Jimquisition: An Industry Of Pitiful Cowards
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
now youre absolutely wrong there, paradox is making a killing with their grand strategy titles, crusader kings 2 and europa universalis 4 have been particulary successfulSir Shockwave said:
i do agree CoH 2 was disappointing, my first pre-order and i deeply regret, tough not a bad game by its own right, is significantly worse than CoH 1, but i believe the main reason for this is was THQ going under, you can see the budget hit the game good, the ingame cutscenes are some sort of weird pre-rendered ingame thing, they look terrible
They didn't mock old-school DMC, they mocked old-school DMC Dante. As well they should, Dante was a melange of tired tropes that needed to die. The super-serious 'stop mocking what I like' hardcore fans of old Dante also should be mocked. Yeah, he put on a white wig and thought it was stupid... well, THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!Trishbot said:
I hope the DMC hardcore fans cling tightly to the first four games, because not being able to take a joke ended up killing the series. It's all but guaranteed Capcom's putting that IP in their vault and won't touch it for a VERY long time now.
Game theory recently released an episode on how the "bro" games make more money. Most companies have been trying to make that money to please their stockholders.
The most recent of the best Survival horror games...Amnesia made over 1-2 million$. On the other hand RE6 made over 5-6 million. Neither saying RE6 is a better game than Amnesia, nor that horror games don't sell. Its just that most niche titles don't sell enough to please the execs-so the homogenization. As one of the previous episodes of Jimquisition said-more money means more burden to sell.
It is also important to note that our hobbies are seen as 'products' instead of 'artistic en-devour'.
The most recent of the best Survival horror games...Amnesia made over 1-2 million$. On the other hand RE6 made over 5-6 million. Neither saying RE6 is a better game than Amnesia, nor that horror games don't sell. Its just that most niche titles don't sell enough to please the execs-so the homogenization. As one of the previous episodes of Jimquisition said-more money means more burden to sell.
It is also important to note that our hobbies are seen as 'products' instead of 'artistic en-devour'.
It kind of was for several years, but also don't forget the Evochron series, and upcoming Elite: Dangerous(which I backed on kickstarter and looks to be coming along nicely, based on all the updates I'm getting in my email).Chemical123 said:
To be fair, these all outstayed their welcome. We had a period with too much of them and people got tired of it. They might be ripe for comeback soonish, but people were genuinely complaining about being fed up with them, because of the oversaturation of the market.Chemical123 said:
To be fair, it's mainly the big publisher part of the market that's bland, there's plenty of colour in the indie scene(though blandness exists there as well), and we have an ever growing indie scene, it's veritably exploded in the last few years, the noughties were much more barren of indies. Part of the reason the indie scene has exploded so much is because of the blandness of the big publisher side.Chemical123 said:
Funny you say that, since the main problem people had with the new Dante was he was a foul-mouthed, more serious and angsty version of the original, who was created more as an intentional, wacky and over-the-top parody of action heroes. He has an elongated poetry dance off with a villain in DMC4. It was never meant to be taken so seriously, so the fact Capcom felt the need to do away with that "less" serious version in favor of a more grounded and gritty version is pretty telling.Quiotu said:
This extended beyond just the wig scene. In several conferences, the new developers outright mocked the old Dante (that, mind you, a lot of people loved) and even overtly implied he was a flamboyant homosexual (backed up with photoshopped images... all at Capcom's official conferences). They responded to a lot of the complaints with mocking contempt, dismissed the cutting of the framerate in half as a non-issue, and just, in general, did absolutely nothing whatsoever to build a bridge between fans of the old character and the new iteration.
Regardless of your feelings of the old Dante, you MUST admit that openly insulting the legion of Dante fans of the older games (the ones that also bought games such as Viewtiful Joe, Shin Megami Tensei, and Marvel Vs Capcom 3 because of Dante's inclusion, as well as the anime series) did nothing but hurt their sales. The game was the worst-selling installment in the series and is still chided by fans as a disrespectful game to fans of the original. They have no one to blame but themselves for that.
