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Zuzic on 11 April 2009
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greenmedic88 said:
Zuzic said:
greenmedic88 said:
You seem to be forgetting that gaming scores essentially range from 60-100, not 0-100.

Any game that scores in the 50s (or less) was panned, no amount of spin lessens that.

End results, scores aside for Free Radical, Haze being their last big project:

"On December 18, 2008, it was reported that the studio had shut down,[5] though it was later confirmed that the company had gone into administration,[6] leaving 40 of the original 185 staff still employed.[7]
On February 3, 2009, Haze scriptwriter Rob Yescombe confirmed that Free Radical Design had been purchased by German games developer Crytek.[8], which was then confirmed by Crytek themselves the following day.[9]"

End results for Factor 5, Lair being their last big project:

"In late December 2008, several online media outlets reported that Brash Entertainment (Factor 5's publisher of their current project) would close at the end of the month after encountering financial problems. This sudden interruption in funding left Factor 5 with their own funding difficulties. The company's current state has not been officially announced but unconfirmed "insider" reports claim that they have ceased operations.[1]"

We are in a recession. It was not due to those games. Critically aclaimed games like valkyria chronicles sold the same as Lair, and Saga is thinking of making a second one. Did it make profit? No. It was a much bigger and longer game then lair, and required much more detail. Is this a flop? Games this generation need "at least" 500k sales is wrong, it needs "x" sales for "y budget" would be more acceptable. These types of games never really sell well. You can tell, no matter the reviews, if it's hyped it'll sell. Haze as an example, though that example is flawed because it comes to a few factors. From genre to style, to setting, to audience. You could have one of the most hyped games ever, it could get 100 by everyone, it's still only going to sell per genre and audience, with a little more people jumping due to review scores. In fact they say each point on metacritic after 80 only makes 5 more people a day pick it up.

 

Also this "60-100" thing is dead for along time. It was invented to put games down, because a lot of reviewers are afraid of giving anything less then a 60. For in dividual reviewers that is fine, but for a meta review you have to through that out. If it was right, we would only see a few games below 60, and never any farthur then 50. There is around 20 games sitting at the 30 point, and these games are still playable! What games are absolutely impossible to play? Little Britain: The Video Game. Even that got a 19. I can't remember but lowest rated game got a 6 meta review was about trucking, problem was buttons wouldn't register, roads poped and disappeared, game would crash every litterally 5 seconds then start again 5 minutes later again. Impossible to play.

 

There is absolutely no reason to be an apologist. Simple facts are, the budgets and projected sales for games like both Lair and Haze were far too high relative to the actual sales. Big budget, high profile, underperformed. That's about as simple as it gets.

To say that the end results we're "because of the bad economy" blatantly ignores all the other developers for the PS3 who have managed to do just fine under the same conditions. It also overlooks the fact that both games were actually released as video game sales revenue hit an all time high, exceeding that of the film industry for the first year ever.

There are plenty of excellent titles on the PS3 that have found their success, but Lair and Haze weren't among them.

And nobody defends a game that rates in the 50 percentile as being "average" and definitely not for high profile, big budget titles.

 

 

Everything you said is irrelevant. Haze was expected to sell much more, free radicial was already in finacial problems. They thought the game was atleast going to break 1 million mark and have a 2 million LTD, having a 800k LTD means they made profit, about 1-3 million. Game would of grossed about 45 million in sales, we know about 25% goes to developers, game had a 10 million budget so actual money going to developer was 11-13 million, with finacial problems they had, this was not enough to recover. Haze was third party, and third parties get the end of the stick. They pay more royalities then second party etc. Lair was projected to sell 1 million copies, it sold 350k, which was enough for that game to break even, but again finacial problems it's not good enough to just break even.

 

The games are not the fault of the company going under, it's the recession. You are 50 dollars in debt. You spent 10$ on living expenses, and spend 40$ to make something. Person gives you 45$ for it. You are still 5$ in debt and no where to get it.