Dear Rockstar. What the hell?

[TheCommanders]

Sigh, I'm not really getting anywhere here, but I'll just say two things.

I'm not quite sure why your sighing, you said your studying this kind of thing; I don't know what you know. I just find it interesting and hoped you might be able to teach us less educated people a thing or two.

2. Games have a fixed budget decided on pre production.

Okay, but wouldn't the company have decided pre-production whether or not they would have wanted to include multiplayer and still expanded the budget to suit it? I wouldn't have thought additional funding is completely out of the picture either, even if it isn't official. If a company found a particular game is getting more publicity than they initially thought, is there no way they could increase the budget to capitalise on this?

It doesn't necessarily increase the budget, but it can mean a publisher would be more likely to fund your project at all. With a big company like Rockstar, the simplified version of how their budgeting works is they decide how many studios (they have about a dozen or so) will work on a game, and each of those studio's have established funding. It's slightly more complicated, but that's the basic idea. Also, the more studios the company invests in a project, the more returns it will expect. With sequels, it works a little differently, as they usually have some guaranteed profits from the returning crowd, so the main goal becomes to attract new fans, and one of the ways they do that is to add multiplayer. I will say that the people who talk about taked on multiplayer being lazy don't really know what they are talking about, and I will defend the fact that developers do put a lot of time and effort into what might seem to be trivial multiplayer, but I will not necessarily defend its right to exist.

Also, sorry, I'm not really sighing at you, but I've been having the debate about whether including multiplayer into established single player franchises, or into new games that aren't really asking for it detracts from development of single player for a very long time, and I'm getting a little tired of people assuming that it doesn't take away from single player. That isn't to say the single player can't still be good, but being good doesn't mean it couldn't have been better.

Captcha - take potluck? um... what?

 

[RN7]

...I actually like the multiplayer in Max Payne 3 more than I do...pretty much every shooter that was intended to have multiplayer like CoD and Battlefield. It's more fun to play and funnier to watch, especially the amazing 1-hit KO pistol slaps

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Not sure if you've noticed this, but they've been putting multiplayer in since GTA4.

 

[TheCommanders]

-snip-
Pretty much agreed. After doing a games course (which rather tediously involved making a 150 page design doc) Funding is only found for the game after Design Document is created. It's actually the main purpose of the document. Multiplayer was not a last minute addition as this would have set back the time of the game by at least 4-6 months (the closer to the end you change the requirements or specifications, the longer it takes the rectify and the more expensive the error is). With regards to attention, the team of programmers will work closely on each section, tying it together. They don't split off, making one group work on singleplayer and one work on multiplayer as that would be extremely detrimental. The team works together on specific sections at the same time, progressing together.

Captcha: kill time - yes this certainly has.

Yes, the design doc is considered pre production work, and by the way, I feel your pain on those things. I at no point claimed that the multiplayer is shoved in sometime during the design process, only that it does take up resources. Also, regarding who works on the multiplayer, in smaller development teams, yes, everyone pretty much works on everything, but in larger studios, the work does often get divided up. In some games this can be extremely detrimental, which is why I'm such a fan of Valve's cabal process (look it up if you don't know what it is) which involves a lot of interdepartmental liaising, and makes sure all the different members of the development team are in touch with each other. It really varies from company to company, some handle it well, some do not. I'm not sure how Max Payne 3 specifically handled multiplayer development, but no matter how they did it, it costs more time and money to do so. It's difficult to claim that multiplayer didn't impact the single player just because the single player in a single game managed to be good. As Jim Sterling pointed out, just because things are good, doesn't mean they couldn't be better, and for every game that pulls off not being terrible with the addition of multiplayer there's another where it clearly had an impact.

Captcha -mend fences (I always feel like I do this whenever I make a post that doesn't detail 100% of my thought process)

 

[viranimus]

Hey I can honestly see a reason for resentment at an added feature that didnt detract from the single player game. Its a means of control and indoctrination. Basically the more online connectivity is involved with any game, the more control the developer has over the game.

I think if there never was a multiplayer mode in the previous games, and theres no logical reason for multiplayer to be present, regardless if its a bonus feature or not we SHOULD be upset over it. Because every time we get another game switching sides between offline and online we step an inch closer to a world where every game is ran like Diablo 3 and like it or not it IS coming and people are hastening its arrival by A: buying the product, and B: Not expressing resistance to the idea.

