The App Store model will reign, says id Software’s star programmer
Twelve months after Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada predicted the demise of physical media, another games industry stalwart has declared that the days of packaged games are numbered.
John Carmack, one of the most respected and longstanding game programmers in the world, believes digital distribution is the natural and inevitable successor of games on disc.
“Clearly, packaged goods sales are still critical on the big platforms at this stage, but that’s all going to go away sooner or later,” he said.
id Software, the studio Carmack co-founded, recently launched one of its first commercial iPhone and iPad titles, Rage HD.
Sold for less than $2, Rage HD is both a demonstration of the graphical craftsmanship possible on Apple’s smartphone, but also a viral advert for the upcoming home console edition of the game.
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Yet Carmack, having been a central figure in both the mobile and home console projects, believes only one distribution model is best suited for the internet-age.
“You know, I really, really like the app store platform as far as being able to remove obstacles to getting your product out,” he said in an interview with The Telegraph’s Nick Cowen.
“You don’t have to cut deals with publishers. It’s almost completely egalitarian on there. It’s great to see all the small teams that wind up making these breakout hit games for the Apple devices.
“The fact is; on this platform, we can go ahead deal with fifteen-a-day feedback on there and directly interact with the consumers, make changes and get things out.
“It is the wave of the future for everything. Everybody knows that eventually will be digital distribution like this – it’s only a question of time.
“This is the model of the future.”
I think he's only saying that because his education is in programming and not telecoms, and because Apple are between a rock-&-a-hard-place with respect to the Super drives in their computers.
You can bet if Apple were the leading intellectual property holder of physical disc formats he would be saying something a little bit different.
Cheap roaming international 3G internet access in non-3rd world countries will happen much sooner than the demise of physical media in Pcs/Macs and home consoles; and that won't happen for at least a decade.
The UK is probably unique as a large populated, well educated and technology rich island and yet we have many parts of the UK that don't even have domestic gas available because it is prohibitively expensive to install. Those small villages also suffer from slower broadband for the same reason (512Kbps downstreams will still be common in remote areas).
If the UK isn't at the level for everyone to download 40GB files, then how on earth will 3rd world back waters? Without physical media you expand your world market which is just as important to market share as being trendy like Apple.
When market competition is this tough, everyone is looking to sell to a wider market, and broadband might need 20 years to reach all corners of the globe at those speeds. By which point physical media and HD will have long since moved on.
"You don’t have to cut deals with publishers. It’s almost completely egalitarian on there. It’s great to see all the small teams that wind up making these breakout hit games for the Apple devices"
Small teams, making small games, for small amounts of money. It doesn't take too much of a genius to spot the common factor there. I'll happily pay £2 or £3 for a 100-200MB game, no problem. But if I'm spending £40 - £50 for 20GB (or more) of game, then it had better come on a disc in a box.
The day I start going "here's £50, give me nothing but data in return", is the day I EBay my gaming collection and have myself committed.
One problem I have with the Appstore (as a developer), is that most stuff on their only shifts for a couple of dollars at best, and Apple take a 30% cut of that before you've even started.
That's just about okay right now when games are simple and can be developed relativley quickly, but the quality and time on these projects can only go up - but will the buying public be prepared to pay?
Somewhat ahead of schedule I think. Eventually, when data pipes get fast enough, it may happen, but most of the world away from South Korea is nowhere near ready as far as DVD sizes are concerned, much less Blu-Ray levels of content.
Digital distribution stores, mobile app stores, streaming solutions like Gaikai and online games will chip away at disc-based media, but they will co-exist for a good long while yet. Personally I'd put the real transition timeframe timeframe at around 8-10 years out.
The sooner digital distribution comes out, the better. I hate having to be paranoid if i'll scratch a disk or lose it. Ive downloaded several 360 games on demand and it didnt take much time at all. For people who are dont have high speed net, I think they shud be forced to buy a dvd/blueray add-on and pay extra for a physical disk and not vise versa.
Not that the 3rd world really weighs heavily in this debate, but I thought I'd make an observation addresssing what eddie said.
Many 3rd world countries have surprisingly good mobile comms infrastructure.
The reason being that they totally missed the boat during the era investment into what we think of as traditional terrestrial services.
They never made that investment and have no ties to getting any return on something they never had; now they're starting to make an investment they're doing it on mobile comms wholeheartedly.
Everybody's responding about how this couldn't happen today. That's why he's saying it's the way of the *future*. We're not there yet. But we will be soon. Things are already progressing toward digital distribution. Naysayers predicted the demise of Steam and OnLive, and look at how they are doing now. I must admit, I'd rather buy AAA titles off Steam than iTunes, but the trend speaks for itself.
Carmack is full of shit, fine he invented Doom and the viral strain we now understand as the FPS genre. On the flip side his personal blog is filled with anti pc and Microsoft comments. Why would I trust a man that hates a select demographic gaming sector? If his response is nailed at the whole "Cloud" thing I think that's more like a prediction than some half baked truth. The problem with ID software is not their technology, their biggest flaw is creating content with a lasting appeal save for a few good titles. Seems more like a rich cult syndrome where bragging rights are a must.
