| QuintonMcLeod said:
You seem rather confused. Infinite Space (a DS game) is Platinum Game's worst selling title [http://www.vgchartz.com/game/35541/infinite-space/]. You're starting to sound very very silly. Despite what deal Platinum Games had with Sega, that doesn't negate the fact that their games have sold poorly. Even so, Platinum Games didn't go bankrupt, because they didn't foolishly spend all of the money their publisher provided and Platinum Games was managed very well, unlike Airtight. Once again, Platinum Games didn't fooshly spend their money and they were managed very well. They made it so they continued to profit, despite low sales of their games. Airtight Games had many issues going on with them. Their ability the budget their games and their abilities to do an assortment of things such as: releasing games without bugs, allocating budgets, signing deals with publishers, allocating resources and focusing their games onto several markets (which they simply REFUSED to do). Airtight was formed back in 2004, but they didn't release a game until 2010. They were already struggling to get a game out the door. Their first game, Dark Void, was an hugely ambitious project, because they spent a lot of money to get it developed. They even had the composer of Battlestar Galactica compose its' sound track! It was a big budgeted game that flopped and flopped hard. They worked on an untitled game for about 8 months which was soon after cancalled. They released another game under the direction of Kim Swift. This game was created with a limited budget, but flopped anyway. Then after that, they started making mobile games, which profits for those games are uber thin. They released an Ouya exclusive game (which was foolish of them). Afterwards, they came out with another big budget game which flopped again. They've only worked on one major project at a time. The projects they've worked concurrently were the mobile games and the Ouya title. They came from making mobile an Ouya games to trying to create another big budget title. Airtight games was very poorly managed and they took on more than they could handle. This is what killed them. The budgeting was the major issue they had. As for Nintendo, you still don't get it. Nintendo doesn't spend huge amounts of money outside of Zelda or even Mario. Yet, they still profit, regardless if they pay royalities or not. Nintendo doesn't even charge $60 dollars for all of their games - which would take up the portion any other company would take for licensing. Nintendo still has to pay retailers to store their games in their warehouses. Nintendo still has to pay to have their games shipped. These are added expenses you're not thinking of. Yet, even when a game such as Yoshi's Island on the 3DS flops, they still profit. |
Well they co-developed Infinite Space Nude Maker was lead on that so I don't count it., also sales expectations for a portable game are of course much lower than console games. But sure if you include Infinite Space that sold less (but still lost a lot less money). And again Platinum games has a much better track record that Airtight ever had, they have multi million sellers under their belt. And the reason they are still in business is because publishers keep funding their games, if they had a couple games cancled (Airtight were working on at least two unanounced projects which were presumably cancled after Soul Suspect bombed which is why they are closing up shop) they would probably be in big trouble as well. If Airtight had another publisher willing to fund more projects they would still be in business as well. Which is the main issue here, Airtight weren't good developers all their games were mediocre to poor and sold like shit. They run out of publishers willing to fund projects at a studio that had proven it's self to be incapable of making a well recived game at any budget level, end of story. No one is arguing that Airtight was a well managed studio but their failings have nothing to do with AAA as you are trying to spin it. As we have both pointed out they tried and failed at small budget titles as well as mid tier ones. Making bad games was their problem and that wouldn't change no matter the budgets they delt with.
It should also be noted that Airtight games actually has 50 games to their credit. You see their main business in the early years was outsourced contract work. Dark Void may have been their first internally developed title but they worked on lots of projects before that. Which is how they managed to stay in business as long as they did despite never making a single successful game themselves. But there are plenty of competent studios many of which operate out of much cheaper parts of the world. Dark Void wasn't exactly super ambitious and having Bear McCreary as a composer isn't that impressive, I mean The Angry Videogame Nerd has had him compose things for him, as well as the F2P indie game Moon Breakers. As for not making games for enough platforms the only ones they didn't release games on is Nintendo and even good 3rd party studios haven't managed to crack that nut I doubt it would of helped them. They also worked in diverse genres. Not operating in enoughmarkets was not one of their problems.
As for Nintendo have you looked at their financials lately? Profiting is not something they have been doing lately. Despite releaseing games like Pokemon X/Y that sold over 11 million copies, more than enough to offset 3-4 Wonderful 101 sized bombs easy even after splitting revenue with GameFreak (which they own 50% of so get most of that back).
And just to clarify I agree that keeping budgets under control is a good thing and that publishers should put out more lower budget mid tier titles (like M: SS) we just don't seem to agree that spending too much on games was Airtight's main problem and not the fact that they just didn't make good games. It doesn't matter if your budget is $5m or $500m if you don't make games that people want to play you aren't going to last long.
Anyway wer are arguing circles around simantics, I am O U T out.
Also side note, why the fuck do you format your posts like that? It just makes them harder to read...
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