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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The mid-tier should be brought back to revive classic IPs

Fusioncode on 09 May 2015
DanneSandin said:
pokoko said:

Didn't do great?  I suppose not, but what is "great" for a budget title?  And if Sly Cooper came in at 0.71M across the PS3 and Vita, should we really be playing up Captain Toad at 0.59M as an example of great success?  Sly Cooper was also on PS+, probably had more digital sales, and has a movie coming out.

Puppeteer did poorly as a budget title but was in a very difficult spot.  It could have performed better, I think, under better circumstances.  The director of the game, however, didn't seem to think it did that badly, so perhaps the budget was modest.  He also revealed that he will be making more games that will be digital only.

But Sly Cooper is a bigger franchise and had a much bigger instal base. And lets be honest here, Captain Toad is a glorified DLC. Maybe my expectations are simply way too high. Im used to seeing games make 0.7m in the first week. I actually dont know what a reasonable amount for mid tier and/or portable games are. 0.5m might not be bad for games like these on budgets like those.

For the context of my argument a game that sells 700k should be able to turn a profit. If not then it wasn't budgeted properly and it doesn't fit the argument. If a game can sell 500k copies at a $40 price tag then it just made $20 million dollars. A publisher usually gets around half of a game's sale so they just made $10 million of off it. Uncharted 2 was developed with a budget of $20 million so there's no reason we can't have mid-tier games that cost less than $10 million to make. 



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DanneSandin on 09 May 2015
Fusioncode said:
DanneSandin said:

But Sly Cooper is a bigger franchise and had a much bigger instal base. And lets be honest here, Captain Toad is a glorified DLC. Maybe my expectations are simply way too high. Im used to seeing games make 0.7m in the first week. I actually dont know what a reasonable amount for mid tier and/or portable games are. 0.5m might not be bad for games like these on budgets like those.

For the context of my argument a game that sells 700k should be able to turn a profit. If not then it wasn't budgeted properly and it doesn't fit the argument. If a game can sell 500k copies at a $40 price tag then it just made $20 million dollars. A publisher usually gets around half of a game's sale so they just made $10 million of off it. Uncharted 2 was developed with a budget of $20 million so there's no reason we can't have mid-tier games that cost less than $10 million to make. 

So a mid-tier game is made on a budget less than $10m? Guess that seems pretty reasonable



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theRepublic on 09 May 2015
RolStoppable said:

On topic: The mid-tier is unlikely to be brought back in a serious fashion because the entire purpose of the 360/PS3/X1/PS4 was to eliminate mid-tier games in order to increase the sales for AAA games. The major third party publishers wanted an environment where they could outspend the competition, and subsequently, publishers of mid-tier games either got crushed into oblivion or had to retreat voluntarily.

This is exactly why mid-tier games no longer exist, and are unlikely to make a comeback anytime soon.  And we are all worse off for it.  Less competition, less variety.  I don't see how we break out of this cycle either.



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forest-spirit on 09 May 2015
kupomogli said:
forest-spirit said:
No one wants mid-tier games these days. It's all about the indies and the AAA. All that's in between is uninteresting, at least that's the feeling I get these days.

You get what you pay for and low budget and indie titles rarely have that shining gem in the large pool of crap. There's a lot of great mid level budget  games thoughout past generations.  Most of the best games haven't been your AAA blockbusters but the mid level offerings.  


Oh, I have a lot of interest in the future of mid-tier games as the majority of games I enjoy belong in that space, it's just that the industry in general doesn't seem to care much and gamers often focus on either AAA or indie games.

Fusioncode said:
forest-spirit said:
No one wants mid-tier games these days. It's all about the indies and the AAA. All that's in between is uninteresting, at least that's the feeling I get these days.

If the mid-tier game was a recognizable brand like MediEvil it can attract some attention. For new IPs the mid-tier might not be a great idea but I think it's the best way to go with reviving some classic IPs and fill the gaps between major releases. 

I believe that mid-tier games needs to make a return, both for reviving existing franchises and making new IP's. The video game industry needs a good dose of AA, A, B etc. games to stay healthy as far as I'm concerned.



jonathanalis on 09 May 2015

mid tier all the way!



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DanneSandin on 09 May 2015

I suspect we'll see the return of mid-tier games when indie studios grow and expand and can afford bigger games. What do you do after you've made 8 bit and 16 bit games and made a decent profit? Well you make 64 bit games of course ^^



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Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.