Strategy games 'not contemporary'.

[GothmogII]

Interview with Cristoph Hartmann of 2K Games. [http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/interview-christophhartmann-2kgames/082216]

But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing ? strategy games are just not contemporary.

"I use the example of music artists. Look at someone old school like Ray Charles, if he would make music today it would still be Ray Charles but he would probably do it more in the style of Kanye West. Bringing Ray Charles back is all fine and good, but it just needs to move on, although the core essence will still be the same.

"That's what we are trying to do. To renew Xcom but in line with what this generation of gamers want. The team behind it is asking themselves every day: 'Is it true to the values of the franchise?' It's not a case of cashing in on the name. We just need to renew it because times are changing."

I think I shuddered a little at that line of reasoning. I guess that makes me a 'conservative' gamer. I'm also a little confused at the assertion that this new XCOM is 'what this generation of gamers want' since the response to it has been almost uniformly negative, with the nicest thing anyone can say about it is that it 'might not be bad' and that we should wait and see.

I just wish they'd own up and admit this has nothing to do with XCOM in the slightest. Is a re-branding so difficult at this point?

As for strategy games not being the in thing. Hrr, let's ignore Starcraft 2, Shogun 2, Civilisation 5. Not to mention all the indie and casual stuff. Admittedly, strategy games, at least the big releases aren't as abundant as the many FPS'es and RPG's out there, but those that are available as mentioned there have been widely popular and successful.

Article via MCV [http://www.mcvuk.com/]

 

[Mr Thin]

What, this thread has no posts? Nonsense! Let's remedy that. Ahem.

BULLSHIT! What a ridiculous thing to say.

First, Kanye West has diamond teeth. Ray Charles does not and would not. End of discussion.

Second, I'm playing X-Com right now. I just bought a boatload of games on the steam sale, including Alpha Protocol, Killing Floor, Tropico 3 & Borderlands. And, of course, the X-Com pack.

I have spent more time playing X-Com (just the first one) than all those games combined. And I'm not some 35 year old guy who prefers old games; I'm 19, I prefer FPS to turn-based RTS, I'm a sucker for shiny graphics and I love me some Modern Warfare.

But this game... it's just so GOOD! So painfully GOOD!

What I'm getting at here is that this guy is wrong. In case you didn't pick up on that.

 

[ADeskofRichMahogany]

First person shooters have a much lower learning curve than strategy games, which appeals to new players. Thus, to meet demand and make inroads to that market, there are many more FPS games than strategy games nowadays. I suppose Mr. Hartmann is seeing this and believes strategy games just aren't cool anymore? Can't really agree with that, Mr. Hartmann, but OK, sure, whatever. Still think you should have left XCOM as a turn based strategy, simply for the old crowd who loved it.

Also because it was really, really good.

 

[Limecake]

Hrr, let's ignore Starcraft 2, Shogun 2, Civilisation 5. Not to mention all the indie and casual stuff.

I think the point he's trying to make is that strategy games (like the ones you pointed out) are best played out on a computer, with consoles becoming more popular and 'cheaper?' a lot of fresh gaming players will move to consoles where strategy games are (mostly) irrelevant.

Same goes for the casual and indie stuff, since it's much easier to get your game out there than it would be to try and make it to the PSN or XBLA.

Even I used to play the original stracraft, however I'm terrible at RTS games and I've been playing games my entire life! Strategy especially RTS ones are very difficult to get into since the majority of players will spend there first couple days getting stomped by anything except single player.

I agree that strategy games are far from being on the way out, but they are definitely becoming a niche genre.

 

[Weaver]

My favorite part is his terribly circular reasoning.
We're not making TBS games because no one is making TBS games. No one is making TBS games because no one is playing TBS games. However, no one is playing TBS games because no one is fucking making them. Doesn't the success of Civ V and Civ IV mean anything? Even real time 4x like Sins of a Solar Empire sold well. What about starcraft 2 being the fastest selling RTS game in the history of the industry?

I'm fairly sure there is a large contemporary market for all sorts of strategy games.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

Well, he's certainly entitled to his wrong-ass opinion. His Ray Charles comparison is stupid as hell, too. If Ray Charles went Kanye, i think i'd die a little inside (and i'm not even a Ray Charles fan, per se).

 

[Neverhoodian]

But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing ? strategy games are just not contemporary.

