The SAGCO - wouldn't that be nice...?
SAGCO - Wouldn't that be nice if SA was known internationally for it's gaming industry? :)
So there are a couple very talented (as well as future potential) game industry people in this forum.
We all know if you want to create something great (read amazing) - you need a large team of super talented and driven people.
What are the chances of them all coming together and creating one big South Africa Games Company? Or what ever name would suite.
Is this possible? Are the the skill sets available in ZA?
Who would invest in us (like from next month)?
Where should someone start to get this off the ground?
What would encompass a good sized team - to create a game like, say, Call of Duty?
Should this not be a big focus point for MGSA?
Would love to hear your thoughts?
So there are a couple very talented (as well as future potential) game industry people in this forum.
We all know if you want to create something great (read amazing) - you need a large team of super talented and driven people.
What are the chances of them all coming together and creating one big South Africa Games Company? Or what ever name would suite.
Is this possible? Are the the skill sets available in ZA?
Who would invest in us (like from next month)?
Where should someone start to get this off the ground?
What would encompass a good sized team - to create a game like, say, Call of Duty?
Should this not be a big focus point for MGSA?
Would love to hear your thoughts?
Comments
I don't see the point of mandating that "ALL SOUTH AFRICAN GAME DEVS FORM ONE BIG COMPANY"... Companies are owned by people and people have their own needs, capabilities, requirements.
Speaking from experience, it's hard enough to get a company of two people to agree on something for long enough to make something together :) Nevermind a mandate of "entire country of game devs".
This isn't negativity, this is reality :)
Funding comes when a team has proven itself. Noone will invest in an unproven team in a risky niche. Assembling this team as you're saying now basically means an unproven team in a risky niche.
Testing the idea of "would be nice if we all come together to make a AAA game" would be simply be... Make something. MAKE IT. Ask people to work with you, and make something. Immediately. If that first step can be taken, and it impresses people, then you've got your first step.
I think South African game development is already a lot further along (and a lot more prominent) than you seem to realise. ;)
Our development landscape looks different to something that you'd expect in some overseas countries, but we've got big companies, great success stories and inspiring developers working together already.
One of our strongest assets is a tight and passionate local community, which I think nowadays tends to fill that role of "super dev collective" you're looking for.
There are many reasons why this sort of thing hasn't worked: The size of the local industry is simply still too small - 250 people across the whole country isn't enough of a pool to hire from, they need 500 in the same city; SA is very far away; There are no tax benefits; Regulation isn't friendly to or even understanding of game companies; And finally, that really isn't how AAA works anymore - the companies you're thinking of are publishers, not studios, all they do is buy studios that have already set themselves up.
So, the way to do that would be to grow a company to the point that a large publisher wants to acquire you. Local studios have already done work for large publishers, some are doing that right now. There's no magic formula to whatever AAA means. You just work your ass off, have good business acumen and succeed anyway.
:)
I think everyone is quite politely trying to say they don't think there is a chance of this happening any time in the foreseeable future.
That said, if you want to try spearhead such an initiative, I don't think anyone will try get in your way, just don't expect them to jump in themselves until things are a lot further along :)
So - what does Morocco have that we don't have?
There is almost no way that you will be able to create a game like Call of Duty without finances and a very large team of people that get paid.
Not many people on MGSA are here because we want to make another Call Of Duty. There are different paths to success, and different measures of success. The heroes we look up to aren't making Call of Duties. They're making other stuff, in various other ways and means.
Make stuff :) Make more stuff :) Making stuff is the bottom line. If you don't make stuff, you don't get a chance at all. If you make stuff, you get a chance. And another, and another.
Geographically it is physically closer, than South Africa so travel time is considerably less, while it also has the same time zone advantages. This is beneficial as Ubi would likely be sending people to Morocco to start the studio, being closer to home in a "familiar" environment becomes a much easier sell. Work visa's will likely be easier to acquire in Morocco than here (this is an assumption on my part).
A superficial search also tells me that their tax regime is a lot lower and investment hurdles see to be significantly lower.
I try to do a lot of policy development on behalf of MGSA so I'm fairly familiar with some of the questions you have raised: I'll try answer as best I can:
Is this possible? Are the the skill sets available in ZA?
Theoretically yes, we have the skills, the problem facing us is that we don't currently have the necessary capital, nor do we have quantity of skills. The skill shortage isn't just for technical skills like programming, art or music. We are missing key project management, Q&A and producer skills as well. This means that if we wanted to do this next month, we would need to import a lot of the skills. Which leads us to our first problem, work visas. None of the skills (bar maybe programming) are considered as "scarce skills" for the work visa, which means getting people into the country (on short notice) and on a long term basis becomes exceptionally difficult. I'm starting to make in roads in getting expedited visas a possiblity for game dev, but the current limitations are that it can only be on a per project basis, and even then they are short term (3 to 6 months). Realistically we are looking at at least 5 years to get game dev skills on the scarce skills list, and given my experience I think that is a stretch.
