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Forums - Sales - Western Publishers are struggling

BengaBenga on 16 December 2008
psrock said:
the problem is Nintendo is so great at it, it will take these guys years to get close to ninty standards.


And the biggest obstacle : the gaming press and the internet.

Look at all the whining about the God of wAR trailer. The focus wasnt how insane the gameplay was, but how bad the graphic was.

 

The issue is that they need to NOT do what Nintendo does. Nintendo is the most successfull game developer in the world. Period. The last thing you want is compete with them on their territory. 3rd party devs need to make stuff that Nintendo doesn't; like sports/shooters/RPGs. Some are doing this; Nintendo would never make a game like MadWorld or the Conduit but more companies should do this. Not ONLY this, but smart companies in all other businesses are used to spread risks. It's a miracle to me how juggernauts like EA and Ubisoft have such weak strategies that gamled on one idea. That while these mega-publishers have the funds to develop for all platforms.

Microsoft and Sony have made these fanboys themselves by claiming it's about the graphics. It's their own fault that people are underwhelmed by God of War III, which by any standard looks great. Everything is overhyped to the point where it can't deliver on the promises anymore. The way out of this is hard, but necessary. The HD userbase is too small for 20 AAA games in a year. I hope that will also bring game development back to basics.



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Riachu on 16 December 2008
BengaBenga said:
psrock said:
the problem is Nintendo is so great at it, it will take these guys years to get close to ninty standards.


And the biggest obstacle : the gaming press and the internet.

Look at all the whining about the God of wAR trailer. The focus wasnt how insane the gameplay was, but how bad the graphic was.

 

The issue is that they need to NOT do what Nintendo does. Nintendo is the most successfull game developer in the world. Period. The last thing you want is compete with them on their territory. 3rd party devs need to make stuff that Nintendo doesn't; like sports/shooters/RPGs. Some are doing this; Nintendo would never make a game like MadWorld or the Conduit but more companies should do this. Not ONLY this, but smart companies in all other businesses are used to spread risks. It's a miracle to me how juggernauts like EA and Ubisoft have such weak strategies that gamled on one idea. That while these mega-publishers have the funds to develop for all platforms.

Microsoft and Sony have made these fanboys themselves by claiming it's about the graphics. It's their own fault that people are underwhelmed by God of War III, which by any standard looks great. Everything is overhyped to the point where it can't deliver on the promises anymore. The way out of this is hard, but necessary. The HD userbase is too small for 20 AAA games in a year. I hope that will also bring game development back to basics.

What do you mean by bringing game development back to basics?

 



 

http://www.youtube.com/user/InvaderZimGuy1?feature=mhum

theRepublic on 16 December 2008
Endz said:
You could take PS2 to PS3 as an example. Sony got massive revenue from PS2 but in developing for PS3 that added up to lots of expenses. Why? Sony tried too put too much too quickly. Some people agreed that PS3 should have waited for one more year to be released (this would have been market share suicide in my opinion) but still time is the factor here.

Everything just advanced too much not just graphical advancement (which takes loads of money to develop) but features too. As other posts have said, you need those shiny hot real-life graphics to even be noticed in this gen (xbox and PS3 mainly of course) but people want more. Technical advancement is too much (AI and physics for hundreds of enemies), everything in a game is too complicated, features like achievements for everything and huge multi-player. Things are just going to cost more and more along with each advancement.

But time is the factor, Sony could have waited until hardware parts are cheaper like game companies could have waited until getting into top-end technologies is cheaper. What if next-gen Xbox has a console that allows for many more features in games and close to real-life graphics- Companies would need to develop for that and the costs might be staggering.

You bring up a good point.  Microsoft and Sony over engineered their consoles.  To use that power, developers need to over engineer their games.  It was all too much, too soon.  The leap to this generation was too large to handle under the current business model. Costs had not come down enough on all this technology.

So in a way, Microsoft and Sony can be blamed.



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BengaBenga on 16 December 2008
Riachu said:
BengaBenga said:
psrock said:
the problem is Nintendo is so great at it, it will take these guys years to get close to ninty standards.


And the biggest obstacle : the gaming press and the internet.

Look at all the whining about the God of wAR trailer. The focus wasnt how insane the gameplay was, but how bad the graphic was.

 

The issue is that they need to NOT do what Nintendo does. Nintendo is the most successfull game developer in the world. Period. The last thing you want is compete with them on their territory. 3rd party devs need to make stuff that Nintendo doesn't; like sports/shooters/RPGs. Some are doing this; Nintendo would never make a game like MadWorld or the Conduit but more companies should do this. Not ONLY this, but smart companies in all other businesses are used to spread risks. It's a miracle to me how juggernauts like EA and Ubisoft have such weak strategies that gamled on one idea. That while these mega-publishers have the funds to develop for all platforms.

