Square Enix and the Hitman Ripoff

[Callate]

'Course, the other problem with all this publisher-risk-aversion business is that if Hitman fails to sell, it may well kill the franchise. The big-money people often don't seem to have a lot of sense of nuance; it isn't that a wildly inappropriate mechanic was shoehorned into the most recent offering of the game, or that its initial release was buggy and full of holes, or that it was saddled with network functionality that was unnecessary to how most of the people wanted to play the game and hindered them from playing it, or even that the game itself just wasn't that good- no, the failure of a game on the market must mean that the franchise itself has lost its luster.

And the other half of the picture is that independents have become so dense on the ground that it's difficult for many of the smaller games to make enough of a splash to get noticed; PR/advertising may be a big money pit, but it's increasingly one of the biggest factors differentiating a AAA game from a really polished independent developer's offering.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

"Sure, you only got half a game, but you only paid for half a game"

this is the most stupid thing ever!

What would you say if you were thrown out of a movie midtime?

Half a game with no conclusion is all money and time lost.

And episodic game never worked worked well for indie devs.

TTG does NOT produce games in episodes - they release it that way!
They secured the money BEFOREHAND, damnit.
And this is why it does not work for anybody else, who does think it works otherwise.

The movie thing doesn't make sense in terms of us following the same movie ticket payment module.

I pay 8 dollars, I get to see the movie.

If it was the same as Mr. Young is saying, it would be I paid 2 dollars for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, there would be an intermission and those who were done would leave, and those who would want to stay in their seat would have to slip in 2 more dollars.

Getting kicked out after paying full price would be equivlient to hacking or pirating or doing something to violate the EULA anyway. You don't get kicked out because you happened to sit in the kick out lottery seat. You get kicked out for doing something wrong.

Also, I might be giving the designers credit (Sweet Zombie Jesus only knows why...) but I feel like it would be more along the Walking Dead by Telltale. You wouldn't just start walking down a hallway and then you hit a game wall that says "We're not done yet. See ya". There would probably be somewhat of a closure for that incident. Like how some tv shows didn't know if they were going to be picked up for the next season (A la Leverage on TNT) so every season ender could be a good place to call the show.

Speaking about the Walking Dead... Yeah, this thing has sort of already been done. The only (yet giant) difference was you had the option of playing all at once before or by episode. I don't know the particulars, but is that happening for Hitman? Do you HAVE to pay all at once with no option? Because if so, that makes me uneasy.

 

[Robyrt]

'Course, the other problem with all this publisher-risk-aversion business is that if Hitman fails to sell, it may well kill the franchise. The big-money people often don't seem to have a lot of sense of nuance; it isn't that a wildly inappropriate mechanic was shoehorned into the most recent offering of the game, or that its initial release was buggy and full of holes, or that it was saddled with network functionality that was unnecessary to how most of the people wanted to play the game and hindered them from playing it, or even that the game itself just wasn't that good- no, the failure of a game on the market must mean that the franchise itself has lost its luster.

Sadly, that view is pretty rational. In the media business, your best-selling album, novel or film is usually the one right after your creative peak, and falling sales are a sign that you need to reboot, rejuvenate or cancel. The game business is so expensive that you can only greenlight a handful of AAA games at once, so if your franchise runs into trouble for any reason, pulling the plug can save you a ton of money. If you recognize Daredevil is taking you nowhere, you don't have to spend millions of dollars making Elektra.

 

[Nurb]

We can only hope it's a miserable failure and they get enough bad press.

It seems the day has come

 

[DeadlyYellow]

It's the Early Access model.

Charge upfront, lose interest in project before all the promised features are implemented, quietly take the money and run.

Wonder if they'll still release to Steam.

 

[deathbydeath]

Marvel Studios is churning out movies and making billions doing it, and nobody is complaining about it.

