Why can’t Google and Amazon play indie games?
Editor’s note: Qin Yan: This article from the micro-channel public number “understand understand notes” (ID: dongdong_note), authors: Left Bank, edit.
“This is likely to be a project that Google will be cut off in three years.”
When Google Stadia was released in 2019, a big V in the domestic game circle gave such a prediction.
Two years have passed, although Google has not cut off the entire Stadia business, but one of the important components-self-developed independent games, has died. Recently, Phill Harrison, Google’s vice president and Stadia general manager, officially announced that it will close Stadia’s game development department.
On the other hand, Google’s Stadia cloud gaming business, which has been online for two years, is now surprisingly bland. And the big pie that Sundar Pichai drew to players from all over the world on the podium back then hasn’t shown any sign of being honored.
Of course, players all over the world have long lost interest in it.
The pie is easy to draw but hard to eat
Set the clock back for two years: At the Google GDC conference in 2019, just like Bill Gates personally stood on the platform when the XBox was released in early 2001, Sundar Pichai also showed a “white handle” to players around the world .
This handle is a sign of Google’s entry into the gaming industry. Behind it is not a huge game console, but countless boutique games connected to the cloud. Google’s goal is to rely on its own powerful cloud computing technology to allow Stadia to help all players completely get rid of the shackles of hardware: you only need a handle to play 3A masterpieces on any screen, including mobile phones.
This kind of technological advancement that brings the future into reality is undoubtedly a huge temptation for players.
At the same time, Google’s goal is not just to do a gameOpera platform. Under the grand strategy of fully entering the game field, Google announced the establishment of a first-party game studio in Montreal, Canada, where studios of major game companies gather. At that time, they dug up Jade Raymond from EA, who had developed classic masterpieces such as “The Sims OL”, “Assassin’s Creed”, “Assassin’s Creed 2”, and served as the head of this studio.
Although the number of “rollovers” at the Stadia conference in 19 years is comparable to the time when Lao Luo shouted “Long live understanding” in the Bird’s Nest 5.15, but Google, who is rich, skilled, and talented, We are very looking forward to the prospects in the game field. After all, it is not a brand new game console, but a technology that disrupts the industry.
Unfortunately, it’s easier to draw cakes than to eat cakes.
Now, two years later, the Montreal studio has become history. In the two years from its birth to its end, none of its works have been released, let alone anything to commemorate.
As for the reason, it’s because of the money. Phil Harrison, the head of the Stadia project, said that the self-developed game project requires Google’s continuous huge investment, so the financial and time pressure behind it is huge.
To play games is to spend money desperately, and 3A independent games are a role that burns big money. This has long been the consensus in the game industry, and it is why David Jaffe, the father of the legendary game producer “God of War”, had a subconscious question when he learned that “Black Myth Wukong” originated from a Chinese independent game studio: Where did they come from? So much money?
Of course, the reason for the cancellation of the independent game project cannot be just due to financial problems, and factors such as content quality and technical problems may not be ignored. But from the public response of Phil Harrison, even if it is as rich as Google, it is not so confident in the face of huge investment in independent games.
Nowadays, self-developed game projects have been abandoned, and the existence of the Stadia cloud game business is getting lower and lower. According to previous Bloomberg reports, Google Stadia’s handle sales and monthly active users are hundreds of thousands less than Google’s expected target. Also, due to the confusion when Stadia was released, the platform could only be bound to Stadia Premiere Edition via Chrome or Chromecast Ultras at that time, and lacked many features..
Although Phil Harrison once expressed high-profile Google’s current leadership in cloud gaming technology, and proposed that this leadership will make it difficult to continue the game exclusive game mode, but at least from the current point of view, Stadia does not have any content advantages. . In terms of interconnection, compared to Microsoft’s XGP or even steam and epic, it has no advantages other than not stable and convenient.
How the “world’s richest man” burns money
In addition to Google, Amazon is also making games, and it costs $500 million a year for this. But embarrassingly, until today, few people have heard of Amazon making games.
The experience of this e-commerce giant on the other side of the ocean in the game field is the same as its important domestic competition against Ali. It has invested countless funds back and forth, but there has been no improvement.
Regarding Amazon’s game business, it can be traced back to Amazon Game Studio (AGS) in 2012. Compared to Google’s new route of placing all bets on cloud gaming, Amazon is much more secure. As the Internet giant with the most advanced cloud computing technology, Amazon has chosen more traditional methods such as setting up game studios, digging people, acquiring studios with mature game experience, and developing PC games.
But Bezos’ decision seems to be inadequate in terms of who will lead the gaming business. He asked Mike Frazny to be the head of the game business. Before that, this guy had no experience in the game industry (just a typical Amazon book business line), and he had failed. Amazon mobile phone and tablet project.
If I remember correctly, Bezos’s usual business philosophy is: if a manager can manage a certain business, then he should also be able to manage any business. Of course, this prerequisite is that the money is sufficient. Fortunately, money has always been the “least problem” problem for Amazon.
