Oh yeah that was for the cash no other reason at all lets be clear Shakespeare did it for the cash and the fame if they hadn't made cash and been popular there's no way we'd have them today

You mean has someone thought "This game must exist?" Sure. Ask the SPAZ guys. There's certainly others. You'd really enjoy seeing everyone at PAX. Some of those folks really love this stuff.

I don't fully understand the question. Yes, games are a business. Some people make freeware games just for fun. Some of these are great but realistically most are bad. You can't expect someone to put their entire life energy into something without getting paid because... well... people need to eat and stuff. ;)

I like the Kickstarter movement, should provide a fresh way of looking at things.

Well the artificially low interest rates set by the Fed (or its counterparts abroad) don't help. =)

I'm happy with game developers who are extremely creative, are gamers who make games they want to play (and if they sell that's just a bonus), make games purely for a hardcore/niche audience, and the only profit they make is enough to survive and pay for their living expenses.

From what I've seen, that's the only way good games are made, big corporations who aim for broad audiences always end up making crap to cater to people who are retarded.

No, not being serious.

Of course its an over-simplification - this is a discussion forum. And besides, I specifically stated that there _is_ a cross-over and that there are a few - statistically few - who can combine both.

I'm not stating that things _have_ to be this way - merely attempting to explain why they _are_ this way historically.

You need to understand the past to be able to improve on it. You also need to understand human frailties - and not simply dismiss them with comments like "it doesn't have to be this way". Naive utopia is easily brushed aside by ruthless ambition and greed.

You are also ignoring an earlier statement where I said that "exploitation" does not _have_ to be a bad thing. Perhaps that is a translation issue. You can exploit something and ensure that everyone benefits - the creator, the consumer and yourself. It is when the focus of the business side is solely on short term profit that things go wrong.

I think that ultimately, the best a creator can do initially is create something that will please himself and hope that others will be pleased by it.

Then, you can add a rather abstract knowledge of what others tend to be like and adjust accordingly, but I think the best policy there, when you can manage it, is probably just to ask others what they want and adjust your aim accordingly.

Some view the later part as a corruption of an artist's vision, but personally, I view it as a selfless act (which many can't manage, it takes humility to reach out and make others co-creators of sorts), especially for video games were the primary goal is not to drive across a particular message, but to wow and entertain.

1. I think this can be oversimplifiication to the point of being wrong.

2. But that's not the point I aimed at. Maybe the two (business, creativity) should not be contrasted at all? the false romantic image of a creator being a crazy individualist who can't think about his own profit may be at work here. Maybe business is a form of creativity?

3. For me, your statements are true more in the case of "how things are" than "why".

4. that sentence was aimed at those, who justify the way things are by saing they have to be this way. It doesn't necessary has to be you. We should analyse the way things are precisely to find ways to change them. Things have to evolve.

5. I think, in the world dominated by cynicism (disguised as so-called "realism") i think we sometimes need a bit of naivety. It's self-fulfilling prophecy at work (in both cases).

6. I don't. What you said is "it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing". It can benefit everyone. Of course I agree. But it sometimes doesn't. Those that are exploiting have to always question, whether they are doing a good thing or not. And sometimes refrain from doing it even if they are good at it and it benefits them. That's all I wanted to say. It wasn't necessarily against you, but a thing that have to be stressed all the time. Becouse many people tend to justify their actions simply by acknowledging the fact, that they are good at it and it benefits them. They should always think, whether it benefits all parties involved.

For the most part, I agree with your statements. But the problem lies in conclusions that we derive from them.

On the one hand I agree, on the other hand, the consumer doesn't always know what he really wants. See Wowcrendor's YT video "the customer is always right", it illustrates my point perfectly using WOW as an example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBddZ1uwtsk

Well, you don't need to take everything your customer-base tells you at face value (sometimes, you have to read between the lines), but I think that ultimately, you need to open up a dialogue with them to best target their wants.

I guess my growing fascination with web games (or more generally MMOs, but I think web games are in a better position to evolve quickly than client-heavy MMOs) stems from that model: a game that constantly evolves where the devs and the customer base can bounce ideas back and forth.

I don't. Of course games are also art. Only I wonder what does it mean? What does it change?

They are part of our cultural heritage - as well as movies, books, paintings, monuments, buldings and well... nicely designed screwdrivers too.

But what does it change? Does it change copyright? Should artists not have the right to sell their artwork for a price they think is appropriate? After all it's their life and their decision to make this art. How can people just not honor this?

In the most liberal definition everything is art and business at the same time. Only what does it mean?

Some of the best artists think what their art means to you is so much more important than what it means to them they will often refrain from sharing their own view of it. I think it's rather telling that several of these types are extremely successful. I hadn't really thought of the humility part before, though, that's a very good point and I'll bet that has a lot to do with the creator and fan interaction.

I'm not a psychologist or sociologist, so I am not qualified to argue on whether my "bell curve" view is accurate or not.

Let me express this a little differently and maybe you will get my point.

In order to create something you have to devote time to its creation.
In order to build a successful business you need to devote time to doing so.
Any time spent on one, by necessity, reduces the time available to the other, the net result being that one is not done as well as it could be - if it had 100% of the time devoted to it.

Now there are some things which can reduce or remove the impact of this, including:

1. Time. If the world din't revolve around having to have everything yesterday - or sooner - then we could all take our time to create he best products imaginable.
2. Expectations. Why does everything have to be perfect? Could "good enough" not be good enough n many cases? Or - does it have to have _all_ the features - why not just some polished to perfection?
- you can combine 1. & 2 with incremental delivery. The software industry already dos this to an extent.
3. Remove the business part. If the business part was wholly automatic, something which "just happened", then the creators could just get on with doing what they do best. This is not as daft as it sounds - many aspects of business are needless baggage which is only there for historical reasons or to justify their own existence.
4. Get someone else to handle the business. This is the current model and , when done right, is fine - but, as you say, sometimes goes horribly wrong. If you wish to retain the business part (either done by the creator or by someone else) _and_ reduce or remove the problems then you have to change the business culture away from "maximise profit".

I suspect your ideal lies somewhere in the above.

The problem is, if you don't do something about the business culture (in 4. above) then those displaced business types will look for ways to capitalise on your new system and, in some cases, corrupt it. Or is that my cynicism showing again?

"Maybe business is a form of creativity?

P.S. Some of the worst disasters occur when business types "get creative" ;)

Some of the worst disasters occur when businesses (or the state) become overly greedy or stop caring about sustainability (both in terms of what the economy takes into consideration and what it doesn't... how economic model has yet to catch up to the rest of the body of knowledge we've accumulated), often both going hand in hand: being overly greedy is highly conductive to not caring about long term sustainability, but the reverse is not necessarily true. You can have the best intentions in the world, but just be irresponsible when managing the resources that you have.

Creativity, when taking the greater good and sustainability into consideration, can lead to huge improvements and generally prevent stagnation.

Often, policy makers need to be highly creative to find solutions that ensure that things are run substainably and uncreative minds always looking for the simplest solutions and generally getting set in their ways will make the whole system crumble.

It was an attempt at a sarcastic pun on terms like "creative accounting" as used all too often by large business, obscenely rich individuals and their accountants. I concur wholeheartedly that greed is one of the biggest problems of current society.