Business models and eye candy

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@indiegamedesign.com>]

Ok, I think I'm personally ready to skip past the opinionating about ART 
and all of that.  I'm more interested in what it would take to actually 
sell iDrama, in some form, to some people.  As a game developer I have a 
bias that eye candy is needed to do this.  As an indie game developer, I 
have an aversion to AAA production values and giant teams of 3D 
animators.  I am curious what approaches, if any, people have 
contemplated to put an attractive eye candy veneer of 'decoration' upon 
an iDrama product.  2D still artwork, photos, and Macromedia-style 
approaches seem obvious 'low rent' candidates.  A critically if not 
commercially successful example of such an approach would be King Of 
Dragon Pass.  http://www.a-sharp.com  Also I have a growing interest in 
programmer generated 3D objects, seeing as how Will Wright is poised to 
make successful use of such approaches in "Spore."  
http://gonshaw.net/musings/2005/musing_03_16_05.htm  It's not iDrama, 
but it's a world that iDrama could take place in.  Will is very much 
trying to attack the problem of AAA production values having become 
ridiculous. 

There's a startup that thinks it's going to do IF on cellphones using a 
combo of voice synthesis and canned recordings.
http://www.ifbyphone.com  Audio-only is one way to get away from the eye 
candy problem, although it brings its own tremendous difficulties.

I'm thinking that without a dramatic audiovisual stage to play out its 
parts, iDrama might be DOA as far as consumers are concerned.  Anyone 
want to debate that?  I think taking audio and visuals seriously as part 
of the iDrama production process will probably change the medium quite a 
bit.  Anyone care to debate that?


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

T-shirt that landed someone a job:  "I'm not an asshole,
I'm a Shaper!"  http://www.teams.org.uk/shaper.htm