How To Make A Lot Of Money

Posted by Stropp on October 13, 2007

There are a lot of websites, blogs and eBooks out there about how you can make a lot of money. Here’s my surefire, guaranteed and simple three step plus 1 process.

1. Start a game company.
2. Create a bunch of great, best selling games over twelve years.
3. Sell your game company for around 775 million dollars (link to PDF).
4. Profit!

The first step is easy. All you need is a few bucks and a cool name. A game idea is good too.

The next step is a bit harder. Creating great games is harder than it sounds. Good ideas? Well everyone has good ideas, not everyone implements those ideas well.

Bioware has been making great games for over twelve years now. And they’ve been doing it consistently. Bioware has been a solid and profitable (important) company pretty much from the beginning. What I find so surprising about this acquisition is that it didn’t happen sooner.

In hindsight, the writing was on the wall when they partnered up with Pandemic. At the time I wondered why Bioware would want to partner up with another company in the fashion they did. Now, it looks a lot like both companies were positioning themselves for a buyout. Sweetening the pot as it were.

Not surprisingly this has made waves all over the web. Bloggers (and Slashdotters) everywhere lamenting how the evil EA Empire will crush every last bit of creativity out of Bioware/Pandemic. You know, a couple of years ago I might have agreed with them. Seeing the destruction of great studios like Westwood didn’t fill me with confidence. Nor did the treatment of games like Earth and Beyond, and the Ultima Online 2 development.

But EA has been showing some signs of change. The whole EA Mythic thing for instance. EA purchased Mythic Entertainment in order to run their MMOG development projects. That is a great sign that they are taking MMOG development seriously. My biggest concern is what will happen to the rumoured Bioware MMOG. If Bioware continues to develop it, will this step on EA Mythic toes? Best intentions aside, politics is a strong force.

It will be interesting to see what EA does with Bioware. Will Bioware lose its identity or will it retain its branding and become EA Bioware?

Will Bioware be tasked with handling a major part of EAs business? Just as Mythic was tasked with the MMOG business, Bioware may be given the RPG business. After all, that has been Biowares major focus and where it can be considered strongest.

I guess only time will tell. I’ll definitely be disappointed if Bioware is swallowed and digested into the EA organism because the source of many great games will then be gone. In the meantime, there are games like Mass Effect on the horizon that I am looking forward to playing. And just over the horizon? Well maybe a KOTOR MMOG. Now that, I’d like to see.

Hopefully the acquisition won’t stop that from happening.

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