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Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars Coming To iOS

Cosmonaut X said:
I just can't see the subsidised model being sustainable - at some point, consumers buying the higher priced games on dedicated handhelds are going to simply skip the games at launch, or skip them entirely, in favour of bomba-priced copies or ports to other devices. They're training their iOS/smartphone audience to expect full-featured games with good production values for peanuts, and teaching their handheld audience to avoid paying full price - and that really can't end well.
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Video games being mostly front-loaded in sales, this will probably not change buying habits that much. It will though, definitely help give legs to games that don't perform well at launch and legs to games in general. I'm not sure how this is that much different from say, companies doing cheaper re-releases.
 
Famassu said:
Umm.. Most of the games wouldn't be made if it wasn't for the fact that they can first sell them for more $$$ on handhelds and when those sales die down, they can try to squeeze a few extra bucks from the smartphone crowd.
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Yeah, well, it doesn't change the argument. Why should anyone feel compelled to pay 40 bucks (assuming it's a touch based game) when they know it's just going to be available for a couple bucks later.

I'm aware the games wouldn't get made if they weren't released on 3DS/Vita first, but it's still not a compelling argument. They're basically saying: "These games are most definitely worth the 40 dollar premium price."*

*"Please suckers, buy enough copies for us to break even. Then we can release it on iOS for a couple dollars and it'll be pure profit for us."
 
Its a really fun game , to bad its not coming out for andriod or i'd double dip. I think i'm most likely going to trade it in now anyway. Got alot of purchases coming out
 
1-D_FTW said:
Yeah, well, it doesn't change the argument. Why should anyone feel compelled to pay 40 bucks (assuming it's a touch based game) when they know it's just going to be available for a couple bucks later.
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Most games get cheaper as time goes on, regardless of the plattform. Like I already stated, the 3DS version of Shadow Wars is currently being sold at 15$.

Early-adaptors are always paying a premium fee, now it simply becomes even more obvious because publishers try to make money for cheap bucks on a different plattform instead of on the same plattform it was originally released as it used to be so far.
 
Cosmonaut X said:
...which would still make it significantly less than GR retailed for at launch on the the 3DS - $30, IIRC. It just seems like madness to have an audience playing on dedicated handhelds who are already seeing the value in avoiding your high launch prices in favour of Amazon sales, bomba pricedrops etc. and then give them another incentive to wait for further pricedrops or cheaper versions on other platforms.
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Yes. Too bad I don't know how much they make on that $40 price, but fro what I see they're training their audience not to buy the first releases.
 
Lol I just picked this up as my first 3DS game today for $25, but I ain't even mad. This game looks like quite a gem, as I was a big X-Com fan back in the day.
 
vareon said:
Yes. Too bad I don't know how much they make on that $40 price, but fro what I see they're training their audience not to buy the first releases.
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No regrets here. This game was worth the $40. My most played game on the 3DS by a long shot.

Byo63l.jpg
 
Decent game, but very rough around the edges. Enemy turns take too long. Content can get very repetitive (gun down enemy, run to glowing tile, repeat), etc. It's full of bugs and crashes too, hopefully fixed. Anyone calling it an excellent or great game is inexperienced with better tactics games.
 
Like I mentioned in the iOS gaming thread this is the best game on the 3DS, and the 3D added nothing. The iPad version could easy be the definitive version if handled properly.
 
wrowa said:
Most games get cheaper as time goes on, regardless of the plattform. Like I already stated, the 3DS version of Shadow Wars is currently being sold at 15$.

Early-adaptors are always paying a premium fee, now it simply becomes even more obvious because publishers try to make money for cheap bucks on a different plattform instead of on the same plattform it was originally released as it used to be so far.
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it's also the same for app store. Why pay $5 when the price will drop to 99c in X months/weeks?
 
