Y Combinator Wants To Kill Hollywood 424
An anonymous reader writes "Y Combinator, a firm that invests in startups, has put out a call to kill Hollywood. In a post on their site, the firm said attempts at legislation similar to SOPA wouldn't stop until there is no industry left to protect. They now want to incubate ideas for new types of entertainment, so we can evolve the movie and television industries. Quoting: 'There will be several answers, ranging from new ways to produce and distribute shows, through new media (e.g. games) that look a lot like shows but are more interactive, to things (e.g. social sites and apps) that have little in common with movies and TV except competing with them for finite audience attention. Some of the best ideas may initially look like they're serving the movie and TV industries. Microsoft seemed like a technology supplier to IBM before eating their lunch, and Google did the same thing to Yahoo.'"
Sony, privately held firms, and antitrust (Score:4, Informative)
Why dont the top 100 odd tech firms just get their boards together and buy out the entertainment industry
I see three problems with that.
First, watch out. Sony (SNE) was the good guy up until around the time it bought Columbia Pictures from Coke (KO).
Second, some of the entertainment industry is privately held (notably Access Industries, parent of Warner Music, and National Amusements, parent of CBS and Paramount) and not subject to a hostile takeover. Some of the rest (e.g. GE's stake in NBCUniversal) is currently owned by companies with a market capitalization over $200 billion.
Third, hostile takeovers of all the publicly traded members of the MAFIAA (CMCSA, DIS, NWS, SNE, TWX, and VIV) might result in investigations from national competition regulators.
Re:Nintendo is one of the gatekeepers (Score:3, Informative)
True, but chances are you're typing on that 'proving ground' (PCs and Macs) right now. Development consoles aren't cheap (for the developer) and represent a security risk (for the manufacturer). It's actually sensible for both parties to have proof that the developer can see projects through before making that commitment. On top of that, most developers looking to develop for a console are likely to have a few games under their belt anyway, for the twin purposes of establishing positive cash flow and getting the team to work together.
Also, noting with interest that you retained Nintendo for your comment but not Microsoft (who were also mentioned and have a similar policy in place for developer access to the 360).
Re:Retries destroy the pacing (Score:3, Informative)
Choose your own adventure style games will never reach the emotional depth of even a crappy effects-laden junk film. It is very difficult to maintain even a single consistent story line. When decisions fork the story, the character development has to match what happened before it.
There are only a few successful examples of this type of change. In Scrubs, the angry doctor and the nice chief are actually the doctor who cares too much and the bureaucratic dick. At some point, they change, but you look back and remember all of the foreshadowing and it all makes sense.
The story branches available would have to be consistent with the character. Maybe you don't discover that the doctor yells at you because he cares. But there is a lot of work in setting up that character, and for you to not discover that richness would be a major blow to both your experience and the crafters of the story.
I don't know how else to explain it - there is too much involved in foreshadoing and development and interactions to even come close to what people expect in movies and television. People will be bored because they just couldn't care about the characters. Yes, that happens in movies too, but it's an exception, not the rule.