If you haven’t already read it, I’d like to direct your attention to an absolutely fantastic book called Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki. In it, Surowiecki argues that the decision-making and predictive power of diverse groups of people greatly exceeds that of most individual “experts”. The book is remarkably comprehensive and convincing, and the case studies in it will inspire and amaze you.

Wisdom of Crowds opens with a nice example: 800 people at a livestock exhibition participated in a contest to guess the weight of a live ox (on display) after slaughter and preparation. Some of the 800 were butchers and so-forth; people who should make a good guess. Many contestants were ordinary people with less “relevant” knowledge. But no expert within the competing pool beat the average guess of the group as a whole, which came within one pound of the true weight (1,197 lbs instead of 1,198).

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Via Gamasutra, a breakdown of the highlights from Take-Two’s 10-K report. Aside from the notable (but unsurprising) revelation that North Carolina and Connecticut may soon join Los Angeles in suing over Hot Coffee, what I found interesting was information regarding the acquisition prices of Firaxis, Indie Built, and Irrational Games.

Apparently, Irrational (a respected studio about to release the much-anticipated System Shock 2) was worth between $6.2M and $10M, depending on future performance. Firaxis (also respected, but older, and with claims to well-established IP such as Civilization) went for $26.7M, a significant portion of which is also dependent upon future performance. Indie Built (Top Spin, Amped) settled in between the two at $18.5M.

So, does this mean that Sid and Civ are worth approximately $17M? ($26.7M - $10M). Or does it mean nothing more than “Take-Two will pay whatever it takes to cease being ‘Just the Parent of Rockstar, Inc.’” ?

Eric Zimmerman has published a “Game Developers’ Bill of Rights” on Gamasutra.com. The bill is based on the Creator’s Bill of Rights, which was written for comic developers in 1988.

It begins with article #1: “The right to full ownership of what we fully create.” The other rights derive from this one, including final say over creative, distribution, licensing, and marketing matters. In other words, ultimate control.

Zimmerman quotes Greg Costikyan, who once argued that developers should retain the rights to their games “because they fucking should.” Points for succinctness, but not much else. In any industry, when you take money from an investor to fund an embryonic venture, the investor usually ends up owning the venture. There are two ways around this:

1. Fund the venture on your own to start, then negotiate for more control based on your initial, demonstrable success.
2. Become respected enough that you can negotiate for control rights from the very beginning of the venture process.

As an entrepreneur and small business owner, I wish things weren’t this way, but they are. Why not focus on practical solutions to developers’ problems? Working towards greater solidarity would be a good start. Support of digital distribution initiatives would be another.

Ultimately, a developer is free to negotiate their own deal — or to walk away from an “unacceptable” offer. A publisher that does business with an inexperienced developer is taking a big risk… which explains (however unsatisfyingly) their ownership demands. Do I think publishers abuse their control? In many cases, yes. Are they wrong to negotiate for ownership in the first place? Probably not.

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• Blast from the past: a response to the comic creator’s bill of rights

Several Chinese online game operators reported disappointing results this week. Some (like Shanda) blamed it on competition, but The9, which saw concurrent usage for WoW drop 8% this quarter, had little excuse.

Hard to say what’s happening here. A government crackdown may be partly to blame. Market saturation may be another (yes, one billion people does not mean one billion potential customers.) One wonders if perhaps service problems are also an issue… anyone know if these companies are maintaining the quality and consistency of the service?

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• Explanation of the WoW China license arrangement

Take Two Interactive has just announced that it is acquiring Firaxis Games (maker of the popular “Civilization” and “Pirates!” franchises, and home to legendary designer Sid Meier). Take Two and Firaxis only recently began working together as developer / publisher … I guess the relationship was doing well!

First Bioware/Pandemic, now this. At this rate, every major independent will merge or be absorbed by year’s end. At least, that’s what Wall Street has been thinking for some time now.

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• Pre-aqcuisition interview with Sid Meier