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greenmedic88 on 29 May 2008
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Viper1 said:
greenmedic88 said:
That is backwards thinking to say that the graphical quality of games is ultimately determined by the non-gaming stockholders.

If the stockholders in question are non-gamers, then they neither know, nor care about such technical aspects so long as the producing company continues to post profits and growth.

What next? Stockholders are ultimately the ones who determine how "fun" a given producer's games are?

No. It's the people playing and buying them who determine what sells, whether it's dreck or quality product. The companies are only responsible for keeping production costs in check and producing projects in time to maintain profitability. Stockholders will follow by investing in the companies with the strongest financials or most promising upcoming product line ups.

There are no "suicidal moves" being committed here if the games, regardless of how they look, or what demographic they're targeted at, continue to sell, even if they're being "snuck by" a less savvy demographic that isn't as discriminating about what they play so long as they're having fun. There is no dictating what a player/consumer enjoys playing.

You are correct, it is not the shareholders. However, it is the publishers. They fund the project, they determine the direction of the project.

Publisher direction is the biggest cause of crapware in the entire industry. They waltz in, lay down the money and proceed to tell the developer how THEY want the game.

This doesn't mean they demand crappy graphics but they post impossible deadlines, underfund, alter development priorities and enforce TRC that at times just don't make sense.

 


Dev teams work with the resources they are allotted, both in number of staff and time tables. In the instance of developing for the Wii, teams are often on shortened time tables and with smaller staff.

I don't blame the dev teams if they are shorthanded and working on truncated time tables. Of course I won't buy the games either, but as long a they are still generating sales, this practice will never stop completely.

Publishers are simply shooting for what they believe will sell enough to generate profits, and in some instances, publishers go out on a limb and the consumers receive creative gems that ultimately pay off for publishers in terms of sales (which go on to become established hot IPs like Metal Gear back during the days of the NES) or in other instances don't (received poorly in terms of sales, but may still receive critical acclaim).

Eventually the crapware should taper off partially for the Wii, but as the platform with the largest user base, ie the largest target, it willl still by default have the most crap continually thrown at it by developers to see what sticks.