216 réponses à ce sujet

[DarkDragon777]

Maybe the title should be changed to, "EA Doesn't Tell Us Anything Worth Doing"

[Akka le Vil]

Stanley Woo wrote...

It was ignored (by me, anyway) because your base premise is something to which I can only respond "you are wrong."

It's possible. I'm not in the industry, and I guess even for you it's hard to have detailed figures on the budgets for others games, so I get the informations I can (and I would be really thankful to have actual reliable informations that could prove me wrong or right, BTW).

So far, I could grab these kind of numbers from sources that looked rather solid :

Modern Warfare II had a development budget of 50 millions, and a marketing cost of 200 millions (80 % of its budget was only for marketting).
Halo 3 had a development budget of 55 millions, and a marketing cost of 190 millions (about 75 % of the global budget).

I know these are probably extreme examples. Still, it gives indications about just how much marketing is weighing on at least some AAA titles. Even is the situation is vastly more reasonable for less famous franchises, I'd be surprised if the marketing costs of games like DA2 or Mass Effect (which are, after all, ALSO supposed to be AAA titles, even if in much more modest categories) are lower than 35-40 % (you're free to correct me if I'm wrong, as said above I prefer to deal with real facts, regardless of how they support or undermine my side).

You're also free to correct me about how much BG2 sold (it seems to me it was around 3 million units, which is, AFAIK, about the same as DAO and a bit more than DA2).
It seems to me that nowaday, very big titles (like Halo 3, Call of Duty, Starcraft II and the like) sell for about seven to twelve millions copies. Back in the 90' and 2000', I remember the category of games sold for about two to three millions copy (so we can see an increase fourfold or fivefold, which fits with my previous estimation of "selling five times more for ten times the price").
Again, I'm all about listening your opinion - though I'm not sold about agreeing, of course.

And as your base premise is incorrect, your conclusions based on that premise are incorrect. The rhetorical questions you ask based on that premise are misguided, and your utopian idea of game developer as artist and publisher as money-grubbing killjoy is laudable but completely ignores the financial realities of the industry. Sorry.

I know my ideas are idealistic (though I wouldn't go as far as "utopian"), but even if keeping aside the said idealistic  "I expect the artist to put the quality of his work first and the rentability second" idea and going strictly with the "commercial" side, I'm still quite persuaded that following the marketing crap of dumbing down for the common denominator is NOT a good idea. Let me explain :

There has been many games in history that have become "classic". They became so because they managed, by design or accident or talent or anything, to strike a chord in the players. They had "something" that set them apart, and made them memorable and a cornerstone of the gaming world. Names like Fallout, Doom, Half-Life, Civilization, Deus Ex and the like.
One of the saddest and most infuriating trend these days, has been to take such a franchise that set itself apart from the rest, and then let lose the dogs of marketing on it, changing it so it becomes "more sellable" (overwhelmingly by dumbing it down, gutting it of every complex/immersive/thought-inducing idea, making it "more streamlined" and the like, you know the drill).
Nearly always, the end result was a failure (from "relative" to "complete and utter"), because, rather obviously, if you strip a game from what made it different and ensured it was a success, then you've, well, removed the VERY REASON why it was successful. It seems obvious, but it is STILL done.

Supreme Commander 2, Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2, Civilization V, Deus Ex : Invisible War and many others have shown it. They usually don't outsold their predecessor, making all the changes "for better sales" useless and dubious, and all the money thrown into such marketing compeltely wasted and pointless (in other words : such changes are simply costing more for no additionnal benefit, and often reduced benefits), and more often than not killed the goodwill of the community, threatening fewer sales for the next iteration of the franchise.
Also, you can be pretty sure that none of them will be ever considered a "classic" few years down. If a new sequel is made, it will be built on the fame of their predecessor, not their own. Again, no benefit.

In other words, to come back at what I was saying : the move to follow marketing crap had not brang benefit, it has actually been counter-productive - despite higher costs.
So even on a purely commercial side (which is not even the one that should be given the highest priority) it's not a good move. So why the hell is it so often done ?

Modifié par Akka le Vil, 12 octobre 2011 - 08:56 .

[MerinTB]

Stanley Woo wrote...
And yet, Star Wars didn't lose an entire generation of fans. Neither did Star Trek when the latest movie was released. Neither did Firefly when Serenity didn't do well at the box office. one might even say that, since these events, those respective franchises gained legions of new fans while retaining many of their old ones.

Almost everyone of those examples is extremely flawed and doesn't even prove your point.

Serenity was almost universally loved by Firefly fans.  It came out after the tv series was dead, but the fan support made the movie possible.  AND the movie greatly increased Firefly's exposure, increasing the Firefly fanbase.  Serenity's low box office was due to lack of advertising and little knowledge of the source material for the few who did hear of the film.  But the film, itself, is often used as a "conversion story" for those brought to Firefly.

