Recently, it was announced that an investment firm called Elevation Partners had bought controlling interest in BioWare and Pandemic, both formerly independent development studios. Onboard as CEO is John Riccitiello, former president of Electronic arts, and other partners include former Apple CEO Fred Anderson as well as U2 singer Bono. The New York Times now reports that the new development entity, temporarily called VG Holdings, will be traded publically on the stock market. That kind of move is almost unheard of in the game industry; generally, independent studios rely entirely on publisher funding (or, in the case of extremely small developers working with small budgets, direct sales) to generate income. This decision theoretically allows the developer a greater degree of freedom; if they are not beholden to a publisher for funding, they have better leverage when hammering out publishing deals and more creative control in the games themselves.

The game industry is highly dependent on hits, and major titles can cost up to $20 million to develop. The publishers have to shoulder that financial risk, so it's not unusual for a distributor to take 75 percent of sales, after recouping its costs, Mr. Resnick noted. The focus on hits also makes publishers reluctant to back new titles and types of games when they can rely on sequels of best-selling games with built-in audiences.

This dynamic means that the creative talent - the programmers, engineers and designers who make games - tend to have relatively little control or reward, particularly compared with creative talent in the movie business.

"The talent is not getting anywhere what they should," [Pandemic president Josh] Resnick said of the video game industry. "We're the film industry in the 1920's."

Some don't see it as such a great idea. "They don't have any chance of success," said industry analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan, pointing out that Wall Street investors like to see more security in video game firms, preferring large corporations with many branches of operation like EA or Activision. Resnick, however, points out that Pixar is a successful independent creative studio that is publically traded, and VG Holdings hopes to pursue the same type of path.

Of course, the film industry is very different from the game industry in that film audiences tend to have at least somewhat of a better awareness of who is behind the film than your average gamer does of who is behind the game. That is, it's easier to sell a Pixar movie simply by virtue of being a Pixar movie than it is to sell a Pandemic game simply by virtue of it being a Pandemic game. This gives Pixar a certain amount of control simply because their name is so valuable. In modern film, the same can be said for directors such as Steven Spielberg or M. Night Shyamalan; even casual audiences are familiar with those names. By contrast, in gaming, it is the franchises and the publishers, not the actual developers, with whom most gamers are familiar. No moviegoer cares whether Universal or Tri-Star distributes a picture, yet many gamers have brand loyalty to publishers such as Activision or Electronic Arts. While entities like VG Holdings aim to challenge that perception, it is going to be an uphill battle.

There's also simply the possibility that, in the (theoretical) absense of the controlling hand of a publisher, shareholders will fill that gap. The game industry is still sadly fixated on bullet points as a description for games, much more so than most other types of entertainment, both in terms of marketing and in actual design. They are the type of guidelines that it seems would be easy for shareholders to impose upon developers based on the hot games that happen to be selling at any given moment. It's only a matter of time before somebody demands an urban gang warfare shooter set deep in the trenches of World War II. Oh, and it's a trilogy.

Pandemic and BioWare are both talented studios with proven successes and great potential. This sort of endeavor is one that, properly managed, would be very encouraging in today's publisher-driven games industry. However, there's a lot working against it, and there's the possibility of it turning into simply more of the same, which long term might be even worse than the venture simply proving unsuccessful. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.