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Rockstar Stories – How Rockstar Games is Leaving Money on the Table

Rockstar Stories – My Suggestion Rockstar Foster Their Next Generation of Talent with an Open Storefront for Content http://jeffool.com

Rockstar Stories – My Suggestion Rockstar Foster Their Next Generation of Talent and Make Tons of Money Doing It http://jeffool.com

Rockstar hasn’t released any single player DLC for their 2013 game Grand Theft Auto V. What they have released is tons of free content for it’s multiplayer component, Grand Theft Auto Online, and offered in-game currency for real money. Apparently it’s sold gangbusters. Every time news hits about GTAO there’s always complaints “I wish they’d release single player content” or “They said they would release more heists!” (They haven’t.) So, I’d like to pitch an idea for a lot more, widely varied, single player content. Allow me to dream for a moment.

I’d like to see Rockstar open a new studio largely staffed of fresh hires to bolster their future games. People looking to get into the industry, for that first job. The kind of people who want to apply, but don’t have the experience to get the type of jobs that are actually advertised. Start them off with jobs scripting single player DLC content in Rockstar’s open world games.

You want your A team on your A job. Rockstar’s teams all have excellent content creators who create, often, very compelling and interesting quests that work on several levels, both offering fun gameplay and compelling main quests. I imagine (maybe wrongly?) that a second team, still of top level quality, is tasked with the non-essential quests, offering wonderful atmosphere and characters to fill out the greater world. For brevity’s sake only, let’s call them the B team.

But what about the minor leagues? I’m confident Rockstar can create a studio chiefly staffed of entry level developers, all tasked with learning and using the tools to put written missions into action. This farm league of content will obviously need scripts. Open that to everyone.

Create a blind submission system open to everyone, and let the studio decide what works well as a combined DLC package. Let aspiring designers write and pitch concepts at different levels, let those ideas be greenlit, conditionally greenlit with criticism, or turned down with optional criticism. From this point Rockstar can bring those designers in to flesh out points of contention or script, or do it themselves, but it’s key they cut those writers in on the profit. And while those rookie scripters should all get a salary, I can imagine some of them wanting a percentage too, but that’s their place to argue for.

The real benefit to this? Once you have teams able to work with each other, and others, to create worthwhile DLC? You have a team of people pumping out lots of small content for small fees, using existing in-game resources and existing tools. Then what do you do? You pluck the top talent of this creative team, and you partner them with big names.

I’d love to see the mix of character and crime drama author Greg Rucka, or Daredevil season 1 showrunner Steven DeKnight, or maybe some inspired work from Dear White People’s Justin Simien (did you know that’s getting a Netflix series? I and @GiantSquidOverdrive called that in January, and Simien even retweeted that, four months before the announce… Ain’t he a stinker?)

Offer players a storefront for single player DLC. I’m not even asking for the ability to inject new models or sounds. Rockstar would probably demand full voice acting, but honestly so many people click through that it’s crazy. Only bother with rookie voice actors too, to help them get their chops, if you really want that.

My underlying point here is a simple one. It’s completely feasible. And with the half a billion Rockstar has made in GTA V’s online alone, it would be doable for a very tiny portion of that. Especially if you use similar tools for more than one of their future games. Then you’ve opened the floodgates to creators making money from working with, and writing for, Rockstar.

Spare paragraphs written for, but not used in, this post:

In 2015 Bethesda tried to monetize mods for its game The Elder Scrolls Skyrim, and the backlash was palpable. Not just because people were stealing mods and uploading them as their own to make money, or the concern that popular mods used as bases would demand payment, but also because the rate the mod creators were paid was shit. The modders who made the content could set their own price, but they only received 25% of that fee. The rest went to Bethesda and the store owners, Valve.

Did you know Star Trek used to have an open script policy? From 1989 to July 2001, any fan who enjoyed the show could write and submit up to two full scripts in attempt to have it bought and made into an episode. Of course the vast majority were never followed up on, they had several lawsuits thrown at them, and only handfuls were made into episodes for the various Star Trek TV shows… One might say the lawsuits are the prime case for not opening your doors to new entrants. I say the 12 year lifespan of this is exactly why it’s worthwhile. They canceled the program just a few years before they canceled the TV show that was on at the time, Star Trek: Enterprise (February 2005).

Would it change your mind if I told you one of those writers was Bryan Fuller, creator of Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal? Or Ronald D. Moore, who went on to win a Peabody for his work on Battlestar Galactica? Read up on some of the people who got their foot in the door that way: https://weminoredinfilm.com/2015/06/27/6-writers-who-got-their-foot-in-hollywoods-door-thanks-to-star-treks-open-submission-policy/

tl;dr in bold.