Star Trek has been around for so long (about a decade longer than Star Wars), you probably lost more fans to DEATH than to the new movie "rebooting" the franchise.  Star Trek is like D&D, with each new iteration there was a shedding of old fans and the gain of maybe and equal amount of fans for the new stuff over the old (maybe.)  But by the time of the green light for the new Star Trek movie the franchise, itself, was pretty stagnant and all but dead.  I could be wrong on this (Star Trek is, oddly, my weakest knowledge base as compared to even Star Wars, which I was never a "fan" of) but my general understanding is that the backlash at the new movie was very, very tiny.

Star Wars gained a bunch of fans with the new movies, perhaps, maybe even adding more than it lost, but the new movies polarized nerd culture.  Star Wars had been fairly universally loved prior to Phantom Menace, with the worst it usually got being "Star Wars is okay" (that would have been me prior to the prequels.)  Now Star Wars is as often the butt of jokes (mean-spirited jokes, even) as it is praised as iconic.

I'm failing to see those two tv/film franchises and one film franchise (Star Wars, despite all its cartoons, is mostly a film franchise) are comparable to BioWare.  I'm failing to see the analogy...

What is it you are comparing them to, Stanley?  I don't want to say "bad analogy" because I can poke holes in how different things are, I hate when people do that, but what you actually said doesn't connect.  If on nothing else, the Serenity comment screams of ignorance (and by ignorance I mean you not knowing much about Browncoats)...

unless you are trying to make 3 separate analogies (like, say, the poor box office of Serenity compared to the weak sales of DA2), at which point listing all three at once is very, very confusing.

[Stanley Woo]

Akka le Vil wrote...

Supreme Commander 2, Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2, Civilization V, Deus Ex : Invisible War and many others have shown it. They usually don't outsold their predecessor, making all the changes "for better sales" useless and dubious, and all the money thrown into such marketing compeltely wasted and pointless (in other words : such changes are simply costing more for no additionnal benefit, and often reduced benefits), and more often than not killed the goodwill of the community, threatening fewer sales for the next iteration of the franchise.
Also, you can be pretty sure that none of them will be ever considered a "classic" few years down. If a new sequel is made, it will be built on the fame of their predecessor, not their own. Again, no benefit.

Of course not, if you look at it completely from the perspective of hindsight. Companies don't have the luxury of looking at the results of their decisions before making them, while players have every luxury of being able to judge a decision long after its results are already known. If we're making a decision based on "it'll sell more," we have to do so before any sales are made, before any numbers are released. This is, of course, long before players get their hands on the game. heck, it may even be long before the game has been announced.

It's like buying a lottery ticket, right? You can't predict whether you will win the jackpot, but you purchase it in the hopes of winning the jackpot. If you win, no one can say anything because, hey, you won, but if you don't win, your friends will ask "why would you buy a lottery ticket? You lost!" You have to decide to take that risk (spending the money on a ticket) in order to potentially reap the reward. If you never buy the ticket, the chances of winning are precisely zero. the same concept applies to game development. if we never try anything new, nothing changes. Games will become more expensive, advertising will get more expensive, but if all you're doing is targeting the same people each and every time, the chances of gaining a significant amount of sales to help position you for future development are pretty slim.

In other words, to come back at what I was saying : the move to follow marketing crap had not brang benefit, it has actually been counter-productive - despite higher costs.

So even on a purely commercial side (which is not even the one that should be given the highest priority) it's not a good move. So why the hell is it so often done ?

You should ask yourself the same question but put yourself in the company's shoes for a second. If it never works, why would it be tried at all, and by so many companies? Logically, one would conclude that it must work more often than not, since the company is spending so much money on advertising. And the results of it working are probably pretty significant, if the company is willing to risk that much on it. Companies rarely do something just for the heck of it, and that becomes more true the bigger the company is.

So why do it? Because it can work and can be of great benefit. It would be tough to prove because I can't bring any numbers into play, but as much as I disagree with it, movies have advertising budgets that are sometimes larger than the development budgets. it doesn't always work, sure, but compared to films which don't get that advertising, it certainly makes a difference.

Let's take two hypothetical films, Movie A with a Vengeance and Last Call for Movie B. It's summer blockbuster season and the studios behind each film wants to attract as many moviegoers as possible on opening weekend. Movie A With a Vengeance has a huge advertising budget, and uses it like it's going out of style. MAWV Studio takes out TV spots, so whenever you watch TV, every other commercial break screams MOVIE A WITH A VENGEANCE at you. The studio also advertises on your favourite websites. MOVIE A! MOVIE A! MOVIE A! WITH A VENGEANCE! It also takes up space at all the summer conventions. MOVIE A here! MOVIE A there! And, of course, let's not forget all the Movie A With a Vengeance, t-shirts, action figures, ringtones, Happy Meals, banners, screenshots, video clips, cosplayers and such.

