Selling 1 million units is no longer enough

[MaxwellGT2000]

Mummelmann said:

MaxwellGT2000 said:

Mummelmann said:
Maybe it is silly that a million seller isn't a blazing success but you can't blame developers for wanting sales like Modern Warfare 2 for instance, that game is selling like nothing else ever has (3rd party multiplatform that is).

The issue is everyone took the Halo idea where everything is hyped beyond belief and it makes it like there's a summer blockbuster film coming out every week and is marketed as such, if you want to know why attach rates are so high for 360 thats the reason, but even that can't make enough people to buy enough of the big games so every game can break even.  

Only a select few get the needed sales to be a rousing success, most can get a million maybe two which last gen would be nothing to scoff at but this gen that seems to be the line to keep your head above water, its just the game industry is going to spiral into oblivion at its current rate with developers and publishers dropping like flies/posting HUGE losses, what does it really matter if you can get Halo 3 type sales if every other game you release negate those big sales and you end up going in a hole.

I'm not saying its very clever the way things are run, just that I understand why they'd strive to make a blockbuster in the first place. There's also the issue of many developers making pure shaite and releasing it, that also costs them. Things like Rogue Warrior is bound to set back any developer, I don't even understand why they spend money on developing something like that.

The movie industry is in the same boat though but its doing fine, even with its claims of being near sunk by piracy. The game industry in its current form won't disappear any time soon but I don't like the fact that a few big and more wealthy developers buy the small fries and force them into making silly stuff for Iphone or whatever, or simply stealing their talent and abandoing the studio all together. Bankrupcy is nothing new though, there was also a surge of red numbers in the mid and late 90's where many of the developers from the golden era of PC gaming, for instance, perished or were bought and abused (Westwood is the perfect example, butchered and stripped and made to make whatever tosh EA set them to).

Everyone in here is ranting on about how this is the best generation ever (I disagree though) but how can it be that developers have made some of the finest games ever if they're going under and how can practically all sales records from previous generations be shattered? The industry is doing fine, a lot of (or most of) the crashes we're seeing are related to the financial crisis, the world of green has gone to shit lately in case no one has noticed. It reminds me of when we got the new smoking prohibition here in Norway, every nightclub, bar and pub owner screamed bloody murder and said they'd all surely perish if no one was allowed to smoke inside. Some did perish, but most of them would have anyway due to bad decisions having been made earlier on and shoddy leadership/running of daily affairs. In fact; the amount of places that went under was the yearly same (yes, more developers than usual have gone under but like I said; financial crisis, nearly all industries on earth have taken massive hits) as before the prohibition but it was a nice scapegoat for them to use when they ultimately failed.

My point is; a lot of developers were headed for shit valley as is and a lot of publishers and developers go under all the time due to the nature of the competitive market and with the financial crisis still looming over us, having among other things decreased Japan's export rates by nearly 55%, its a small wonder that not even more go under. Is the industry in trouble? Parts of it, yes, as always. But the same goes for all other industries at the moment. They don't need to radically change, the market is largely the same, they simply (allthough I don't know if its actually simple) need to smarten up and think harder about what they're doing and perhaps ponder their ideas a little more before wasting millions on them (again, Rogue Warrior seems like a fitting example). Besides, the "savior" of the industry, Nintendo, has proven to be a challenging ground to do battle on as well and I'm not sure that the industry at large agrees that Blue Ocean is so cool unless you have Nintendo branded on your box (no 3rd party effort will ever move Nintendo numbers, that's just a fact). Damned if you do, damned if you don't, at least in here.

No one has ever pushed Nintendo numbers ever, even prior to "blue ocean" the closest things were The Sims and damn near anything Blizzard, but thats a testament to quality, marketing, and being open to everyone much like Nintendo.  As for doing well on Nintendos own platform, multiple publishers and developers already have had great success, it just dumbfounds me that all these companies would rather piss away millions on something like Rouge Warrior but couldn't be bothered to make a simple game based around pure gameplay and market it well on any platform not just Nintendos, when you focus on the core element which is gameplay and just make something that looks aesthetically pleasing, you don't have to spend ass loads of money and you could even put that money into marketing your game.

I do agree shit developers/publisher making shit decisions deserve to go under, (ex: Brash and Grin Studios) but these companies also take out other good companies with them that just made a fatal mistake they couldn't have seen coming, like Factor 5 being told by Sony that making Lair would only be about 10 million dollars, they hop aboard and realize that it was going to take 20 million and that they were already in too deep to back out, after that they needed to make some bank and paired up with Brash that went under and no one picked up their project, they were finished.  

Another example is Free Radical pairing up with Ubisoft that made them constantly change Haze until it wasn't what they intended it to be, it of course flopped, then they paired with Lucas Arts to make Star Wars BF3 which was dropped by Lucas Arts and they were screwed.  Now I know these kinds of things have always happened in the industry but before they'd take the hit, make a few quick projects usually licensed stuff, and be back up on their feet, however this generation one mistake can kill an entire company, and it obviously doesn't even have to be their fault, I'm certain the guys at ensemble studios feel the same way.

As for the movie industry reference, after many companies went under they started to learn that you can't have 3 summer "blockbuster" movies within a couple of weeks of each other, it worked for a little while yes but then people started to get fed up and would only go to a couple.  The game industry used to spread their games out or just didn't green light so many high budget games, this gen its obvious that increased a lot, and they're going to destroy themselves in the process unless they adapt, which right now isn't looking likely.