Jimquisition: Perfect Pasta Sauce

[ungothicdove]

Sigh...

This just reminds me of how much I want a good new RTS that isn't totally indie or some f2p nonsense, I just want a fair priced RTS with a decent single player story and some skirmish modes for me to mess around in.

Sigh....wonder how much Red Alert 3 is on steam.

I don't know if you've heard of it but give this page a look. It's an RTS called Planetary Annihilation where you can literally fight across the entire galaxy. I saw it on quickstarter and am now waiting impatiently for it's release.

http://www.uberent.com/pa/

 

[M920CAIN]

T F eachother and T F eachother and T F eachother and there's no substance! LIKE EPIC GOLD! The ending to this video is probably the best part.

 

[UM536]

God save our gracious Jim.

I'll add on to that.
God save our gracious Jim,
God save our noble Jim,
God save Sterling.

Also diversifying into markets where competition is not as fierce is not really risky. Personally I compete on an airplane design team. After dominating one competition we diversified into a more prestigious competition, but the stiff competition shut us out, so now were going the other way to a competition which is no where near as competitive. AAA could throw it's weight into any number of genres and make some money, and gain a loyal fan base.

 

[Reyold]

Yet another fantastic episode, Jim. If companies would branch out even a little, they'd probably see more profits. But I doubt they will. After all, that involves risk! (GASP!)

Indie developers have more wiggle room in this regard because they can afford some risks and fill in untapped niches. For example, I like hard games (like Super Meat Boy), so naturally, I gonna make hard games because 1.) I like them, so whatever I make will be better for it, and 2.) it's a niche that many have yet to tap. If Dark Souls and the aforementioned Super Meat Boy are any indication, it's that there's a market for these kinds of games.

 

[Bvenged]

That was absolutely superb and I couldn't agree with that analogy more. This is yet another episode which I truly believe would do the industry good if publishers and developer CEOs watched it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Had Prego just asked people what they wanted, it's likely they'd not have discovered extra chunky, because nobody would have said it.

And right there is a great metaphor describing the death knell of gaming variety that has plagued the mainstream.

Consider the previous console generation: the Playstation 2 along with GBA and DS, had the most varied game libraries ever; Far better than this generation has.

Even comparing the PS2 GBA and DS to its competition at the time, it was always the system with the best game variety and not the best graphical fidelity that "won" (financially succeeded), and in all cases, it was not by a small amount either.

 

[Yuuki]

I reckon it goes something like this: Music industry > Movie industry > Games industry
What I'm referring to is the order of severity (least to most) of wanting to repeatedly cash-in to the latest fads and desperately trying to make something "perfect" by forcibly mashing everything that was successful in other media into one product.

In the music industry you see this happening the least, for the most part all a band wants to do is what Jim was raving on about: making music that the band wants to make, for the people that want to listen to it.
Alright, there are quite a few examples of bands that simply want to cash-in to a generic fad and make something that sheep want to lap-up en masse purely for the sake of moneeyyyyyy. But it's nowhere NEAR as bad as the game industry.
There is endless scope of upcoming new bands with new ideas, low-budget garage bands that sound good, there is endless scope of finding buried talent (hint: Youtube and musicians who to put their work on Piratebay!). You don't have to be afraid of big-time bands shitting all over you, getting turned-down by studios/publishers just because you're not homogenized is less common and more often than not there is a studio/publisher willing to sell your work.

Then there's the movie industry and the scope becomes a bit more restrictive, budgets become significantly bigger and what is "selling" suddenly becomes a lot more attractive. So we see sequel after goddamn sequel to the point where they keep getting released purely for the SAKE of sequels - Call of Duty comparison anyone? While we do see stuff like Paranormal Activity (low-budget movie which made huge bucks) they are rare, very rare.

And finally we have the game industry, the worst of the worst when it comes to cashing-in to fads. Jim pretty much described everything regarding this.

What say people, would I be correct?

