EA Aims to "Broaden" Dead Space Audience

[Viper114]

Just a little before my first post, they released a gameplay video of DS3 that can be seen.

It seems they're getting a bit more shooty than DS2. Isaac moves a lot faster than he did in the first two games, even in combat. And they added the ability to dodge in combat, too. It's not a radical departure from the original feel, but it's going to turn off a lot of the original people for sure. Otherwise, it still kind of plays like DS2. I dunno, I'm not giving up entirely yet, but it's going to be a lot more different...

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Speaking as someone who liked Dead Space 1 and 2, I think that this doesn't have to be a bad thing. The horror was never brilliantly done, so I think focusing more on the action is a good idea. However, this needs to be handled very carfully. If by broaden, they mean add a bit more action stuff, like more of those jetpack sections from 2 or parts where you gun down Scientologists Untilologists, go ahead. But don't just make it flat and generic.

 

[DigitalSushi]

If you need to sell 5 million copies for it to be profitable, something is messed up with your business strategy and/or management.

You must remember that Dead Space and its sequel(sequels by the end of this year) had a lot of extraneous marketing expenditure to get us gamers worked up about it, wasn't there an ARG and Dead Space had that fancy browser based 3D walk around adventure thing that was pretty innovative... that must have cost a lot of scratch, not to mention the Video Comics they had leading up to the release of Dead Space 1

Dead Space has a lot of "Meta Gaming" stuff that runs parallel to the franchise which probably eats in their budget, so I'm not shocked at EA PR GuyMan throwing out massive figures like that.

Also it could be a hint that this game is the last in the series, basically, EA PR GuyMan is saying "yeah we need to sell 5 mil to make more... and we ain't gonna do that are we now?"

 

[Emiscary]

Well, we'd make a horror game- but those don't make millions upon millions of dollars.

These are the same pricks who like a week ago claimed to want to be indie.

Although this does serve to illustrate a point. Namely that it takes EA precisely 3 games to ruin a franchise completely with their "broadening".

The simple fact that they've turned to Michael Bay for ideas should be proof enough of that. I mean Christ, the man only knows how to do two things:

Pimp military hardware & blow shit up.

And games have entirely too much of both at present.

 

[Slycne]

"Anything less than that and it becomes quite difficult financially given how expensive it is to make games and market them."

Or how about limiting the scope of the game or the graphics and delivering marketing in a more targeted approach instead of blanket buyouts to potentially unrelated demographics. Putting out more focused titles without all the same hoop jumping as an AAA can still give favorable returns on investment and with less risk.

 

[Korten12]

How many copies did DS1 and 2 sell?

 

[xxBucdieselxx]

This is awful. I loved the first DS. The scariest game I had played since the original Resident Evil back when I was in high school. Then DS 2 came out, and I bought it, and returned it shortly afterwards. They had turned it from Suspense/Horror into "Here comes another space marine ready to kick ass on a whim". Then recently a bro let me borrow it, I played through it for the story, and I liked it. It wasn't scary and certainly wasn't all that suspenseful, but I liked the story and it laid more ground work for the inevitable continuation. Now after hearing they are adding Co-op to DS 3, and Isaccs "Partner" will pretty much be a military type guy, there goes what little the series had left that appealed to me. EA managed to take a great concept, a protagonist who wasn't a gun blazing character, he was an engineer with no battle prowess what so ever, and turn it into Gears of Uncharted Lost Planet. This is part of what is killing the game industry. Every game has to have Call of Duty sales or else it is a flop.

 

[MortisLegio]

EA trying to make the last in a trilogy more appealing than the fanbase. Wait I've heard this before...

Spoiler

No not again. All joking aside, why does EA keep doing this? It pisses off the loyal fans and doesn't really bring anyone new in.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

If EA ran every company in the industry I wouldn't play games anymore.

 

[Emiscary]

EA trying to make the last in a trilogy more appealing than the fanbase. Wait I've heard this before...

Spoiler

No not again. All joking aside, why does EA keep doing this? It pisses off the loyal fans and doesn't really bring anyone new in.

Really bad pattern recognition?

 

[solidstatemind]

Huh. Do the math here: say EA makes half the box price on each unit sold (and that's being conservative)... 5 mill x $30... that's $150 million dollars... to keep a franchise viable?!?