Fusebox said:
Like I mentioned in the iOS gaming thread this is the best game on the 3DS, and the 3D added nothing. The iPad version could easy be the definitive version if handled properly.
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best original game.

devil survivor and zelda are better 'games', but it's not really the fairest comparison ;)
 
mjemirzian said:
Decent game, but very rough around the edges. Enemy turns take too long. Content can get very repetitive (gun down enemy, run to glowing tile, repeat), etc. It's full of bugs and crashes too, hopefully fixed. Anyone calling it an excellent or great game is inexperienced with better tactics games.
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Ah yes the old "anyone who says this game is good must not have played any good games" canard.
 
Rad. I'll definitely buy this if it isn't too expensive.
 
Damn, wonder how much it will cost.

This is pretty cool, I never really pay much mind to the "iOS is taking over gaming!" hype because a huge, huge, huge majority of iOS games, even the ones I really like, are just really basic score attack games or puzzlers.

Shadow Wars is actually a pretty deep tactic game though. It's damn long too, I clocked about 30 hours just doing the campaign on the second hardest difficulty and some of the bonus missions, I've been meaning to get back to the other bonus stuff and beating the game on the hardest difficulty.

It was a real shame it didn't do well on 3DS, it was the best launch title easily and still one of the best games on the system. Hope it gets a sequel if it performs well on iOS. Sniping heavies and finishing them off with a knife from Banshee, blocking off a hallway with a turret, strategically using the "Supress" command to get through tough spots, abusing the special moves after getting the kit that lets the medic fill the meter... it's a really, really fun, really well balanced Advance Wars type game.
 
Neuromancer said:
Ah yes the old "anyone who says this game is good must not have played any good games" canard.
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In an obscure genre like tactical level turn based games where people choose to remain deliberately ignorant and not expose themselves to other games besides their chosen little clique (gamers who only play any turn based tactics games that are x-com related, in this case), I'm afraid it's true. Unless your standards are so awful that a buggy, crashy game with slow combat pacing and a repetitive campaign counts as 'amazing'. Review.
 
This is nice. Now I have one less reason to pick up a 3DS. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see a port of Bravely Default: Flying Fairy.
 
KevinCow said:
I think the other way is just as weird, maybe moreso.

"Hey here's a game that we've bee selling for like a dollar for a year or so, now give us $30+ for it."
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Oh, totally.

The only reason people can even remotely explain those huge price differences is with the "real games with a proper budget on DS/PSP vs small timewasters and matching cakes on phones" argument... which might've been true a year or two ago, but is utterly bogus now.

It's only a matter of time until these price ranges start to overlap. Either slowly by continuing to grow closer together, or just forcing one side to majorly adjust in order not to fall behind.
 
mjemirzian said:
In an obscure genre like tactical level turn based games where people choose to remain deliberately ignorant and not expose themselves to other games besides their chosen little clique (gamers who only play any turn based tactics games that are x-com related, in this case), I'm afraid it's true. Unless your standards are so awful that a buggy, crashy game with slow combat pacing and a repetitive campaign counts as 'amazing'. Review.
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Dude this is GAF, SRPGs aren't actually a niche genre around here, I think youll find a load of us who grew up on Fire Emblem, Tactics etc stil consider Ghost Recon to be a great game.
 
Cosmonaut X said:
I just can't see the subsidised model being sustainable - at some point, consumers buying the higher priced games on dedicated handhelds are going to simply skip the games at launch, or skip them entirely, in favour of bomba-priced copies or ports to other devices. They're training their iOS/smartphone audience to expect full-featured games with good production values for peanuts, and teaching their handheld audience to avoid paying full price - and that really can't end well.
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I don't think that it's completely unsustainable, so long as there is a large enough gap between the original version and its iOS re-release.

Plus the 3DS/Vita versions of most games will forever be better since they have buttons (+ dual screen/3D/Stylus controls for 3DS games)

The problem here is that they've ported this far too soon and have cut this game off by the legs at retail. It could have thrived as a budget game, like Rayman did. It may also tell people that its not worth buying any Ubisoft game for the 3DS or Vita because it'll probably be ported very quickly (LOL! as if I needed any other reason to avoid Ubisoft games!)