Backed by the huge Amazon empire, after entering the game business, Mike Frazny’s first fire was to use his “money power” to start buying, buying and buying. After he bought “Silent Hill: Homecoming” After a number of well-known game independent studios, including the developer of Double Helix, they spent US$1 billion to buy Twitch, the largest overseas game live broadcast platform, and have digged into many game industry players.
All of this is similar to the Google mentioned above. It has money, people, and technology… But from the current situation, the Amazon game business under Mike Frazney has lost more than Google. a lot of.
In 8 years, Amazon has invested billions of dollars in the game business, and only launched a few games such as “The Furnace” and “New World”, and they are not ideal. As for the reason for the slow development of the game business, the outside world has shifted the main responsibility to the person in charge, Mike Frazny.
It is understood that due to Mike Frazny’s insistence, Amazon did not choose Unity or Unreal 4 engines as mature engines in the game development process, but chose the independent game engine Lumberyard.
Of course, self-developed independent engines can have higher efficiency and buildable technical barriers under ideal conditions, but this challenge is huge for developers, especially when game development and engine development are synchronized In the state of progress.
This state makes the progress of Amazon’s entire game business very slow. A former Amazon game employee once described the state of development under the Lumberyard engine: I need to build a gorgeous house, but I have a hammer in my hand. nothing.
In addition, in terms of internal management, Mike Frazny did not provide employees with a flat management environment like those successful independent game studios. Some employees said that in many cases, the problems reported were not answered at all. You should know that in Santa Monica, Naughty Dog and other well-known game studios in the industry, efficient internal communication is the first element of game development.
Now, more than eight years have passed. The big players in the industry who were invited to the company have basically left, and after leaving, they are reluctant to even mention their work experience at Amazon. This is exactly the same as Lu Qi of Baidu who “flashed in and out”. Obviously this work experience did not make them happy.
For Mike Frazny, the good news is YamaXun’s senior management has been unswervingly supporting him. After Bezos left Amazon to concentrate on building rockets, the newly appointed CEO Andy Jassy stated in an internal company email that the company would firmly develop video games and reiterated its support for Mike Frazny. The new CEO believes that some businesses within the company can be a blockbuster, while others will be dormant for years.
It is true that games, especially 3A-level video games, are a heavy investment, long-term and high-risk project. The top executives of the company should give the business line enough support, time and patience. It’s just that 8 years is long enough. In the 8 years that is almost a “disaster”, Amazon’s gaming business has failed to produce any commendable good results.
Even if the annual operating cost of 500 million US dollars is nothing to Amazon, it is impossible for the money to burn forever like this.
Playing games is a “fair” thing
Games are recognized as one of the most profitable projects in the Internet industry. No company is indifferent to the game business. Otherwise, Ali would not invest heavily in game projects every year after Jack Ma publicly stated that he would not make games.
But unlike the situation where Internet giants can win by burning money on other tracks, games are extremely burning money, and burning money may not solve the problem.
Over the world, among the Internet giants that can make a difference in the field of 3A games, I am afraid that only Microsoft (Sony and Nintendo are not counted). Although domestic Internet giants such as Tencent and NetEase make a lot of money by relying on games, there is an undeniable fact that they have always stood at the lowest end of the industry’s contempt chain and have never really self-developed 3A.
After all, in the case of online games and mobile games, who are willing to take the risk to play 3A games? People with feelings like Yucca eventually went out to do it alone.
And Microsoft’s success largely comes from its continuous investment in games for more than ten years. You must know that the cost of the original XOBX console was as high as $450, but Microsoft still set a price of $299, which is the same as the PS2 in the same period. This move is to pinpoint the profit of the later game (software level). Perhaps, Jia Yueting’s hardware free business model was first learned from this.
Microsoft’s firm confidence in winning is difficult to be recognized and persisted for a long time in those Internet companies that are pursuing profit. Of course, Google gave up self-developed gamesThe business is not incomprehensible. Amazon’s persistence may be more praised, but it is just like the business philosophy used by Wang Jianlin when he was an e-commerce company. The time has passed.
We have seen that last year, a small domestic game factory Mihayou made a phenomenon-level game “Original God”, and the recently popular independent game “Ghost Valley Bahuang” is a ghost with only one programmer. Valley Studio. From this perspective, the game may be the fairest track in this era of winner-takes-all Internet giants.
Of course, if you look at it carefully, each company’s new business line development has its own different problems and corresponding decisions. These are based on the company’s strategic development needs and market positioning. But judging from the final result, most of these Internet giants have failed to show the strength they should have in the development of independent games.
Nowadays, when talking about an Internet company expanding new business, the outside world always likes to say whether this company has genes in this area. For example, Tencent does not have e-commerce genes and Ali does not have social genes… In fact, this “gene theory” does not There is no scientific basis, but when applied to the performance of Google and Amazon in the gaming business, it seems really reasonable.