Publishers overestimate their necessity.

[famousringo]

noname2200 said:

famousringo said:
Production values are essentially marketing budget. They don't make the game any better past a certain point, but they make the promotional material look better and offer a "wow" factor that gets the attention of potential customers. After an hour or so of gameplay, the "wow" starts to fade away, and all you're left with is the game.

As long as customers keep falling for the "wow", publishers are going to keep driving up costs to help market the game.

DO they keep falling for the wow anymore, though? Few of the best-sellers last generation relied on graphical pizzaz: his example of Call of Duty is on point, as it was relatively ugly when it launched, looks even worse now relative to the competition, but outperforms the Cryses and Killzones of the world by a massive margin.

Well, some people surely are, and publishers seem to be focused on satisfying those people. Interminable threads debating the graphical potential of this or that console, sacrificing smooth motion for more detailed screenshots, bullshots, digital foundry... How many times have you seen somebody say that they were interested in Xenoblade but couldn't look past the graphics to actually play it?

They may be a vocal minority, but they're a vocal minority that validates the preconceptions of a lot of people who work in game publishing and development.