 

[romxxii]

Just a slight correction with your XCOM example, Jim. Development for both the FPS XCOM (to be retitled The Bureau) and Enemy Unknown allegedly happened concurrently. So they were making both games at the same time, but released info on the FPS one earlier. Nobody outside of Firaxis even knew of Enemy Unknown until the damned thing went gold.

To use your pasta sauce analogy, they already made two sauces; they just didn't let you know about the extra-chunky blend until after everyone spat out the plain FPS flavor.

 

[Flying Pilgrim]

I think a good Single player low magic Conan Game would sell like hot cakes since Age of Conan did well initially then it dropped off. Also look at Obsidian, those guys take existing engines and make amazing games with them in a little over a year when typical development time is a little over two to three years, and they make money. Look at Nintendo, sure they carved their niche as the Disney of video games but they have in their history only lost money one quarter.

They did make a single player Conan game, simply titled Conan, around the same time AoC was released. It was a decent-enough game, but it proved to be a very big financial failure.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I don't know if you've heard of it but give this page a look. It's an RTS called Planetary Annihilation where you can literally fight across the entire galaxy. I saw it on quickstarter and am now waiting impatiently for it's release.

Ooh.. is that a spiritual successor to Total Annihilation I see?

I like this idea, not only because RTS games are kind of rare right now but also because those that exist seem to be steadily moving towards deeper micromanagement, which I'm not opposed to but it would be nice to get away from.

On topic.. excellent episode, and I think a strong counterbalance to the episode on innovation (which I somewhat disagreed with at the time, but I think you've added a lot of context to your argument here).

 

[rasputin0009]

Any time focus testing is mentioned I get really worried. It was shocking when Naughty Dog mentioned that no women were brought in for focus testing, and half of that was just because they were bothering to focus test The Last of Us at all. Focus testing is where ideas go to die in the name of homogenization. It's also why I'm worried about Broken Age, as Tim is allowing the community to influence some ideas, and that's downright frightening.

Sure, with some testing Bioshock Infinite may have made more sense to those that didn't understand it's ending, but it would have been worse off for it. It's why I respect Ken Levine so much. He doesn't care what others think, he does what he want with his creative freedom and goes nuts.

I cringe at the term focus testing as well. Simple statistics proves that their samples aren't even useful information for representing such a diverse consumer base. Plus, almost everybody's focus testing comes from third party marketing firms that have no idea what a "gamer" is. They seem to think the 12-25 year old males that live in their mother's basement are the only ones who buy videogames. And of course, the large publishers in the industry take the large quantity of numbers as fact and base their decisions off of that. All reaction and no action.

I wouldn't be too worried about Broken Age because Tim's using the community involvement more as marketing than helping with actual game design. It's smart because it gives the community a sense of creativity in the game they plan on buying.

 

[Signa]

*slowclaps*

I too have stared into those soulless eyes of the game industry, and what I saw scared me enough to stop buying games as much as I can. If a game comes out that does cater to me, I'm sure to buy it still, but I don't think one is coming from that zombie corpse that is today's game industry.

 

[IGetNoSlack]

Jim, you speak the truth (once again. Keep it up!)

As has been said before, not everyone has the same itch. Thus, you should create different back scratchers.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I kind of felt this lately playing Luigi's Mansion 2 and Fire Emblem. It's NICE to play something different even if there are still great shooters like Bioshock Infinite.

There's certainly the audience for more than that which, I think, is why kickstarters like Double Fine and Project Eternity are doing so well.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

See, this video is a perfect example of why I don't even bother to comment in Jimquisition threads.

Because he's already said what I was going to say.

Thank God for you, Jim.

 

[Mahoshonen]

Any time focus testing is mentioned I get really worried. It was shocking when Naughty Dog mentioned that no women were brought in for focus testing, and half of that was just because they were bothering to focus test The Last of Us at all. Focus testing is where ideas go to die in the name of homogenization. It's also why I'm worried about Broken Age, as Tim is allowing the community to influence some ideas, and that's downright frightening.

