AngryLittleAlchemist said:
This is the weirdest comment yet. You're focusing on the quality of the company but also what games are sought after? That's understandable, but being sought after has an aspect of sales to it as well. So you're not just focusing on the quality of the company. And on that end, Microsoft's acquisitions are usually of low studios. Players who either sell very low amounts of software (even Hellblade), or players who make games that very few actually think are great (Undead Labs). IO Interactive would still be above most of these acquisitions in terms of both player reception AND sales (yes, Hitman 2's sales are better than most people think, don't make me argue this again) - so you aren't proving any point here.
"I personally havnt played it so i cannot judge it."
But .... you are judging it.
"Off topic - Half Life will forever remain a masterpiece, something Hitman has never accomplished, and Half Life did it twice. Theres alittle difference there when it comes to IP power. Half Life 3 weather its a flop will be a marketing dream and will push units. Hitman 5 or what ever number there up to.. well not so much."
So you admit that Metacritic is not a metric for how great a game is, and you also admit to never having played Hitman, yet you still want to judge the game as not being a masterpiece? Uh .... what? That makes no sense. Ok, so let's see what rabbit you can pull out of your hat this time. If you think that you can't judge something based on Metacritic, but you also haven't played the games, then what makes it so that there's never been a masterpiece in the Hitman franchise? And please, don't say sales. Because the original Hitman 2 was a massive success. I don't know if you know this, but the original Hitman 2 and Hitman: Blood Money are quite regularly considered some of the best stealth games ever made, and masterpieces of video game history. Also, if what you got out of that comment was a comparison between Half Life in terms of quality to Hitman, then you are missing the point. The point is the irony in mocking someone's opinion by saying it's from 2002 - while sporting the avatar of a game that hasn't seen a sequel in forever.
"On topic - Ninja Theory has shown talent and they made a game at Hell Blades calibre with very minimal expense. Money hungry corps like MS drool over companies like that. I can understand that purchase."
Hitman 2's game budget is very likely to be not that far above Hellblade's. No, seriously, I'm not joking. While Warner Brothers did pick up publishing for Hitman 2, they mostly focused on the publishing and marketing for the game. Hitman 2's budget was very low, and Hellblade's is a lot bigger than most people think. Like, in the 7-9 million range. That's pretty big considering that Hellblade is a 6-8 hour game that has a ton of filler puzzles. Comparatively, what IO was able to do with a shoe-string budget was a lot more impressive. Dozens of hours of non-linear content, more than a 100 if you enjoy the game as much as many do. And their budget was most likely only two times that of Ninja's, despite getting a lot more out of that money than Ninja did. I for one consider that way more impressive, especially because the only area in which Hellblade's money was used impressively is the graphics.
|