On that level, yes, I can see where anyone and everyone should be up in arms over this practice. Beyond that, If you look at its most glib perspective, An added feature that did not detract from the development of the primary features should not be looked on negatively, and rather ignored.

More often than not you have to look at a situation with the perspective of how it effects everyone and everything, instead of just relying on "it doesnt affect me personally why should I care?". This is one of those times.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Oh my god! Extra features!

The end times are upon us!

This bunker will keep you safe
http://www.perfectescapes.com/TheSuiteLife/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/bunker.jpg

 

[Dr Jones]

Everybody calm down! OP is a troll who skipped town after he left a few replies!

Seriously, he is just not responding at all, and of course he is dead wrong. The multiplayer actually made me play the arcade modes to get more characters, and now I love those modes too

 

[Bat Vader]

Everybody calm down! OP is a troll who skipped town after he left a few replies!

Seriously, he is just not responding at all, and of course he is dead wrong. The multiplayer actually made me play the arcade modes to get more characters, and now I love those modes too

Players seem to get a good amount of XP from getting the platinum ranks in arcade mode. I wonder how long it would take to get to rank 50 just by playing the different modes in arcade.

I have played a bit of the multiplayer and I have to admit I really liked it. I have not played much of it since I decided to beat MP3 on Hardcore and Old School.

 

[Lugbzurg]

Rockstar gave me something fun.

CURSE YOU, ROCKSTAR! CURSE YOOOOOOOOOOU!!!

-_-'

 

[mad825]

Games that have 4DVDs sucks for console players however PC gamers...

Once it's installed, you can go back to suckling your thumb.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I think multiplayer was a good option. It adds a lot of replayability.

 

[mad_mick]

Rockstar sucks! GTA 4 multiplayer! how dare they include wicked fun modes and extra stuff. and max payne! my god, i hate playing online with my friends in cool new game modes. yeah, and other sarcastic things!

 

[Mr.SunShine]

i had something really smart to say but now i can't recall what it was ;.; OH THATS IT

Final Fantasy 7 came on 4 discs. Also its not like giving people more features is a bad thing.

its like if you got upset if i gave you Chocolate sauce for your ice-cream made up of 4 scoops

Not really. I don't like chocolate sauce.
It's more like you gave him an option for free chocolate sauce, should he want it.
This makes his anger even stupider.

I think....
That we are all misunderstanding his anger...
He's angry that the multiplayer exists because to have made it exist, the developers had to subtract manpower and hours of work from the singleplayer element...

So, it's like you're offering free chocolate sauce, but he's angry that you spent the money on the chocolate sauce to offer it instead of buying more of what he wants, I.E. Icecream.

 

[Blunderboy]

i had something really smart to say but now i can't recall what it was ;.; OH THATS IT

Final Fantasy 7 came on 4 discs. Also its not like giving people more features is a bad thing.

its like if you got upset if i gave you Chocolate sauce for your ice-cream made up of 4 scoops

Not really. I don't like chocolate sauce.
It's more like you gave him an option for free chocolate sauce, should he want it.
This makes his anger even stupider.

I think....
That we are all misunderstanding his anger...
He's angry that the multiplayer exists because to have made it exist, the developers had to subtract manpower and hours of work from the singleplayer element...

So, it's like you're offering free chocolate sauce, but he's angry that you spent the money on the chocolate sauce to offer it instead of buying more of what he wants, I.E. Icecream.

Except that, as someone else already pointed out, the multiplayer was developed by a separate team. So there was no loss of manpower at all.
So there is the same amount of ice cream regardless of if we get someone else to make the sauce or not.

 

[ResonanceSD]

i had something really smart to say but now i can't recall what it was ;.; OH THATS IT

Final Fantasy 7 came on 4 discs. Also its not like giving people more features is a bad thing.

its like if you got upset if i gave you Chocolate sauce for your ice-cream made up of 4 scoops

Not really. I don't like chocolate sauce.
It's more like you gave him an option for free chocolate sauce, should he want it.
This makes his anger even stupider.

I think....
That we are all misunderstanding his anger...
He's angry that the multiplayer exists because to have made it exist, the developers had to subtract manpower and hours of work from the singleplayer element...

So, it's like you're offering free chocolate sauce, but he's angry that you spent the money on the chocolate sauce to offer it instead of buying more of what he wants, I.E. Icecream.

Yes! someone finally got it, christ, how hard can the concept be to get?

Have an icecream cookie.