Companies: Activision vs Tale of Tales
Activision in general is a big company that’s been around since 1979 with Bobby Kotick as the current CEO. They have a very professional looking website and their games mostly consist of movie/ comic licensed/ branded titles; Tony Hawk series, Transformer series, Spiderman series. The games are catered more to the multiplayer, social, casual audiences; Spyro the Dragon series, Prototype, Call of Duty series, Guitar Hero series. These games are available on multiplatforms; Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo. The employees working in Activision is estimated to be about 4000 people, so they pretty much have a massive web workflow within the company, although, recently in February 2011, more than 100 workers were given the sack due to bad sales.
In contrast, Tale of Tales (TOT) is quite a new small company that’s been around only since 2002. Founded by Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, TOT made several games that are catered to a rather indie, non-casual and experimental side of gaming world; The Graveyard, Vanitas, The Endless Forest and most of them are an reconception that are based on old childhood references; The Path, Fatale. Its not stated anywhere how many employees are working in TOT, however, it is clear that it is a pretty budget company and there should be a clear and easy workflow within the company. So far, TOT only cater to PC and MAC which pretty much put them slightly off the radar of popular gaming and also in comparison to Activision, TOT’s website is quite unprofessional.
Games: Guitar Hero 5 vs The Path
Guitar Hero from Activision had evolved massively every since the 1st time it came out, then only being able to be played by 2 player on guitar or controllers, now Guitar Hero 5, is playable up to more than 4 people at a time, this includes drums, singing, guitar, bass and multiple use of same instruments. Games such as Guitar Hero definitely benefits the company because such party game is easier to digest and to enjoy anytime and anywhere, for example, it can always be used at game conventions as a tournament or purely entertainment purpose or house party or any other even for that matter, more over, it is also multi-platforms, which means that it will not discourage people with different consoles to get their hands on it, which in turn will affect the business. Although not a novelty (there were guitar games before on arcades), this title influenced and launched the cultural phenomenon of musically inclined games such as; Rockband, Singstar, DJ Hero, Band Hero, Rock Revolution. From its 1st release in 2005 till 2010, this franchise had release more than 20 games on the market and there a few more in line for 2011. Also when it started out, it doesn’t have any license to use any of the original songs, however it is now possible since the 2nd game and even having artist and rockbands doing a motion capture for the in-game characters.
The Path from TOT in my opinion, is one of the most interesting and functional indie game I’ve ever experienced. The game let players choose 1 of the 6 sisters at a time and the objective is to get to the grandmother house, loosely based on the story of Red Riding Hood. The game only took about 5-8 minutes max for players to walk on the path as instructed and reach the grandmother’s house where the game ends; where it struck you that this is not how you actually want to play this game. Replay the game, explore the area anywhere but the path and you will experience a whole different perspective of this underrated creation. Each sisters have different desires of their own and their own metamorphic version of big bad wolf. It is very conceptual and at the end of every sister's story it gets rather graphically disturbing as well; all them sort of die in the end in the grandmother's house in a slightly abstract way. This may not be the kind of game for everyone and most people will not even bother to get off the path or just simply dismiss the game as boring without actually being patient enough to see its real content. It is of course a fine line, to claim some of these games from TOT to be “experimental” or “conceptual/artsy” in excuse for being lazy or for the sake of being different, although The Path in my opinion escapes those idea, some of the other games from TOT definitely is not as good; The Graveyard, a game whereby the player guides an old woman to sit in a graveyard and die, or The Endless Forest where we play as deer looking creatures and roam around endlessly in a forest for no apparent reason or goals. Yes, they might be relaxing games and original, but I thought that it is such a waste to pay for a game just to finish it in 5 minutes after killing an old woman or not knowing whatever is happening in the Endless Forest. They definitely posses lots of potentials and could be executed much better like The Path.
In Conclusion
So needless to say, Activision is definitely a more crowd friendly company, but I have to say that I respect TOT a lot more for doing what they do and gathering their kind of fans; just like any cult scenes, there may only be a few in the group, but they follow you to their grave. Although still, like I mentioned, most games from TOT are more likely to be an excuse of being lazy or for the sake of being different in disguise of experimental value, but game such as The Path is a quality creation and it gave me a whole new way to look at this company.
Game Company research
I emailed 3 key people from 3 game companies;
- Jenova Chen, That Game Company (FlOw, Flower, Journey)
- Alex Evans, Media Molecule (Little Big Planet 1 & 2)
- Fumito Ueda, Team ICO Sony (ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian)
I asked them about the company’s pipelines and workflow, also stuff like how they conduct research and if there is any specific kind of method for research or process in creating any of their games. Unfortunately only Jenova Chen got back to me and even then, he apologized as he is currently busy with his upcoming PSN game, Journey.
“Hi Elbert,
Sorry about the delay. And thank you very much for the kudos. The questions about pipeline is not something I can answer you without going into a lot of depth. And I'm afraid I won't be available to go through it this time due to the Journey production works and many conference talks I have to attend to. Sorry about the disappointment.
Sincerely,
Jenova”
It is still pretty cool to be able to reach someone that work I respect so much, and it is also very nice of him to actually reply even though he is busy.
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