The promotional material for a recently released high-end action cd-rom game clearly warns and entices prospective players: the more you play the game the harder it is to win. The same challenge seems to apply to the developers of the games themselves.

Like the unceasing twists and turns of a cd-rom game which pits players against ever more difficult obstacles, the process of bringing to market sophisticated cd-rom or online titles provides developers endless challenges.

When one level is reached, there is always a new beast to slay or mind-bending puzzle to unravel, but in the cd-rom development game, the stakes aren’t quite the survival of the universe, but perhaps something more daunting: turning a profit to live to play another day and to bring a company to the next level of action.

With powerhouse studios like Dreamworks issuing cd-rom titles like Neverhood, with its clever claymation story, the industry bar has been raised to dizzying heights, and a new challenge is balancing the costs of leading-edge equipment and software and releasing a reasonably priced product.

It’s the mantra of the industry – too many titles, too little profit, a whole lot of risk – so when the resources are summoned to turn out a quality contender, widely acknowledged now to be at least a million dollar undertaking, it is with the full weight of as much artistic, technological and distribution savvy as possible, which means, for more and more titles, leveraging the powers of a major production studio or, becoming one.

Microforum

For Toronto-based Microforum, developing, publishing and distributing cd-rom titles from start to finish in one giant facility is not only a cost-effective but a creatively efficient way to turn out high-end product. It also provides the means to branch out into other production and post-production endeavors to complement and support its content development business.

The company has produced over 60 cd-rom titles released internationally, including the recently released 3D action adventure games Soultrap and Huygen’s Disclosure. An additional 20 titles are expected to be released this year.

The 100,000-square-foot Microforum facility encompasses all phases of cd-rom and multimedia production and features a full blue-screen studio and an Avid online editing suite.

The animation department, which represents about $2 million in equipment, features 12 Silicon Graphics workstations and a recently acquired Discreet Logic Flint compositing and effects system.

The spectrum of production capabilities ranges from a casting department to full sound production, and a new 20,000-square-foot soundstage will be constructed by the end of 1997. Expansion is also planned for the Microforum multimedia department, which produces high-end commercial projects and is expected to double its size this year.

High Expectations

Microforum is currently undertaking its biggest project yet with the aptly named High Expectations. The game incorporates live-action video with 3D environments and allows players, assisted by three game brothers, to enter the always violently entertaining world of organized crime to avenge the murder of a family member.

The game employs about 60% to 70% live-action files but is not an ‘interactive movie,’ says Microforum director of animation and producer Steve Mast.

Over 100 people worked on the $2 million project, which features high-end special effects including a large percentage of the company’s proprietary software. Live-action sequences were shot on location and in the Microforum studio.

Aside from the cost-effectiveness of the all-in-one shop, Mast says the ease of communication within the comprehensive facility is another bonus.

‘We’re a tight company,’ he says. ‘Keeping a close team allows everyone to understand each other’s roles. We need the video guys to understand the cg guys and exactly what they are doing.’

Mast says substantial investments in research and development are also a priority, keeping on top technologically and preparing for the day when Internet infrastructure and video streaming technology allow the company to provide its games online.

The facility is currently negotiating a deal with a European broadcaster to provide online and satellite delivery of Microforum product.

In-house advances are also being put to use in the facility’s post-production services, which the company has begun making available to outside commercial film and tv producers. In addition to offering potential one-day turnaround time to commercial producers for a complete project from shooting to effects, Mast says producers using the facility for 10 minutes of post and effects work could turn out a cd or audio version of a project without leaving the building.

DreamCatcher Interactive

Toronto-based publisher and distributor DreamCatcher Interactive leveraged the skills of one of the world’s animation powerhouses with its recently released Blinky Bill’s Ghost Cave cd. The title, aimed at children three and over, is based on the Blinky Bill tv series from Australia’s Yoram Gross Film Studios and is an educational adventure activity product which features layers of high-quality animation.

