I actually do prefer a dark roast...But then coat the beans in chocolate and freeze them for later.
Mmm...delicious.
Of course the biggest publishers are going to lean heavily on bias focus groups; they're all chasing that magic demographic that buys the same bloody game every bloody year without fail. Why? Because Activision's competitors are starting to fail; they're panicking and in their panic the most logical thing to do is to find out whatever is working for the guy in first, and copy it relentlessly.
By far, Activision-Blizzard is at the top of the AAA totem pole, with the most healthy revenue. Revenue that is generated almost entirely from just TWO mega cash cows. TWO.
Outside of Skylanders, I literally cannot think of another Activision title apart from CoD4.x.
What does this tell the other publishers?
"Well, if Activision-Blizzard can make megabucks on two Golden Geese, we can too!"
Failing to realize that in a creative information-based medium, DISTINCTION has more value. EA can copy CoD4.x down to the polished animations, but they cannot ever distinguish themselves by doing so, and thus, it can never hit the same marks as CoD4.x.
Same thing happened in the MMO genre. How many games blatantly copied World of Warcraft? From the stupid quest givers with glowing punctuation marks over their heads, to the toon-cel graphics to the arrangement of the interface?
You know how many of those clones knocked WoW off its perch and poached all of that sweet effortless subscription money?
NONE. NOT A SINGLE FUCKING ONE.
The AAA Publishers are lost and confused; they have known so many years of effortless success that they just don't know what to do anymore, so the suits fall back to copying whatever is most popular to the exclusion of everything else.
And because of this, I don't really care if I miss out on the majority of titles they release because chances are good that I've seen it all before.
Reyold said:
All I want to know is how Overstrike became... that thing. 'Tis a sad day indeed.
EA happened.