Who would invest in us (like from next month)?
Funding on the scale we would need will need to be an off-shore investment. The likely candidates are existing publishers, and maybe one or two large size development studios, but as @dislekcia points out "AAA" is moving away from this model. There simply isn't sufficient capital locally to invest in a AAA studio. It is far more reasonable and likely to be looking for investment for "AA" or "post-indie" studios (Teams of about 20-50 people, with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars range). Very few people locally have that sort of capital (and the risk appetite) to start a studio from scratch. The more likely solution is that our existing "medium" sized studios will organically grow and be acquired by a foreign entity. Which leads to our next problem. Exchange Control. Currently in order to sell any capital, including Intellectual property, of any form, to a foreign entity, requires permission from the Reserve Bank. I've recently been involved in two major acquisitions (about R500 million and R1billion respectively) both of these deals nearly fell through because the reserve bank withheld approval. The we managed to get approval finally for both, but it was a hassle and we had no guarantees that we would be successful. This means that investors may be shy to invest as there is no guarantee that they can actually buy the company (or IP) that they want. The next issue is the investment landscape. Our tax levels are relatively high, and we have no real incentives to do game development in South Africa (in the form or rebates, grants or other subsidies). Why would someone want to invest in SA, in games specifically, when you could go to place like the UK, Canada or Hong Kong and get massive rebates, and good quality infrastructure (fast cheap internet and a stable electricity supply) ?
Where should someone start to get this off the ground?
I believe that we need to change the legal and structural framework that business, specifically game dev studios, operate in in the country. This involved lobbying various departments to change the laws and policies to make thing better (like changing the exchange control regulations, creating tax rebates for game dev etc). This is what I am currently doing, and have been doing for MGSA for the past 3 years. We also need an attitude change from government. Games faces a particular challenge in that it is not a "large employer". Given the high levels of unemployment, the Government is focusing on industries that employ a large number of people, as a consequence, while there is government interest, there supporting the local industry is not seen as a priority.
What would encompass a good sized team - to create a game like, say, Call of Duty?
I think you are looking at a studio size of about 500 people and as @bishonator said about $400million dollars of budget for a single game of that size. Based on the little stats we have collected, in all of South Africa there are only about 250 people currently in the game dev industry. The total value of our industry is about $3million, just for some perspective.
Should this not be a big focus point for MGSA?
Should getting a AAA studio launching in SA be a priority for MGSA? I don't think so. From an economic and business perspective I'm not persuaded that having a local AAA studio is a good goal (or even desirable, AAA studios overseas seem to be plagued by employment and other issues and I'm not sure that the model as it currently exists is sustainable). Even in well developed industries (like the UK) 95% of game companies are micro to small (employs up to 50 people). To my mind MGSA as a lobbying body should be focusing on making it easier for small companies to be sustainable. If we achieve that, we can expect the odd studio to grow to medium or even AAA in time, but I don't think that that should be the end goal.
I think you have put a lot of things into perspective for me.
So then to this question:
So then could one (of many other) of "our" focus points within MGSA, be, getting "AA or Indie" studio's up and running - by bringing people together? or not really?
Has this happened here yet?
That said, it means you only consider a country for its bottom line cost savings and mostly talent and talent costs, and tax benefits.
Even if you make your game in your basement on an island like Madagascar, as soon as you want to sell it online you are competing internationally, not locally.
The only reason why we like to market locally is to improve the story and sentiment to increase initial traction with our games, to build a loyal fan base, and because "local is lekker".
But - yes. The main focus of this thread was (theoretically) experiencing that warm fuzzy feeling of just "knowing" that your very own county and/or city is internationally renowned for something we all love and enjoy so much. (making games)
But MORE importantly - seeing something big, built up (maybe a Studio) for future generations to come... not for me - but for them.
And there already exists several "AA" studios in SA with proven track records producing/having produced successful games:
Free Lives - Broforce
QCF - Desktop Dungeons
Runestorm - Viscera Cleanup
Luma/24bit - Bladeslinger, several Disney titles, Harvest, some other older titles
Every Single Soldier - Vietnam 65
Celestial - Toxic Bunny (an oldie!)
RetroEpic - A Day in the Woods
That's just off the top of my head, if I missed any, apologies (it would be nice to have a handy list of something like this that we can quickly reference, if nothing else then for morale and explanation purposes)
So "has this happened yet?" - yes it has. Was it the direct influence of MGSA? Who knows. I know that we're all better with MGSA than without :)