The 2D animated cd-rom was created by Forest Interactive, a joint venture between Yoram Gross and Intervision Multimedia and Roadshow Entertainment, a division of Australia’s Village Roadshow, an entertainment company with cinema exhibition, film distribution, and radio, tv and film production arms.

DreamCatcher vp John Lowry acknowledges the raising of the animation quality bar in the last year or two and the advantages of having a rich background of animation production behind a cd title.

‘Blinky has been over 100 episodes of a tv series and a movie, hence the style of the animation and character development has been carried to a very sophisticated level,’ says Lowry. ‘By comparison with a typical animation, where the characters and situations have been created strictly for an interactive multimedia product, I don’t think the character development has a prayer compared with something that has the tremendous investment of many hours of animated motion pictures behind it.’

That the involvement of Yoram Gross was more than a licence deal was also important, says Lowry, with the studio working closely with the company that produced the product. ‘All too often there are licences bandied about freely to use a character,’ he says.

While citing no one cd-rom title that has created the standard by which others are measured, Lowry says the basis of comparison is provided by the tv and motion picture industry. ‘Kids have an expectation that this (cd-rom) is going to be as good as any cartoon material they watch, or better,’ he says.

ReadySoft

Toronto-based ReadySoft had established itself as a multiplatform game developer and publisher with successful action games including the hit Dragon’s Lair, which sold over 500,000 units worldwide. That expertise soon attracted the attention of acquisitive Montreal-based Malofilm Communications, which bought ReadySoft in the fall of 1996.

ReadySoft recently capped two years of development with the release of Deus, a realistic 3D action game.

ReadySoft gm David Foster says the weight of audience expectation becomes greater with each year, each technological upgrade and each competitive release.

‘Every year that goes by the notch goes up and you’ve always got to be planning a year out to try and be spectacular in a year’s time,’ says Foster. ‘That’s the challenge. With the more powerful machines, we’re able to do more and so is the rest of the industry. It’s a never-ending battle for technological and visual superiority in the marketplace.’

Foster says as consumer costs come down, the market widens, and while barriers to entry fall, particularly on the pc platform, the high-end hardware and software required to produce top-quality games remain expensive.

Over the past few years, Foster says development costs have reached a level that excludes some of the smaller players from the game.

‘Because it now costs $1 million to $2 million to do a first-class product, the guy in the garage can’t come up with what it takes to make a competitive product these days.’ With 100,000 units a standard benchmark for success and half a million to a million units ‘serious money,’ Foster says one of the company’s strategies is to publish on a number of different platforms where possible so computer graphics costs may be amortized.

MMI and Megatoon

Remi Racine, gm of the interactive division of Malofilm explains the balance of elements that are involved in making successful cd-rom titles in a fiercely competitive market and the role of ReadySoft in the studio’s interactive formula.

Malo had acquired Quebec City-based Megatoon in 1995, which is now a creative arm for ReadySoft titles, and also bought MMI Multimedia Interactif, which specialized in sports-related cd-rom reference titles.

‘To be profitable you need to have a distribution infrastructure, at least in North America,’ says Racine. ‘If you’re only a developer, profit margins are very low and it’s a very high-risk business.’

Racine likens the lot of the developer to doing contract work and says that even after mmi and Megatoon had Malo’s resources behind them, they both still found it difficult to make money in the relatively small Canadian market.

‘The idea behind buying ReadySoft was to get a distribution and a publishing organization in the North American market,’ he says. ‘Malo had the Canadian market but not the u.s. market. ReadySoft had that and they also had the contacts for selling rights to publishers in Europe and in Asia.’

Racine also says development costs for a good 3D game run into the million-dollar neighborhood and says a Canadian advantage is the quality-versus-cost ratio of Canadian talent; which means that top-drawer titles are produced here, particularly in Quebec, for up to 25% less money than in the u.s.

Upcoming projects include an all-3D game called Jersey Devil, expected to be completed in May 1997, and Kryodrones, the company’s first foray into online games, for which negotiations are currently underway with Internet suppliers.