Which third party company is simply going to miss the Wii boat?

[Bodhesatva]

bdbdbd said:

Bodhesatva said:

eugene said:
Some developers are just known to be "not casual friendly" and risk losing their fan base because of it. In including small companys for the sake of mentioning , Blizzard would never make a Wii game even if they were given the opportunity. They thrive on their eco system of hardcore pc gamers that are very very loyal. They cannot risk shovel waring their games with a Warcraft spin off. Same with Lion head, given the opportunity, they would pass. Peter Molyneux has said many times, that they make games for gamers made by gamers and thats their philosophy. So theres a handful of highly rated develpors with huge fan bases that wont go the Wii route. Thats not impuning on the Wii at all, its just that the Wii has a different philosophy to gamming of games for everyone. Epic wont either as I believe they have publicy stated that and risk alienating their base.

Blizzard is really a terrible example here -- they have often specifically gone after casual players, and World of Warcraft is noted for being the most casually oriented of all MMOs (and most consider its success to be a direct result of this more casual focus). As a life long fan of Blizzard, I can absolutely say they'd produce a game for a casual base, if that game were QUALITY. "Hardcoreness" isn't one of their defining traits, quality is. Some of their games are hardcore (Starcraft), some aren't (World of Warcraft, Warcraft III). Otherwise, I agree. Lionhead definitely is a hardcore studio, and Epic has specifically stated that they're involved in high end graphical output (which should be obvious anyway, as they are the developers of the UE3).

 

Starcraft hardcore? Damn, it's my most played PC game of all time, and one of the most casual orientated "big budget" game on PC. Although, after you get hooked to it, you could call yourself hardcore, since it really takes time online. Blizzards success is based on it's games casual-friendly interface and logic games. Capcom seems to have things well in the future, since it's putting effort on Wii. Unlike many other devs. When others wake up and jump on Wii, Capcom will have it's "NES times" reputation among gamers. But anyway, i'd say it doesn't look good for Konami and Midway. Although Eledees seems to be very interesting game, which i propably buy someday. But besides Eledees (and Dewy's Adventure to some extent), there's really nothing from Konami for Wii, and it looks like there won't be in a while. And Midway... What decent games have they published in the last ten years?

 Starcraft is definitely hardcore in my book, as it requires significant micromanagement. One could call ALL RTS games hardcore -- it's inherently a complex genre -- but some are less hardcore, such as Warcraft 3 or DotA, because the focus on single mega units and macromanagement. Honestly, there isn't much that's more hardcore than a micromanagement-heavy RTS, I think. Even many hardcore gamers are intimidated by the complicated nature of it and the learning curve involved in becoming adept.

Of course, this depends on people's viewpoint of "hardcore," and in this case I'm defining it largely by the game's sheer complexity. It's certainly lighter on the violence and manliness that games like Ninja Gaiden and Call of Duty all but ooze from their pores.