43 Replies. 3 pages. Viewing page 1.
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| 43. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 10, 2011, 07:21 |
Xirgu |
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umm this is like movies.. lots of remakes and reruns.
and I suppose someone somewhere does numbers, it goes something like:
Great game x costs 1 mill produces 5x that in profit takes 2 years to make.
shitty game y costs 100K to make, produces 1.5x that in profit, takes 6 months to make.
and goes 10x times shitty games produce less profit but less risk if one or two bomb out, so lets go for the shitty ones.
also on game length, people buy because of the cover, if they cared about length a certain star crafted game wouldnt be able to get away with the split, or with the years old *game* with super polish movie sequence add-ons.
agree 100% on the devs ruined doom3 comment btw. |
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| 42. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 8, 2011, 10:14 |
InBlack |
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Beamer wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 18:31:
How many devs would make far better games if the suits weren't constantly involved?
Bad games due to dumb suits:
Dora the Explorer. Sponge Bob Squarepants. Iron Man.
Bad games due to dumb devs:
Deus Ex: Invisible War. Doom 3. Medal of Honor.
Suits lead you down bad directions. Dumb devs execute poorly. The whole "suits are the root of all bad games" notion some people like to hold on to here is so far off. When a game mechanic doesn't work it's the fault of the dev, not some suit. By and large the games ruined by suits are games people here never would have touched, anyway.
Bullshit...
Some examples of high profile games or franchises of interest to "gamers" ruined by suits:
Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Fallout3 (although remedied by Vice City), Dragon Age 2...
and these are just off the top of my head. Please take note that the nomenclature "suits" fits to all the decision makers in a company whose primary concern is the making of money instead of producing a quality game. Most of the times these are execs, sometimes they also happen to be head honcho developers who just happen to be greedy. |
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| I have a nifty blue line! |
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| 41. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 8, 2011, 04:04 |
Jerykk |
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Bad games due to dumb devs:
Deus Ex: Invisible War. Doom 3. Medal of Honor.
To be fair, some of DX2's failings were a direct result of Eidos demanding that the game be released on Xbox.
When a game mechanic doesn't work it's the fault of the dev, not some suit.
That's not always true. Publishers will sometimes request features or mechanics that they think are popular and the developer has no choice but to implement them, even if they don't suit the game being developed. Quick Time Events and multiplayer unlockables, for example. Ultimately, publishers are the ones paying the bills and if they really want something, developers have to obey. |
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| 40. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 8, 2011, 01:02 |
Sepharo |
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anyone want the other license?) __-  -__ |
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| [I'm not trolling I'm just] tossing stuff like that in there only to get your panties all bunched up. -TrollinThundr |
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| 39. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 23:31 |
Beamer |
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anyone want the other license?)
Prepare for the first time I'm using a smiley:
Ok, that didn't make sense, but there was no "wave" smiley.
Speaking of, I just realized I haven't had access to my login email here for at least 4 months. I should fix that... |
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| 38. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 23:21 |
Flatline |
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zerobytes wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 17:47:
There's a lot of competition in the $20 price range. 1-2 year old AAA titles sell for $20 and I'd pick up one of those before I spend $20 on an indie title. In most instances, $10 would be the most I'd be willing to spend on an indie title, and a lot of times I'll add $10 titles to my wishlist and wait for them to go on sale. The lower the price, the lower the risk for the buyer and I bet there would be twice as many people willing to buy at half the price, therefore increasing profits instead of decreasing them.
This bears repeating. The $20 price range has to compete with last year's AAA titles. Charging more has to deal with current release titles with a real budget behind them.
I impulse-bought Frozen Synapse, and completely had it fall flat on me (I should know better. It was recommended by Penny Arcade, and as much as I love those guys I have almost diametrically opposed taste to them when it comes to indie games especially). I'm out 20 bucks (anyone want the other license?), and while I have nobody to blame but myself, it does make me gunshy about the 20 dollar indie price point. As others have said, 10 bucks and less gets my impulse buy a lot more frequently.
If you want to start asking more money, you have to assure me that my money will be well spent. Which means a demo representitive of gameplay on launch, and not a year and a half after launch. Asking me to risk 20 or 30 bucks on a carefully edited youtube video is bullshit and strikes me as trying to rip off the customers.
PS: If Cliffski just wants to do bigger games with bigger budgets, maybe he shouldn't be bitching about the dollar games. If he had created Angry Birds, he'd have enough money to do literally any project he wanted. |
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| 37. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 21:19 |
Beamer |
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You know there's 2 different Cliffski's right? One is this one, author of games like Gratuitous Space Battles, one is a key employee at Epic (a different cliffski).
No, there's a Cliffy and a Cliffski.
