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Forums - Sony - Shuhei Yoshida "'Hates' Annualized Franchises"

FloatingWaffles on 06 February 2015
pokoko said:
FloatingWaffles said:


So apparently "Singing/Sports/gameshow" games don't count now when talking about yearly releases? According to you I mean.

For those who read the full article and understand the context of what he's talking about, no.  For those who only read the title or have an agenda to push?  Go for it, I guess.

"B-but he's not talking about THOSE yearly releases. He's talking about THESE yearly releases"

That doesn't change the fact that they are still yearly releases though, so they should still count.

Plus is Yoshida really feels this way then maybe they shouldn't allow those games on their system, but they know they need them. So it's rather hypocritical in my opinion.

"I don't like annualized franchises, but you should stay on Sony consoles anyway because we can't have you going anywhere else because that would be bad for our console sales".



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VXIII on 06 February 2015
walsufnir said:
pokoko said:

It was more of a question, as I don't play any of the annual franchises, but I'm pretty sure the last Battlefield had some awful bugs at launch.

All he's really saying here is that trying to force complex development into an absolute release date is bad.  If you're setting a date for a major release even before you start development then all kinds of bad things can happen.  Look at all the work that has to be done on an Assassin's Creed game, yet there is no way in hell they'd back off of that holiday release window.  He's saying that Marketing isn't asking Development when they'll be finished, he's saying that Marketing is telling development when they'll be finished.  It's a situation that has the potential to impact game quality.


I know what he is saying but I don't see many "victims" because of that. Unity was definitely a bad example but other games weren't ready, too, by release and were not annual. 

At least I agree that devs should get a little bit more freedom but it's their work and nobody is asking me if I want more time in my job to finish because the schedule is ridiculous - I don't get it anyway.

Being a victim doesn't necessarily mean a broken games full of bugs. Tight release schedule forces the developer to re-use the same asset and tricks without further improvement to the experience in general, and that can happen in many different ways. The whole thing hurts the progress of the industry in general, which is why it is "hated".



walsufnir on 06 February 2015
VXIII said:
walsufnir said:


I know what he is saying but I don't see many "victims" because of that. Unity was definitely a bad example but other games weren't ready, too, by release and were not annual. 

At least I agree that devs should get a little bit more freedom but it's their work and nobody is asking me if I want more time in my job to finish because the schedule is ridiculous - I don't get it anyway.

Being a victim doesn't necessarily mean a broken games full of bugs. Tight release schedule forces the developer to re-use the same asset and tricks without further improvement to the experience in general, and that can happen in many different ways. The whole thing hurts the progress of the industry in general, Which is why it is "hated".


It depends. If you have separate teams working on titles you actually release n-annually, with n being the number of teams working on it. Like COD n=2. Of course sports games are a different story, there you automatically re-use assets everytime by a certain degree.

How this hurts the industry in general I don't see, though. Devs always had tight release schedules, no matter if in gaming or in general.

If for further improvement to the experience this is always subjective. Did racing games change the last 30 years? For sure! For the better? Depends what you like. But this has nothing to do with annual releases but more with how much innovation there is in the industry in general, in my opinion.



Materia-Blade on 06 February 2015
Ruler said:

You compare a sportsgame with real frenchises like assassins creed and cod. They have to be updated every year dueto people wanting them to be updated, new players etc

No, they don't HAVE to be updated yearly and people don't want to. new players is the only thing actually updated, and in this time and age, it's ridiculous that new players don't come as free dlc.



Ruler on 06 February 2015
Materia-Blade said:
Ruler said:

You compare a sportsgame with real frenchises like assassins creed and cod. They have to be updated every year dueto people wanting them to be updated, new players etc

No, they don't HAVE to be updated yearly and people don't want to. new players is the only thing actually updated, and in this time and age, it's ridiculous that new players don't come as free dlc.

It has something to do with lincensing, fifa and nfl make huge profits every year too



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VXIII on 06 February 2015
walsufnir said:
VXIII said:

Being a victim doesn't necessarily mean a broken games full of bugs. Tight release schedule forces the developer to re-use the same asset and tricks without further improvement to the experience in general, and that can happen in many different ways. The whole thing hurts the progress of the industry in general, Which is why it is "hated".


It depends. If you have separate teams working on titles you actually release n-annually, with n being the number of teams working on it. Like COD n=2. Of course sports games are a different story, there you automatically re-use assets everytime by a certain degree.

How this hurts the industry in general I don't see, though. Devs always had tight release schedules, no matter if in gaming or in general.

If for further improvement to the experience this is always subjective. Did racing games change the last 30 years? For sure! For the better? Depends what you like. But this has nothing to do with annual releases but more with how much innovation there is in the industry in general, in my opinion.

