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Pretty much. ME2, while streamlined, was still a bloody good game which is what saved it from being another DA2.GodWood wrote...
The ME series is successfully gathering a larger fanbase by streamlining features and appealing to the more casual market.
The DA series is failing in gathering a larger fanbase by completely abandoning the majority of their original fanbase in an attempt to draw in a casual audience that is not interested.
But the truth is that ideally, BioWare & EA should aim for BOTH the hardcore & casual crowd. This is something companies often fail to get blinded by Call of Duty sales numbers. But both 'crowds' have their advantages AND disadvantages.
The hardcore crowd is simply not big enough to guarantee return of investement these days, when AAA games don't really sell higher numbers than they did in the 00s or mid/late 90s while their budgets skyrocketed from thousands of dollars to tens of millions. BUT. It's the hardcore crowd that is the most influental. It's the hardcore crowd that sits on the forums, message boards and passionately writes tirades about the games they've bought. It's the hardcore crowd that 'approves' games' quality or tranishes a game's reputation. Dragon Age 2 is the prime example. Awful word-of-mouth fueled mainly by angry hardcore gamers pretty much destroyed the game's reputation thus its sales legs and turned BioWare's image from the beloved RPG-dev into a studio-to-beat almost overnight. In comparsion, it's the hardcore crowd that made The Witcher 2 a success and holy-grail-of-RPGs.
Casuals are strong in numbers. But they are also ignorant customers and at the same time unloyal customers. They're the ones who say "Why do I need Medal of Honor when I have COD?", "Why do I need LOTR Online/Conan Online when I have WOW?", "Why do I need anything other than Angry Birds?". Until their favourite franchise remains the "it" product, they will clutch to it and ignore everything else, no matter how much developers try to get them interested. It's the hardcore crowd that "gives games a chance". But when a series' novelty wears out, casuals will abandon it without a second thought. Music games (Guitar Hero, Rock Band etc), Wii games of pretty much any kind.
So aim for both the hardcore & casual market BioWare/EA, but if you really have to chose, then I say pick the hardcore crowd, as annoying & stupid as zealot fanboys and purists may be sometimes. The consequences of picking the hardcore crowd & failing commercially will be much less severe in long-term perspective than picking the casual crowd and failing commercially. When you pick the hardcore crowd & fail in sales, you still have your hardcore crowd loyal & supportive for your next game that hopefullly will fare better sales-wise. But when you pick the casual crowd & fail in sales, you have no one, either hardcore or casual, and the brand' & studio's reputation is tranished among both crowds for years to come.
Modifié par IsaacShep, 13 octobre 2011 - 02:07 .
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