Cliffski was the one involved in the kerfluffle with Mark Rein that resulted in people, I believe including Cliffski, claiming Epic wasn't an indie despite being privately held solely by Epic employees. |
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| 36. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 21:16 |
Dev |
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Beamer wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 19:28:
One of those bigger ones Cliffski once denied Epic was yet describes exactly in his article. You know there's 2 different Cliffski's right? One is this one, author of games like Gratuitous Space Battles and founder of the indie positech games, one is a key employee at Epic (a different cliffski).
Both however like to make comments that tend to get noticed. |
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| 35. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 19:28 |
Beamer |
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And you get Duke Nukem Forever (well, you can try it in a few days)
And most people here will wait till it hits at least $10 off. Many will wait until it hits $20 off (I may jump at $19.99.) Nearly all will jump when it's $5 at a Steam sale.
That's what we value it at, and it isn't even an indie game. Although Gearbox is an indie, I guess. One of those bigger ones Cliffski once denied Epic was yet describes exactly in his article. |
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| 34. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 19:24 |
Kosumo |
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And by that I mean, give it great production values, make sure the gameplay is great, give it a good length, don't skimp corners, etc.
And you get Duke Nukem Forever (well, you can try it in a few days) |
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| 33. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 18:31 |
Beamer |
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How many devs would make far better games if the suits weren't constantly involved?
Bad games due to dumb suits:
Dora the Explorer. Sponge Bob Squarepants. Iron Man.
Bad games due to dumb devs:
Deus Ex: Invisible War. Doom 3. Medal of Honor.
Suits lead you down bad directions. Dumb devs execute poorly. The whole "suits are the root of all bad games" notion some people like to hold on to here is so far off. When a game mechanic doesn't work it's the fault of the dev, not some suit. By and large the games ruined by suits are games people here never would have touched, anyway. |
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| 32. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 18:27 |
D_K_night |
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Actually maybe you guys are onto something with all this talk about Blizzard.
Maybe Cliffski should just...go work for Blizzard |
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| 31. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 18:26 |
killer_roach |
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Your argument basically hinges on the assumption that there's a sub-optimal allocation of resources in the gaming industry, a premise that I would consider to be false on its face. Why? There's nothing stopping a studio or a publisher from trying that now. If it were to somehow be far more successful, then everyone would be doing it. If it were nonetheless the optimal arrangement but was ignored due to cartel-like behavior (which I don't believe to be the case, but even if it were), it would likely result in a crash of the industry of a scale similar to the 1983 implosion.
But they aren't doing that, and the catastrophe hasn't happened.
Why is that? Here comes the uncomfortable truth time: as much as we say we demand high-quality, innovative gaming experiences, they simply fail to muster any sort of commercial acclaim except in rare exceptions. The idea of "let's make a bunch of quality games, putting the necessary resources into making them things that people want to play" may just as well be defined as "let's hope for a miracle". "Assume we can reliably make the next Minecraft" isn't a business plan, it's fantasy. |
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| 30. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 18:13 |
Creston |
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killer_roach wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 18:06:
Creston wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 17:37:
Why can't the game industry, instead of making 3000 games a year, 2950 of which suck, make 300 games a year, 299 of which are great?
Because you don't know in the early stages what will be successful and what won't be, plain and simple. Even some of the most promising games in recent years have had the tendency to take a crap all over themselves once they finally made it to market. Nobody wants to finance failures - they happen whether you want them to or not.
But how much of that is just random happenstance (people didn't like it for some reason), and how much of it is people making stupid decisions that somehow, somewhere they have to know aren't going to work out? How many devs would make far better games if the suits weren't constantly involved?
How much better games could be made if all resources were pooled into making actual GREAT games, as opposed to "as many as we can shove into a box and make some money off?"
Again, the game industry has deliberately set out to become exactly this.
Your argument about shovelware is basically the reason people buy lotto tickets, though... if it doesn't work out, you're not out much. If it does work, you might be able to finance a AAA project or two with the profits. (Except, sadly, the odds with the shovelware are better, hence why business execs greenlight them, as opposed to lottery tickets, which are derisively termed "a tax on people who can't do basic math".)
But rarely does shovelware turn into a giant blockbuster. At least not the "let's just shove something in a box quickly" shovelware, like 99.9999% of the movie tie-ins.
An EXPERIMENT can turn into a gem, certainly. The poster below you mentioned that for every 100 turds, there is one Minecraft. But Minecraft at least had originality and gameplay out the ass. We all know that the large majority of games are simply made to recoup costs and hopefully make some money above and beyond that. Move tie-ins are cheap to make because most of the art is already there, they just convert it, and the marketing gets shared. I doubt any publisher actually expects a movie tie-in to be a great game, they just want to rush something into a box to make a few extra bucks.
So again, what if instead of wasting all those resources on shitty games, everyone was focused on making great games? And by that I mean, give it great production values, make sure the gameplay is great, give it a good length, don't skimp corners, etc.