It strikes me that the mindset of a lot of these companies is that of someone addicted to buying lottery tickets. They hear that someone made it big playing ticket X (ex FPS games) and so they start buying it exclusively hoping to make it just as big. Somehow they get in in their heads that ticket Y (say single player horror) will never win so they swear off that one kind entirely even if people have won just as often with it. A few winning tickets happened to have the number 7 in them (multiplayer components) so now every time they buy a ticket it HAS to have the number 7 too no matter what! There is no real reasoning or logic just blind guessing and assumption.
No Star Citizen is heading in the direction of Broken Age, a kickstarter dev getting way to much money for a game that doesn't need that much, that they will lose focus on what matters & spread their development time over to many extra features & milestones rather than polishing what the game needs. The Mandate is our hope of reviving the space sim genre. It shows proof of actual progress on a regular basis.Chemical123 said:
NuclearKangaroo said:
I've not heard nor seen figures for Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings and such mainly because it's not one I keep track of, my apologies. At any rate, Total War I imagine is probably still outdoing them by virtue of name recognition alone (and the fact that Paradox is synonymous with exceptionally buggy releases), though this could always change because Grand Strategy is not one I keep tabs on...especially after the atrocity that was Sword of the Stars II.NuclearKangaroo said:
On a related note, three of the highest rated Steam reviews (of five you'll see unless you go poking around)for Company of Heroes are negative. Right now, it really does look like a credible fight between Focus and Blizzard...though that's like trying to put a Tiger up against Godzilla X3
Wow... That was an episode with so much truth in it, you could have made two out of them!!! 
For a long time I was thinking that I am not a "mass market compatible gamer" any more since most current AAA games just did not interest me at all. But I also wondered who actually liked those games that turned out by those strange direction changes in big franchises. Now you offered the perfect answer: Nobody is really interested in them, but the publishers fearing that they have to deliver these games...
I feel enlightened, just a little bit more than usual By the way: I loved Bravely Default! Let's hope SE keeps its promise and delivers.
Another good example is turn based strategy games. Who decided that they are not "successful" or "fun" anymore? Probably not Firaxis Games as they churn out great and awesome titles in that genre on a regular basis.
For a long time I was thinking that I am not a "mass market compatible gamer" any more since most current AAA games just did not interest me at all. But I also wondered who actually liked those games that turned out by those strange direction changes in big franchises. Now you offered the perfect answer: Nobody is really interested in them, but the publishers fearing that they have to deliver these games...
I feel enlightened, just a little bit more than usual
By the way: I loved Bravely Default! Let's hope SE keeps its promise and delivers.Another good example is turn based strategy games. Who decided that they are not "successful" or "fun" anymore? Probably not Firaxis Games as they churn out great and awesome titles in that genre on a regular basis.
oh please, just because of a stinker doesnt mean relic is out of the game (pun intended), CoH 2 is not really a bad game, just a disappointing one, and i definitively dont agree with relic's monetization strategies, i can see that doing them more harm than goodSir Shockwave said:
these are the guys who made the most critically acclaimed RTS of all time (CoH 1), the homeworld series and the dawn of war series, im sure theyll be back with something great
I've had the worrying thought for a while that, outside of just paranoia inside the companies of what will or won't sell, the more "powerful" (in relative terms anyway) game consoles have gotten, the more companies feel they need to show off. the more they show off, the more bland things get over time because we're not interested in big epic exciting in your face stuff, we want moar, do it better, flashier.....its like gambling, smoking, drinking, drugs, etc, you get used to one level of it, and look for more exciting stuff. but ironically in chasing and pushing that market, the companies fell into the traps of grittyness and boredom by overstepping their ability too quickly. maybe its not the same as the crash of 83, but it follows a similar facet, of rushing along with blinders on, until its too late to change course. at the least, I'll agree its good that SE is getting their head in gear and turning around, maybe we'll finally get another super mario rpg 8D.......i jest, the chances of that are slim, but hey one can dream.
