Making Dead Space 3's Co-op Good Was "Shockingly Difficult"

[Dfskelleton]

This is very saddening... it's like having an underpaid uncle that you love who has to keep doing more and more degrading things just to make a living. But he's being optimistic about it, and that makes it all the sadder.
I loved Dead Space; it wasn't really scary (the jump scares got old pretty quick), but it had good atmosphere, good gameplay, and surprisingly good story, too. Dead Space 2 was more fun, the story was still good, but most of the atmosphere was gone. Dead Space 3 is not looking very good, from what I can tell. Even if the multiplayer is good, it's not really Dead Space anymore. Then again, I could always be wrong; the game hasn't released yet.
I'm probably going to buy it anyways, because frankly, I kind of like Visceral; I don't want EA to murder them, too. Then again, maybe it's better if they get shut down; it's better for them to go out now than to devolve to a miserable, shallow husk of their former selves before crapping their pants and going under.

 

[lordmardok]

Unfortunately I'll never see all the hard work they put into this game because they are under the worst publisher in history. It would have been nice.

You could always just pirate the game first to see if it's a randy pile of effluvium or if it's actually worth your money.

...

...

Not that I support pirating.

Obviously.

Cuz that would be wrong.

...

*coughcough*

 

[Antari]

Unfortunately I'll never see all the hard work they put into this game because they are under the worst publisher in history. It would have been nice.

You could always just pirate the game first to see if it's a randy pile of effluvium or if it's actually worth your money.

...

...

Not that I support pirating.

Obviously.

Cuz that would be wrong.

...

*coughcough*

If EA is releasing it. I can't even be bothered to do that. I've given it as much attention as its going to get.

 

[Susan Arendt]

I just wish developers would understand that there is a huge portion of the market that have no interest in multiplayer. I would really just rather they had put that time into developing more/bigger maps so that I get more/better value for the money I spend on the game.

I happen to agree, but don't see the relevance here. This isn't multiplayer (in the "map" sense), it's optional co-op. I only played the first few hours, admittedly, but I in no way felt the game was diminished by playing it solo, and I don't get the feeling it would have been substantially bigger or better had they ditched the co-op idea.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I just wish developers would understand that there is a huge portion of the market that have no interest in multiplayer. I would really just rather they had put that time into developing more/bigger maps so that I get more/better value for the money I spend on the game.

I happen to agree, but don't see the relevance here. This isn't multiplayer (in the "map" sense), it's optional co-op. I only played the first few hours, admittedly, but I in no way felt the game was diminished by playing it solo, and I don't get the feeling it would have been substantially bigger or better had they ditched the co-op idea.

By creating multiplayer and/or co-op in ANY game it diverts time, money, and resources away from the development of singleplayer, and, especially in a survival horror game series like Dead Space singleplayer is what people want, since having someone around to help ruins the atmosphere and immersion in a survival horror, and really, it ruins the atmosphere and immersion in ANY game in which it exists and isn't designed for. It's impossible to gauge what effect tossing in multiplayer has on a game's singleplayer quality, since we can't see into parallel dimensions, but it's impossible that it there isn't at least some detrimental effect. There are plenty of games out there designed specifically for multiplayer, more than enough in fact, multiplayer DOES NOT need to be shoehorned into any game, period. If that's something that developers are going to do, they should just build game around multiplayer instead, it would work better for everyone.

A game should NEVER need multiplayer to get sales, (and it should never require anywhere near 5 million sales to be profitable either) if singleplayer can't stand on it's own and is so dull and boring that it can't keep the buyer from just chucking it into a box in a closet somewhere forever or selling it without throwing in some multiplayer mode, well designed or not, it's a crappy game. Besides, you aren't always going to have someone else around to do the multiplayer with at all times even if it's a internet multiplayer, and with internet multiplayer you'll have to deal with 10 inept, incompetent, or downright rude and malicious players for every 1 actually competent and trustworthy player that you end up with.

 

[TakeyB0y2]

Er... EA? Dead Space 2 only sold 2.77 million copies, across all platforms and worldwide. Combine it with Dead Space 1 and yeah, then you'll be over the 5 million mark, but this game alone?

Not very many games can break that 5 million mark; The Sims 2 only hit 3 million, and it's the sequel to THE best-selling PC game of all time (11 million). Mass Effect 3 was one of the most anticipated games of 2012, and is certainly more popular than Dead Space, yet only hit 4.4 million.

I guess we can say bye-bye to Dead Space.

 

[EeviStev]

Steve Papoutsis: "EA is very supportive of the creatives."

So long as you sell 5 million copies of the game you're making.

I guess we can say bye-bye to Dead Space.

 

[Icehearted]

The nice thing about this article is it helps remind me that Dead Space 3 is a thing, and as a thing I have come to hate it before it exists. Prejudgement? Nope, just sensibility. I hate being struck in the face, so I have learned to avoid it in the future. I hate shoe-horned/tacked-on multiplayer, so I have learned to avoid it in the future. I suppose there's a market for teabagging dismembered bodies with xXx_wienercaulk69_xXx, but then there's also a market for placenta juice, and like placenta smoothies, hearing profanity-riddled racist diatribes by tweens when I play video games just isn't for me. I will now resume not caring about it and forgetting it exists again.

