Jimquisition: Perfect Pasta Sauce

[Marowit]

I think Bethesda is a great example of how a game company can be an outrageous critical & financial success if they make the games they want to make (and are good at making).

EA is just too cumbersome at the moment to be anything but what it is - They seem to need to make Call-of-Duty-Money, because their overhead is so high. I am not a business man, and so I have no idea if they could pull it off, realistically, but it seems like it would make a lot of sense for them to reduce that overhead. That would allow them to make more of these niche games that all of us are wanting for. I loath the use of niche though, because it makes it sound like it's a marginalized portion of us gamers, rather than just being a proportion of gamers. The same thing could probably be said of a lot of game companies right now.

Interesting piece though, and I liked the Malcolm Gladwell reference, his TED talks are pretty great.

 

[PBMcNair]

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.

EA game, probably origin-only these days.
If you do get it, consider playing the campaign co-op, AI is...well its AI.

 

[kajinking]

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.

EA game, probably origin-only these days.
If you do get it, consider playing the campaign co-op, AI is...well its AI.

Nope, still there. This was before EA went totally insane and said they were going to build their own clubhouse and valve wasn't invited.

Also I can deal with AI partners, they can make decent cannon fodder.

 

[Something Amyss]

It seems to be a typical thing for companies. When they're small and unknown, they are bolder and willing to take risks. But then when they make it and become successful, they refuse to take those same bold risks that put them where they are. So they fall or change hands and then some new upstart takes their place... and then stops taking risks as well once successful.

I think the big problem here is that the big companies have more or less made it difficult to even BE a small company. there's this huge disparity between the indies (and I'm not knocking the indies) and major gaming.

Which is why the laughably-named AAA market keeps making military shooter, like we need another one. That was successful so that is seen as a safe investment but the only really safe investment in entertainment media is to take risks otherwise the market, the audience, and the games stagnate. Look at the Madden series and wonder why it's not just a downloadable roster every year instead.

While it's not Madden or Football, I like Penny Arcade's take on annual golf titles [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/04/05].

 

[MorganL4]

Hang on, Jim said "Don't innovate because of something you found in a focus group." But Prego made their extra chunky because of a focus group..... So, color me confuzzed.

 

[irmasterlol]

Jim, have you been reading "What the Dog Saw?" I love that book, and could guess exactly where this episode was going as soon as you said "Malcolm Gladwell." You were right. This was a damn good episode.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Disney? Listen to this man. Take the message to heart. Now is the chance to make good on your shakeup involving the shutting down of LucasArts and its incompetent leadership.

Listen very carefully now...

Hire Lawrence Holland and Edward Kilham. MAKE...ANOTHER...X-WING...GAME...

The fans have been clamoring for a new Star Wars space combat sim for YEARS now. You have a golden opportunity to win the loyalty of legions of fans. Don't screw this up.

 

[WildFire15]

It seems publishers are sometimes completely unaware of audiences even when they're right under their noses. City of Heroes was a super hero based twist on the classic team RPG (ie made use of the typical trinity but didn't massively forced it on you) with well engineered social elements such as the side kick system, level scaled content with adjustable difficulty, not to mention user generated content with the mission architect and the costume creator itself.
However, as it wasn't pulling in massive amounts of cash and NCsoft couldn't be bothered to advertise it or let Paragon Studios develop a sequel, they shut it down. Thousands of players without an MMO as no other MMO compared to City of Heroes (World of Warcraft especially). Not only that, but when the closure was announced there were just as many people saying they never knew the game existed as those mourning it's lose, so we have another massive audience uncatered for as MMO publishers were obsessed with the gear grinding, long winded PvP focused games that were a bastardisation of World of Warcraft and whatever was popular in Korea at the time because they make all the money. Meanwhile, City of Heroes was strolling along happily making a bit of profit, unconcerned by Champions Online and DC Universe Online until NCsoft suddenly decided they couldn't be bothered anymore.

 

[PBMcNair]

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.

EA game, probably origin-only these days.
If you do get it, consider playing the campaign co-op, AI is...well its AI.

Nope, still there. This was before EA went totally insane and said they were going to build their own clubhouse and valve wasn't invited.

Also I can deal with AI partners, they can make decent cannon fodder.

I could have sworn EA pulled all their stuff, the more you know I guess.
And the AI aren't that bad, just prone to completly losing the plot from time to time.
Just be open to the possibility of them costing you the game.

