I wish the shooter games would die down for pete sake! I can't stand shooters or understand why they are so popular... I feel this shooter craze is holding back other good game genres because investors, companies, and developers want that 11 million plus people that buy Call of Duty and all the 15 dollar DLC... I know people still play RPGs, sports, RTS, and etc. Some sell up to 3-7 million, but they become copy/paste franchises themselves and lose portions of what made them great (not all ofcorse). I rather play a lesser known brand name title now then a well known one. Yes, I am biased and jaded (on shooters), but everyone is in one way or another.
Xcom Publisher: Strategy Games Are Not Contemporary
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
Dont know if its been said erlier in the conversation and i apologise if i missed it.
Anyone remember XCOM: Enforcer or on another note C&C: Renigade
its been tried before and failed. Its true what they say you ether learn from history or are doomed to repeat it.
Anyone remember XCOM: Enforcer or on another note C&C: Renigade
its been tried before and failed. Its true what they say you ether learn from history or are doomed to repeat it.
It is sad that we won't get a new X-Com, but some generic FPS with horrible looking aliens, which remind me of Mass Effect's Husks, but only worse looking.
[http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/xcomhusk.png/]
Can you even tell the difference?
Why can't Hartmann understand that a game genre can be revived, by making it more understandable? When I was 8 years old I almost had no idea what I was doing or was supposed to do(I played X-Com:Apocalypse btw. and my native language isn't english), but I recently bought it from Steam and I love it, playing X-Com:Apocalypse I mean. If Hartmann had revived the X-Com, he could have added so much more into it, THINK ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES!
And if Hartmann that desperately wanted to make a FPS, he could have made it that the real time combat is third person shooter mode and the player could order other squads (behavior, strategy, what road they take etc. etc.) through overhead tactical map, while controlling a single agent directly and leading that squad(unless would prefer to go commando). Then there would be a shooter and a turn based game in same pack! Or would that fry your brain Mr.Hartmann?
And this isn't X-Com, it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the X-Com:
1.Wrong time period(it's based on past, not future).
2.None of these aliens are in any previous X-Coms.
3.It's not even called X-Com, but xcom.
4.All new origin story set in 1962 America. So it's not even in canon with the earlier X-Coms.
Can you even tell the difference?
Why can't Hartmann understand that a game genre can be revived, by making it more understandable? When I was 8 years old I almost had no idea what I was doing or was supposed to do(I played X-Com:Apocalypse btw. and my native language isn't english), but I recently bought it from Steam and I love it, playing X-Com:Apocalypse I mean. If Hartmann had revived the X-Com, he could have added so much more into it, THINK ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES!
And if Hartmann that desperately wanted to make a FPS, he could have made it that the real time combat is third person shooter mode and the player could order other squads (behavior, strategy, what road they take etc. etc.) through overhead tactical map, while controlling a single agent directly and leading that squad(unless would prefer to go commando). Then there would be a shooter and a turn based game in same pack! Or would that fry your brain Mr.Hartmann?
And this isn't X-Com, it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the X-Com:
1.Wrong time period(it's based on past, not future).
2.None of these aliens are in any previous X-Coms.
3.It's not even called X-Com, but xcom.
4.All new origin story set in 1962 America. So it's not even in canon with the earlier X-Coms.
I said early 2000's though so at most 2005. But yah still I was asking how many new strategy games that are not franchises have sold much? I mean Ubisoft tried two unique titles of Endwar and RUSE but both failed (And they were good, RUSE at least, the only negative complaint I heard was "It's not like CoH" or something of that).Ghengis John said:
You may be, but as you yourself said it certainly seems like the market and profits for shooters are much higher. There's a much better chance of later porting to consoles for shooters. I would guess, though I haven't seen the numbers, that there's greater numbers of people buying shooters, and I suspect the crucial nail in the coffin is that if people were to be presented with buying a new IP, one of which is a shooter and the other a strategy game, I bet more people would go for a shooter.Greg Tito said:
Strategy games aren't the hot thing they used to be when Age of Empires was riding high, but neither are platoformers, or puzzle-based games, or adventure games, or jRPGs and the Final Fantasy craze, and at some point the shooter will follow them, but right now the shooter is the hot property. As far as I can see, the only people who really rabidly defend the strategy game are the fans of the genre, just like the people who still rabidly defend platformers or adventures games etc. (Not saying you are one of these rabid defenders, just that this could well be a case of fan myopia)
Of course, the real question is this: Will they make more money from the casual shooter crowd than they would by marketing a game exclusively to the fans of the old strategy games? Because in thruth they wouldn't even be marketing to all strategy fans, but to fans of the original XCom, and hoping to score some periphery demographics within the shooter market. And whenever a company tries that, only marketing to one very small group of fans, they usually don't do very well. The companies that do well are the ones that do something different, even at the cost of the original fanbase.
I laugh at the hypocrisy of "being true to the spirit of XCOM" while at the same time "moving away from the archaic TBS and RTS elements of the past"... which WAS the spirit of XCOM.