Annual releases hurts innovation, because there isn't a time to innovate. Which hurts the industry. Note that "further improvement" doesn't mean innovation alone, I said it could be done in many differents way. Could be as simple as having bigger maps, more variety, more enemies, better AI, more cars.. Anything really.

Yes, having more than one team to develop the same franchise is a smart solution to give the developers more time... Still, recently we had annual franchises with multiple teams behind them suffered from a serious lack of polish ( Unity and BF4 ). Not to mention the lack of improvement in general in those annual franchises. Apparently, they still need even more time to deliver. 

I don't agree with the claim that developers always has tight release schedules, Is there any evidence for it? it is not how it works. The normal situation is the the company find the right balance, which allow the developer to have certain amount of freedom. And for the company plan the schedules of their financial year ahead. That is not the case with the usual annual franchises like Cod, AC and Battlefield. A game has to come out even if it is broken, like Unity and BattleField 4.



pokoko on 06 February 2015
FloatingWaffles said:
pokoko said:

For those who read the full article and understand the context of what he's talking about, no.  For those who only read the title or have an agenda to push?  Go for it, I guess.

"B-but he's not talking about THOSE yearly releases. He's talking about THESE yearly releases"

That doesn't change the fact that they are still yearly releases though, so they should still count.

Plus is Yoshida really feels this way then maybe they shouldn't allow those games on their system, but they know they need them. So it's rather hypocritical in my opinion.

"I don't like annualized franchises, but you should stay on Sony consoles anyway because we can't have you going anywhere else because that would be bad for our console sales".

"B-but I don't understand how he can talk about this b-but not that"

So distinctions cannot be made?  That makes no sense.  Of course someone can talk about one type of thing and not another.  If you said you didn't like pop music, does that mean that you don't like any music at all?  At some point, shouldn't common sense kick in?  The context makes this clear.  Did you even read the article?

And what on earth are you even talking about?  What, does Yoshida suddenly own Sony?  The heck does that even mean ...

Is there anything you don't really like about where you work?  Oops, looks like you're a hypocrite.



walsufnir on 06 February 2015
VXIII said:
walsufnir said:


It depends. If you have separate teams working on titles you actually release n-annually, with n being the number of teams working on it. Like COD n=2. Of course sports games are a different story, there you automatically re-use assets everytime by a certain degree.

How this hurts the industry in general I don't see, though. Devs always had tight release schedules, no matter if in gaming or in general.

If for further improvement to the experience this is always subjective. Did racing games change the last 30 years? For sure! For the better? Depends what you like. But this has nothing to do with annual releases but more with how much innovation there is in the industry in general, in my opinion.

I don't agree with the claim that developers always has tight release schedules, Is there any evidence for it? it is not how it works. The normal situation is the the company find the right balance, which allow the developer to have certain amount of freedom. And for the company plan the schedules of their financial year ahead. That is not the case with the usual annual franchises like Cod, AC and Battlefield. A game has to come out even if it is broken, like Unity and BattleField 4.


Having tight release dates is nothing new when it comes to software development in general. You can't say "x will release on $date" unless you are almost completely done. It is why devs have to take overtime hours before games have to go gold. There is always something unfinished, which needs more polishing but you have to ship it someday. Even if games get delayed they are "rushed" weeks before going gold, like software in general that has to be shipped in a given timeframe.

A nice story I found about Doom on 3do:

http://kotaku.com/heres-why-the-3do-port-of-doom-sucked-1671138312



outlawauron on 06 February 2015
Player2 said:
pokoko said:
Player2 said:

"And that's why we made three SingStar and Buzz games per year instead of one until we burned them". He forgot to say.

Regarding the early days of PlayStation:

Are you really trying to use sports games to negate what he's saying?  Seriously?  Games which are annual by necessity and generally easy to develop?  As opposed to franchises which have no actual need for annual entries and have to be rushed to fit schedules?  

Do you really have no understanding of what he's really talking about here?

No. I'm using Buzz and SingStar to show that he's and hypocrite.

Sport franchises don't need to be yearly, specially in this day and age. A DLC roster update (which is what most of them are and why they're easy to develop) priced at $10-20 should be enough.

But this is false. Publishers who hold these licenses are contractually required to release a new version every year. If they don't, they risk losing the license.



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Player2 on 06 February 2015
outlawauron said:
Player2 said:
 

No. I'm using Buzz and SingStar to show that he's and hypocrite.

Sport franchises don't need to be yearly, specially in this day and age. A DLC roster update (which is what most of them are and why they're easy to develop) priced at $10-20 should be enough.

But this is false. Publishers who hold these licenses are contractually required to release a new version every year. If they don't, they risk losing the license.

I was talking from a technical standpoint, but I seriously doubt that would happen. In fact, EA didn't lose the NBA license when they stopped making NBA Live and Sega didn't lose the ATP license.