I am reminded of the Pac-Man cartridge for the Atari VCS where 12 million were produced, more than the number of consoles at the time with the idea that the game would sell more consoles. Pac-Man is still the bestselling Atari VCS game, selling 7 million copies, but they wound up putting 5 million into landfill alongside ET. It seems that sales projections are a load of old tripe.
Jimquisition: Dark Souls and Dark Sales
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
Yup. Good episode.
I've got dozens of triple A games and what do I find myself playing most of the time?
Mount & Blade Warband.
Yup.
Or some old games like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Theme Hospital.
I've got dozens of triple A games and what do I find myself playing most of the time?
Mount & Blade Warband.
Yup.
Or some old games like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Theme Hospital.
Well, large publishers acting completely idiotically. They will die out. Guys like Deep Silver and Devolver digital will thrive though.
See, next gen will be all B-class games and indies. AAA will die out.
See, next gen will be all B-class games and indies. AAA will die out.
I think it is worth mentioning that Tomb Raider is just using Crystal Tools (Final Fantasy XIII's engine) so there is saved money.
The video game industry is too bloated to sustain itself and since I don?t see any of the big publishers changing any time soon it seems to be doomed.
Time for a revolution here?s hoping that we don?t have our own reign of terror.
Time for a revolution here?s hoping that we don?t have our own reign of terror.
Time will tell if developers like EA will survive the coming years, but looking at the mismanagement and... well, utter bulls**t that runs rampant in these companies I'd say it is doubtful at least.
I am still not convinced that losing the big companies will be a good thing exactly, but hey: as long as there are games like The Binding of Isaac, FTL or Minecraft I think I can manage.
O, and praise the sun a thousand times for you, Jim.
Captcha: first water. No tears shall be shed for the likes of EA.
I am still not convinced that losing the big companies will be a good thing exactly, but hey: as long as there are games like The Binding of Isaac, FTL or Minecraft I think I can manage.
O, and praise the sun a thousand times for you, Jim.
Captcha: first water. No tears shall be shed for the likes of EA.
Not meeting Sales expectations and not turning a profit are very different things, Doing the latter without doing the former is an easy thing to do, hell if you make something as a loss leader then its possible to do the former and not the latter and still be happy.....
If I make a game, need to sell 2k copies to break even and anything after that's profit, set my target at 2 billion and only sell 2 million, I've made a huge profit but missed my sales target hard.
To a certain extent it's not if a game will make a profit that matters, it's how much it will make compared to other projects you might commission instead.
Then there's the market leader spends less so you should to. The market leader needs to do less often as it is there, it's the one to beat so it needs to invest less.
If I make a game, need to sell 2k copies to break even and anything after that's profit, set my target at 2 billion and only sell 2 million, I've made a huge profit but missed my sales target hard.
To a certain extent it's not if a game will make a profit that matters, it's how much it will make compared to other projects you might commission instead.
Then there's the market leader spends less so you should to. The market leader needs to do less often as it is there, it's the one to beat so it needs to invest less.
There are probably bureaucratic/union reasons for it, but I'm always a little surprised no game company ever seems to go to their city's local community theater or college theater department for voice work, or hire from the web-listed semi-pros like The Stanley Parable did. Game creators seem to have gone straight from "Hey, Frank, stop coding for a second and come over and say some lines" to "We have to have recognizable names recording our dialogue" without anything in between, perhaps in the ever-present fear of not being taken seriously as a medium.
It was kind of cool to hear Samuel L. Jackson in GTA: San Andreas or Marina Sirtis in Mass Effect, but I didn't exactly buy the games because of them. There are plenty of competent actors out there who would jump at the chance to do that kind of work without breaking the bank in the process.
It was kind of cool to hear Samuel L. Jackson in GTA: San Andreas or Marina Sirtis in Mass Effect, but I didn't exactly buy the games because of them. There are plenty of competent actors out there who would jump at the chance to do that kind of work without breaking the bank in the process.
Total sales of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES: 4.8 million.
Of course, it sold that many again on its GBA release, and who knows how many on Virtual Consoles, but even of you account for the relative sales of the consoles SNES & GBA v XBOX 360, Link to the Past was not as big of a hit as Modern Warfare, in terms of sales.