Unfortunately, Last Call for Movie B has a significantly smaller budget but is coming out at the same time as Movie A With a Vengeance, but they try to do the same thing as Movie A on a smaller scale. Now, when you watch TV, the ads go Movie A, Movie A, Movie A, Last Call for Movie B, Movie A, Movie A, Movie A, Movie A. When you go to your favourite websites, you see MOVIE A! MOVIE A! MOVIE A! MOVIE A WITH A VENGEANCE! MOVIE A! and over there in the corner is, i think, maybe Movie B. MOVIE A! VENGEANCE ! VENGEANCE! VENGEANCE! MOVIE A! MOVIE A! At the summer conventions, there's only one Last Call for Movie B character running around with photocpied leaflets, while everyone's flocking to the Movie A cosplayers handing out REPLICA VENGEANCE GUNS! VENGEANCE GUNS! VENGEANCE VENGEANCE VENGEANCE! As for ancillary products, Movie B can only afford Last Call plushies, which do sell pretty well from the one site that sells them.

Which film do you think will attract the most audience? Probably Movie A, since they've saturated the market and people's brains with imagery, tag lines and titles from Movie A With a Vengeance. Heck, even leaving this post, the phrase MOVIE A WITH A VENGEANCE might stick in your head a little bit, since I emphasized it more and mentioned it more often. With all the competition in not just the videogames industry, but all other entertainment media and distractions, it seems necessary to spend that money in order to get, hold and keep people's interest in your product.

[Stanley Woo]

MerinTB wrote...
What is it you are comparing them to, Stanley?  I don't want to say "bad analogy" because I can poke holes in how different things are, I hate when people do that, but what you actually said doesn't connect.  If on nothing else, the Serenity comment screams of ignorance (and by ignorance I mean you not knowing much about Browncoats)...

Like with one lesser-selling game, a new Star Trek reboot, a poorly-grossing Firefly movie, or a polarizing Star Wars direction does not signal the death of a franchise or mass desrtion of the franchise by the fanbase. So folks should not start spouting doom and gloom for a company or franchise based on a single product that they didn't like, didn't sell well, or went in a different direction than they'd like.

[Akka le Vil]

Stanley Woo wrote...

It's like buying a lottery ticket, right? You can't predict whether you will win the jackpot, but you purchase it in the hopes of winning the jackpot. If you win, no one can say anything because, hey, you won, but if you don't win, your friends will ask "why would you buy a lottery ticket? You lost!" You have to decide to take that risk (spending the money on a ticket) in order to potentially reap the reward. If you never buy the ticket, the chances of winning are precisely zero. the same concept applies to game development.

I think this example of the lottery ticket is accidentally right on the money : because, from where I'm looking at, it seems that the problem is precisely that the big investor only look for "NUMBER ONE", investing ridiculous amount of money in the expectation of getting it all, and taking lots of risks of losing a lot, rather than being more modest and making smaller games that would have a higher chance to appeal to a smaller segment of the market.

In other word, they all look at getting 50 % of the whole market by paying X millions of dollars, while they could get 90 % of a quarter of the market by paying X/10 millions dollars (and make a better game on top of that).

if we never try anything new, nothing changes. Games will become more
expensive, advertising will get more expensive, but if all you're doing
is targeting the same people each and every time, the chances of gaining
a significant amount of sales to help position you for future
development are pretty slim.

I don't get this argument, sorry. I never said anything against innovation. In fact, my whole example about games that set apart the rest is precisely about game that ARE innovative, and which are RIPPED of precisely this innovativeness to sink back into the same bland "casual/broader audience/streamlined/etc." crap.
The examples I've given were all about games that WERE apart from the "mainstream". How the heck slashing them from their own particularities and blending them back into the same mold can count as "innovation" ? It's the EXACT OPPOSITE !

Also, you're talking about the need of "gaining significant amount of sales".
First, I'd like to point that I don't see where you gained a lot of sales compared to BG2. As I said before (again, you're welcome to correct me if I'm wrong), sales from BG2 were roughly the same than sales from DAO, and above sales from DA2. Where exactly are the "significant amount of sales" more that fuel this reasoning ?
Second, why should you NEED to increase the amount of sales ? Isn't it precisely the problem, always wanting MORE even when you've a lot, and ending with such inflated budgets that are then used as a excuse for gutting the game to "make it sell more" ?

You should ask yourself the same question but put yourself in the company's shoes for a second. If it never works, why would it be tried at all, and by so many companies? Logically, one would conclude that it must work more often than not, since the company is spending so much money on advertising. And the results of it working are probably pretty significant, if the company is willing to risk that much on it. Companies rarely do something just for the heck of it, and that becomes more true the bigger the company is.

