An eye on Trion
Worlds In Motion has an interview with Trion’s Lars Buttler about their recently acquired $30m in funding. Based on the interview here, I’d say they are trying to make the existing big publisher model apply to the Web world — a “virtual console” perhaps?
“…the platform also allows you to tap into the same experience from any connected device. We’re taking the game experience out of the client and putting it into a sophisticated infrastructure.”
Elsewhere in the interview, this point is hammered home:
“Every channel is accessible across a number of devices,” Buttler says. “And that’s web, PC client– that’s even mobile phones. But the point is, it will not be the same experience. It will tap into the same gameworld, but it will be tailored to the capabilities of the device. On a mobile phone you wouldn’t want to play a large scale game, but you want to be in touch with your game—alerts, info, et cetera.”
Despite talk of client-agnosticism, however, this very much seems like a big business play: the investors are Time Warner, GE/NBC, Bertelsmann… so I don’t expect it to work the way the Web does, but rather the way the publishers work. The emphasis seems to be on AAA games. Indeed, Buttler calls Trion a publisher as well as a developer.
This seems like quite a contrast to the other way of thinking that is around a lot these days, which seems to be much more about democratization.
4 Responses to “An eye on Trion”
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There’s rooms for both types of delivery methods. But the big money requires more guarantees than democratically-drive successes. They spend money based on a projected success they plan to manage throughout. This is very different from a passionate startup mortgaging their future on a surprise hit. This dichotomy speaks volumes for why so many communication methods of the last century and a half have ultimately gone corporate. When the innovation can become systemized, a lot more people hold their hand out for a piece of the pot. And that pot can only grow as large as the organizations behind it. 🙂
Dr. Buttler spoke about Trion’s platform at the Korean Games Conference last year. We chatted a bit after the session. He made it quite clear that they are targeting the bigger players. There’s no SDK to license that you can then deploy on any old server farm (ala Sun’s Project Darkstar). The impression I got is that this is an end-to-end solution that locks you in to Trion’s platform, hardware and all. They aren’t at all interested in indies or anything small-time.
While one may have the loftiest goals in mind, with respect to artistic integrity, no one starts a company thinking, “Gee, this garage is awfully comfortable. I think I’d like to stay here.” You may call yourself “indie,” or “alternative,” or whatever, but unless you’ve already been so successful that you don’t need money, or you haven’t even quit your day job, you’re kind of hoping for some economic success, somewhere along the line. Ambition is natural, and being corporate isn’t good or bad; it’s what you do with it that matters.
I’m in favor of democratization of all media. But public access cable never put HBO out of business. There’s room in the tent for all voices — even professionals. 😉
[…] little of what Trion are actually doing. I am not sure I’d be so scathing as Raph Koster is here, because they do talk about opening the platform up to many third parties to develop content (so it […]