So Why didn't you guys bought deadly premonition? Easily one of the best games this gen..

Lol.

"Look at Call of Duty. Arguably the biggest of the big when it comes to gaming. A veritable powerhouse of profit that tends to be the biggest selling title of any given year. Yet, visually, it's always a step behind its peers. Infinity Ward and Treyarch have successfully mined years of cash out of the same game engine this entire generation, producing games noticeable less graphically intense than the competition, yet trouncing the pretenders at market every single bloody time.

Even its "next-gen" title, Call of Duty: Ghosts, is running off an enhanced version of the same old engine, and I bet it turns a very healthy profit regardless. "

How to survive in the game industry? Sell the same thing everytime, makes sense. I dont disagree with trying to eliminate second hand games, after all devs(well not all of them) put a lot of effort making games and with the used game market they never get the money they deserve. I still agree with part of the article, RE6 dev cost was just insane.

Values that this side brings to the table will collapse this industry. He wants these policies that MS brought solely to protect the style of games HE wants to create( its not mandatory). Why the fuck would anybody be designing a game that takes over 1000 ppl? 50mill+ bucks? Who told them to do that?

Now one needs marketing budgets this high. Make good games and let word of mouth help selling the game. Also make games so good and non generic that everyone wants to keep them. Make them have actual VALUE!

Wasting millions in marketing is bullshit. Seriously only mainstreamers and idiots let themselves be manipulated by commercials. Make DEMOS that show more than the BEST level of your game!!!!

Let your games be highlighted inside the host consoles menus and shops etc. Dont waste money for TV spots, magazines and annyoing internet popups. You moved on from the people that made all of you big and focus on the ones that want dumbed down experiences because they whine about everything challenging. All the people wanting cheap WOW visuals action etc made games worse.

Where are the great experiences like in the past? Heart of Darkness? FF7? etc??? they are rare these days.


And don't hire 100000 average people that dont really work together to have an average game in the end.

Just look at crytek. How many people were working on Farcry 1? 20? They were experts back in the day and made a okayish game. No need to hire 1000 people to make a MEH game.....


BTW about commercials!
The Last of Us commercials after The Walking dead = GREAT. Gears of War commercials at 3 AM or between sitcom episodes = bullshit.


The industry is stuck in an upwards spiral of marketing and budget being the focus not quality. Games like Minecraft, Journey and alot of other indie games show that people are sick of more of the same.(even tho I dont like Minecraft that much)

Cut the budget in half and sit down and actually THINK about making good games. I mean its totally stupid to have a good idea and then to ask investors and publishers if this is okay just to hear their "NAH dont go risky play it safe! Do more of the same shit you always do and if you like just make small changes...."

Especially third party studios create TRANSFORMERS movies of the game industry. Dumbed down experiences trying to satisfy the Neanderthaler in all of us.
"Oh oh grafix oh oh me like Ugga ugga"

We need better games not games with bigger budget. How many people still play Farcry 2? How many play Battlefield Vietnam? How many play Fifa 11? etc??? There is almost no value in those games because they are generic and their only selling point is BETTER VISUALS THAN OLD VERSION and their new installment almost always devalues the last game.

I mean I never ever saw a Journey commercial I first saw it on gaming websites. And I bought it. And I love it.

Pricing your mainstream shit at 60 is bullshit and then trying to prevent people from buying those games used even more. Look at the movie industry. They get it. The movie industry is full of mainstream crap (with the occasional masterpiece) but at least they price their products at 5-20. Making movies is not cheaper than making games it's actually more expensive.

Seriously the industry is full of idiots. You dont want real gamers but mainstream gamers because there is more of them and you simplify the games to get even more of them but at the same time you scare them away with DRM shit and restrictions and the result is you pricing your games higher and coming up with even more crap to scare away customers. Think about it.

If you want as many people to give you money as possible reduce the prices and leave the customers do whatevery they want with THEIR games.

I predict another videogame industry crysis in the next 10 years (when you think about it it already started a few years ago)  and then there will just be a handful of smart people left and indie's etc will still be there.

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.

Read today that Steven Spielberg predicts a massive collapse in the movie industry as budgets are ballooning and creativity is getting stifled to protect massive investments. Points out that innovation is much more evident on cable TV and the window for getting new and exiting project into movie theaters is getting ever smaller. I agree with him and see the same thing happening in video gaming.

Luckily there seems to be a revival of independent games and pathways for self publishing or publishing much smaller budget games are starting to become viable. Hopefully some day soon the Cliff B's of the industry will be cleansed away in a firestorm of megabudget flops and gaming will find itself again and rise from the ashes.

Horrible article. The same people saying this guy is right are the same people buying Grand Threft Auto, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Halo, Beyond, etc These games are expensive. Lot of workers, costly engines, actors, voice actors, etc Show a little respect instead of whining all the time. Apparently because you can name two games that gets away with a AAA budget does not make you right. Throw in nintendo because they can get away with it too, but other developers focus on AAA because AA and class C games dont sell well.  Stop acting like developers/publishers owe you something.  

How is it horrible? It is absolutely true that if a game is unprofitable when selling 4-6M copies then something is wrong on the developer/publishers end and is not the fault of the consumer.

How so?  First off you are wrong on the Tomb Raider end as it was profitable.  The developers was happy with Tomb Raider numbers.  Square Enix on the other hand expected more.  Tomb Raider was suppose to be SE's savior and it wasn't good enough for them.  So that argument is moot.

Truth is AAA games is what people wants, but then we have this loud abnoxious group on the internet whining because they feel entitled to these for cheaper.  Doesn't work that way.

My problem with used sales is that somebody goes and buys a game and then resells it 24 hours later. That person saves about 25 dollars so instead of paying $60 he/she pays $35. The problem is the next purchase. Now the developer is in a situation where companies such as gamestop are selling a brand new game with a used sticker for $55 rather than $60. Not only is that a ripoff to the customer but the developer really got ripped off because a brand new game just got sold used. Correct me if Im wrong but I dont believe there is another industry that does that. Now you can still resell your games with the new setup so the person who bought the game for $60 can still take it back for that $25 again. That is a pretty good deal. Now Gamestop, developer, and user gets a reward from that. The only difference is now gamestop cant sell that next game with a $5 discount and developers get paid as well as gamestop.  

If you dont want to pay $60 for a game i highly doubt you want to pay $55.  If you want to pay $60 and then take it back for $25 then you can still do that.  

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.

Citation needed.