We as consumers generally think of gaming companies as being fun, free-spirited places. The film Grandma's Boy often jumps to mind when imagining the inner-workings of a development house.
When a company like Capcom issues their annual report to investors and share-holders, however, it becomes quickly apparent that these are real businesses run by actual businessmen. Mind blowing, right?
Stuffed to the rafters with super-businessy things like "Consolidated Business Performance Indicators" and "Consolidated Statements of Changes in Net Assets," Capcom's Annual Report also contains tiny little nuggets of joy, provided you've got the patience to sift through the 100+ pages of corporate jargon.
Joystiq, being the hard-nosed investigative gumshoes that they are, have already returned from the sunken city of Reportalis with a release window for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. I decided to do a bit of disquisitive diving myself, and came up with the following:
On pages 23 and 24 (of 104), Capcom lays out their plans for maintaining consistent year-round net-profit. In order to avoid a Q3/Q4-heavy income cycle, Capcom has restructured their development cycles in order to ensure that at least 1 major release is present in every quarter of the fiscal year. Hopefully this will help us consumer-folk avoid the horrible, horrible spring and summer droughts that have become the status-quo for the industry. Additionally, Capcom will be adding to their existing stable of franchises by "... allocating 20-30% of investments in development to new titles... ".
New franchises and year-round releases? Other companies could stand to follow Capcom's lead. As much as I love established franchises and new iterations of old favorites, innovation is the key to artistic growth and longevity for any creative medium.
Source: CAPCOM 2010 Annual Report
No comments:
Post a Comment