It's a sound idea in concept, but it's all about the execution. I would've waited at least 3 years myself.
 
mjemirzian said:
In an obscure genre like tactical level turn based games where people choose to remain deliberately ignorant and not expose themselves to other games besides their chosen little clique (gamers who only play any turn based tactics games that are x-com related, in this case), I'm afraid it's true. Unless your standards are so awful that a buggy, crashy game with slow combat pacing and a repetitive campaign counts as 'amazing'. Review.
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Guessing you wrote that? I played for about 30 hours and never had the game crash once. Never experienced any slowdown either, and even if it done run at a slow framerate that and the slow combat pacing are pretty lame things to dock a tactics game for. Maybe someone who was expecting Ghost Recon proper would be disappointed at the slow pacing but anyone for anyone who knows what they're getting into it's on par with any other handheld SRPG.

It is pretty repetitive as far as enemy types go, but you have a lot of freedom with how you play. At the end when you have the equipment unlocked there's a ton of potential strategy in how you outfit everyone and use their abilities to complement each other.

A sequel would be a lot better though just by mixing up the missions a bit. Personally I would have liked more of the missions where you only get to pick four of the squad. Those were consistently my favorite, and it's fun to try them with different combinations.

My biggest complaint was that Banshee is totally broken by the end. She can kill most enemies with a single stab, and with her power she can kill almost any enemy in one stab outside of machines. Once you get you special full she's ridiculous, there seemed to be a little luck involved in how much power you get from a kill but half the time I used her power and killed two enemies with it it'd already by full again.
 
Fusebox said:
Dude this is GAF, SRPGs aren't actually a niche genre around here, I think youll find a load of us who grew up on Fire Emblem, Tactics etc stil consider Ghost Recon to be a great game.
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They are a niche here. Where's the OT for the latest Fire Emblem DS, or even a thread with people discussing it? Who played it here? This despite it being one of the best, if not the best, tactics games out of Japan in 2010. Yeah, exactly. Thanks for proving my point.

dr3upmushroom said:
I played for about 30 hours and never had the game crash once. Never experienced any slowdown either, and even if it done run at a slow framerate that and the slow combat pacing are pretty lame things to dock a tactics game for.

It is pretty repetitive as far as enemy types go, but you have a lot of freedom with how you play. At the end when you have the equipment unlocked there's a ton of potential strategy in how you outfit everyone and use their abilities to complement each other.
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Look on gamefaqs or the OT here. Numerous reports of crashes and mission-breaking bugs. I've run into a few myself. No, turning wi-fi off doesn't solve all the crashes.

Of course it's fair to criticize a game for needlessly wasting the players time with slow, unskippable animations and movement. Let me guess, I should go read a book while the enemy takes its 1-2+ minute turns in this game, right? There are plenty of tactics games that have a fast and responsive UI and combat pacing, and games that fail to do this deserve worse ratings. The kinds of rationalizing over poor and flawed game design is sad.

No, there is no 'tons of strategy' when you've unlocked everything. There's an optimal loadout for destroying everything as fast as possible, which is generally considered the goal in such games. Maybe if you play on easy mode you can dink around and do whatever you want and still win, but at that point you are playing it like a sandbox game with little regard to strategic difficulty.
 
i have this on 3DS but an ipad version could be a decent improvement with larger view of the level, easy scrolling etc.

but ipad isnt a portable device for me, and an ipod touch/iphone version might be compromised due to the small screen and lack of direct controls.
 
mjemirzian said:
They are a niche here. Where's the OT for the latest Fire Emblem DS.
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Do you mean Shin Monshō no Nazo: Hikari to Kage no Eiyū?

If so, check back here if they ever release it in English...
 
fantastic game. really want another one.

reminds me of stupid id/fountainhead. put orcs & elves 2 and doom rpg 1 & 2 on ds/3ds already. MORONS.
 
Fusebox said:
Do you mean Shin Monshō no Nazo: Hikari to Kage no Eiyū?