I do like this talk about cut content though, the shitstorms this creates tend to be morbidly amusing.

"Prejudgement? Nope, just sensibility." So your saying your sensitive, well that definitely shows lol seems your handling all the whiny ass diatribes all by lonesome.

Touche.

In case you missed it I'm not alone in how I feel about this, mate. Go ahead and hate me for having taste though, that's fine.

 

[carpathic]

I just wish developers would understand that there is a huge portion of the market that have no interest in multiplayer. I would really just rather they had put that time into developing more/bigger maps so that I get more/better value for the money I spend on the game.

I happen to agree, but don't see the relevance here. This isn't multiplayer (in the "map" sense), it's optional co-op. I only played the first few hours, admittedly, but I in no way felt the game was diminished by playing it solo, and I don't get the feeling it would have been substantially bigger or better had they ditched the co-op idea.

I would think the relevance is obvious, every dollar spent on multiplayer is money that could have been spent developing models, new maps or even an entirely new chapter. Additionally, it would lower the potential threshold for how much money a game needs to make to be considered a "success". Selling 5 million copies is difficult, adding in a specious multiplayer that just increases the number of sales needed to be a success helps nothing. I am also reminded of the "optional" multiplayer in Mass Effect 3. It stopped me from buying the game until the price came down because a huge amount of the work done by the developers did not matter to me.

Finally, it strikes me that rather than a difficult to introduce multiplayer co-op that has to be done via networked machines, perhaps companies could just do a split screen? As far back as Golden Axe on the genesis, this was an effective option for drop-in, but I guess the company couldn't make you buy two copies of the game to play with your friend.

I guess, bitchy retort from me aside (sorry if the tone was off, I am quite humbled that you responded to one of my posts) I would challenge you to identify why my comment might lack relevance?

 

[Susan Arendt]

I just wish developers would understand that there is a huge portion of the market that have no interest in multiplayer. I would really just rather they had put that time into developing more/bigger maps so that I get more/better value for the money I spend on the game.

I happen to agree, but don't see the relevance here. This isn't multiplayer (in the "map" sense), it's optional co-op. I only played the first few hours, admittedly, but I in no way felt the game was diminished by playing it solo, and I don't get the feeling it would have been substantially bigger or better had they ditched the co-op idea.

I would think the relevance is obvious, every dollar spent on multiplayer is money that could have been spent developing models, new maps or even an entirely new chapter. Additionally, it would lower the potential threshold for how much money a game needs to make to be considered a "success". Selling 5 million copies is difficult, adding in a specious multiplayer that just increases the number of sales needed to be a success helps nothing. I am also reminded of the "optional" multiplayer in Mass Effect 3. It stopped me from buying the game until the price came down because a huge amount of the work done by the developers did not matter to me.

Finally, it strikes me that rather than a difficult to introduce multiplayer co-op that has to be done via networked machines, perhaps companies could just do a split screen? As far back as Golden Axe on the genesis, this was an effective option for drop-in, but I guess the company couldn't make you buy two copies of the game to play with your friend.

I guess, bitchy retort from me aside (sorry if the tone was off, I am quite humbled that you responded to one of my posts) I would challenge you to identify why my comment might lack relevance?

Simply that you brought up multiplayer, while this was co-op. If you're lumping them together as things that simply draw resources from single player, ok, but you're using the terms interchangeably, which I find problematic. (Yes, co-op by definition has multiple players, but the terms "multiplayer" and "co-op" refer to specific types of gameplay, so I think it makes sense to use them as such.) Quibbling over semantics, perhaps.

 

[Zeke Kates]

Ok, anyone saying this game will be awful, is just talking out their ass, this is a beloved franchise, and visceral knows what they're doing, they are not getting off track, I've been playing the demo, and it is amazing! It is very scary, and suspenseful, as for not being scary anymore, it gives you downtime moments of just fighting, they aren't wrecking the game! It's not a b-grade game, the mechanics are exceptional, and many great new features, all of you just want to bad mouth it because you have nothing better to do. I'm a beloved dead space fan and see absolutely nothing wrong with the upcoming game, if you disagree, get the demo, it'll show you! I played the demo on single player, and coop, I still get the same story, and experience, it doesn't make you miss anything! I'm standing up for a series that doesn't need this bad publicity from idiots like you guys!

 

[EeviStev]

The nice thing about this article is it helps remind me that Dead Space 3 is a thing, and as a thing I have come to hate it before it exists. Prejudgement? Nope, just sensibility. I hate being struck in the face, so I have learned to avoid it in the future... I will now resume not caring about it and forgetting it exists again.

You should care about EA's unreasonable demands and the ways in which they're trying to squeeze every cent they can from a much-loved franchise. Instead of avoiding getting slapped in the face, you (and by extension I mean 'we as gamers') should voice our objections about and do what we can to stop these people who go around slapping people in the face. Otherwise the only way to not get slapped will be to never leave the house. And that's as far as I'll go with that analogy.