome of this distribution which was blogs with easy to use wysiwyg editors and easy platforms like blogger and Wordpress.
To me this is akin to the game self publishing revolution. Originally game engines were these massively expensive and specialized pieces of software like Gamebryo and 3DS Max and Photoshop, that required even more cost prohibitive hardware PCs , and here again were these giant publishers and license holders. But then just like the Internet to blog revolution where the tooling became easy and to some degree free, same thing happened in the game industry with tools such as Blender, Unity, Unreal, GoDot, Game Maker , and of course Steam, Itch.io Google Play, and Apple App Store.
So if we look at the gaming industry we are plainly looking at a repeat of the web self publishing revolution. But let’s fast forward to the year 2021 , blogs and blog rolls are no longer the main channels for web voice. These are Twitter, TiKTok, Reddit, Facebook, Twitch and Instagram. All are platforms created by large profit seeking companies that are centralized and now again subject to rules and editorial review. The dream of a web controlled and run by the people and for the people given up for what? Well… “frictionless” and “convenience”
What do I mean “friction”? I mean in the olden days there was work, learning hosting providers, HTML code , search indexers, cross linking, and the pain staking work of getting customers to come to you and build out a community. But, in reality, what do humans like? Convenience, ease of entry, fast rewards!
Why learn code, and indexing, etc when you want a community and people to listen to your voice, you just jump on Twitter or a FaceBook group or post a YouTube Video, and blamo , there is is, No fuss , no muss. Humans are inherently lazy (or efficient) and will always choose the path of least resistance. So what happened: the web consists of some huge landmark websites and all the rest have billions of tiny voices in a hands full of large community platforms. So really no middle class participants anymore.
Ok , so now we get to the point , the gaming industry is getting there the same as it always mirrored what happened before. The shift from sold products to live and growing community platforms.
I am specifically taking about Microsoft Game Pass, Apple Arcade, Google Play Subscription. But even more to the point I am talking Roblox and Minecraft. Roblox is a game platform with game making tools inside, that comes with millions of willing game players built in. Your Unity and Unreals do not. If You speak to any game developer who has ever made money, making the game awesome is 30% of the work, getting folks to know about it and download it, is the other 70% of the sweat ans tears. I recently saw articles about game Dev studios dedicated to Roblox get millions in funding. This is a paradigm shift. Using Unity, GoDot, Or Unreal to self publish a game is akin to setting up a hosting provider and Google indexing to host your blog. The barrier to entry still needs coders, artists, game designers, SEO experts , and list of investment in marketing, so one can make a tiny audience or community. The chances are slim to none , because of the skill required and the competition of thousands of game releases per week. Where as Roblox is the “Twitter” of the new age, you make your small bit sized content that can be seen by millions , with nothing more than just “making” it. It is “frictionless” and “convenient”, key words that always mean $$$. So sure, you are saying right now, you cannot make the next Call of Duty or Horizon Zero Dawn in Roblox?!?, but this is just a matter of tech catching up, nothing more. But as it happened before the users will crowd around and search for communities, and the person with a game that wants to be “seen” will soon need to find once of these platforms to be easily heard or sold, much like the bloggers of old did. More companies will build the expansive 3D interactive platforms of the future, and whomever holds the community will reap the benefits and rewards in the end, and the middle class of indie developer will shrink just like the bloggers did. (Yes the irony in my post is not lost on me)
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