You want to stay in business EA (much less keep Dead Space going), I suggest you summarily execute some of the folks making spending decisions...

 

[UnderGlass]

"Anything less than that and it becomes quite difficult financially given how expensive it is to make games and market them."

Or how about limiting the scope of the game or the graphics and delivering marketing in a more targeted approach instead of blanket buyouts to potentially unrelated demographics. Putting out more focused titles without all the same hoop jumping as an AAA can still give favorable returns on investment and with less risk.

Qft. The problem is not the expected returns on a given IP. The problem is EA's approach to "investment" in an IP. Instead of treating Dead Space as a good, strong contender for a particular market, they threw enormous amounts of money at it to force it into the mold of a Next Big Thing. Trans-media: motion comics, comics, animated features; genre-blending, multi-player... what a huge waste of money.

This definitely makes me a bit freaked out about their plans for Mirror's Edge.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

EA spends more money on marketing than on actual development. How the fuck are they still in business?

What this basically means is something along the lines of this:

"We're not happy with how limited Dead Space fanbase is. So we're gonna use the name Dead Space since it's a well known IP, and we're gonna make it into another mindless shooter. It will piss off a lot of existing fans, but it will hopefully get us a lot of dumb shooter fans. So it's all good. Hey, maybe some of original Dead Space fans will still want to buy the game."

I couldn't care less. I don't like Dead Space. Sucks to be a fan of certain game series these days.

 

[TheRocketeer]

Well, it's a damn shame video games HAVE to cost so frickin' much to make, otherwise they might make a reasonable profit even without meeting impossible pipe-dream sales goals. But if there's anything I understand less than video games, it's economics, so far be it from me to criticize Adam Smith up there.

But I just can't shake the feeling that they're announcing a plainly ludicrous goal beforehand so they can blame the consumers when it falls on its face and the series dies.

 

[Lectori Salutem]

I hope this shit tanks.

And then they'll blame it on piracy/current state of the market/whatever, I'm afraid...

 

[Saulkar]

Heh, well this is not going to alienate fans at all.

 

[Nurb]

TRANSLATION: "We're gonna sit on dead space's head and take a shitty shit shit!"

WHY do people keep giving them money and defend these big publishers (and publisher owned devs)??

These decisions aren't about making a good game, it's about meeting quotas and pleasing shareholders. This is why people lucky enough to be around during the golden age of gaming get so mad; people who make most of these games are no longer calling the shots on development, instead being ordered around by a corporate suit to meet sales quotas and then we have to hear the kiddies today keep repeating "entitled" when pointing out how bad the situation or product is.

 

[Sneezeguard]

ok it's time to do math!

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/02/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a8b7438c970b-600wi.jpg

ok so let's say a publisher roughly get $27 per game sold.

average game cost of 2006 was over 5million, 20 million in 2010.

So i'm gonna go out on a limb here and estimate the average game cost is somewhere between 20-40 million

27 x 5 million = 135 million

no no no, this doesn't seem to make sense

hmmm, let me think.... why would EA be desparate for a hugh amount of money over 100 million


EA you can sink for all I care.

 

[Zaik]

Spoiler

=

Doesn't really bother me though, dead space was never remotely scary to begin with. If they hadn't started out by just remaking Resident Evil in space, the series might have had a chance overall, but they did and it didn't.

Given how it's gone so far, the next dead space will probably play out something like operation raccoon city, a bunch of random jerks from earthgov running around in dead space 2 shooting everyone, including the main characters.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

"Appeal to a A Broader audience"
Oh for christ's sake EA. Did you not learn what happened the last time you tried that? Did you not learn anything from MAss Effect and Dragon Age 2?

agreed, i'm glad i don't like dead space, but i still feel for it's fans.


then, later on, they'll be able to say "look, we didn't meet that ludicrous goal we set forth, it must be pirates and used games!" or some other complete and total bullshit.

fucking stupid EA, as much as I feel for the fans of it, I hope this shit tanks fucking hard like a shovel to the face for EA, so they might actually wake up and realize how stupidly mental they are when it comes to marketing/PR and overall enjoyment of gaming.