Never listen to hardcore gamers. Only listen to sales figures.

Simple 2 rules these companies should have learned long ago. Hardcore gamers are so little in numbers it doesnt matter what they think or want. And they will always cry and bitch about something. Listetning to your fans has killed you Sega, and is killing you still - arent you going to lay off 20% of your employees this year.

A lot of games that are "crap" tend to sell well but I do agree that not all new/innovative ideas do badly. I mean, look at Left 4 Dead.

I think one of the problems right now is that the gaming industry collected a huge number of casual gamers. These people probably wouldn't have ay more fun with Jet Grind Radio than they would with Tony Hawk 21. Perception of what is original and should be rewarded and what is a hack copy paste job is not distingushable to a vast number of gamers.

At this point though, I would be happy if sega were to sacrifice Sonic and say..."look, we have to do 3 crap sonic games a year in order to get funding to release great original games".  I mean, I love Sonic but the industry has become quite savage. Unless you have 10 million advertising dollars and a mountain of hype, your game does not matter these days.

I went into it thinking that Sega had failed. But alas, the blogger is pointing the figure at the gamer.

New IPs take time to simmer -- and much investment has to be made to convince gamers to try them. Also, they have to be presented in such a way that gamers will accept them. Sometimes I think developers make games for themselves instead of thinking about what will be both an artistic and a commercial success. And unlike the movies, winning awards does not lead to an up-tick in sales.

Mike from Morgantown

At first I thought the editorial was about Sega failing us (accusing them, You fail Sega!) instead of us gamers failing them.

Anyhow, the editorial is just I feel. Gamers don't tend to venture too far from what they know. Sure Assassin's Creed was a huge success for a new IP but it didn't seem all that different from Prince of Persia games that we also know Ubisoft did extremely well. So it was a small leap of faith. Ironically a new PoP game with a new prince, new art direction and new mechanic (the girl) proved too much of a departure for many.

But still many truly innovative games; De Blob, Mirror's Edge and my favorite Dewy's Adventure are left to languish on shelves while sequels sell huge numbers.

Nintendo seems to have figured out the secret though. Don't market new game types to gamers. Market them to everyone else.

I don't have the time to truely dissect this article, but alot of it is over-generalized . I really didn't like it.

lol. Thanks for sharing...

as far as I remember there is no difference - it's the same game but it had different names for different regions

@ topic )

I bought nearly all of those games (well, I originally was a SEGA nerd and by heart I still am)back then, but I acknowledge, that re-releasing them now would only lead to a financial desaster again no matter which console they'd go for ...

still, I hope/wish for a new Panzer Dragoon RPG game (remake or sequal, I don't care) - the battle system of PD Saga still is my favorite one for RPGs

"Innovation" is no substitute for competent execution of game concepts that people want to play, with accessible controls that people can get their hands around, and top-notch production value.

I believe the cries of "innovation" are often done by hardcore gamers who are bored of established genres.  Of course, this results in companies taking chances and possibly messing up things that would result in sales.  Like, let's look at the hyped up, "Mirror's Edge".  Word is that it shows innovation, but its execution is questionable and it is short.   Are a bunch of gamers supposed to jump on the grenade of "innovation" and fork over a bunch of money, just so the industry can take new chances?

Why would it?  I don't see this happening.  It would supposedly end up being AWESOME, the way Nights was on the Wii, right?

But... I enjoyed Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 and Need For Speed ... .