Posts: 2,257
Threads: 13
Joined: Jun 2010
Hey Toy Story 3 was good =) Don't put it on the standards of Iron Man 2 (I fell asleep during it)
But yeah, game industries are trying to follow film industries... and it just isn't working for now.
Posts: 13,563
Threads: 49
Joined: Oct 2009
Toy story 3 rocks though.
Edit: LOL, crosspost.
I have to run.
Posts: 2,880
Threads: 16
Joined: Sep 2010
Actually I wanted to see it but never got around to it.
Posts: 4,443
Threads: 45
Joined: Nov 2009
Brian Shanahan Wrote:What your describing is also the strategy for the film industry. I don't think there is anyone serious out there who will try and make out that the film industry is a beacon of either innovation or market growth.
Not really, that's how Activision markets all its CoD Gun Porn for the last few years. Being able to invest the GDP of a small African country as 30% game dev and 70% pre-release hype to make 200-300% of that back in 3 days is a pretty useful skill to have. 
Which makes you kinda have to lol@ the $60 price point for AAA PC games.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
Posts: 6,671
Threads: 246
Joined: Aug 2004
I have no fault with Activision for their Call of Duty sales model; it clearly works and there's no shortage of people who enjoy shooting other people in the face online.
The problem is when you try to sell other games which are not Call of Duty using the same sales model. The media blitz/hype approach clearly doesn't work for strategy games, where graphics mean little and replayability/word of mouth are huge selling points. Silly 2K...
Posts: 6,490
Threads: 63
Joined: Sep 2006
Sullla Wrote:I have no fault with Activision for their Call of Duty sales model; it clearly works and there's no shortage of people who enjoy shooting other people in the face online.
The problem is when you try to sell other games which are not Call of Duty using the same sales model. The media blitz/hype approach clearly doesn't work for strategy games, where graphics mean little and replayability/word of mouth are huge selling points. Silly 2K...
100% right. Let's take the movie analogy used earlier, and we'll use 2011 Best Picture nominees Toy Story 3, True Grit, and Winter's Bone as examples.
Toy Story 3 - $200M budget, $1,063M gross
True Grit - $38M budget, $249M gross
Winter's Bone - $2M budget, $9M gross
All successful films, and all recouped 4.5x-6x their costs, and did so by charging identical (OK, a portion of Toy Story's tickets were in "Fabulous 3D!" and cost ~30% more) ticket prices. There's no reason to give Winter's Bone a Toy Story marketing budget, and if you did the film would probably not make a profit.
The cool thing about games though is you can also make money at $1 per game and then having 50x the number of copies sold. Film, at least in theaters, can't make money charging $.25 for a seat, but Angry Birds can. So you can get your tidy profit, either through modest sales at $50 or huge sales at $5, as long as you control costs. Sullla's is right when he points out the really controllable costs, art assets and marketing have to be contained.
Posts: 5,648
Threads: 48
Joined: Mar 2007
sunrise089 Wrote:The cool thing about games though is you can also make money at $1 per game and then having 50x the number of copies sold. Film, at least in theaters, can't make money charging $.25 for a seat, but Angry Birds can. So you can get your tidy profit, either through modest sales at $50 or huge sales at $5, as long as you control costs. Sullla's is right when he points out the really controllable costs, art assets and marketing have to be contained.
I guess the question is how important those art assets (the animated leader figures, little squads of guys with clubs/bows/etc, clouds covering unrevealed tiles, and so forth) really are in attracting customers?
To me, they are actually a negative -- they represent additional graphical load on my machine while contributing zero to the actual game play. But I know I am not the target demographic...I still play ancient games like XCOM, MoO, etc., where the graphics are certainly not the draw. Even among serious strategy gamers my taste for eye candy is less than many (most?).
But it is pretty clear Firaxis/2K think such art asset "bells and whistles" are well worth allocation of a significant fraction of the total development budget. And given reviewers' and casual gamers' reactions, they may be right. Eye candy over substance, at least long enough to lure the initial sale.
I guess I have to side with those who think the Civ future looks bleak, and that Civ VI will be even more of a Civ Rev experience. Or even a Civ Facebook experience, with no more depth than a typical Zynga farmville style "game".
"You have added a ninth friend in game! Your global happiness has increased by 5."
"Seven of your nine friends selected Writing when you asked what your next tech should be. You get 150 free beakers!"
"Your friend ABCDE has gifted you a modern armor! Gift him something back to receive 250 bonus Espionage points!" (2000 BC)
I hope Sullla is correct and some developer sees the serious strategy gaming community as worth taking a chance on. But it isn't likely to be Civ. 
Posts: 6,186
Threads: 37
Joined: Jul 2010
haphazard1 Wrote:To me, they are actually a negative -- they represent additional graphical load on my machine while contributing zero to the actual game play. But I know I am not the target demographic...I still play ancient games like XCOM, MoO, etc., where the graphics are certainly not the draw. Even among serious strategy gamers my taste for eye candy is less than many (most?).
This. I'd be perfectly happy with stick figure graphics as long as the gameplay is good. Flashy graphics don't make up for poor game design nor do they hide it for very long.
Fire the artists and spend the money on people who can actually develop a decent game. Then I'll spend some money on the product.
When the pre-release hype for a strategy game is all about how awesome the graphics are my money stays in my pocket. (as it has so far done wrt Civ5)
Quote: with no more depth than a typical Zynga farmville style "game".
"You have added a ninth friend in game! Your global happiness has increased by 5."
"Seven of your nine friends selected Writing when you asked what your next tech should be. You get 150 free beakers!"
"Your friend ABCDE has gifted you a modern armor! Gift him something back to receive 250 bonus Espionage points!" (2000 BC)
:shudder:  
Quote:I hope Sullla is correct and some developer sees the serious strategy gaming community as worth taking a chance on.
Seconded.
Posts: 6,490
Threads: 63
Joined: Sep 2006
haphazard1 Wrote:I guess the question is how important those art assets (the animated leader figures, little squads of guys with clubs/bows/etc, clouds covering unrevealed tiles, and so forth) really are in attracting customers?
The little squads of guys I'd guess are trivial in cost compared to the video and audio clips. Between Blue Marble and FFH that's pretty much an entire new art set done by a handful of people in their spare time. I'm all for nice terrain graphics, but animated and talking AI leaders add nothing to the game experience.
Posts: 3,045
Threads: 49
Joined: Mar 2004
Quote:I hope Sullla is correct and some developer sees the serious strategy gaming community as worth taking a chance on.
You guys know there are a number of devs making fairly serious strategy games these days, right? Just look at Paradox's lineup and you'll see quite a few just from one publisher. Not to mention the indie scene.
Granted, most of these won't have Civ5's budget for bells & whistles, but weren't we just saying we don't need those for a strat game? 
|