I've only recently started playing X-COM: UFO Defense (thanks, Steam summer sale), but it's already one of my favorite strategy games. Given the sheer number of fan remakes and homage games over the years (not to mention other titles like the Civilization series), I think it's a safe bet that there's still not only a viable market, but there are a legion of gamers clamoring for more.

No, I think Spoony's reaction still applies here (yes I know it's not actually five seconds):

 

[Weaver]

What, this thread has no posts? Nonsense! Let's remedy that. Ahem.

BULLSHIT! What a ridiculous thing to say.

First, Kanye West has diamond teeth. Ray Charles does not and would not. End of discussion.

Second, I'm playing X-Com right now. I just bought a boatload of games on the steam sale, including Alpha Protocol, Killing Floor, Tropico 3 & Borderlands. And, of course, the X-Com pack.

I have spent more time playing X-Com (just the first one) than all those games combined. And I'm not some 35 year old guy who prefers old games; I'm 19, I prefer FPS to turn-based RTS, I'm a sucker for shiny graphics and I love me some Modern Warfare.

But this game... it's just so GOOD! So painfully GOOD!

What I'm getting at here is that this guy is wrong. In case you didn't pick up on that.

Props to you! It's really great to see some of the younger generation enjoying the classics. X-Com: UFO Defense is probably one of my all time favorite games so it's nice to see it appreciated

 

[Nieroshai]

Chess is still the most-played game ever or darn close to it. So you could say the most popular game ever is one of the oldest turn-based strategy games ever.

 

[aba1]

Chess is still the most-played game ever or darn close to it. So you could say the most popular game ever is one of the oldest turn-based strategy games ever.

Even MTG has been on the rise over the last few years and thats a fairly old example too hell look how well the XBLA version has done.

Personally I used to hate stradagy now I love it. I love puzzle games like ilomilo and limbo too.

 

[Veylon]

There's a major difference between renewing the franchise and jumping to a completely different genre. I'm not entirely opposed to a FPS X-COM, but there has to be more to it than that. Key parts of the series, such as base management, team management, research, and overall strategy seem to have been excised or grossly reduced.

Imagine an X-COM where you get word that aliens have landed near a town. You gather up your troops and take off. Then you fly the lander over and around the town to see what's going on before picking out a landing spot. After that, you get to be one of the troopers (or the tank) and if you die, you be someone else. You have to figure out how best to defeat the aliens in the area and raid the UFO without losing all your troops or destroying the technology you're trying to get your hands on. There's plenty of cool stuff that could be done with X-COM without throwing away the formula.

 

[Frotality]

is he suggesting ray charles should do rap? because frankly i find kanye to have like 2 tolerable songs and a pile of shitty ones; but then again im not the target demographic....well im 18-34, male, and i look white, so actually its completely within the bounds of popular opinion to say that rapping ray charles is a god awful idea and so is an FPS XCOM.

hes is trying to say that some genres arent as popular today as they were before (no shit, theyre still commercially viable, just not as much as say....an FPS), but then completely invalidates himself by suggesting that taking something popular from one genre and switching it to another will somehow preserve its popularity into a whole different market; a common business mistake. he then goes one further by suggesting something popular 30 years ago can do well if it jumps onto the bandwagon of modern popularity....

heres the thing; no one in their right mind would suggest ray charles would do well rapping. you are suggesting the path to making ray charles a part of modern culture isnt a modern singer taking his style and mixing it with their own (compatible) style, but to turn ray charles himself into a f**king rapper. if you want to do rap, do rap, dont cling to a once popular name and claim to be reviving it for a new audience when all your doing is trying to have some of its popularity rub off on your generic modern product.

this is an ass-backwards design philosophy, and if this is how this guy works, i completely understand wanting to scream BETRAYAL in public at the mere mention of it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

(not to mention other titles like the Civilization series)

Want to guess which publisher named '2K Games' handled Civs 3, 4 and 5?

Doesn't the success of Civ V and Civ IV mean anything?

Apparently not to their publisher...

So yeah, 2K Games only publish the biggest franchise in turn based strategy games but it seems they're not contemporary anymore... despite the fact that they were contemporary enough less than a year ago when Civ 5 launched.

Is it a law or something that when your game publishing company reaches a certain size it has to be headed up by a complete bellend who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the media?

 

[Irridium]

I'm not against completely changing things. Hell, I'm really psyched for Prey 2, which looks nothing like Prey 1.