Microsoft and Sony have made these fanboys themselves by claiming it's about the graphics. It's their own fault that people are underwhelmed by God of War III, which by any standard looks great. Everything is overhyped to the point where it can't deliver on the promises anymore. The way out of this is hard, but necessary. The HD userbase is too small for 20 AAA games in a year. I hope that will also bring game development back to basics.

What do you mean by bringing game development back to basics?

 

Mainly gameplay, artstyle, originality. I really miss that. Especially on the HD consoles. It seems like WiiWare/PSN/XBLA are where it is for people that want to play a great original game these days. There the pressure isn't on the graphics, but on what the developer wants to do.

I really miss that in the big budget retail games. Everything is the same. look at what's getting high review scores: Shooters and WRPGs. Look at what sells most on the PS360: Shooters and WRPG (no coincidence) and the occasional sports game. The PS360 have so much possibilities with their power, but it's almost entirely used for the same things. And something that tries to be innovative like Prince of Persia bombs. I even seen loads of comments on the internet that it deserved bad sales because "cell shading sucks".

Wii the other side: quite some original games like Boom Blox, No More Heroes and de Blob. But those lack the blockbuster appeal and budget to really convince others to do one or two games like that as well.

 

 



vlad321 on 16 December 2008
BengaBenga said:
Riachu said:
BengaBenga said:
psrock said:
the problem is Nintendo is so great at it, it will take these guys years to get close to ninty standards.


And the biggest obstacle : the gaming press and the internet.

Look at all the whining about the God of wAR trailer. The focus wasnt how insane the gameplay was, but how bad the graphic was.

 

The issue is that they need to NOT do what Nintendo does. Nintendo is the most successfull game developer in the world. Period. The last thing you want is compete with them on their territory. 3rd party devs need to make stuff that Nintendo doesn't; like sports/shooters/RPGs. Some are doing this; Nintendo would never make a game like MadWorld or the Conduit but more companies should do this. Not ONLY this, but smart companies in all other businesses are used to spread risks. It's a miracle to me how juggernauts like EA and Ubisoft have such weak strategies that gamled on one idea. That while these mega-publishers have the funds to develop for all platforms.

Microsoft and Sony have made these fanboys themselves by claiming it's about the graphics. It's their own fault that people are underwhelmed by God of War III, which by any standard looks great. Everything is overhyped to the point where it can't deliver on the promises anymore. The way out of this is hard, but necessary. The HD userbase is too small for 20 AAA games in a year. I hope that will also bring game development back to basics.

What do you mean by bringing game development back to basics?

 

Mainly gameplay, artstyle, originality. I really miss that. Especially on the HD consoles. It seems like WiiWare/PSN/XBLA are where it is for people that want to play a great original game these days. There the pressure isn't on the graphics, but on what the developer wants to do.

I really miss that in the big budget retail games. Everything is the same. look at what's getting high review scores: Shooters and WRPGs. Look at what sells most on the PS360: Shooters and WRPG (no coincidence) and the occasional sports game. The PS360 have so much possibilities with their power, but it's almost entirely used for the same things. And something that tries to be innovative like Prince of Persia bombs. I even seen loads of comments on the internet that it deserved bad sales because "cell shading sucks".

Wii the other side: quite some original games like Boom Blox, No More Heroes and de Blob. But those lack the blockbuster appeal and budget to really convince others to do one or two games like that as well.

 

 

I fully agree with what you are saying. In my opinion graphics really shouldn't have advanced past the UE2. Things that needed to be round were round, there were particle effects, whatever you needed was there. Imgaine how far other areas like gameplay, AI, and physics would have advanced if people weren't all about the shiny weapon but how the game actually plays.

The other problem that you mentioned is the blockbuster appeal, though I'll go off in a different direction with it. There are many previous and current gamers who decide they want to make the next HL of Gears or AC. and there aren't enough who would just settle by making a really badass physics/ai/innovative gameplay game that makes huge profit even if it doesn't become the "ZOMG TIHS IS TEH 1337" as the other games. Too many people want to make the next shooter and not enough are willing to make the next Portal or World of Goo (the best 2 games to come out in the past several year imo). When everyone starts competing with each other, only very few actually manage to succeed and that is what we are currently seeing.

 



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835

 

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1337 Gamer on 16 December 2008

I call it Karma. These developers are the ones making the most cash cows and shovelware. They deserve it more or less with a few exceptions.



Long Live SHIO!

vlad321 on 16 December 2008
1337 Gamer said:
I call it Karma. These developers are the ones making the most cash cows and shovelware. They deserve it more or less with a few exceptions.

