| MaxwellGT2000 said: As always Zucas an amazing yet long read, I've been touting this for a while, I started to notice it a bit last gen, hell Zucas look on some of your old PS2 games at work that came out at the beginning of the PS2's life and see where it touts all the next gen graphics and advancements but you distinctly remember that game being a generic pile of ass. The change being this gen that strategy worked for longer, graphics bumped up a lot, and still improving, you can still dangle the sparkles in their eyes and people will eat it up. It's starting to die down finally, but the frenzy really has cost us a lot of good developers and teams, and many bad ones that tried to ride the coattails of the big guys and wasn't ready for the developing costs of this gen. Honestly yes it's always been in the industry, but it typically fluctuates with the start of the gen then dies down, this gen has been different simply because of cost and the ability to go LOOK SHINY! Costs go up, development time goes up, the time needed to make a long worth while game goes up, so much resources have to go towards engines and such things have to give somewhere and what happens is you get a 6 hour game that's not even worth 60 dollars but the marketing shows you it is. Not to say the Wii doesn't have that you did mention the Conduit, and its true. Though I knew I'd like the conspiracy theory story and I did, I'm big into that stuff so w/e I felt like it was a budget title so no that cheated. I loved the teams fire and that's what got me to buy the game, I still hope they can make good on some of those ideas one day. Adding to the let down of RE5, a game that came out that same time, Street Fighter 4, not a bad game actually, but it was sold on the idea of a 3D fighter that keeps classic gameplay, yet as a fighter its broken as all get out and its not like they couldn't patch the balance issues but now its SUPER Street Fighter 4. I like 4 better than 3 since it did deliver on some of those promises, but then Tatsunoko vs Capcom hit, it has even more pick up and playability, its got a cool roster, and somehow even looks better, models are more fluid, and the anime style fits the 2D fighter genre way more than the weird style of SF4. (Ex. TvC has been played day in and out with me and my friends both on campus and at home while I paid 80 for the special edition of SF4 and it was traded in within a month...) |
Ah yes it definitely has been happening for quite some time. Actually I know a last gen memory of a game that really was a game made for marketing and not playing was a game called Black on the PS2 and Xbox. Give and take a little, it was a decent game, but there was nothing in that game that should ever make it anymore than your average release. But the marketing and the hype were pretty massive for it and it had all the right shock value to push it to such heights.
So yea it has definitely been happening before the said 7th generation, but I think what we are really seeing in this generation is the shock value games taking over the actual ones. And that's the big issue I see here. Red Faction: Guerilla released in the same month as Prototype yet never stood a chance to compete with it. Chronicles of Riddick released in the same month as Resident Evil 5 but never stood a chance. Little King's Story released in the same month as The Conduit but never stood a chance. These games didn't have the same marketing campaigns as the other three, but these were games that were the better games and that were better choices for any of the consumers who would be buying those three games. But they didn't have the shock value that could really light up the marketing trailers and commercials and they suffered because of it.
And as you said this caused a lot of good developers to go down but it also caused a lot of the not so great ones to join them. And that is the main problem I see is that this isn't just the small companies putting out the shovelware doing this anymore, but the big AAA budget games by big developers doing it and winning and losing. And they are losing more than they are winning. They just don't seem to understand that sometimes the easiest route isn't the best route. Sure the strategy the other successful devs took was risky, but it paid off because they knew it would end up better. These other devs need to look to them for inspiration. And it seems that notion is less titles but more quality. Focus on a few central titles and market them based on their own merit rather than some gimmick you have to tackle. Some devs are starting to catch on but many aren't, namely Electronic Arts.
And yea my choice of the Conduit was rather out of my own disappointment for what happened. I really do think HVS tried, but I think after awhile they just had to start playing other cards. Win the pathos vote and run with it and it didn't turn out well for them. Luckily for them they did well enough to keep business flowing, but they are really going to have to move past that and think of a more sustainable strategy.
But yea thanks for the post because your really hitting at the heart of what I'm trying to say and that isn't that people can't have shock value or that all of this should be rid of or that they should market like Ninty or IW or Bungie. Just these companies can't make the same mistake the smaller devs did on PS2, Wii, and DS or devs back in the Atari days. They need to have long term strategies with their short term ones. Simply competing for tomorrow's next big thing will destroy them all and they need to realize that. Even worse, the gamers catch on, just like they did with the "shovelware" and that causes credibility issues. If that happens, you think those MW2 sales were good, wait til they alienate more and see how much a Ninty or Bungie or IW title can sell haha. Because they will buy what they know is a good buy and they will buy it in flocks.
But yes I'm enjoying TvC as well after not liking SFIV either but mainly because it was unplayable on the 360. But still rather unbalanced.