If so, check back here if they ever release it in English...
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That's a flawed argument. Just because it's not in a language you understand doesn't make it invalid or non-existent. I also find it amusing that the RPG community is the only one where if someone gives a skilled and experienced opinion, the reaction is anger, derision, and fear, instead of most other gaming communities that would value or respect their opinion.
 
No, what's flawed is the suggestion that an entire genre is niche just because nobody here is playing the latest Japanese-only release of one single franchise of that entire genre. It's pretty laughable tbh.

And yeah, we're only deriding you because you're so skilled... o_O
 
Great game. My favorite so far on 3DS. Glad more people are gonna get to play it.

But I don't really get the argument here that this is going to destroy the hand held price structure. Isn't this pretty close to how all video games drop in price after release? People pay extra to be able to play it day one.

I wanted to be able to say that now before I pick up mario 3d.
 
Heard good things about this game. Include asynchronous multiplayer and I'll buy a copy for me and all my friends! Between this and frozen synapse, I'm looking forward to some good iOS multiplayer in 2012.
 
Nuclear Muffin said:
The problem here is that they've ported this far too soon and have cut this game off by the legs at retail. It could have thrived as a budget game, like Rayman did.
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It's the same price as Rayman round these parts, and iOS already had a version of Rayman 2 before the 3DS came out. There's just a smaller audience for this sort of thing.
 
Fusebox said:
No, what's flawed is the suggestion that an entire genre is niche just because nobody here is playing the latest Japanese-only release of one single franchise of that entire genre. It's pretty laughable tbh.

And yeah, we're only deriding you because you're so skilled... o_O
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You assume that because I make one good example, that I don't have more. This is wrong, of course. People can't handle being told they lack experience in a genre, but it's often true in this case. Hell even I haven't played more than a small fraction of the games on that list, and I don't know anyone who's played more tactics games than me (I'm sure there are some Japanese gamers who have).

Hopefully they fix some of the issues I mentioned.. oh wait, it's already a great, amazing game, what more could they improve?
 
I'm all over this. I honestly don't care how much it costs...I'm buying it.

Also, man...iOS threads really bring out the nerd rage on GAF.
 
PuppetSlave said:
Great game. My favorite so far on 3DS. Glad more people are gonna get to play it.

But I don't really get the argument here that this is going to destroy the hand held price structure. Isn't this pretty close to how all video games drop in price after release? People pay extra to be able to play it day one.

I wanted to be able to say that now before I pick up mario 3d.
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slightly different if it ends up as a 4.99 iOS game, console games rarely get that low

it just feels like ubisoft are painting themselves into a corner. Using console sales to cover production costs, then the ios version is almost free to develop as you are reusing assets. Ios version needs to be cheap to sell. But you need the console version to sell well to subsidise the ios version. If that becomes too obvious a pattern, you risk losing console sales to people waiting for the ios version. But then you don't have the sales to cover your dev costs
 
Takao said:
If you're referring to me, this is actually what Ubisoft's CEO said:

"We are working to make sure that the games we create for portable machines can be adapted for those platforms, so that after making good revenue on 3DS or PSP2, we can go to a second phase, which is going at a lower price to other machines."

This is all according to keikaku for Ubisoft.
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Since Ubisoft is also publishing Lumines: Electronic Symphony for Vita, I fully expect to be playing it on iPad in a year...especially since it also has a touch control option. I can only dream, right?
 
mrklaw said:
slightly different if it ends up as a 4.99 iOS game, console games rarely get that low

it just feels like ubisoft are painting themselves into a corner. Using console sales to cover production costs, then the ios version is almost free to develop as you are reusing assets. Ios version needs to be cheap to sell. But you need the console version to sell well to subsidise the ios version. If that becomes too obvious a pattern, you risk losing console sales to people waiting for the ios version. But then you don't have the sales to cover your dev costs
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Yeah I guess. We will just have to wait and see how it turns out.
 
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