 

Then how is it that Activision and Ubisoft are doing so well considering they are churning out so much crap themselves? Where's your karma for them?



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835

 

theRepublic on 16 December 2008
nintendo_fanboy said:
Most of your arguments are good, especially Naznatips'. But I still think you're concentrating too much on high development costs instead of thinking about milking franchises too. Remember what we heard about High Voltage's search for a publisher. Everyone wanted to get the game out as fast as possible in order to make some money, instead of taking enough time to polish it and make it a huge seller.
Remember also that EA apparently is stopping their Need for Speed series which was a huge seller only one gen ago, but it's overdone now. Now add high development costs to franchises that are not selling as well as expected anymore and to others that are not popular yet and a mentality to get a game out in time no matter how bad it is and you get the reason why western publishers are struggling.

Agreed.  I have mentioned this before, but keep forgetting about it in this thread.  Yearly franchises are slowly hurting the industry.  Although some assets can potentially be reused, the slow degradation of the sales of these games eventually make it not even worth it.  Now publishers like EA are scrambling to find new IPs at the worst possible time.

I think publishers could take a lesson from Nintendo on this one.  A franchise should be used once or twice a generation at most.

The one exception might be sports games.  I would need to look into it more on this one.

BengaBenga said:

The issue is that they need to NOT do what Nintendo does. Nintendo is the most successfull game developer in the world. Period. The last thing you want is compete with them on their territory. 3rd party devs need to make stuff that Nintendo doesn't; like sports/shooters/RPGs. Some are doing this; Nintendo would never make a game like MadWorld or the Conduit but more companies should do this. Not ONLY this, but smart companies in all other businesses are used to spread risks. It's a miracle to me how juggernauts like EA and Ubisoft have such weak strategies that gamled on one idea. That while these mega-publishers have the funds to develop for all platforms.

Microsoft and Sony have made these fanboys themselves by claiming it's about the graphics. It's their own fault that people are underwhelmed by God of War III, which by any standard looks great. Everything is overhyped to the point where it can't deliver on the promises anymore. The way out of this is hard, but necessary. The HD userbase is too small for 20 AAA games in a year. I hope that will also bring game development back to basics.

First Paragraph:

If enthusiasts on the internet can see this, why can't people who do this for a living figure this out?  It is truely amazing.

Second Paragraph:

I made a similar point earlier in the thread.  Microsoft and Sony started this graphics race, and it is dragging down the industry.  All games on their consoles are expected to have amazing graphics, but not everything can be a big budget game.  The economic realities do not support it.  Now that HD fans have been spoiled by this unsustainable model, it will be very hard for them to take lower budget games that don't look as good.



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shio on 16 December 2008
naznatips said:
Ari_Gold said:
@ Montana... EA's big yearly franchises grew old ( Medal of Honor, Battlefield, Burnout, Need for Speed), hence they need to make original IPS, most of them have been pretty good actually, i loved skate, mirror edge and dead space. Activision got lucky with Guitar Hero and Call of Duty 4. But they'll eventually go the way EA is currently going, and start to make new IPs.

New EA > Old EA

 

The console market is now all but meaningless to Activision.  In their last quarter their financials were 58% of their profit was from PC alone (42% of that from WoW, 16% from other sales). Followed by 13% on Wii, 10% on DS, and PS3 and 360 fighting over the last pathetic little 19%.  If you think either of those consoles mean jack in this industry anymore you are nuts.  PS3 and 360 could drop dead tomorrow and it wouldn't affect Activision much at all.  EA, however, would instantly go out of business.  EA will die long before Activision has to change anything.

This. It's not surprising that EA is more and more pushing PC support and caring less about HD consoles. EA is making a HUGE comeback on PC:

- Spore (2 millions in first 3 weeks, "The Sims" sales level), and a "looks awesome" expansion releasing in 2009

- Warhammer Online (over 1 million sales in it's debut month, best MMO launch since WoW)

- Battlefield Heroes (new take on the series, with Free-to-Play model + microtransactions)

- Revamp of all EA Sports titles for PC in 2009, which will take advantage of the PC's strengths with new specific features

- Battleforge, coming 2009, looks amazing and also is microtransactions-based

- Star Wars MMO, likely Free-to-Play with transactions so that it doesn't clash with Warhammer Online business model

- The Sims 3, proven +10 millions seller on PC

I think I'm forgetting some things more.

No doubt that EA knows where the big bucks are..... PC.



http://i48.tinypic.com/120qaon.jpg
Khuutra on 16 December 2008
shio said:

No doubt that EA knows where the big bucks are..... PC.

I take umbrage with the idea. Again, it's more like, except for Madden, they don't know how to treat consoles as anything but PCs, and PC gaming only works on the PC in the first place.

Western developers at the core of it are out of touch with console ideals.