Not trying to derail this, but I'm complaining >_>. What? I get miffed when a company blatantly offers inoffensive, generic tripe that doesn't have the creativity to actually be about superheroes and then everyone pats it on the back for being "bold" and "revolutionary". Don't judge me!

*ahem* Now that I got that out of my system, this was actually really interesting, especially the way you broke down consumer/developer/publisher responsibilities and how this throws it all out the window. Thanks, Shamus.

 

[Loonyyy]

Not really seeing the problem, and theres even one major problem with percieving it as a scam.

Primarily, if there was no commitment to finish the game then it defies all conventional reason to announce the game as an episodic thing when they could have just released what was done then add the rest later as DLC.

And not only that, while there is a risk that Squeenix might scrap the rest of the game and call it a day, but that would end up being a black mark on both thiers and IOs record like Aliens: Colonial Marines is for Gearbox.

Yes, SE plainly arent the brightest folk around, but i doubt theyre stupid enough to pull something that could up tanking thier prospects for more episodic releases in the future and having a negative impact on the sales of future releases like FF15, the FF7 remake, RotTR on PC/PS4 and whatever else is crawling through development hell over there.

But in all seriousness, at the most it just means ill defer on buying it until either they do release the rest of it or theres an inevitable Steam sale. Not as if there isnt already a couple dozen titles im looking at releasing in the next 6 months. Not counting books or movies, which would push that number close to 40.

The problem is, yet again, AAA publishers are crying poverty and resorting to what amount to crowdfunding style tactics, asking for money in the promise of future content, except here they're also being deliberately opaque about what that content will be, and aren't interested in calling it episodic, or actually finishing it. And the upshot of this is that the consumer potentially loses out, after paying full AAA price for the title.

And not buying it like that was exactly Shamus' recommendation. Waiting for a discount, or the game to actually be done, rather than helping them meet their Christmas shopping season and getting less than half a game, is holding them to standards, and not buying into their practice.

 

[Loonyyy]

Speaking about the Walking Dead... Yeah, this thing has sort of already been done. The only (yet giant) difference was you had the option of playing all at once before or by episode. I don't know the particulars, but is that happening for Hitman? Do you HAVE to pay all at once with no option? Because if so, that makes me uneasy.

All at once. Hence why Shamus, and more than a few other folk, are quite worried. You're paying full price for it, and I think that's $60 American, and god knows how much it'd be Australian. I really like what they've said about the game after Absolution (Which I loathed, and makes me wary as hell of their games), but they've paired it with this half-assed e-begging business model.

If they want me to buy a portion of a game, they should ask a portion of the price. Desperately begging for money to fund development? Not so much from a AAA dev, and not at a mandatory AAA pricepoint.

 

[Callate]

Sadly, that view is pretty rational. In the media business, your best-selling album, novel or film is usually the one right after your creative peak, and falling sales are a sign that you need to reboot, rejuvenate or cancel. The game business is so expensive that you can only greenlight a handful of AAA games at once, so if your franchise runs into trouble for any reason, pulling the plug can save you a ton of money. If you recognize Daredevil is taking you nowhere, you don't have to spend millions of dollars making Elektra.

It would be easier for me to buy it as a rational move if it seemed like there was a learning process in place. Instead, it seems like the franchise often gets to be the scapegoat rather than the fact that the same misguided approach has been used multiple times. For example: The premise that the higher graphic fidelity of (Title X) will cause people to overlook that features long-time players were used to in (Title X-1 and X-2) have been removed or are being sold as future installments. Or (hot new feature of the moment) is shoehorned into the latest version of the game, despite being out-of-place or downright antithetical to the original game's tone, mechanics, or genre.

Certainly there's a time and a place to simply give up on a long-running franchise. But in video games, it seems as often that the final surrender comes after said franchise is abruptly handed off to a new developer or changed from a real-time-strategy game into a first-person shooter, rather than that a creative plateau can reasonably said to have been reached.

