Op Ed

Eurogamer.net - Realtime Crisis.
In the longer term, however, I suspect that the impact of RTW's demise will be felt by the UK games business for many years to come. The company's failure is not entirely a shock - it launched an MMO-style game which was hugely expensive to develop, but which received poor reviews, a combination which would be a fatal blow to most game companies. The scale of the failure, and the context in which it has happened, however, will have a major impact on how the industry does business.

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12.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 12:37
12.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 12:37
Aug 22, 2010, 12:37
 
Probably the same type of thing that always happens when you give lots of money to someone who can't handle it. Such a vast amount looks like it'll never run out, so they don't feel a need to properly budget, economise or plan. Instead of locking down exactly what they want and can do at the start he'll probably have wasted millions trying things out, building stuff and then jacking it in, adding extra features that then have to be pulled because they can't be done or bugger the whole thing up. Before he knows it he's burned through all his inexhaustible pile of money, people are screaming at him to start earning it back and he's got nothing to show for it.

People seem to think "superstar" devs can do no wrong, but just because they can make a game doesn't mean they can run a company. Even highly successful companies like Origin have been brought down by being showered in money with no oversight.
11.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 06:36
11.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 06:36
Aug 22, 2010, 06:36
 
Which means something else happened with that money and those responsible should be investigated.
10.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 06:08
10.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 06:08
Aug 22, 2010, 06:08
 
Well but you can try (burning through 100 million by ordering pizza and soda pop and escort services and a Ferrari every day)

That said, if you'd give me 100 million $ I'd bring it to a 3% Bank Account and make a non-AAA game every year from the 3% alone. It would automatically be an infinite money making machine! ;p
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9.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 05:52
9.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 05:52
Aug 22, 2010, 05:52
 
By popular franchises, I meant movie/TV licenses that fell flat on their faces, like Matrix Online. Star Trek Online is not exactly a big hit either.

Tabula Rasa is another prime example of an MMO that was too big to fail. Imagine you are a game developer god and investors just throw money at you and whatever you touch just seems to turn into pure gold. The Modern Combat or Battlefield games are the exception, not the rule.

This case shows that in this business, and it is a business, it's more important to be able to sell something (anything) than be able to actually produce something. You don't burn through 100 millions of dollars just by ordering pizza and soda pop every day.
8.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 03:41
8.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 03:41
Aug 22, 2010, 03:41
 
I always wondered if it's possible to reuse the art of failed games for other games? I mean there were so many models & textures made for APB, can't they just make a quick action game or something with it?

Can't imagine that all the things created for this are just useless now. Just make a game with simple game logic like in the quake days and sell it.
7.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 02:28
7.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 02:28
Aug 22, 2010, 02:28
 
I hope you don't believe that, POPULAR franchises like Modern Combat or Battlefield make multi-million $'s profit each iteration costing only a fraction of 100 million.

The real deal here is that someone who can run a small developer got 100million funding and had 0 book-keeping or clue how to manage this kind of project. One has to wonder what crack those Investors smoked though.
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6.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 02:04
6.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 02:04
Aug 22, 2010, 02:04
 
I read the whole article and I'm still trying to figure out what RTW did any different than all the other developers whose multimillion-dollar-products tanked when released to the public.

I think a good game starts off with a catchy name. Why did they call it All Points Bulletin? What's in a name you say? Everything, except the game needs to try hard to match the expectations. Is APB a name to give a game that cost 100 million dollars to develop?

Known and popular franchises have a hard time to make a decent return on investment so what are the odds for something as bland and uninspired as APB?
5.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 22, 2010, 01:57
5.
Re: Op Ed Aug 22, 2010, 01:57
Aug 22, 2010, 01:57
 
I don't see how anyone could really have thought they'd find success in charging fees for what millions of people currently get for free. I played the beta and that was it for my interest. If it were free to play I might have picked it up when the price dropped but having to pay to play an ultimately average game just wasn't that appealing.
Huh? I'm sorry, I was thinking about cake.
4.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 21, 2010, 13:30
4.
Re: Op Ed Aug 21, 2010, 13:30
Aug 21, 2010, 13:30
 
Yadda yadda yadda, idiot investors give game developer tons of money, yadda yadda yadda, game developer turns out incapable of managing a McDonald's drive-through window, much less a project of this scope, yadda yadda yadda, project fails miserably.

We've seen this, oh... I dunno... five THOUSAND times before in the game industry? So why is this so special, exactly?

The industry is full of blustering dipshits who can talk a great deal more than they can deliver. And yet they all keep getting hired, over and over and over again. It's a worse "Good Old Boys" network than the fucking NFL.

Every single one of those RTW clowns will have another gig in 6 months, where they will be free to waste yet even more money. (I'm talking about the guys in charge, not the poor little coding peon that did all the work.)

Creston
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3.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 21, 2010, 13:11
3.
Re: Op Ed Aug 21, 2010, 13:11
Aug 21, 2010, 13:11
 
If a WoW-killer comes along, it'll probably be made by Blizzard... We've just spent years watching MMORPG after MMORPG come along and fail, usually within the first year.
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)
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2.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 21, 2010, 12:41
2.
Re: Op Ed Aug 21, 2010, 12:41
Aug 21, 2010, 12:41
 
MMO developers seem to be the worst for it. They all seem to think that they'll be the next Blizzard and clock up millions of subscribers, when even the best non-wow mmo generally gets a few hundred thousand and a great many fail altogether. There isn't ever likely to be a WoW killer until WoW dies a natural, purely because the majority of the MMO customer base in the west is used to WoW and isn't inclined to move.
1.
 
Re: Op Ed
Aug 21, 2010, 12:11
1.
Re: Op Ed Aug 21, 2010, 12:11
Aug 21, 2010, 12:11
 
Good article, the last paragraph or so is something I have been saying for a long time. The "OMG WE GONNA BE RICH MOVIE STARS" attitude of so many developers is really terrible. It works out for a rare few, and it is causing overly expensive and bland projects that are not tailored to an audience at all to be the norm.
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