Yet try to find a single critic who will not put that game on their top 25 of all time, and from that success and others, Nintendo was able to make Ocarina of Time, and build substantially on their work. This is why I think the industry has gone mad.
Of course, it sold that many again on its GBA release, and who knows how many on Virtual Consoles, but even of you account for the relative sales of the consoles SNES & GBA v XBOX 360, Link to the Past was not as big of a hit as Modern Warfare, in terms of sales.
Yet try to find a single critic who will not put that game on their top 25 of all time, and from that success and others, Nintendo was able to make Ocarina of Time, and build substantially on their work. This is why I think the industry has gone mad.
I was thinking that the ten year-old analogy at the end was carrying the line too far, and became kind of frail. Then Jim said "Praise The Sun!" and everything was okay.
I would love to see how much of a typical AAA budget actually goes into developing the game, to the code and gameplay parts, to the artists and sound techs (not Voice Actors, or Movie Actors).
I'll bet less than a third of the budget is for developing the game, and more is paid for the additional human assets (top actors, legal representation, business executive representation, special 'gift' money for corporate co-operation)... and even bigger chunk goes into marketing, paying for all those adverts, special launch events, none player issued demos and interviews, royalties to hire certain entertainers, use of IP held media, paying fines incurred during stunts.
Generally trying to hype the game up before players actually realise the eternal truth ... there is no spoon,err game.
I mean say a game like Kleis Dont Starve... graphics are not going to melt even a built in internal graphics card let alone some gaming cards, and the voice acting...some random instrumental blaring at various base or treble settings.
Do I care if Vin Diesel or [insert popular actor here] is voicing the main character, naah I just dont want to starve in that game.
Do I really care if [same actor here] is the voice of my gun toting avatar in CoD ? Nope, too busy QQ'ing about SMGs and Laser sighting.
I dont even care is [popular band] is bashing out the background tunes in my games, thats background noise not the aim of the game...unless its a Rock Hero or Dance game.
I bet most of a AAA budget is wasted on legalities, royalties, executive wages, lunches, handkerchiefs for the divas and actors and musicians... how much could be cut out if they tossed out the top actors and hire decent average actors to do the voices ? How many LESS copies if another actor did Soap McTavish in CoD ? Will Metal Gear fail because Hayter isnt Snake ?
I'll bet less than a third of the budget is for developing the game, and more is paid for the additional human assets (top actors, legal representation, business executive representation, special 'gift' money for corporate co-operation)... and even bigger chunk goes into marketing, paying for all those adverts, special launch events, none player issued demos and interviews, royalties to hire certain entertainers, use of IP held media, paying fines incurred during stunts.
Generally trying to hype the game up before players actually realise the eternal truth ... there is no spoon,err game.
I mean say a game like Kleis Dont Starve... graphics are not going to melt even a built in internal graphics card let alone some gaming cards, and the voice acting...some random instrumental blaring at various base or treble settings.
Do I care if Vin Diesel or [insert popular actor here] is voicing the main character, naah I just dont want to starve in that game.
Do I really care if [same actor here] is the voice of my gun toting avatar in CoD ? Nope, too busy QQ'ing about SMGs and Laser sighting.
I dont even care is [popular band] is bashing out the background tunes in my games, thats background noise not the aim of the game...unless its a Rock Hero or Dance game.
I bet most of a AAA budget is wasted on legalities, royalties, executive wages, lunches, handkerchiefs for the divas and actors and musicians... how much could be cut out if they tossed out the top actors and hire decent average actors to do the voices ? How many LESS copies if another actor did Soap McTavish in CoD ? Will Metal Gear fail because Hayter isnt Snake ?
I just want to say as a criminology professor. HH Holmes was a messed up dude. Do you have a booby trapped maze in your basement Jim? do you?
Another amazing video Jim! So glad you got around to this topic because its been something that has been bothering us all for quite some time now; even if we didn't all know what was it was that made us dislike the industry's spending practices, we do now.
I don't have the ego or arrogance or popular internet platform to bombastically shout to the masses exactly what I was thinking when I read the articles referred to in this weeks Jimquisition. So today, more than usual, I thank God for Jim Sterling.