Fallout 3 is lobbied around here as a game that "crossed genres". No. No it did not. At its heart, Fallout 3 is exactly like the first Fallout games, in aesthetics, music, story, and heavy RPG mechanics, just put through a first person perspective. Metroid Prime is the same thing; absolutely, 100% pure Metroid adventure, with all the puzzles, exploration, and combat of the originals, just through a different lens.
This new game, however, strips out the guts of the original XCOM game, removing the music, art style, aesthetics, gameplay, story.... what's left? A name. And that's what's infuriating. It would be like if a new Call of Duty-clone emerged with the name "The Legend of Zelda" about a marine nicknamed Link trying to save his girlfriend by killing the evil GANON government terrorists that kidnapped her, but it was set in the near future and played like Call of Duty. You don't think Zelda fans would be insanely pissed off, even if the game itself played just fine? It's a betrayal of the franchise's legacy, and a subversion of everything that worked, and worked well, about the genre.
And strategy games ARE contemporary. I remember when people were saying 2D-perspective fighting games were no longer contemporary because Soul Calibur and Tekken were popular and then, BAM, Street Fighter IV and the new Mortal Kombat emerge to huge critical and commercial success because gamers were dying for that type of game that few companies were providing.
Now is the BEST time for a strategy game, RTS or TBS, because of so few competitors on the market. It would stand out. It would excite old fans. It would draw in new fans to a whole new genre that they might rarely experience otherwise.
But... no. It's a FPS with nothing in common but the name.
Well, good luck "XCOM". Have fun standing out amongst Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Haze, Medal of Honor, Singularity, Bioshock, Prey, Timesplinters, Timeshift, Crysis, Unreal Tournament, Homefront, Killzone, Resistance, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem Forever, Serious Sam, The Conduit, Metro 2033, F.E.A.R., Deus Ex: Human Revolution... and those were just off the top of my head.
Fallout 3 is lobbied around here as a game that "crossed genres". No. No it did not. At its heart, Fallout 3 is exactly like the first Fallout games, in aesthetics, music, story, and heavy RPG mechanics, just put through a first person perspective. Metroid Prime is the same thing; absolutely, 100% pure Metroid adventure, with all the puzzles, exploration, and combat of the originals, just through a different lens.
This new game, however, strips out the guts of the original XCOM game, removing the music, art style, aesthetics, gameplay, story.... what's left? A name. And that's what's infuriating. It would be like if a new Call of Duty-clone emerged with the name "The Legend of Zelda" about a marine nicknamed Link trying to save his girlfriend by killing the evil GANON government terrorists that kidnapped her, but it was set in the near future and played like Call of Duty. You don't think Zelda fans would be insanely pissed off, even if the game itself played just fine? It's a betrayal of the franchise's legacy, and a subversion of everything that worked, and worked well, about the genre.
And strategy games ARE contemporary. I remember when people were saying 2D-perspective fighting games were no longer contemporary because Soul Calibur and Tekken were popular and then, BAM, Street Fighter IV and the new Mortal Kombat emerge to huge critical and commercial success because gamers were dying for that type of game that few companies were providing.
Now is the BEST time for a strategy game, RTS or TBS, because of so few competitors on the market. It would stand out. It would excite old fans. It would draw in new fans to a whole new genre that they might rarely experience otherwise.
But... no. It's a FPS with nothing in common but the name.
Well, good luck "XCOM". Have fun standing out amongst Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Haze, Medal of Honor, Singularity, Bioshock, Prey, Timesplinters, Timeshift, Crysis, Unreal Tournament, Homefront, Killzone, Resistance, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem Forever, Serious Sam, The Conduit, Metro 2033, F.E.A.R., Deus Ex: Human Revolution... and those were just off the top of my head.
Sell games in bulk. Screw niche markets and dedicated fan bases, you don't matter and they don't want your money.
The irony is that this notion that only shooters are marketable also fails to take into account the fact that most modern shooter fans probably don't know or care about the Xcom series and will likely blow their cash on CoD and Battlefield anyway. By turning their backs on their fans they basically lost the largest and most successful demographic the game would of had.
I mean even if it was at least and RTS opposed to a shooter I think many fan would agree that was a logical step in the next directions, but turning it into a shooter is a step back.
The irony is that this notion that only shooters are marketable also fails to take into account the fact that most modern shooter fans probably don't know or care about the Xcom series and will likely blow their cash on CoD and Battlefield anyway. By turning their backs on their fans they basically lost the largest and most successful demographic the game would of had.
I mean even if it was at least and RTS opposed to a shooter I think many fan would agree that was a logical step in the next directions, but turning it into a shooter is a step back.
This is probably the most retarded statement anyone has made in that last few months. As the The Spoony One said on Twitter, ""strategy games are just not contemporary." Eat my taint. I got about 100 hours logged into Civ5 says you're buttfucking a great series."
Also, wasn't Civ5 released by 2k? I think Spoony will be right in saying that XCOM will be a terrible game.