Sure, some games will still fail, it's really hard to understand what people like and don't like sometimes. But if games weren't created from the outset to just "be done quick and shoved into a box", the industry could be a lot better, I think.
It'll never happen, of course, the suits are apparently quite happy with the shitty state they've turned the gaming industry into... 
(And, of course, I know full well that much of what I argue is utopian in nature. There's many obstacles to overcome and none of it is as simple as I make it out to be. However, the industry shows no sign whatsoever of even attempting to become better as a whole. In fact, it seems quite gleefully eager to slide lower and lower into the lowest possible common denominator.)
Creston |
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| 29. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 18:06 |
killer_roach |
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Creston wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 17:37:
Why can't the game industry, instead of making 3000 games a year, 2950 of which suck, make 300 games a year, 299 of which are great?
Because you don't know in the early stages what will be successful and what won't be, plain and simple. Even some of the most promising games in recent years have had the tendency to take a crap all over themselves once they finally made it to market. Nobody wants to finance failures - they happen whether you want them to or not.
Your argument about shovelware is basically the reason people buy lotto tickets, though... if it doesn't work out, you're not out much. If it does work, you might be able to finance a AAA project or two with the profits. (Except, sadly, the odds with the shovelware are better, hence why business execs greenlight them, as opposed to lottery tickets, which are derisively termed "a tax on people who can't do basic math".) |
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| 28. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 17:57 |
dscarron |
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Which, again, is exactly how Hollywood operates. Why can't the game industry, instead of making 3000 games a year, 2950 of which suck, make 300 games a year, 299 of which are great? (and were given the CHANCE to be great, as opposed to being destined from the start to be mediocre shovelware, rushed out to make a quick buck.)
Well, right.
But for every 100 duds there is a Minecraft that hits the Lotto. You can't force folks to make good games, except by not buying crappy ones. I can't imagine that all the movie tie-in shovelware is being done for only their health and marketing... |
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| 27. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 17:47 |
Killswitch |
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| There's a lot of competition in the $20 price range. 1-2 year old AAA titles sell for $20 and I'd pick up one of those before I spend $20 on an indie title. In most instances, $10 would be the most I'd be willing to spend on an indie title, and a lot of times I'll add $10 titles to my wishlist and wait for them to go on sale. The lower the price, the lower the risk for the buyer and I bet there would be twice as many people willing to buy at half the price, therefore increasing profits instead of decreasing them. |
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| 26. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 17:37 |
Creston |
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killer_roach wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 14:26:
Creston wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 13:59:
The game industry has, for all intents and purposed, turned into an exact clone of Hollywood. Why they ever wanted to is beyond me, but I guess they're happy?
That's how creative enterprises have pretty much always been, though... a couple of successes pay for the cost of a huge load of failed experiments.
True, but in the case of Hollywood, and now the game industry, it's not really paying for failed experiments. It's paying for failed games that were determined from the outset to be shitty.
It's one thing to take a risk on a new game property, or a new IP, or a new genre and fail and lose money. It's another thing entirely to go "let's make an FPS, by the numbers, nothing innovative, bog-standard DM, a five hour, uninspired campaign and nothing else, and we'll charge 60 bucks." and watch it fail. And yet, the latter is more and more what happens in the gaming industry. Everything is a clone, and only a rare few of those clones sell well, usually based either on name recognition or great marketing. (since sheeple will be sheeple, after all.)
Which, again, is exactly how Hollywood operates.
Why can't the game industry, instead of making 3000 games a year, 2950 of which suck, make 300 games a year, 299 of which are great? (and were given the CHANCE to be great, as opposed to being destined from the start to be mediocre shovelware, rushed out to make a quick buck.)
I guess because the shareholders want the former rather than the latter.
Creston
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| 25. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 17:29 |
Creston |
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LightAssassin wrote on Jun 7, 2011, 16:17:
Just to note Creston, Blizzard isn't independent and hasn't been since the first few years of it's creation as Silicon & Synapse.
That's why I said "technically." Blizzard officially reports to Activision, but shit, they have more freedom than any other dev in the industry not named Valve or id.
Creston |
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| 24. |
Re: Op Ed |
Jun 7, 2011, 17:28 |
m0deth |
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I'd rather charge more and get a different clientele. Not every customer is value driven.
But if people want to write programs for the virtual impulse aisle that's fine. It's not the only market segment in town though
Why bother making good games folks want to play when you can just upcharge some nitwits with an over-inflated sense of self-worth?
Capital idea!
Ok, here's my take on it...
Cliffski: "Wah, sniff, sniff, wah...I can't enforce my MSRP in a free market....WAHAHAAHAhahaa...oh snap I left my latte in the Porsche...SUBMIT"
BTW, Cutter, damn funny, should have tossed Romero or Broussard in there for the developers comedic trifecta! |
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43 Replies. 3 pages. Viewing page 1.
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