Indies may just take over the gaming world

The barbarians are at the gates. It's just a matter of time before the hordes–or, in this case, amateur game developers–break the lock the big companies have on the video-game industry.

So says Jay Balakrishnan. The veteran video-game executive, who formerly worked at Radical Entertainment, has been in the business for 27 years, and he's critical of the way it's evolved. "There are the three ruling families, called Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, and they own three different islands," says Balakrishnan, interviewed at a coffee shop downtown.

"Underneath them is the aristocracy of [publishers] EA, Activision, and also the retailers," he says. "At the bottom you have the people making the games. But there is no really viable independent movement of five, 10, 15 people not using these publishers. What you want is a thriving ecosystem. North America was built on the middle class; there is no middle class in the gaming industry. If the workers have an idea, there's no way for them to get it funded. If you have an amazing idea, you have to find a publisher. And that limits the games getting made."

A former executive producer in charge of game production at Radical Entertainment, Balakrishnan says the current business model–in which a few companies have a stranglehold on the market–is not only outmoded but doomed. The future is with independent developers working outside of the system.

Back in 1980, when he started producing games, "there was only indie," he points out. "Everybody was an indie. We programmed, we did the songs, the art, I took out the trash. One person could create a game."

Now the spotlight is on what he calls movie games: big-ticket blockbusters unveiled with the fanfare of the latest Hollywood megaproduction. Not only are these games costly and time-consuming to produce, but procuring them is a hassle better suited to the last century.

"Right now, what I have to do is get in my car, spend 10, 15 minutes driving, waste gas, pay some guy at the store 50 bucks," says Balakrishnan. "I go home, put the box the game comes in in the trash. It was there to protect the CD, and to get me to buy the game. There goes four dollars. All I wanted was the CD. Now, why does it need to be on a CD? In the end, it's just a bunch of digital bits costing about 40 cents."

It's an analogue delivery system in a digital world, propped up by companies as a way of controlling the market. That's what makes the iTunes model revolutionary, he says. The consumer only pays for the song he or she wants–no intermediaries, filler, or waste.

The price is right, too. "Ninety-nine cents was the business proposition," says Balakrishnan of the cost per downloaded song. "It's wrapped up in a sufficient package to keep North Americans honest. There may be no piracy in China if you could sell a song for one cent, or five cents. Everywhere, they have a different price [for what makes a download worthwhile]. In every country, you have to have a value proposition that works for them."

Balakrishnan thinks the Asian pay-as-you-go model makes more sense. In this scheme, users pay by time or by level to play. The console system in place now, in which we choose between PlayStation, Xbox, and the Wii, doesn't serve the customer. As he puts it, "If I want to watch Seinfeld, do I have to buy the NBC TV?”¦The average North American isn't going to buy three or four consoles."

There is, of course, a fourth option–the PC. It's an "open-source console" (Balakrishnan's term) that the maverick sees as helping to usher in what he calls "the golden age of games–millions of games for millions of gamers by millions of gamers.

"It's like books," he continues. "There are tens of millions of books by millions of authors. Why are we [gamers] limited to a few hundred books from three publishers?" Eventually, he sees the independent movement forming a middle class, and many more gaming choices being the result.

"It [the gaming industry] is a little infant, and it's going to grow to something much larger. Human beings want to connect and relate and tell stories, to escape reality and see what life might be in some other form. The thing that is wrong, and what needs to be changed, is the separation of the conception phase with the execution. It's all about empowering the individual. It's about the many, not the few. More people need to be able to get into the industry, and to make money."