papersleeves
Member
Another great episode.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
JImquisition: Time To Get Paid
- Thread starter AHA-Lambda
- Start date
Hot Coldman
Banned
Let that be the last time I ever hear the Ducktales theme.
Jim continues to be one of the most interesting, entertaining and brilliant journalist/reviewers/whateverthefucklabelyouwanttoslaponhim in the business.
Whenever i feel down or disgusted with whats going on in the world of vidja games i can always count on Jim to entertain. And no, this isn't a ass sucking it's truth bombing.
Whenever i feel down or disgusted with whats going on in the world of vidja games i can always count on Jim to entertain. And no, this isn't a ass sucking it's truth bombing.
Neuromancer
Member
Thank you Jim. We may not all deserve to watch you cavorting about the front of your house with an expensive dragon tongue dildo sticking out of your pants, but we sure do appreciate it.
I like the gifs but do you really need to put in a watermark with your name? It's not like it's your video.
Yup. Ducktales ruined forever confirmed.
Coffee Dog
Banned
god payday 2 is so much fun. wonderful game.
Things like this are basically an affirmation that many console game publishers believe the industry to be larger than it really is. There was some growth in the core game market since the PS2 generation, but not enough to support a market where every major release can sell several million copies.
I'm not sure how that changes anything.
The thing is that a large majority of the money made from a AAA game sale goes to white collar workers at the publisher. Executives, market researchers, focus testers, advertising executives, and other bean counters. The people who actually made the game get a portion, but the sheer amount of money required for a publisher to see a game as a success now is astronomical and unsustainable, especially considering what percentage of a game's revenue actually gets to the developers themselves, you know, the actual creative talent.
Jim Sterling
Member
Called out by Yoda. Day ruined.
Neuromancer
Member
Bahaha
Rodney McKay
Member
I think LA Noire is probably my biggest example of a AAA game selling really well and yet still managing to fuck things up. After that game came out and did well, the developer still went under.
When I played through that game what really struck me was that it is a pretty basic game (find clues, talk to people, arrest someone), but everything just felt so EXPENSIVE! The facial animation stuff was very impressive, but I couldn't stop thinking about how much that cost to do. They had to hire dozens of actors, do full make-up each day they recorded, strap them into what I'm sure is an expensive camera rig and have them act a pretty large amount of dialog.
The city was a pretty cool recreation of LA in that time period, but I hated driving so I never actually explored any of it. The game felt like it didn't even need an open world, just have the case locations, an occasional chase/combat area, and the police station.
And I haven't even mentioned how fucking long and drawn out the game is in general, both in its development time and its play time.
And at the end of the day, the game doesn't play much differently than a Phoenix Wright, it just adds driving and shooting to try and grab the attention of the GTA/COD crowd. For as much as Capcom whines about AA5 not being worth releasing a physical copy in the west, it probably cost a tiny fraction of what LA Noire cost to make. Ace Attorney doesn't need random shootouts or flamethrower massacres, an empty open world city to get from location to location, or a hundred year develeopment cycle. Sure it could probably use a better marketing campaign (one that doesn't involve Capcom complaining about sales all the time), or simply release it on iOS, Android, or PC and it would probably pick up a good amount of profit.
When I played through that game what really struck me was that it is a pretty basic game (find clues, talk to people, arrest someone), but everything just felt so EXPENSIVE! The facial animation stuff was very impressive, but I couldn't stop thinking about how much that cost to do. They had to hire dozens of actors, do full make-up each day they recorded, strap them into what I'm sure is an expensive camera rig and have them act a pretty large amount of dialog.
The city was a pretty cool recreation of LA in that time period, but I hated driving so I never actually explored any of it. The game felt like it didn't even need an open world, just have the case locations, an occasional chase/combat area, and the police station.
And I haven't even mentioned how fucking long and drawn out the game is in general, both in its development time and its play time.
And at the end of the day, the game doesn't play much differently than a Phoenix Wright, it just adds driving and shooting to try and grab the attention of the GTA/COD crowd. For as much as Capcom whines about AA5 not being worth releasing a physical copy in the west, it probably cost a tiny fraction of what LA Noire cost to make. Ace Attorney doesn't need random shootouts or flamethrower massacres, an empty open world city to get from location to location, or a hundred year develeopment cycle. Sure it could probably use a better marketing campaign (one that doesn't involve Capcom complaining about sales all the time), or simply release it on iOS, Android, or PC and it would probably pick up a good amount of profit.
