Regarding the top thirty earnings list:
This is chicken feed. In 1994 the computer games industry was worth over 6 billion. This list of thirty (and probably the entire game development industry) makes less than 1 billion.
Presumably the rest goes to Nintendo, et al.
Also note these are retail sales. Figure the retailer and distributor are getting half. Then no way can the developers be getting as much as 500 million for their end, total. I'm not sure if the entire industry would qualify to be an aggregate one-company entry in the Fortune 100.
No wonder the game outfits are all going broke. Is there any way out? I don't think they could pay people any less than they do now. Game programmers make 10-20K a year less than other similarly skilled programmers do now, and don't get much in the way of title credit any more, unless they own the game, ala Cyan and Myst.
Since it is these people that drive the sales of 3d pc boards and game consoles and soundblasters, maybe the other folks in the industry (Nintendo, Intel, Toys-r-Us, Blockbuster) should learn to share. But I doubt they will, until there is a collapse. Game company executives don't strike me as either bright or organized enough to force such an outcome, despite their being so key to the process, and despite the (10s of?) billions of secondary sales and PR interest generated by their work, in related movies, comix, hardware, development tools, Windows upgrades, rentals and so forth etc etc etc. Greed is killing the golden goose here.
Cheers,
Chaz |
