SUBSIM Meeting 2008

[Rockin Robbins]

How about a bunch of pictures identifying all the perpetrators? Sure would be great for those of us who missed it to see what everyone looks like!

Wish I could have been there to talk about SH5. SH4 is just at the playability takeoff point and Ubi's business model demands they get another infusion of cash by shooting it down, while yet again reinventing the wheel. It is SO hard for me to see any good coming of that. They're insisting on pushing a rope and wondering why they don't get good results. It's time to break the mold of kiddie popcorn FPS games and make a new business model that actually works with simulations of quality.

Hint: simulations are played for years. FPS and RPG games are played for weeks until the kid beats the game and then discards it. The business model that doesn't reflect that reality is destined to fail. Customers are left unhappy and the game company realizes a small fraction of the revenue the game is capable of producing. All of us lose.

Don't reinvent, refine! Don't reinvent the game, reinvent the business model! Simulations are not video games. They can't be produced like them. They can't be sold like them. Well they can, but everybody loses when they are.