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[keltickennedy]

It just really baffles me that they have done both the more mature tone games, Resistance series and also the way more toon/stylized stuff, Ratchet and Clank. Didn't Resistance 3 freaking bomb in sales. While Rachet and Clank have always done decent numbers?

 

[PetriP-TNT]

RIP BIDEO GAMES 1960-2012

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Also, game that didn't feel that "seriouz gibs" wouldn't fit the "kiddy artstyle", was playtested by 12 year olds? ESRB be mad.

 

[Kifimbo]

It just really baffles me that they have done both the more mature tone games, Resistance series and also the way more toon/stylized stuff, Ratchet and Clank. Didn't Resistance 3 freaking bomb in sales. While Rachet and Clank have always done decent numbers?

They are all gunning for the Call of Duty crowd.

 

[NBtoaster]

It just really baffles me that they have done both the more mature tone games, Resistance series and also the way more toon/stylized stuff, Ratchet and Clank. Didn't Resistance 3 freaking bomb in sales. While Rachet and Clank have always done decent numbers?

They did Resistance because Sony approached them to do a gritty PS3 fps project.

 

[Haunted]

Lose the people who were originally interested while trying to appeal to the people who only care about the big titles.

Basically.

Was waiting for this .gif.

 

[Kyou]

Why don't more people learn lessons from The Simpsons?

Focus tests make Poochies. Don't make your game a Poochie!

 

[Danielsan]

Focus groups are the worst.

 

[Corto]

We need to focus group these focus groups.

 

[Haunted]

Guys, focus groups are an absolute necessity if you want to go after that CoD money. You don't get mainstream appeal like Poochie by just making a cool game with a unique art style for enthusiast gamers.

 

[Messofanego]

So this is the THIRD revision of this game?!

Not usually a good sign.

 

[Dibbz]

Credit to Goldrusher

 

[Haunted]

Similar games: All of them.

:lol

 

[Anteater]

Allgeier later said that “that’s kind of the reason for the delay. It’s like moving the herd of elephants, or turning the ship. Just turning a massive ship into a different direction and charting a new course.”

awesome

 

[Byakuya769]

Game design by focus testing.

Please, tell us more with your awesome crystal ball.

Ahahaahaha. Well, well, well.

From Fuse (Insomniac's Overstrike) thread.

 

[sTeLioSco]

The Overstrike/Fuse negative reaction is about as unique to GAF as the Mass Effect 3 ending reaction.

you are crazy.

 

[whalleywhat]

RIP BIDEO GAMES 1960-2012

 

[Sir Garbageman]

I wish it was possible for someone to Kickstart Overstrike...

 

[Randdalf]

A large portion of the audience who buys "mature" and "not for kids" titles are kids in the first place, no matter what age rating the game gets. I'm kind of cynical in thinking that a lot of publishers target their M rated AAA games at teenagers, who are ostensibly not old enough to play them, because they're a massive audience and because their parents will get it for them anyway.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Borderlands 2 sold well despite the aesthetic. Actually, probably the aesthetic helped it a lot.

If you have the courage to make the kind of game you want, and strike out and be interesting, maybe you'll find the right audience.

 

[mescalineeyes]

It must suck working on a game that has no chance of ever succeeding and will bomb very, very hard, and everyone knows but is too proud to say it.
Too late to cancel, too expensive to change...

 

[Elginer]

It must suck working on a game that has no chance of ever succeeding and will bomb very, very hard, and everyone knows but is too proud to say it.
Too late to cancel, too expensive to change...

Wow, what else can you see from your time machine?

 

[Gaogaogao]

fuck all these focus groups seriously

 

[Deleted member 13876]

I genuinely hate this focus group.

 

[The Technomancer]

Man, its been said over and over but fuck focus groups.

 

[NBtoaster]

If you don't use focus groups, how do you tell your target audience is interested/satisfied?

 

[I3rand0]

Must've been the same focus group that said Dead Space was too scary and needed co-op.

 

[Gorillaz]

Probably has been said but if borderlands pulled off a cartoony look and still got the older crowd, overstrike could do the same

 

[G17]

For those wondering, the original concept before Overstrike was a 4-player stealth game.

Source:
http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012...-game-formerly-known-as-insomniacs-overstrike

 

[faridmon]

Focus Group can be useful sometimes. However, they also can be very myopic in their opinion.

Having said that, this excuse that they changed everything based only on what their focus group have to offer sounds bullshit to me. It sounds that they are trying to give reason, or rather a scapegoat for their stupid design choice that they only decided to change. I mean, yes, other people could give you advice and such, but would you actually listen to what other people say and place all your basket in whatever they have voted for?

They are either lying or totally inadequete to do their job.

 

[s_mirage]

If you don't use focus groups, how do you tell your target audience is interested/satisfied?

Faith in your convictions, faith that you are creating something good. Unfortunately this runs against the corporate mentality that those holding the purse strings tend to follow.

A lot of the time, focus groups won't tell you whether a product will find a audience, just whether it's like another fashionable product. Personally I think that focus testing with kids is even worse: they not bastions of integrity and tend to be the section of society most concerned with being seen to fit in with their peers, rather than expressing distinct opinions of their own.

 

[NBtoaster]

Faith in your convictions, faith that you are creating something good.

Then you get Resistance 2.

 

[thetrin]

If you don't use focus groups, how do you tell your target audience is interested/satisfied?

How does an artist tell if his audience is going to like his painting? By having confidence in his own talent, and by standing by his convictions.

Then you get Resistance 2.

You know for a fact that Resistance 2 wasn't focus tested?

 

[NBtoaster]

You know for a fact that Resistance 2 wasn't focus tested?

Not very extensively:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=42660519&postcount=239

 

[Rolf NB]

If you don't use focus groups, how do you tell your target audience is interested/satisfied?

