Comments on: Cash Channel: Channel 4 Commisions Brit-Indies

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:21:32 +0000

I’m a design genius.

By: Alice

Alice — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:11:00 +0000

p.s. K: hilarious graphic ;-)

By: Alice

Alice — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:09:14 +0000

Maybe I can help clarify some stuff here…

Channel 4′s remit has always been to identify and support indie talent. In the past this has been mostly limited to television, and then film: these days it covers the internet too.

100% of C4′s output is created by indies. There’s no inhouse content team (save for making adverts and promotional material). The creative budget goes out to creative indies, and for what it’s worth, the definition of British indie is, “are you based in the UK? Are you independently owned?”. Then the “indie” aesthetic usually is a byproduct of a) size and b) creative freedom.

The corporate motto is “inspire change, do it first, cause trouble”. It’s a good one to work from.

It’s worth checking out 4iP too (http://www.4ip.org.uk): they too are investing in games, with a public service angle rather than only educational.

HTH somewhat..

By: The Sombrero Kid

The Sombrero Kid — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:37:40 +0000

this is nothing more or less than a symptom of the decline of broadcast television, companies like channel 4 and itv are desperately haemorrhaging money and are are looking around to see were it’s all going and how they can get in on those markets.

By: The Hammer

The Hammer — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:34:39 +0000

“Hell, with someone like Zombie Cow, the punk rock aesthetics were at least part of the point. But wonder what they could do with even a little bit more of a budget…”

Well, Channel 4 has always aimed to be the edgy station, which can still be seen as a Public Service. I think it’s partly why they’re ditching Big Brother – because it has totally changed their identity. I mean, when the C4 boss said the move was for “creative reasons”, that’s classic of the channel, whether bullshit or not.

I’m happy to hear this news. Out of the commercial stations, C4 is the one I have the most time for. And the Flash Games they’ve already “made” have been pretty good – Bow Street Runner is a lot of impressive fun.

By: Cooper

Cooper — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:30:43 +0000

Intoversion were mentioning getting Chrono-whateveritwascalled funded by C4, wonder what happened with that?

By: GriddleOctopus

GriddleOctopus — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:50:00 +0000

If they say “up to £800,000″ then at least one game must be reaching that target – otherwise they’d be saying “up to…” something else.

By: TeeJay

TeeJay — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:36:32 +0000

Purely as a consumer, breaking a game into episodes lessens its appeal to me. The last decade has seen me less and less likely to patiently wait around and watch a TV show at a set time each week. I am happy to accept advertising in return for choice and content (eg Spotify adverts).

Obviously if an episodic advert-supported model benefits developers then this would in turn mean more/better games for me, but another ‘problem’ is the risk of losing my attention if there is too long between ‘episodes’, if the gap is irregular or if I am not confident that the story will in fact continue rather than being cancelled.

By: Hi!!

Hi!! — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:27:04 +0000

Cool to see Tuna Technologies is still around. They did Xtreme Racing for the Amiga. I loved that one.

By: Pijama

Pijama — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:18:31 +0000

For a moment I thought they were purchasing Bermuda for game development.

By: realmenhuntinpacks

realmenhuntinpacks — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:46:30 +0000

Hard to see how this is not, on balance, a Good Thing.

By: mister_d

mister_d — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:37:11 +0000

There is a lot of potential for web-based, ad supported, games. There hasn’t really been many (if any) truly stand out titles yet though. The main reason being that very few of the developers are approaching projects as developing a great game based on a great idea. Instead they’re looking at it from a more business perspective of maximising the audience so they can earn money. That’s the natural approach with ad-supported media though, more so than it is with media that is paid for by the consumers. Big audiences are required to make advertising work even half as well as selling a product.
Look at the US TV market and the types of programs you see on networks vs. cable. Shows produced for cable tend to survive with the initial artistic vision intact — very little “junk”. Whereas shows produced for networks are either diluted visions and full of concessions or are designed from the beginning to capture a mass audience — highly likely to be “junk”. Cable channels are only able to do that because they are subscriber based.
There are exceptions of course. It’s possible for network shows to have a mass audience and not be steaming piles of turd or half-assed. It requires the creative folks to learn to game the system, attracting a mass audience, hooking them, and then getting on with doing the awesome stuff they intended when they conceived the show.
For ad supported web-games to really be anything other than junk they need to either be part subscriber based (unlikely) or find the right balance between trash and panache.