I don’t remember what started it, but I’ve been thinking about wrestling games a lot lately. It started before I even saw the highly entertaining video from Max Landis, rebutting the bewilderment of people who don’t enjoy wrestling, citing wrestling isn’t real. I haven’t watched wrestling in over a decade. But wresting video games? From Nintendo Pro Wrestling, to WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64, they were fun, especially with friends. And especially in later games when you could team up with your favorite wrestlers to wreak havoc on other players. But after a few duds, I stopped playing them. From the reviews I’ve found of recent wrestling games they haven’t progressed as I would’ve imagined.

It’s important to note that wrestling games have one are in which they’e always reigned supreme – character creation. From early N64 games allowing combining of different wrestler’s body parts and palette-swapping, to more modern wrestling games giving in-depth cutomization and flair other games only dream of. Many of them even allow general move sets and highly specialized moves (akin to Mortal Kombat’s finishing moves.) But the fighting isn’t the most important part. The character drama and plots, the key parts Max Landis touched on, have not been made more interactive. From the reviews I see of recent wrestling games their “career campaigns” have become heavily scripted, giving a near-linear story experience, scaled back from previous games.

We’re in the time of Shadow of Mordor; games should at least have a fraction of the procedural storytelling found in an Elder Scrolls games. What, you want to complain about dealing with data? Crusader Kings 2 has a huge amount of data. Thousands of NPCs have constantly evolving opinions on each other and the player based on several metrics and attributes. That game is often played at several-updates per second, with major changes happening in any update. And the players are rarely of any of those opinions, much less the changes that result in them. But a wrestling game? In this proposed kind of game whose primary draw is drama is predicated upon character attributes that are changed once every ten minutes or so isn’t heavily mapping that data in a way to facilitate more dramatic and interesting gameplay is a crime.

Players (as a new character or an established wrestler) should go through a couple of events (broadcasted shows) a week, each one offering the player an established fight schedule, and the opportunity to interact with other wrestlers. In interacting with other wrestlers, the player’s actions should generate friends and nemeses which leads to plots for the night and generally larger character arcs for them.

Like Crusader Kings II, give each wrestler a data table that indicates how they currently feel about other wrestlers. Add in a popularity meter with the faux audience, and how good/bad the audience views them, and this provides a lot of options for procedural storytelling. Add in the physical traits, and even personality traits to tag the player with that only matter behind the scenes, and things could get even more interesting. If you create a quick, small, luchadore-style wrestler with a zen attitude, the game can trend toward different angles of other wrestlers that you fight against.

The player can be given easy onscreen cues about these things. Presented as a TV show, you can have announcers say another wrestler’s name, talk about their character, standing (good/bad) and have the audience sheer/boo to show his popularity (100/-100). Players should be able to attack, insult, honor (press X to pay respect), challenge, offer to help, or ask for help. But to make it less of a random jump by button pressing every chance you get? Only let a wrestler initiate with another wrestler if their target is 10 or fewer points above the initiator, or 30 points or fewer below the initiator. You could expand this range by raising your popularity, and accomplishments like winning the title. A champ might get a larger group of on-comers and a wider berth to mess with others.

Help a bad guy? You trend from good (face) to bad (heel). Become a champ and help a good guy with low popularity? You could lose some poplarity, but the neophyte gains more and that person starts to like you. If you’re in good standing with someone, offer to create a team or stable of wrestlers who often work together! Or for no reason than to cause drama and maybe raise your notoriety? Stab them in the back!

And if you liked wrestling games in the past, or can just imagine fun fighting? Imagine being able to do that with four players, or even online. I can easily imagine a pay-it-forward style of gameplay in which playing A finishes their match, then player B, then player C, etc. for a large number of players. Even let them schedule it at a certain day/time like a real wrestling event, so they could all interfere with each other. There’s no reason you couldn’t run an entire federation full of players if you want to go turn-based (except for matches between players) with a few slots for spectators.

The big secret to this? In TV, when someone makes a big deal about airing something completely unrelated to the Super Bowl during the same timeslot, and makes a big deal about it? It’s called “counter-programming”. You don’t compete; you go completely against the people your opponents are going for. I think WWE has made such a big deal out of their roster (whom I respect) that this game doesn’t have to be about the roster. This doesn’t have to be a WWE game. Honestly, if a new Tecmo World Wrestling* was released with a bunch of fun characters, customization tools, fun wrestling, and a robust career mode? I genuinely think they could run a good “counter-programming” campaign, and rake in some cash.

*Also acceptable: Nintendo Pro Wrestling, Saturday Night Slam Masters, or entirely new IP. Imagine a Capcom or Square-Enix wrestling game. I can.