You are part of the target audience yourself. Problem solved.

 

[Jhriad]

Jstevenson I've got a tangentially related question for ya. Did you find it easier to keep enthusiasts on narrative or message when you were exclusive to one platform holder? Do you notice a difference in the reception of your lead up PR or marketing? The thought just popped into my head that it might have been easier for you all when you had platform evangelists to defend/hype your products.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

The same choices keep being made over and over and over again leading to the same event horizon.

I have no problems with focus groups, just that I don't think the answer to a focus group is to do exactly what they say, but rather try to find the root of what they're really saying is wrong.

Like, for example, if people complain a shotgun is bad, the answer isn't necessarily just to make the weapon more strong, but to make the level in which you have a shotgun more conducive to how shotguns work.

If there were complaints that Overstrike felt like it was for children, I would propose the solution was not to make it really hard to distinguish from other games visually, but rather to try and modify it into a unique artistic style that retained their goal of looking cartoonish without eliciting this response.

That way, they retain a unique direction, but don't risk having a toxic reaction if they've already received approval from customers.

To expand on this...

Rule #1: Players are to be listened to, not obeyed.

Rule #2: Focus groups are not a problem, panicky dumbass reactions to the data garnered from them are. They are not soothsaying ceremonies which require rote reactions from the observers, they require judgement calls to be useful or even non-harmful.

Rule #3: Teenagers and some college-age people often don't want stylized, abstraction, and colorful visuals, as it's Teh Kiddie and want to look "cool" and "machoorrr", hence so much sophomoric realism lately in AAA+.

 

[Rygar 8 Bit]

dulled colors and gray and browns EVERYWHERE

 

[Ventilaator]

Holy crap, this industry is disgusting.

 

[dragonelite]

Focus groups = disconnected to your playerbase ?

No wonder we consumers arent allowed to be pissed on developers.
And are to entitled to a good product?

 

[Kai Dracon]

And yet over on PC, we gots this Team Fortress 2 shit that everyone lurves...

Keep getting the impression that this generation consoles have done a great job of growing and conditioning an audience to only accept an extremely thin slice of game content. In all ways: interface, design, structure, aesthetics. Seems like any focus group of console gamers sampled from the general population is going to say "MAKE IT LIKE COD, THAT GAME FUCKING PWNS."


I think it is true that focus groups should not be obeyed, instead used as a guide to investigate an issue more deeply. But at this point I just wonder: for a certain audience on consoles, could anything not COD make an impact or make them happy? No matter how you tweak it. I wonder how much overlap there is, on large scale, between people who did buy Borderlands and people who mostly play other kinds of shooters on console.

 

[dragonelite]

And yet over on PC, we gots this Team Fortress 2 shit that everyone lurves...

Keep getting the impression that this generation consoles have done a great job of growing and conditioning an audience to only accept an extremely thin slice of game content. In all ways: interface, design, structure, aesthetics. Seems like any focus group of console gamers sampled from the general population is going to say "MAKE IT LIKE COD, THAT GAME FUCKING PWNS."


I think it is true that focus groups should not be obeyed, instead used as a guide to investigate an issue more deeply. But at this point I just wonder: for a certain audience on consoles, could anything not COD make an impact or make them happy? No matter how you tweak it. I wonder how much overlap there is, on large scale, between people who did buy Borderlands and people who mostly play other kinds of shooters on console.

Who even fucking needs focus groups they should have been on the internet with the E3 trailer a lot of folks were pumped because of the Team fortress and pixar meets Coop Horde or borderlands.

 

[ROFL]

I'll never forget this quote from a RFoM focus test.. "If I'd known Insomniac made games this cool I might have checked out Ratchet and Clank"

 

[Jack_AG]

So instead of standing out in the crowd... Fuse is now a game that will just get lost in the parking lot that is shooters # 1 through 123,215,9847,476.67b

Edit: Insomniac... let me be your one man focus group and give me a cattle prod to zap you guys when you start thinking INSIDE the box... No. No no. No no no no no. Stop it.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

Not very extensively:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=42660519&postcount=239

Playtesting is not the same as focus testing.

 

[DidntKnowJack]

Because Cole needed a "back to the drawing board" redesign in the first place.

I may be remembering this wrong, but didn't the Infamous 2 thing happen around the same time new Dante (DMC) was shown? Seems like people started to become sensitive to changes to main characters after that. Though, I will say I thought changing Cole seemed completely random and out of the blue. He was fine to begin with. A bit unremarkable and bland, but nothing to warrant radical change.

 

[D4Danger]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=42026767&postcount=325

Just tell me you didn't change it because of focus group feedback. I'll settle for that.

it really wasn't focus group feedback. The weapons weren't getting to the level they needed to be when we were still looking at a T-rated game. It wasn't satisfying enough.

We really had to unleash ourselves as a team to make them even crazier and more satisfying to use. When that happened, it was incredible how everything started to gel. That's how we knew we were on the right path, whenever we finally get on the right path, things come together so fast and feel so good.

the trailer that was supposed to hit this morning shows some of the insanity with the weapons. dying to release it.

am I a games journalist now?

 

[Doug Heffernan]

Talk about losing your way as a studio... wow.
This isn't really the Insomniac we knew and loved, doesn't matter what excuses come out of Ted's mouth.

 

[Jack_AG]

am I a games journalist now?

99.67% of gaming websites show that anyone with an internet connection can be a "PROFESSIONAL GAMES JOURNALIST"!

 

[The Lamp]

These are people that regularly play PlayStation 3 and Xbox games. We started to discover that everyone thought this was a game for their younger brother. We would hear this from 12-year-olds.

Probably the same people that say Wind Waker looks like it's for babies.

Get these people off my planet.