Well, my opinion is that, if simply following a formula was enough to "work more often than not", companies would not go bankrupt.
The fact is, just how much of these "classic" games were made by big-budget studios following the marketing formula of "dumb down and go for wide audience" ? Not a lot. On the contrary, how much of the follow-up of these great games were a failure ? Quite a bit.

Following from this, I'm pretty sure that no, dumbing down a franchise doesn't make it sell more in the long term. My take on it is that the marketing guys tend to see too much in general market, and not enough in the specificity of the product. Getting a NICHE title to try to make it a MAINSTREAM one is certainly not something that I would call smart - it's just swimming upstream and wasting effort for a dubious result.

Notice that I'm talking about ruining franchises that were a success because they were NOT mainstream. I'm not denying there is huge mainstream success : Sims, Call of Duty and the like have been extremely consistant in their sales.
But the point is : these games were mainstream from the get-go, so they don't have been gutted of what made them popular to put them where they don't belong. They have just kept using the same formula because this formula was already what made them a hit.

No, what I'm talking about, and what I can't understand, is why you would take a serie that was successful BECAUSE it was not mainstream and had a "particular" thing about it, to remove precisely this point, and make it mainstream. It's just so... absurd.

Which film do you think will attract the most audience? Probably Movie A, since they've saturated the market and people's brains with imagery, tag lines and titles from Movie A With a Vengeance. Heck, even leaving this post, the phrase MOVIE A WITH A VENGEANCE might stick in your head a little bit, since I emphasized it more and mentioned it more often. With all the competition in not just the videogames industry, but all other entertainment media and distractions, it seems necessary to spend that money in order to get, hold and keep people's interest in your product.

Probably that Movie A will attract the most audience.
But how much more has Movie A spent into marketing ? How much more ticket it must sell just to reimburse all this marketing ? As you shown in your example, considering there is several HUGE spender in marketing, just how much is it necessary to invest to "be heard", and following how much more to you must sell at a minimum to compensate ?
How much this upped "minimum level" of sales must in the end parasite your development and design because you NEED it to sell more because you've invested so much in marketing ?

When there is public announcement about how such studio was bought by such editor, we always see "now we have much more means to do great game, it's good news for the company !". But in the end, all this additionnal money available means that yes, you've got more budget, but you must sell more to refund it, and it means lots of this budget is in effect "locked" into "marketable" stuff, and there is much more interference from the commercial boys.
How exactly is it so much better for the games in the end ?

How exactly having to compromise with marketing when designing the game, having to be forced to rush a game early, having to inflate the budget to ten times what it was in the 2000's, having to stuff DRM in the throat of your consumers, all this to in the end making the same 3 millions sales that you already did at the time, has improved anything ?

Modifié par Akka le Vil, 12 octobre 2011 - 10:27 .

[Gotholhorakh]

Tired ramble. Please delete.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 13 octobre 2011 - 08:18 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Like with one lesser-selling game, a new Star Trek reboot, a poorly-grossing Firefly movie, or a polarizing Star Wars direction does not signal the death of a franchise or mass desrtion of the franchise by the fanbase. So folks should not start spouting doom and gloom for a company or franchise based on a single product that they didn't like, didn't sell well, or went in a different direction than they'd like.

Nor, I think, should we assume that just because some features we like disappeared, those features will never return.

[shepisavanguardgetoverit]

Akka le Vil wrote...

There has been many games in history that have become "classic". They became so because they managed, by design or accident or talent or anything, to strike a chord in the players. They had "something" that set them apart, and made them memorable and a cornerstone of the gaming world. Names like Fallout, Doom, Half-Life, Civilization, Deus Ex and the like.
One of the saddest and most infuriating trend these days, has been to take such a franchise that set itself apart from the rest, and then let lose the dogs of marketing on it, changing it so it becomes "more sellable" (overwhelmingly by dumbing it down, gutting it of every complex/immersive/thought-inducing idea, making it "more streamlined" and the like, you know the drill).
Nearly always, the end result was a failure (from "relative" to "complete and utter"), because, rather obviously, if you strip a game from what made it different and ensured it was a success, then you've, well, removed the VERY REASON why it was successful. It seems obvious, but it is STILL done.

Supreme Commander 2, Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2, Civilization V, Deus Ex : Invisible War and many others have shown it. They usually don't outsold their predecessor, making all the changes "for better sales" useless and dubious, and all the money thrown into such marketing compeltely wasted and pointless (in other words : such changes are simply costing more for no additionnal benefit, and often reduced benefits), and more often than not killed the goodwill of the community, threatening fewer sales for the next iteration of the franchise.
Also, you can be pretty sure that none of them will be ever considered a "classic" few years down. If a new sequel is made, it will be built on the fame of their predecessor, not their own. Again, no benefit.