Enter The 36 Chambers
Member
Time to get paid,
Blow up like the world trade
Blow up like the world trade
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Thing is, I think a good bit of that mentality is from presenting a front of virility to investors* and players. "Look at how much money we spent on this, I mean, Jesus fuck that's alot of zeros!" People get paid, company name stays read, you don't get nasty hiccups where you'd fall behind in FOTM game design Dogma, it "works"...until an obvious bomb hits or investors get skittish.
Maybe it's just I've been thinking of tri-Ace and Obsidian alot lately, and I look that way at it because of that. Dunno.
Opiate makes a convincing point that its also to scorched earth the path of smaller pubs to get bigger with there being a HUGE and costly leap to catch up to the big boys (RIP THQ), and also to make them dangerously large to swallow in stock buys.
*For example, EA made $500m pure net profit during Gen 6. Now? Treading water. That's investor money they're gambling with, and I feel that avoiding implementing ideas that would set off skittish investors is a great idea when your reign as boardmember is categorized by ankle-deep red ink. These ideas include such things as colorful artstyle, addictive gameplay, not shaking down faithful customers for change at every turn, localizing well-recieved handheld titles, actual depth in design, not ladling RPG mechanics in non-RPGs, keeping RPG mechanics in RPGs, etc, etceter-AH.
BumblebeeCody
Member
William Defiled .
Good episode. I guess Cliff Bleszinski is ....well...pissed?
Would just like to make one important correction here: EA made approximately 500M per year from 2001-2004, not total for the entire generation.
All results viewable here: http://investor.ea.com/results.cfm
SneakyStephan
Banned
The way he looks at the camera and pushes it over before defiling it lol.
Jim wut are you doing, Jim staph, NO STAPH
Ninja Scooter
Member
Minecraft. DayZ. Star Citizen. Nearly everything Valve has made this gen. Tons of indie and lower budget projects this generation.
"Prepare for the floor show."
I understood that reference.
What's it a reference to?
I thought it was Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I don't think anyone in the movie actually ever says "Prepare for the floor show".
Developers making games they want to make, without trying to cater to the lowest common denominator, with a reasonable budget and without a huge marketing campaign finding success? Sure some good examples would be
Dark/Demon's Souls
The Witcher
Torchlight
Just about everything that Paradox Interactive has published in the last 5 years (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Magika, Mount & Blade etc)
Hard Reset
Rise of the Triad remake
Football Manager
Mark Of The Ninja
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
CoJ: Gunslinger
Journey
Orcs Must Die!
The Walking Dead
Metro 2033 (Last light got a much bigger marketing push but still a relatively small budget)
Legend of Grimrock
etc
Then there is the stuff made by a hand full of people with almost no budget like
Minecraft
Bastion
Amnesia
Terreria
Super Meat Boy/The Binding of Isaac
Braid
Limbo
etc
SneakyStephan
Banned
There's also natural selection 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB-gmyOvUig
zero marketing, enough polish and production value to put most AAA games to shame, niche unique game that doesn't cater to casuals
They were in the top sellers for steam for quite a few weeks after release, and again every time there is a sale.
They self published and the company consists of only ten guys.
They provided mod support for their game, they host tournaments, there is NO dlc
but what they do have are patches.
REAL patches, you know the ones from the 90s? the ones that add maps, weapons, units, skins and all kinds of other good stuff? yeah those kind of patches, not the 'ok we released the game now to patch it out of beta in the coming months'
The second big patch is coming in 3 days with new maps and other unannounced content/features.
Imo anyone who claims to dislike the AAA formula needs to support this game out of principle alone (it helps that it's also one of the best games of the decade) , because it is exactly the opposite of AAA gaming, without being janky or ugly or half assed.
The only negative thing I've ever heard anyone say about it is that it has a learning curve, as if that is a bad thing<.<
so if you aren't a pussy and enjoy a good learning curve (if you could get into dota then you can get into this game easily, it's also much more fun to learn than most other games) and hate babbys first AAA games where 70 percent of your money goes to marketing and the other 30 to the wallet of some suit, then try it out ^^
I could gush about this game all day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB-gmyOvUig
zero marketing, enough polish and production value to put most AAA games to shame, niche unique game that doesn't cater to casuals
They were in the top sellers for steam for quite a few weeks after release, and again every time there is a sale.
