Nabraham said:
bardicverse said:
@ Nabraham - See the above for most of the answers to your questions. As for games that enjoyed similar success, both financially and popularity wise? Sure.... Half Life, Half Life 2, Quake 3 Arena, Quake 4, Doom 2, Doom 3, Bioshock, Unreal, Unreal Tournament.... I can go on for a while. As far as 3D game development is concerned, FPS games require the least effort and fewest resources. |
I'm talking success on their level....Call of Duty 4 sold over 10 million copies alone....most FPS series don't even sell that much. They have absolutely 0 reason to branch out and try other genres when their current one is making them a ton of money. Its a company man, why would they take risks and branch out when the cash cow is staring them in the face?
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Every animal dies eventually, even the cash cow. You have to prepare for a day when the series is milked to death. FPS games the smallest suppy of milk of them all - in other words, the game needs to evolve in order to keep player interest up. This is why Doom 3 was a FPS/horror where Doom 1 and 2 were not so much. With MW 1, it took the COD series to modern day, which was a first for the series. With MW2, they'll build on that, by MW3, the interest will wane unless they come up with another setting/location, or kick it into space or go retro to civil war days. They have enough money to look into other directions and expand their studio's IP, but they seem to close themselves off to the idea. This stubbornness has caused studios to fade away in the past. To me, its simply watching history repeat itself. Who would have known that Origin would eventually fade away when the Wing Commander games were all the rage?
@Ail - I have no disagreements with what you wrote, agree totally. The majority of the work is done in the art area, which is ruled by modeling, which can easily be outsourced. The core of the development team is just tweaking existing code.