But the main problem I have with the new X-Com game, is that it just looks so fucking bland. Nothing I've seen of it makes it look interesting. NOTHING. It just looks like another god damn boring shooter.

 

[Wicky_42]

There's a major difference between renewing the franchise and jumping to a completely different genre. I'm not entirely opposed to a FPS X-COM, but there has to be more to it than that. Key parts of the series, such as base management, team management, research, and overall strategy seem to have been excised or grossly reduced.

Imagine an X-COM where you get word that aliens have landed near a town. You gather up your troops and take off. Then you fly the lander over and around the town to see what's going on before picking out a landing spot. After that, you get to be one of the troopers (or the tank) and if you die, you be someone else. You have to figure out how best to defeat the aliens in the area and raid the UFO without losing all your troops or destroying the technology you're trying to get your hands on. There's plenty of cool stuff that could be done with X-COM without throwing away the formula.

Or even better, to expand on that, they invest in making some good-to-honest intelligent AI and your hand-picked squad of troopers follow you into battle, responding not just to direct enemy threats by also to psychological events and influences based on their past experiences - a trooper who's previously been injured by a shot through a wall may value cover less, someone prone to getting caught in blasts may avoid clumping more vigorously - each troop would develop a personality and traits that make it all the more wrenching when they die in the line of duty.

But yeah, first-person experience of a planet-wide invasion would be cool, and could be married up very easily with the ability to send completely AI controlled research/recon/raid missions off from a global map whilst you personally take control of only the missions you want, managing resources and research on a macro scale before a combat mission warranting your attention crops up.

What I've seen of 2K's take on the IP just looks plain bad. However, so does the only trailer for the new Planetside and yet people have confidence in it, so I guess you can't really know until there's a proper finished article out. Maybe they really have hit on the winning formula... though their comments don't seem to suggest that they're in touch with their customer base.

 

[Weaver]

There's a major difference between renewing the franchise and jumping to a completely different genre. I'm not entirely opposed to a FPS X-COM, but there has to be more to it than that. Key parts of the series, such as base management, team management, research, and overall strategy seem to have been excised or grossly reduced.

Imagine an X-COM where you get word that aliens have landed near a town. You gather up your troops and take off. Then you fly the lander over and around the town to see what's going on before picking out a landing spot. After that, you get to be one of the troopers (or the tank) and if you die, you be someone else. You have to figure out how best to defeat the aliens in the area and raid the UFO without losing all your troops or destroying the technology you're trying to get your hands on. There's plenty of cool stuff that could be done with X-COM without throwing away the formula.

This is part of my problem with the game too; this isn't an X-Com game in any god damn way. It's not set in the same time period, none of the weapons are the same, the aliens are entirely different (and it's been confirmed there won't be any old aliens like we had before) and to top it off it's not a strategy game. Hell, it even takes place in a pre-defined location of the world (smalltown USA) instead of anywhere on the planet you wanted. If they had called this game something like "Encounters" or "Invasion" I would have had no idea that it would be in any way a sequel to X-COM.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Hell, it even takes place in a pre-defined location of the world (smalltown USA) instead of anywhere on the planet you wanted.

That really killed things for me... I always refused missions in the US.

 

[Aisaku]

All valid arguments here. RTS should get more exposure. Conversely, I'm reminded of a couple of videos of the Bioshock development cycle. Publishers like 2k don't want pretty good sales, they don't want to get in the same room where 'niche' is whispered. They want BIG GUNs, games that will be released to critical acclaim, but above all else, record breaking sales. In trying to make X-COM what it is not, they've painted themselves into a corner. Brace for impact.

 

[veloper]

So instead 2K dumps money into another generic FPS and compete against Battlefield and Modern Warfare and a whole bunch of much more popular shooters, made and being made by much more experienced and accomplished studios.

And hoping the XCOM name will save them, when everyone who's ever heared of XCOM either doesn't care at all, or wants the turn-based strategy game the original was.

The shortsightedness of 2K is baffling.

 

[Savagezion]

"That's what we are trying to do. To renew Xcom but in line with what this generation of gamers want. The team behind it is asking themselves every day: 'Is it true to the values of the franchise?' It's not a case of cashing in on the name. We just need to renew it because times are changing."

And this is where it began reaking of utter bullshit. "What the gamers want" and "We're not cashing in" back to back is a huge red flag. Someone confident wouldn't feel the need to focus on this. I think 2k is intimidated by the bad responses they have been getting.