(At least, that's what it looks like from the outside; certainly, stories of internal conflicts regarding popular IP can be a lot more complicated and hairy than it first appears.)

 

[Uhuru N'Uru]

Simple solution, don't buy the half made or part sold rubbish. Nothing else will stop it happening again.

As for Marvel's rubbish films, those who don't like them, like me. rarely complain, We just don't watch or take any notice of them.
I'm a huge Science Fiction fan, but never liked this Super Hero/Villian type stuff. Just to American centric, Pure Good v Pure Evil for my tastes.

Personally I hate the entire concept of episodic games, I've liked none of them and now won't even buy them until complete, if at all.
Even with Dreamfall Chapters, a game I really want to play and crowdfunded, so can get each episode. I don't, I refuse to play it until it's a fully finished game.

The thing I object to most in these sort of reports is, referring to Kickstarter, when you mean crowdfunding.
They are not the same thing.
Kickstarter is a specific companies crowdfunding system. One with a lot of flaws, like the all or nothing month to raise funding model.
A model that instills a false sense of urgency to raising an arbitary amount, one that can have no relation to the real costs involved.
Also it allows Publishers to be secret backers of the games, I crowdfund games to keep them publisher free.
Kickstarter take their cut when the Target is reached, out of funds raised.

Steam take there cut from each payment of an "Early Access" game, this isn't actually crowdfunding at all and even worse than Kickstarter.

I prefer the independant model pioneered by Star Citizen, yes I know they used Kickstarter as well, that was after already raising $2 Million themselves. Kickstarter hype was at fever pitch, when they launched one, at the urging of the existing backers.
During the Kickstarter, with their own site still active, they raised another $4 Million.
Currently at $87+ Million, it's clear Kickstarter wasn't required at all.
Now, most games won't require Star Citizen's budget, however they can still use the same open develepment/continued funding model, pioneered by Star Citizen.

Core features of such a model should be.
Startup Target required, without time limit to reach said target.
Limited Strech goals allowed, with backer feedback and choice, desirable.
Funds raised after limit reached, become comtingency funds for inevitable unplanned costs.
Any surplus goes towards free DLC after release of main game.
Fully open developement with Alpha/Beta Testing for all backers.

All are elements of the Star Citizen model, though as the first, they are making many mistakesT.
The model will be refined over time as we learn from those mistake.

These figures may not be exact, but they are ballpark and come from those involved on the game side of the deals.
Of money paid by public
Publisher takes 90%+, Game Devs gets 10% or less of each sale and lose the game rights.
Steam takes 30%, Game gets 70% of each sale, whether publisher involved or not.
Kickstarter takes 10%, Game Devs gets 90% of the funds raised and keep the game rights.
Open fundraising, Game Devs gets 100% of the funds raised and keep the game rights.

I crowdfund to back the game and keep the publishers away. Open fundraising does that best.
In all cases of crowdfunding, you are investing in a product (the game).
The return on successful completion is an awsome game, if that's what you want, crowdfund.
The risk, if it fails, is losing all the money you invested. If you are not willing to lose. don't crowdfund.

So please don't say Kickstarter instead of crowdfunding.
Kickstarter is a company taking profit from all the crowdfunding money of "Successful Kickstarters".
To them the success is meeting the target, not the games completion.

 

[Gone Rampant]

In the case of Hitman... I can see where Square are coming from.

Remember that Hitman's best games are the ones where the contracts are separated from each other entirely- meaning that nothing's stopping IO from adding more missions like that in the future. As well, the usual DLC practice of "Here's what the fans thought worked, we'll do more of that and stop doing what they didn't like."

What I'm trying to say is I'm cool with it, since it works for a game without an over-arching narrative like Hitman. If it was half the story, I'd be pissed, but simply getting more assassinations to mess around with post-release? I'm OK with it, at least as long as the game itself at launch has enough content- give me ten assassinations in the base game, add a dozen more with DLC? I'm down with it.