They self published and the company consists of only ten guys.
They provided mod support for their game, they host tournaments, there is NO dlc
but what they do have are patches.
REAL patches, you know the ones from the 90s? the ones that add maps, weapons, units, skins and all kinds of other good stuff? yeah those kind of patches, not the 'ok we released the game now to patch it out of beta in the coming months'
The second big patch is coming in 3 days with new maps and other unannounced content/features.
Imo anyone who claims to dislike the AAA formula needs to support this game out of principle alone (it helps that it's also one of the best games of the decade) , because it is exactly the opposite of AAA gaming, without being janky or ugly or half assed.
The only negative thing I've ever heard anyone say about it is that it has a learning curve, as if that is a bad thing<.<
so if you aren't a pussy and enjoy a good learning curve (if you could get into dota then you can get into this game easily, it's also much more fun to learn than most other games) and hate babbys first AAA games where 70 percent of your money goes to marketing and the other 30 to the wallet of some suit, then try it out ^^
I could gush about this game all day
SeventhSon
Member
Pretty sure Dr. Frankenfurter says those exact words.
No, that's not it (see script excerpt below).
It may just be that Sterling didn't remember the line right, or wasn't going for a direct quotation. He says it in a weird voice that doesn't sound like Frank so I thought he might have been referencing some weird other British thing. The exact phrase "Prepare for the floor show" yields no useful results in a Google search though.
http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/rhps.txt
MAGENTA
I ask for nothing, Master.
FRANK
And you shall receive it - in abundance.
(he goes to the lift)
Come. We are ready for the floor show.
MagnaderAlpha
Member
THIS is why you don't believe the bullshit when someone says you HAVE to go AAA/appeal to a wider audience. There IS an audience for EVERYTHING. The goal of making things more widely appealing is HURTING the industry. I would also go on to say, some franchises were and are never meant to appeal to some of the people the developers/publishers are TRYING to get them to appeal to. Sometimes you just gotta stick to where you belong and those who you KNOW you are making the games for.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Ha! It's even worse than I remember off the top of my head!
Ah, thanks.
Night Hunter
Banned
But that approach just doesn't work when you are supposed to make more money every year.
Ninja Scooter
Member
It's time for the creativity on the business side to match the creativity of the game makers themselves. They need to figure out smarter ways to make money other than "Throw $100 million worth of cutscenes and commercials at the audience" and stop using Hollywood as a blueprint.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
Has this made money? There are lots of things wrong with ns2. I bought it and played it for like a week. Their engine they made had too many negative effects on the game imo.
Vigilant Gambit
Member
Chairmanchuck
Member
There are like over 100 examples on Steam.
Payday was lucky, since they already had a community and so the marketing was made by a lot of the fans of the first.
Same with Natural Selection.
That was also how CounterStrike got so popular back in the days.
But I play a lot of indie-games on Steam and have fun with them and then you can see the developer in the Community-Hub, saying they only sold like xxx copies and didnt have any money for marketing at all.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
There ARE no perfect answers. That's what the scenario boils down to, that "$50m+, spectacackle-fest, dumb-down, play upthe shoootbang with friendsd, browngray mess" model only FEELS safe to money men, yet its track record this generation of BEING safe is lousy. To hitch that superstitious confidence to any of the endless alternative methods of production, funding, and marketing a title is equally mad. The idea is to destroy that Dogma burning money, careers, and ideas finally, some day.
I think you're underestimating how much it costs to make even the smaller games.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-braid-cost-200k-to-make-says-blow
I also think you're not looking at the whole picture. For every indie success you mention, there are dozens if not hundreds of indie bombs. I think you'd also be surprised at how many popular indie games don't actually make much profit. You have games like ZiGGURAT getting good word of mouth, good coverage from the media (9+ from Edge and Destructoid), and IIRC from a GDC talk, it only paid for a month or two of rent and he had to go back to doing contract work. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I think it's important to point out that following this advice isn't some sort of safe bet.
On the other hand, something like a Call of Duty sequel is a relatively safe bet.
I'm not saying it's a good thing that publishers are focusing on AAA blockbusters, but I want to point out that in the current market, AAA blockbusters make some sense. https://www.ubisoftgroup.com/comsite_common/en-US/images/Ubisoft slide show FY13 finaltcm9996991.pdf
It's common to see people say "just make a mid-budget game, it's safer" without actually having empirical evidence to back it up (they see the closing studios and assume it'd turn out differently if they'd made mid budget games). You can't say it's safer just by looking at a few success stories -- you have to compare them to the failures.