Akka, while mistakes have been made with many games and there expansions, if you release more of the same each time over and over again, the game stagnates. The genre as a whole stagnates, as you keep getting more of the same.  Perfect example of this is the Modern Warfare series, each game is pretty much the same - same overall plot, same gameplay, same amount of pre-pubescent 12year old's in multiplayer who squeal and complain like babies when they die despite the fact this is a MA15+ game (but I digress-mini rant there srry - i'l shut up now).

While I mourne the elder days of rpg gaming, back to the days of D&D ruleset games where your constant companion at your computer desk was a pen, paper and a calculator, I am partly glad these days are gone, as they were a distraction (not to mention you could completly GIMP your character with the wrong attribute/skill/talent progression)

While I admit I don't necessary agree with some of the changes Bioware made with DAII, the game is still playable.  It is NOT a failure, to say that it is, as you have stated above, is untrue, and quite frankly, a little biased. 

Everyone at Bioware knows what there doing.  They made the changes to the formula to try to improve the experience for all. They DID listen to the fanbase, they DID address the issues in origins, and they DID try to impove the game for all.   As with all change, people adjust and agree with it better/faster than others.  Some people never do, its human nature. Ranting on and on does nothing to change this, whats done is done.  Like Stanley posted on this thread before about the lottory, if you don't take a risk, you can't win.

As a certain witch of the wilds once said to me "It is only when you fall, that you learn if you can fly".  My rather rash answer "Cheap advice, from a dragon", proves my point.  You never know what will happen when you change something, as long as you try, thats what counts. "If you want to make enemies - try and change something". Adam Jensen coudn't be more true. 

But on the bright side, look at legacy, look at assassin.  Bioware IS listening.  The wave combat in legacy is toned down but still there, yet it is used sparringly, showing us that Bioware read the forums.  The listened to us say "We don't hate the wave combat mechanic, it was just overused".  The story is legacy is more personal, they listened to us say "I couldn't really connect to my Hawke as I could my warden". The environments in assassin are fresh, lush and vibrant, as well as a few party banter puns about how we spend a rediculous amount of time in Kirkwall, show us that Bioware has learned from its mistakes.  DAIII will be the turning point in this trend, mark my words. 

Modifié par shepisavanguardgetoverit, 12 octobre 2011 - 11:38 .

[shepisavanguardgetoverit]

Whoops! double post

Modifié par shepisavanguardgetoverit, 12 octobre 2011 - 11:37 .

[Everwarden]

shepisavanguardgetoverit wrote...
While I admit I don't necessary agree with some of the changes Bioware made with DAII, the game is still playable.  It is NOT a failure, to say that it is, as you have stated above, is untrue, and quite frankly, a little biased. 

That depends on how one measures success. It was very profitable in the short term, I'm sure, but they won't be able to cannibalize the Origins fanbase twice in a row without producing a quality product. 

Everyone at Bioware knows what there doing. 

If you say so. The marketing department doesn't seem to know what it's doing. I still remember the "..the hell is this garbage?" reaction I had when the first snippets of Dragon Age 2 information came out. "Five facts about Hawke!", "Press a button, something awesome happens!", "Think like a general, fight like a Spartan!"

Even before I knew that Dragon Age 2 would turn out poorly, I found the marketing to be ridiculous.

They made the changes to the formula to try to improve the experience for all. They DID listen to the fanbase, they DID address the issues in origins, and they DID try to impove the game for all.  

They didn't listen to their fanbase. Their fanbase told them, in large part, that they were dubious at best about the proposed changes. Go back to the forums around the time of DA2's announcement and you will see a lot of raised eyebrows and posts dubious of the direction the series was taking.

As with all change, people adjust and agree with it better/faster than others.  Some people never do, its human nature. Ranting on and on does nothing to change this, whats done is done.  Like Stanley posted on this thread before about the lottory, if you don't take a risk, you can't win.

What a crock. The problem isn't, and has never been, that the Bioware fanbase can't handle change. It's that the fanbase doesn't approve of -bad- change.

But on the bright side, look at legacy, look at assassin.  Bioware IS listening.  The wave combat in legacy is toned down but still there, yet it is used sparringly, showing us that Bioware read the forums.  The listened to us say "We don't hate the wave combat mechanic, it was just overused".  The story is legacy is more personal, they listened to us say "I couldn't really connect to my Hawke as I could my warden". The environments in assassin are fresh, lush and vibrant, as well as a few party banter puns about how we spend a rediculous amount of time in Kirkwall, show us that Bioware has learned from its mistakes.  DAIII will be the turning point in this trend, mark my words. 

The problem is that in order to see these changes I'd have to pay more money for a Dragon Age 2 product, and I won't. Let's hope they don't make the same mistakes in Dragon Age 3. 

Modifié par Everwarden, 12 octobre 2011 - 11:53 .

[shepisavanguardgetoverit]

[Wrong way to go about it. Also, no swearing, please.]