Also, wasn't Civ5 released by 2k? I think Spoony will be right in saying that XCOM will be a terrible game.
Ah that too.s0m3th1ng said:
Its such a shame that the big developers/publishers are ignoring the PC, because if they rethink their strategies just a bit, then they could be rolling in dough!
I'm not too saddened though, because the indie has filled their void very well actually.
Its about taking advantage of digital formats (where people can literally go anywhere on the internet, so long as they know its there, (whereas in retail people have to go to places to buy stuff (though online retailers now bridge that gap very comfortably)), focusing on volume instead of profit per unit, and being honest (because if a person has ready access to a PC, they will easily find infomation about almost anything).
Why do you think the digital distributers are doing so well? ;D
PC gamers aren't a tough crowd to win, big developers/publishers are just working on archaic business model.
(The old generation model. But the issue with that is on the PC, there are no generations, just a gradual progression and an even market. Indies are on home turf, and they wield the mighty hammer of creativity, and unless effort is put in to at least match that, higher production values, (in a general sense) struggles to beat that (as higher production values usually equals more cost))
How successful is Starcraft 2? Massively? I thought so.
If you want to make a shooter of something, try for a different angle, make the old genre first to appease the fans of that genre then do a spin off. Hell, I'd still buy Starcraft Ghost if it ever came out.
Turn based strategy is largely dead(Total War being a notable exception, the dual system works well, Civ being the other), RTS is quite alive and popular enough to be profitable. I feel like going out an buying another strategy game just to prove this dick wrong.
If you want to make a shooter of something, try for a different angle, make the old genre first to appease the fans of that genre then do a spin off. Hell, I'd still buy Starcraft Ghost if it ever came out.
Turn based strategy is largely dead(Total War being a notable exception, the dual system works well, Civ being the other), RTS is quite alive and popular enough to be profitable. I feel like going out an buying another strategy game just to prove this dick wrong.
1. destructible environments
2. random level generation
3. resource management in purchase and research
4. skills that effect gameplay like in Fallout 3
5. inventory management with weapons having weight
6. civilians to protect because this isn't borderlands
7. realtime/pause building mode where you pick which missions to send your squad on
Fallout gameplay wasn't perfect but it was a good example of how to translate turn based strategy combat into realtime fps
You can lose turn based strategy but if you lose any of the listed elements then the game will suck
2. random level generation
3. resource management in purchase and research
4. skills that effect gameplay like in Fallout 3
5. inventory management with weapons having weight
6. civilians to protect because this isn't borderlands
7. realtime/pause building mode where you pick which missions to send your squad on
Fallout gameplay wasn't perfect but it was a good example of how to translate turn based strategy combat into realtime fps
You can lose turn based strategy but if you lose any of the listed elements then the game will suck
Not really, you're just being told that what you want isn't what they think will make them the big bucks so they don't really care what you want.omega247 said:
Of course, seeing as the new X-Com is likely to be a complete failure as everyone who is interested in FPS games will just buy Halo/CoD/Resistance/Etc. instead we all know those dollar signs they are imagining will never materialize.
People don't know what they want that's why you should make a good game before trying to pander to the public. Look at Red Dead Redemption even with the Rockstar name behind it everyone expected it to fail and it was one of the most succesful games of that year.
FPSs are a too competative market these days people only want what they know in terms of FPSs that's why Call of Duty sells millions and a game like Homefront sells like shit. Making another FPS oversaturates the market people don't want more FPSs they want the same FPSs but with a higher number after the title.
While making a proper modern Xcom game may be risky, putting it on the 3DS or as a downloadable title could sell like gangbusters and if it doesn't sell you've cut the development costs so the loss wouldn't be as bad as when they lose money on this FPS, which they will.
FPSs are a too competative market these days people only want what they know in terms of FPSs that's why Call of Duty sells millions and a game like Homefront sells like shit. Making another FPS oversaturates the market people don't want more FPSs they want the same FPSs but with a higher number after the title.
While making a proper modern Xcom game may be risky, putting it on the 3DS or as a downloadable title could sell like gangbusters and if it doesn't sell you've cut the development costs so the loss wouldn't be as bad as when they lose money on this FPS, which they will.
They could have just changed the label from Xcom to something else and avoided this whole mess. But no, they had to go accuse one of the most enduring game genres of not being contemporary, in the face of hot titles like Civ 5 and Starcraft 2. They are clearly not the best marketers. Not EA level bad, but still pretty bad.
If games in the style of X-Com aren't contemporary, why is it that people still.. well, play X-Com? For that matter, why did sites like Steam bother picking up the original X-Com for their sales list?
I'm sorry, guys, not only is the argument "strategy games aren't contemporary" utter horse manure -- from all the videos and screen shots I've seen it just doesn't look like this game will have anything close to the feel of being X-com, let alone being one.
Go back, play the original. Find a way to bring that game to this time and place.
Go back, play the original. Find a way to bring that game to this time and place.