The tl;dr of what I want in a new Portal game can best be summed up by reading the lines in bold. If you’re bored, have a read!

Today HTC announced they’d partnered with Valve for the Vive headset (part of HTC’s “re” product line, so, re:Vive). Obviously the thoughts quickly turn to software for it. With Valve being the partner, Portal came up in a post I was reading. (Imagine sailing through the air in first person.) It always felt like Portal 2’s online component didn’t take off like Valve wanted, so, let me pitch a Portal 3, or at least a Portal Online. The chief decision in my choices is that it should be a game with continued updates, like DOTA2, CSGO, and TF2. And even better would be allowing it to rely on community support for content, but still allow financial opportunities for the developer that seem fair to players.

The important part? Each server is a testing facility. The person who runs the server (herein owners) should get a large series of options to better fine tune the experience for players. And this will present financial opportunities for Valve AND for the community members that contribute to the game. Also important is offering several non-required elements for players to improve their experience. Let’s look at those items first.

1. Maps – Highly rated maps should be vetted for inclusion on the marketplace if the creator wants. A very small minimum price should be required. ($0.25?) This pays for the evaluation of maps, as well as hosting, and should benefit the map maker. However, server owners should be able to run maps from outside of the marketplace, just without a logo of approval in server lists.

2. Player components – Players need to be differentiated. Playing as the people unfrozen at the end of Portal 2, suits and colors are a solid start, but offering new purchases (maybe play as robots, especially if done in components) could do well. Components, suits, colors, sounds, and mini-actions are never integral, but can be used as random drops as well as purchasables. Much like TF2, each server can do its own, or abide by the official list.

3. Personality cores – And here’s where it gets a little more interesting.

Server owners will choose a “GLaDOS”-like AI to run their testing facility. You can start by giving players a few basic free options like some of the personality cores from Portal 1 & 2. Imagine bounding across giant gaps with Rick, the Adventure Sphere from Portal 2, urging you on. To triumph in the face of danger! Or imagine a dark room with flickering lights, with the hiss of the evil red sphere from Portal 1. Then it snarls violently as a piston came from the ceiling and tried to smash you. (Or RuXx Emma Thompsonor even actress Emma Thompson who narrated Will Ferrell’s life in Stranger Than Fiction.) Even allow players to fashion their own personality cores and offer them for free download, the better ones vetted and placed in the marketplace.

Each Personality core recording (that costs money in the marketplace) should have story hooks built in for story arcs that rise and fall that trigger X maps into the server. The important part is different script portions that can be used by map makers and communicate the same information in a way specific to that personality core. The types of script needed to be used in the procedural story would be “introduction”, many “normal chamber” lines, appropriate “going away” scripts, and “re-introduction” recordings as well. Why? Each server starts with the introduction. Then the owner’s chosen chambers progress normally. But with the first Valve Update, GlaDOS takes control of the owner’s test chamber from the owner’s personality core, runs a few levels (introducing updates), then the owner’s AI regains control. Maybe GLaDOS patches in via network. Maybe it’s a copy. Maybe the two AIs are battling; maybe they’re working together. That’s not important here.

It’s only really important that personality cores in the marketplace have the appropriate generic audio recordings that maps will assume and reference. The lion’s share will be the large variety of “normal chamber” recordings, but Valve Updates would include maps that would use rare plot advancement hooks that would be required of all personality cores on the marketplace. Those would be the “going away” and “re-introduction” scripts. During the update we may get a new paint color (a la Portal 2) or world item (enemy units, new world mechanics, etc.). Maybe you could even let users trade off cores with the right audio hooks. Maybe some servers wouldn’t care and just want tons of levels.

Another important factor is that while the server owner decides the order of the chambers, this is not TF2. There is no automatic progress. Each chamber needs to be instanced when a player arrives in it. If a chamber already exists, a player should be joined with whoever is currently running that chamber on the server. In the elevator at the beginning of a chamber) players should be able to go the previous puzzle, or restart the current one. “Next chamber” should be possible in exit elevators, as well as beginning elevators if you’ve already completed the current chamber. Servers should track player progress, like they currently do for non-standard TF2 items, so you can easily get back to the chamber you belong on. But people should be able to backtrack and help, if they want. If you get to chamber 2, and I join the server for the first time, I start in chamber 1. Server voice and text chat could be passed off as communicating on a network.

So, players can buy suits, components, colors, sounds, and actions that spread across servers. Server owners can buy AI personality cores to personalize their server, and maps to use in their servers. And occasionally Valve sends updates that temporarily take over servers and seamlessly advance the world.

That’s the Portal Online I’d be happy with. Also, you get two O’s in the logo. POrtal Online. One blue and one orange!