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 13 octobre 2011 - 12:27 .

[OdanUrr]

So we're talking marketing now. Very well, let's talk a bit about marketing.

Marketing is an extremely powerful tool, it can persuade you to buy a product you would not have bought otherwise, either because you didn't know about it or because you didn't particularly want to buy it. Look at Halo 3's marketing campaign. I know I was quite hyped-up about it and, as several friends have reminded me, neither its story nor its mechanics are that innovative. For a while there I was absolutely convinced I had to buy the Halo 3 360 console, deluxe edition if possible, but I told myself to wait and see whether I'd still be that convinced in a few months' time. I wasn't, and I didn't buy it, but I'll grant you it's a personal decision.

Think about what marketing campaigns for movies have done for books, for instance. How many people had read Lord of the Rings before the movies were released? How many more people bought them as a direct result of the movies' exposition? How many people are now determined to buy George Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" because of HBO's "Game of Thrones" series? How many more books are waiting in anonimity to be discovered due to a powerful marketing campaign?

Marketing is important, there's no denying it. A product that invests in a marketing campaign more heavily than another product will get more exposition and is likely to increase its sales. This doesn't mean the more marketed product is better, it's simply more marketed. Sometimes we may even find ourselves trying to come up with reasons to justify why the more marketed product is better than others, after all, if someone invested that much money in its marketing campaign, they must believe it's a good product, there must be something we're missing. In some cases this is true, in others it's not.

Several posts back, someone said to discuss why DA2 had been released so early, why it had a relatively short dev cycle. I can think of one reason that is linked to marketing and sales and is very much related to what Stanley Woo mentioned earlier. Every company wants its product to sell more than its predecessors. Likely, every company knows that stagnation means death (or its equivalent). This is not to say change must occur everywhere, all the time, but that a company must strive to evolve, and its products. Someone mentioned the concept of using what has already worked before and merely building upon it. It's an idea that has merit, certainly, and there are times that a company must do just that. But there are also times when a company must push the outside of the envelope, challenge us with a different approach, and dare us to accompany them in this journey. The alternative is having games like FIFA, NFS, MoH, or CoD, whose only difference seem to be the number that follows and, in a few cases, updated graphics.

But I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that success, or at least part of it, is knowing when to build upon your foundation and when to change the name of the game. If you know when to do that, sales for your product are likely to increase. But this is extremely difficult to predict, and the longer your dev cycle becomes, the more difficult to predict the impact your product will have on consumers. Take "Duke Nukem Forever," for instance. With its twelve-year dev cycle, it was constantly bringing in new companies with new ideas in order to "tune" the game to the projected consumer base. The result was a mishmash of concepts that span more than a decade of gaming trends. In a way, perhaps, it has turned DNF into a sort of tribute game, but quite accidentally. This raises a few flags in my mind regarding TOR, which has been in development for four to five years, but we'll cross that particular bridge when we get there.

So that's about it, I guess. Can marketing be a bad thing? Sure, a product marketed incorrectly, which is to say that confuses its consumers with regards to what the product actually is, has the potential to be an even bigger failure than a product that has little to no marketing, and can potentially damage a company's image. How much should a company invest in the marketing of a product? I sure don't know, it depends on the product, on the impact you want to make, on the sales you want for your product, etc. However, Stanley Woo has a point when he says that all of these decisions make much more sense in hindsight.

Modifié par OdanUrr, 13 octobre 2011 - 12:28 .

[ElitePinecone]

^ I think that's a good point, it's a cliche to say hindsight is perfect (and as I said before, I'm still wondering what on earth prompted some of the development decisions for DA2) - but at least it offers some perspective on how not to do things in the future, or how to do them better.

Regarding marketing for DA2: this was, in all honesty, baffling.

Genuinely confusing, relentlessly misdirected (I had no idea Thedas has Spartans!) and unfortunately seeming to feed into all the worst apocalyptic predictions people had for the game. While I don't defend the use of rhetoric like "console dumbing down" or "selling out", the marketing generally highlighted the combat and seemed to be aimed to people who had never played a Dragon Age game but would be attracted to swords and enemies exploding.

I get that the marketing department wants to target new people, and I get that this might need to be done through flashy references to battles. But to relentlessly center the whole marketing campaign around ridiculous things like "button-awesome" or "fight like a Spartan" just strikes me as self-defeating, or at least alienating to many fans.

[Britic]

Its also possible to over saturate the market with advertising, which could very easily cause the opposite effect on the market. As ZP pointed out companies have a tendency to market the hell out of something if they realize that it will not do well, hoping to sucker in as many people as possible on opening day.

[Zhijn]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Joy Divison wrote...

"we think a lot more about the commercial elements than we used to," Zeschuk explained.

The likely reason we have to do so

EDIT: I think I fixed it

Sounds frakking expensive. So what are you saying, you guys arent making a profit or just not enough?.