I don't think this is entirely fair. Focus testing can be an excellent marketing took, if you know how to use them. The problem with them is that Focus Testing, at it's heart, is a scientific experiment most often conducted by people who are very much not scientists. Therefore they have no understanding of just how rigorous and careful their studies have to be in order to provide meaningful conclusion. Without this, you end up with confirmation bias-you see the results that you wanted to see consciously or subconsciously.

 

[LazyAza]

Yep, AAA industry has no clue what its doing most of the time. I would literally go buy every single mid tier game that could possibly interest me if it were priced accordingly. I don't need a bazillion 200 million budget action fests, I don't even like shooters that much anymore, give me something freaking unique or at least different to the last thing I played god. It's like their are literally people with signs and directions screaming at publishers doors and they just hold up in their little offices and keep pretending all anyone wants is Call of Duty.

 

[I.Muir]

I know I would like more plat formers that are not Mario

I mean just look at how the killed Banjo Kazooie by turning into a racer and stating as much in game. They literally said they were broadening the demographic and assumed gamers nowadays just want to shoot things with some serious 4th wall breaking. DAMN YOU MICROSOFT I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO RARE!

Okay. Try Braid, Limbo, Terraria, Cave Story (my personal favorite out of the bunch), and any games from the Basement Collection. Like I said, Cave Story is the one I recommend the most, as it feels more platformy than the others. In my opinion, of course. All of them are for PC, so go check them out.

(I want 2D platformers too. I freaking love those games.)

OT- YES JIM YES. I fully agree that I'd like something new and interesting. I don't want homogenization, I want my good games. Considering I'm getting out of my zone and trying new things, I really what I'm seeing. I started Ys Origins. Fucking fantastic and a change from my days of playing TF2 and Skyrim.

Bravo man, bravo.

I own Limbo, braid, Terraria and cave story
I like 3d plat formers more

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I know I would like more plat formers that are not Mario

I mean just look at how the killed Banjo Kazooie by turning into a racer and stating as much in game. They literally said they were broadening the demographic and assumed gamers nowadays just want to shoot things with some serious 4th wall breaking. DAMN YOU MICROSOFT I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO RARE!

... you know platformers are probably the most numerous type of game at the moment because they're the easiest for entry level designers to make, yes? And that lots of them are unique, well-received games?

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3D plat formers?

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Microsoft didn't do anything to Rare. Rare ruined Rare. Why do you think Nintendo was so willing to sell? Because they knew Rare was turning into shit. It astounds me how many people still don't realize this very simple fact and blame Microsoft.

Is it indeed a fact and that being sold to microsoft and making nothing but crappy kinect games since was entirely rares fault? For some reason I don't think Nintendo handing over some of their successful ips had as much to do with rare turning bad as it did with the global financial crisis.

Snip

Well here's the issue, there are great titles in some genres being made that are getting no love. No marketing or buzz is put around them. Let's look at platformers, Shantae: Risky's Revenge is a GREAT 2D platformer by Wayforward, and most people have never played it. Same with Harry Hatsworth. Psychonauts is a 3D platformer with a cult following but abyssmal sales. The same 3-4 platformer genre games are being turned out because they are the only ones that sell: Mario, Kirby, Ratchet and Clank, and Donkey Kong.

Banjo Kazooie was a pretty well renowned game in it's time and Psychonauts which I love gained a lot of it's cult following after the initially abysmal release. Unfortunately many games are judged only by their initial sales but I wonder how well it's done so many years later.

I know I would like more plat formers that are not Mario

Well there's Braid and Limbo to name off the top of my head.

OT: First off this is a wonderful idea, we must throw pasta sauce on the heads of the AAA industry until they can absorb the information that they're being absolutely idiotic and ridiculous (and delicious). They need to learn that not every "new" direction or different genre than the high budget CoD games that make yachts filled with money a risk that is not worth taking; mainly because most of the time there is no risk or it's so small that there isn't much point trying to quantify the potential losses.

Sounds good to me

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Holy shit... that comparison between "AAA" Games and inbreeding royal families is insanely profound. Well put, Jim!

 

[Frission]

I like this show very much. It's a bit dismaying to hear though that people in the industry don't understand anything so basic.