I think mid budget games are becoming more and more viable, but we're still working with a hit-driven industry. It's easier to have a hit when you spend a lot of money to market it and get it in front of as many people as possible. In the past I thought it had to do with our reliance on physical retail, but iOS is not too different -- the top games typically spend shitloads on marketing to get themselves into the top charts so they can ride the momentum. We have infinite shelf space in a digital market, but consumers are only looking at the first couple shelves anyway.
Of course not every low-budget game will be successful financially, but the point of this video was to prove that you absolutely don't need to have an enormous budget to create a successful game. The list Zarx posted proves that more than anything.
AAA-publishers don't understand anymore that you can make as much, if not more money by creating small, focused games with 'normal' budgets instead of placing all your bets on gigantic blockbusters that tend to fail more than they succeed nowadays (Paradox Entertaiment and Atlus are great examples of publisher who use former strategy and succeed). The industry doesn't seem to want to realize not everything can be Call of Duty. Hell, when you look at all AAA-publishers only Ubisoft seems to even begin understanding that games like Rayman Origins/Legends and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon can make them money without having to invest bags of money in developing them. That won't stop them from making blockbusters like Assassin's Creed nor does it need to (because AC actually makes a lot of money and justifies its costs), but they 'get' the fact that not all of their franchises need millions of dollars and a hundred people or more working on them to succeed. Square Enix is the exact opposite, ;they want all of their games to be AAA-blockbuster succes stories, which is simply not gonna happen and the exact reason why they're losing money at the moment.
And before someone begins about indies failing to make money; when an indie-game fails it is more often than not because the game is simply not that great or the creator still didn't promote the game enough. A small marketing budget =/= no marketing. You still have to get the word out somehow, but you can do that simply by creating an active community on the internet and interacting with them nowadays. Tell about your game on sites like GAF (Gunman Clive says hi), send a few free copies around, be active on social networks and make your consumer interested in your product in all the other creative ways the internet has to offer (GOG and Steam Greenlight are also great ways to get a game out there for example). Creating a good game is just half the work, being a good enough salesman to convince people your game is worth buying is the other half of 'being a successful indie'. If an indie-game is truly worth its money (not just 'decent' good, but 'better than 80% of other indies' good. Too much competition to pass with B's and C's) there is no way it will not make at least its production costs back if the developer made sure the game had good promotion and didn't go overboard with its budget, or in the case of true no-budget indies make them enough money to pay the bills. Prove me wrong if you can.
Where should I've heard about this game other than a few reviews and a bit of positive talk? Word of mouth can do the job sometimes, but this seems to be an example of good scores but bad promotion/marketing. I can be absolutely wrong since I've not heard about the game before anyway (which might ironically also prove my point even more, since I'm quite aware of the indie-gaming scene) but can you show me more than a select fanbase knew about this game?
E: I read a bit more about it and now see it is mostly appealing to old-school gamers. Might be more of a case of a small target audience, which doesn't really result in lots of sales either.
How so? I haven't played a lot of it, but it seems fine to me. I didn't play the original though, so I'm by no means an expert on Natural Selection or anything.
ummm... that's sort of the point. If everybody knew of the game, it's harder for it to fail financially. Reviews from Edge, Destructoid, Touch Arcade don't just happen randomly -- most developers have to work for those (they ARE promoting -- you just don't realize it). Promoting games and getting the word out isn't nearly as easy as you make it out to be (spending money on marketing makes it easier, which is why people spend money to market a game, obviously). Not spending money to market your game is riskier.
You're looking at the success stories -- only the games "you've heard of," as if all that is required to get you to hear of their game is a little effort. You assume if you haven't heard of the game, they just didn't promote it enough (compared to the games you have heard of). I think that's naive.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
Maps were smaller than the original and performance issues on launch.
Plus they changed a lot from the original which I played for years.
Gorges are pretty useless compared to the original. They built everything and had web which was their go to ability. Plus the stuff they can build is downgraded from the original. They are basically to heal and bile bomb now.
Alien Commander didn't work in my opinion. It is a bad addition.
Anyone know if they made money? asking again Their championship they had last weekend had like 2k viewers.
Similar threads
- Locked