Perhaps you need to narrow down your audience and focus abit more on thouse rpg groups, rather then trying to appeal to a mass crowd that has less interest in such games?. I mean, im just confused as to how Witcher 2 made a profit of 7-10 million in a span of about a month or two on a single platform and you got 3 platforms to possible profit off.

Hm, or maybe its location location location. Cheaper some places?.

(or hrmf, content M++)? xD

Modifié par Zhijn, 13 octobre 2011 - 02:43 .

[Zanallen]

Zhijn wrote...

Sounds frakking expensive. So what are you saying, you guys arent making a profit or just not enough?.

Perhaps you need to narrow down your audience and focus abit more on thouse rpg groups, rather then trying to appeal to a mass crowd that has less interest in such games?. I mean, im just confused as to how Witcher 2 made a profit of 7-10 million in a span of about a month or two on a single platform and you got 3 platforms to possible profit off.

Hm, or maybe its location location location. Cheaper some places?.

(or hrmf, content M++)? xD

He's saying that the rising costs of production has caused Bioware to pay more attention to the profit side of things than they previously did.

[rpx78noob]

 Reminds me of Transformers 3 lol. The strategy to make big bucks is to launch a nice game/movie to everyone like it, then release a cheap sequel and everyone will buy no matter how bad it is! Then say the company is sorry and not all fans are supposed to enjoy it but will make emends. 3rd release: dang! Crap again. Pockets filled! Trilogy closed...

[Lotion Soronarr]

shepisavanguardgetoverit wrote...
Akka, while mistakes have been made with many games and there expansions, if you release more of the same each time over and over again, the game stagnates. The genre as a whole stagnates, as you keep getting more of the same.  Perfect example of this is the Modern Warfare series, each game is pretty much the same - same overall plot, same gameplay, same amount of pre-pubescent 12year old's in multiplayer who squeal and complain like babies when they die despite the fact this is a MA15+ game (but I digress-mini rant there srry - i'l shut up now).

While I mourne the elder days of rpg gaming, back to the days of D&D ruleset games where your constant companion at your computer desk was a pen, paper and a calculator, I am partly glad these days are gone, as they were a distraction (not to mention you could completly GIMP your character with the wrong attribute/skill/talent progression)

And if you change too much you end up with something that has nothing to do with what yo ustarted with.

Change - by default - is not a good force. It's a neutral force. Change can be both good and bad.
Some things should change. Some shouldn't.

[AlexXIV]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

shepisavanguardgetoverit wrote...
Akka, while mistakes have been made with many games and there expansions, if you release more of the same each time over and over again, the game stagnates. The genre as a whole stagnates, as you keep getting more of the same.  Perfect example of this is the Modern Warfare series, each game is pretty much the same - same overall plot, same gameplay, same amount of pre-pubescent 12year old's in multiplayer who squeal and complain like babies when they die despite the fact this is a MA15+ game (but I digress-mini rant there srry - i'l shut up now).

While I mourne the elder days of rpg gaming, back to the days of D&D ruleset games where your constant companion at your computer desk was a pen, paper and a calculator, I am partly glad these days are gone, as they were a distraction (not to mention you could completly GIMP your character with the wrong attribute/skill/talent progression)

And if you change too much you end up with something that has nothing to do with what yo ustarted with.

Change - by default - is not a good force. It's a neutral force. Change can be both good and bad.
Some things should change. Some shouldn't.

They tried to combine action and RPG and neglected both parts. The reasons are not so obscure if you consider limited ressources. Basically the action part is not good enough for people who love the action and the RPG is not deep enough for those who love RPG. I personally think they should just make up their mind about the genre they want to stick with and then do it. I mean there is nothing wrong with action adventures. Or RTS, or simulations, etc. Just most of the time a developer tries to combine two different genres alot of people feel left out. Especially if they try to make a two in one using merely the ressources of one. I mean combining the best things of two different genres probably requires double effort, and DA2 was not even as much effort as DA:O for Bioware. One really has to wonder how they could ever think this would not go wrong, especially if I think about all the valid threads on this forum which showed concern of the fanbase and probably mostly got ignored/denied.

Gaming industry always evolved, and always will. Basically changing nothing is the worst thing to do. So change I think is necessary and unavoidable. Especially if you make video games. But changing or switching or combining different genre is a bad idea if you don't want to put the necessary time and effort into it. Bioware came across like saying 'Look, we made a revolutionary game and it only took us one and a half year'. No you didn't silly.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 13 octobre 2011 - 07:21 .

[DanaScu]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...

Like with one lesser-selling game, a new Star Trek reboot, a poorly-grossing Firefly movie, or a polarizing Star Wars direction does not signal the death of a franchise or mass desrtion of the franchise by the fanbase. So folks should not start spouting doom and gloom for a company or franchise based on a single product that they didn't like, didn't sell well, or went in a different direction than they'd like.

