VG Karma

Today, developer Factor 5 announced they are closing their doors. The company behind the fantastic Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (N64/Gamecube) series and the not so fantastic Lair (PS3) has finally met its end and brings to light the idea of video game karma. Strange, I know, but it’s an interesting topic. Can it be that if you make bad games, bad things will inevitably happen to the respective developer and/or publisher?

First of all, I don’t want to say Factor 5 was a bad developer; on the contrary, they were a fantastic developer consistently pushing the technology of whatever platform they were developing for. However, Lair was a disaster of epic proportions when it came to gameplay, as was Haze (PS3); Free Radical’s last effort before nearly going under until being bought out by Crytek, known for creating the graphical powerhouse that is Crysis (PC). Free Radical is another example of a developer that made one misstep and the roof came down on their heads, similar to Factor 5. So perhaps there is a karma in the industry, but one that is particularly brutal and more lenient towards some wrongdoers than others. We are in an age where information is free to access by anyone that desires to find it. This includes the gaming press, which can instantly raise the hype of a title with positive review, or bring it crashing down with a negative one. But one has to ask, if this is the case, then how do some companies slip through the cracks, such as Midway and their Game Party series on the Nintendo Wii, which enjoys unbelievable success despite critical lashings? Perhaps this is where the karma truly takes effect and has varying degrees on relative wrongdoings. One poor game will bring a developer down in a year or two, but a continuous stream of titles that take advantage of unsuspecting customers will result in a slow and painful death, as is the case with Game Party publisher Midway.

This theory is completely theoretical, so take it simply as a thought, but there is an undeniable trend and it’s one that is tough to ignore. Of course, I have mainly talked about negative karma as the result of bad games, but what about the opposite? Going back to Crytek, you see a developer with immense talent and one that consistently delivers top-notch games. Even though they are one of the biggest victims of piracy, they still stand strong in the industry today. In fact, not only do they stand, but by some fortune, they were able to purchase one of the best console first person shooter developers that is Free Radical. Interesting.

- Jason Polansky