 

[Entitled]

Also, the difference between Prego and the coffee thing is the difference between gauging an actual preference versus obtaining someone's perception of their own preferences. You can have someone taste different things and they can tell you what they like. You can simply ask someone what they like and they'll tell you what sounds good. Hence, people say they want "rich, dark roasted" coffee when, in reality, they prefer the taste of something weaker and milkier.

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

I think, in gaming terms, "innovation" is also one of these perceived prefereces. It just sounds so damn good to claim that you want "some originality", and how it makes you sound like a jaded connoisseur, who is already familiar with everything under the sun.

Ask gamers simply "what they want", and they will cry for new IPs, for whacky genre combinations (like MMORTS), and for genres never seen before.

Yet even in the examples you gave for surprisingly successful games, what gamers turned out to really want were resurrections of old genres and beloved franchises, fine-tuned versions of comfortably familiar gameplay, and interesting plots that still fit into the basic trends of narratives.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

If there is one thing that really needs to listen to Jim's words and fits the pasta sauce analogy, it's the MMO genre. Considering WoW is the Ragu, and a whole lot of other MMOs are Pregos, no wonder people just aren't finding the series interesting enough to explore. GW2 really tried, and for the last few months I've heard nothing about it; TERA tried, and it ended up going F2P, and we all know what happened to TOR. TESO isn't looking too good either.

I know a lot of people have heard this from me, but I feel that the next big MMO will break a few "taboos" hovering around the genre and prove the thoughts about them wrong. One taboo I'm waiting for to be broken? Private server support. That word "Massive" in the acronym MMO can stand for something else in the games, it doesn't have to be about how many players there are on a server.

 

[Elyxard]

Definitely one of your best episodes. Put into clear and simple words what I couldn't quite figure out in my head.

For as much EA squanders on marketing, they have some of the worst marketers out there. They say they can't take risks in the big budget market anymore, but putting out such copy and paste drivel has been a hell of a lot more risky than actually exploring new territory. You can't make a good game based purely on established metrics.

 

[DragonDai]

Dear Jim,

I woke up about 15 minutes ago and, because it's Monday, one of the first things I did after getting my Cheerios was come watch your show. And then you said "Pasta Sauce." And I now feel my day is complete. Thank god, for you.

That being said (and I bloody well mean it, please, say Pasta Sauce at least once per episode, you'd make me so happy), this is exactly what I've been saying for a while, and it's the reason I think that in the near future, the majority of AAA publishers are gana go the way of THQ. A small handful might make it selling titles like CoD almost exclusively to console players. But that majority of games that won't suck will come from the indie scene. And, TBH, that makes me very very very very very very very very happy.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

I am that 1/3 of chunky users! I don't want big budget military shooters thrown at me right and left. Give me something new!

Goodness, this video was great. Thank God for Jim.

 

[deathbydeath]

Holy poop Jim, I am amazed. This is the first episode I've seen in a long time that didn't feel like a waste of time. Admittedly, I've been saying this for quite a while, but it was still a good episode.

 

[comadorcrack]

Frankly Jim, this has been said 100 times in 100 different ways. And you know what... this is probably you're best episode ever, because you have said it the best that it has ever been said.

Thank god for you Jim

 

[Rawbeard]

Unfortunatly the most important people to please are shareholders. Doing money is not enough, because you could have made Big Money! Not trying for Big Money, especially when competitors do it, makes shareholders unhappy. Decisions that make sense (and money) can't be made in such an enviroment.

 

[Rad Party God]

What I've wanted to see fully fledged in this gen was a freaking 3D platformer, not a stupid kart building game, thankfully Sonic Generations was awesome and I still play it from time to time, but I wanted a freaking collectathon, Banjo-Kazooie style.

While I appreciate Nintendo is still making great Mario platformers... they're still Mario platformers, we need something else.

Also, remember Bionic Commando Rearmed?, I want a fully fledged Contra game with that style of retro/new stuff, not a freaking MegaMan 9, heck, I wanted MegaMan with that style, not freaking 8 bits and then forget about it.

I mean, fortunately it's not all doom and gloom, thanks to the indie scene and it's multiple awesome 2D platformers, heck, even we have a AAA 2D platformer with Rayman Origins, Donkey Kong Returns and Sonic Generations (I consider it mostly 2D), but... I want a AAA 3D platformer with Banjo-Kazooie's style, or even better yet, a Banjo-Kazooie platformer.

 

[chiefohara]

You are obviously not a royalist anyway jim.

Good episode

 

[Waaghpowa]

I believe the recent Syndicate reboot could have been what XCOM Enemy Unknown is if they had bothered to release it as a strategy game. But no, opportunity wasted.