It all depends on a hypothetical COH 3 if they can bounce back or not. I don't think there are many people lining up to play COH 2 right now.NuclearKangaroo said:
Yeah, the problem is the same for Hollywood and the game studios: despite all the risk-aversion, "writing by committee" tactics, when you spend such insane amounts of money at such a fast pace in such a mindless fashion, all you need is one particularly unlucky year when all your major releases fail (not that they flop completely (although the definition of that became ridiculously skewed in the era of 8-figure budgets and 7-figure game sales) just barely make back their budget on average) and you can be in some extraordinarily deep shit. You can't say they're not innovative though: they have figured out how to "bet safe" in a breathtakingly reckless way.Uriel-238 said:
Those are all valid points.Chemical123 said:
The thing is, the biggest culprit seems to be the need to make sure most games' budgets conform to AAA norms. Players are used to lavish cinematics, hours and hours of gameplay time, extensive customization and a certain modicum of freedom, and offering these things costs money - on top of the ever-increasing graphics pipeline.
The only way you can recoup the cost of a typical AAA title is if it sells like hot cakes. A JRPG not selling hugely isn't a tragedy, normally, largely because there's maybe one or two titles in that genre that qualified as benchmark titles for their console of choice. FFVII is a chief example of that, in regards to the PSOne. Most of everything else can coast on by looking average, so long as the art direction is impressive, the combat or RPG-esque mechanics are gripping or the plot happens to be somewhat worthy of some analysis. Squeenix has its own take on art direction (I don't really need to introduce Tetsuya Nomura and his Gackt fetish), they have decades of play systems to revisit if they so chose, and JRPGs already come with the guarantee that you'll be saddled with something that's up there with the sappiness of a Diablo title, coupled with an upteenth lesson on friendship or love. They have a few basic narrative hooks that they keep revisiting, but it does seem to work well for them.
The long and short of it is that JRPGs have enough of a following and enough strengths or quirks to draw in a substantial player base.
The problem really lies in devs not so much seeing a problem as profit that could be made. Resident Evil 6 turned into an unofficial Gears of War clone precisely in order to belatedly court the Shooter crowd. Single-Player's been minced into bloodless chunks in the Call of Duty titles for the simple reason that the multiplayer masses are providing Activision with an argument to cut costs and reinvest in what APPEARS to be selling copies. Similarly, the horror genre APPEARS to have been eradicated on consoles because the Shooter crowd's generated profits are several times higher than anything Outlast's PS4 release could hope to produce.
Ultimately, Jim is especially right at the conclusion of the episode. In chasing profits, the publishers tend to sap all energy or creativity out of their yearly-iterated darlings. That leaves us with little miracles (Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, in my honest opinion) amidst a drove of fairly samey episodes. Play one AC and you've mostly played all of them.
It's like tending to crops, essentially. Over-harvest what a given plot of land has to offer, and you exhaust the soil's minerals faster than they can be regenerated. If farmers rotate crops to keep the soil fresh, then maybe publishers should stop thinking that they ABSOLUTELY have to rake in the millions, and instead start on a schedule of sorts.
This is just me postulating, though - but I do think that system could work. Quarter One is your Shooters quarter, the second is your RPGs-devoted one, the third is geared towards Open-World stuff and the fourth would be a kind of three month-long Amnesia Fortnight. Sports games would be iterated more slowly, with prices for released titles staying at full retail for slightly longer than they already do. That would discourage basic "roster update"-type yearly releases.
Wait, if FF XIII wasn't a real JRPG, then what was it? And how did it lose $million's when it branched out from JRPG's into other genres? I like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and thought the Tomb Raider reboot/prequel sold really well.
you cant destroy 15 years of RTS experience with just one game, it simply doesnt happen, and if that was the case, relic wouldve died with impossible creatures, not CoH 2, IC had a worse critical reception than CoH 2Sir Shockwave said: