Scott Miller, former 3D Realms CEO, recently announced the formation of Radar Group, a new hybrid organization dedicated to aiding in the production of video games. IGN had the opportunity to interview him and find out more about the endeavor.
If you speak to any business man when he is announcing a new company, chances are he will employ some high rhetoric about how original and distinctive the company will be. Miller is no exception:
Radar Group is neither a publisher nor a development studio. We're something new. We believe that the best ideas in the game industry are original ideas, and so we will incubate, nurture, co-design and co-produce ideas that are tailor-made for the game industry, versus using existing licenses from other media.
Since this hardly explain what Radar Group is, I'll parse this a bit further. That series "incubate, nurture, co-design and co-produce" is the core of the business. In particular, incubator is operative. From Miller's description, Radar will be an incubator for games. It will provide funding and support for the development of games in exchange for a partial ownership of the IP. If you have some familiarity with the old Dot Com bubble, the name Idealab might spring to mind. That company, which gave birth to CitySearch and Tickets.com, provides support for startups at the beginning of their growth. They provide payroll and HR services as well as strategic advice to the companies until they have enough funding or revenue to become separate entities.
As Miller describes the enterprise further, it is apparent that Radar will be an incubator of games:
First, developers that work with us will often get a better royalty because of multiple factors, not the least of which is our ability to self-fund a new game for 18 months, until it reaches a strong vertical slice that can excite publishers, and elicit strong offers. This is a win-win for both the publisher and the developer. The publisher doesn't take on the risk associated with earlier development and proof-of-concept. Additionally for the developer, they gain tremendous value from co-ownership of the IP, something generally not possible when dealing directly with publishers.
Once the game reaches a certain stage of development, it begins to be shopped around until it finds a publisher. Essentially, developers are able to shift the risk during the the inception and prototype stage to Radar. In exchange, Radar assumes partial ownership of the IP. I don't know how the traditional developer-publisher relationship works exactly or how difficult it is for a developer to maintain some control of an IP when dealing with a publisher, but if publishers traditionally take all rights to an IP, Radar will be granting the developers partial ownership of the IP.
The other principle benefit of the group will be the ability to "leverage" the titles into other media. It's odd to hear a game designer use a word like leverage. It's market-speak. Through a partnership with their sister company, a film studio, Radar will have contacts in Hollywood that will allow worthy IP to more easily make the transition to film and other media (the first film project is actually Max Payne with Mark Wahlberg, which has the potential not to suck):
Another key part of the Radar plan is that all of our projects are built around a rich storyverse. Think about properties like Star Wars, Harry Potty and Lord of the Rings. All of these fictional creations have a vast and deep storyverse that can support numerous stories, with numerous compelling characters. Quite simply, a storyverse is the possibility space for stories, and all of our projects are being developed as a storyverse that can then support not only games, but linear media, too, like film, comics, TV, novels, webisodes, and so on.
A storyverse. I'm going to let that one linger for a moment. A storyverse. A storyverse is the possibility space. Right. Throw out all the garbage of that statement, read storyverse as fictional universe, and you essentially have another tenet of the company. They want to create universes that they can return to. It's that simple. Okay, I think I can contain my disdain for Miller's rhetoric. Oh, wait:
Radar is Game Industry 2.0.
Nevermind. I honestly think that the Radar Group is a great idea, but the way Miller describes the enterprise makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and rock back and forth until the marketspeak goes away. Radar is a middle man company. It has the potential to do some very good things for developers if it has sufficient power to negotiate with publishers over the IP rights. Everything aside from that is really all about leveraging:
The important thing for us is getting it right, because we're not just launching games anymore, that's Game Industry 1.0 thinking. We're launching a storyverse that can support projects in several entertainment branches.
The problem with stating at the outset that a company will be launching "storyverses" is that the only thing that makes a particular game universe a storyverse is the desire of gamers to return to it. Miller can call every game environment a storyverse, but gamers won't care unless they want to go back and visit that world. A recent example of the fleshing out of a fictional universe would be Square-Enix's recent efforts with Ivalice. They could have chosen any of their many Final Fantasy universes to base other games around, but they chose Ivalice, which then can be considered a storyverse. (As I said note, I hate Ivalice. Out of all the FF universes, why the one with the giant half-human, half-bunnies?)
What this amounts to is a whole lot of hot air being blown about as the company premieres. Soon enough the dust will settle, and hopefully some good games will emerge from the chaos. There is some reason for hope amidst all this hoopla:
Another thing in common with the hit games 3D Realms has worked on is their focus on strong characters and story. We borrowed much of what we know from the comic books industry, where characters are always front-and-center. This background, going back 15+ years, puts us in a unique position to pull off something as ambitious as Radar.
I honestly can't fault any company, even if it's as nebulous in its purpose as Radar, that dedicates itself to developing new IP in the gaming industry. That's a wonderful, wonderful thing. It just terrifies me that someone who talks like a suit is the Chief Creative Officer of this company.
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