Nor, I think, should we assume that just because some features we like disappeared, those features will never return.

On the other hand, with every interview emphasizing how they are *not* going to change direction again, I think we could be relatively sure that things like a silent protagonist, no wheel o'hints, less "sweeping cinematics", and "faster than Origins but less than super hyper caffeinated teleporting SPARTAN!!! leaping kicking hot-rod samurai" combat will not be making a reappearance any time soon, if ever. And not in DA.

Strangely enough, I enjoyed the combat style in Jade Empire. It fit in Jade Empire. Despite the anime movie tie-in, my personal opinion is that the over the top flipping/kicking/sweeping/leaping/whatever combat doesn't fit in the DA world. The zombie clownspawn, rabid naked gorillas, and gummie marshmallow ogres are a different rant, but I don't see those changing any time soon either. At this point I look through the forums for the sake of mild curiosity; my interest in the new improved DA is basically dead. I don't see myself ever bothering with DA3 for any reason, especially if it continues the direction of DA2.

[DarkSun522]

rpx78noob wrote...

 Reminds me of Transformers 3 lol. The strategy to make big bucks is to launch a nice game/movie to everyone like it, then release a cheap sequel and everyone will buy no matter how bad it is! Then say the company is sorry and not all fans are supposed to enjoy it but will make emends. 3rd release: dang! Crap again. Pockets filled! Trilogy closed...

The Transformers movies were cool as hell though.

Modifié par DarkSun522, 13 octobre 2011 - 12:56 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlexXIV wrote...

They tried to combine action and RPG and neglected both parts.

I dispute that there are any action components in DA2.  They just made the combat faster to make it look like action combat, even though it isn't.
 
In fact, it's even less like action combat that DAO's combat is because the characters are stuck in their animations and cannot change activities at any time - DA2 is more like turn-based combat than anything BioWare has ever made.

DanaScu wrote...

On the other hand, with every interview emphasizing how they are *not* going to change direction again, I think we could be relatively sure that things like a silent protagonist, no wheel o'hints, less "sweeping cinematics", and "faster than Origins but less than super hyper caffeinated teleporting SPARTAN!!! leaping kicking hot-rod samurai" combat will not be making a reappearance any time soon, if ever. And not in DA.

First, the immediate future does not encompass all of "ever", and, frankly, I don't trust them.  The extent to which BioWare is willing to make misleading or even false statements as part of their marketing strategy shouldn't be news to anyone.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a toggle for the PC voice in future games, for example.  DA3?  No, almost certainly not.  But a future IP?  Sure.

Strangely enough, I enjoyed the combat style in Jade Empire. It fit in Jade Empire.

It was also less fanciful.  Watch the arc the Spirit Monk travels in through the air - it's much closer to being a parabola than the crazed angular motion we see from Hawke.  Jade Empire had more natural-looking animations.

[AlexXIV]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I dispute that there are any action components in DA2.  They just made the combat faster to make it look like action combat, even though it isn't.
 
In fact, it's even less like action combat that DAO's combat is because the characters are stuck in their animations and cannot change activities at any time - DA2 is more like turn-based combat than anything BioWare has ever made.

Well yes I didn't want to come across even more negative. But you're right, the 'action' held nothing for me either. Even though I didn't find the 'action' in DA:O very good either. Maybe it be best they make a proper turn based combat system anyway. I wouldn't mind anyway. I don't play RPGs for the action.

[Merci357]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Let's take two hypothetical films, Movie A with a Vengeance and Last Call for Movie B. It's summer blockbuster season and the studios behind each film wants to attract as many moviegoers as possible on opening weekend. Movie A With a Vengeance has a huge advertising budget, and uses it like it's going out of style. MAWV Studio takes out TV spots, so whenever you watch TV, every other commercial break screams MOVIE A WITH A VENGEANCE at you. The studio also advertises on your favourite websites. MOVIE A! MOVIE A! MOVIE A! WITH A VENGEANCE! It also takes up space at all the summer conventions. MOVIE A here! MOVIE A there! And, of course, let's not forget all the Movie A With a Vengeance, t-shirts, action figures, ringtones, Happy Meals, banners, screenshots, video clips, cosplayers and such.

Since you made the analogy to the movie business - you know the big players in hollywood produce not only AAA movies. For every Avatar made, there are also plenty of smaller ones, often catering to niche markets, made by the very same studio. A horror movie is far from Avatars budget, but in this niche market is still money to be made, otherwise they wouldn't be produced. And sometimes a low budget movie becomes a surprise big hit, not because it has a huge marketing machine behind it, but because of "word of mouth". Think, say, Blair Witch Project.

Why is this so different in the games industry?

Modifié par Merci357, 13 octobre 2011 - 05:06 .