Jimquisition: An Industry Of Pitiful Cowards
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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You should totally gone with Dollhouse for your all the resources example. It would totally have put a bow on your argument.Chemical123 said:
captcha: "way to go donny!"
It's the issue with publicly traded companies in this current financial industry. With a lot of them, it doesn't really matter because the companies don't produce art. It's kind of easy to make more steel and sell it and get a higher profit. Steel is steel, it can be judged objectively. Videogames, provided they function, always have to be judged subjectively. This is where shareholders and publishers come in and fuck with things to try to increase potential profits. Where they fuck up is the execution of this often makes something neither crowd wanted.
If they want Gears of War, they can play Gears of War. Give them Resident Evil. If they want an action RPG, they can go find one. Give them Final Fantasy. It's one trap Nintendo didn't fall into. Sure, they did it via what I would call stagnation, but Nintendo games have always felt like Nintendo games. Their first party stuff generally doesn't try to be something it isn't.
If they want Gears of War, they can play Gears of War. Give them Resident Evil. If they want an action RPG, they can go find one. Give them Final Fantasy. It's one trap Nintendo didn't fall into. Sure, they did it via what I would call stagnation, but Nintendo games have always felt like Nintendo games. Their first party stuff generally doesn't try to be something it isn't.
You are over-thinking this one Jim. Japanese publishers didn't declare all those genres dead because they were afraid they wouldn't sell well. The real reason they did all those stupid things was greed. They wanted CoD money. They were counting on names like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy and they knew fully well how successful those games would be in their traditional form. But that wasn't enough for them. They wanted more. They wanted to be like Activision and EA. They wanted their audience as well as the audience they already had. And it backfired.
Different isn't always bad. Just because an aspect has changed, doesn't mean it's dumbed down or it's trying to sell out. Experimenting in a creative field is a wonderful thing and it shows that they want to give you a unique experience. DA2 was a decent game for what it was, I actually preferred it to DA:O.BunnyKillBot said:
There's no point sticking to the same formula with every title, unless you're following what the AAA industry's example of releasing a title expecting a certain amount of sales.
Videogames are serious business.
Another example you could have used would be old school western RPGs, they died out for a while and then bioware came along and very successfully made a game in the genre with Dragon Age Origins, then they decided it was too niche and tried to make the second one appeal to a broader audience, I'm also sure that in one interview they said they were going after call of duty fans.
Anyway after that we didnt get any more classic RPGs (even Inquisition doesnt look like DA:O, not that it looks bad) because after that hate it became apparent nobody wanted them according to publishers.... and then Kickstarter happened.
Anyway after that we didnt get any more classic RPGs (even Inquisition doesnt look like DA:O, not that it looks bad) because after that hate it became apparent nobody wanted them according to publishers.... and then Kickstarter happened.
What JRPG fans still want is to explore an interesting world with endearing characters. Most long-time-JRPG-fans-but-detractors-of-recent-Final-Fantasy-games will tell that that is what FF has been lacking.
Yet when Squeenix delivered what they were asking for with FF12, the very same people complained because the game had no story (except it was there, if you bothered to speak to the NPCs instead of waiting to be spoon-fed everything in the next expository cutscene), that the protagonists deeds felt meaningless (ignoring the fact that "Big Epic Clashes of Armies that storytellers love to talk about so much are Not the most important historical events" is one of the main recurring themes of Matsuno's games), that its battle system was boring (because of course having a great customizable IA which spared players the busywork of micromanaging every meaningless encounter with mooks meant that you spent a lot less time fiddling with the battle menues: oh the heresy), that the protagonist was a non-entity (despite the fact that he acts as the commoner foil to Ashe's aristocratic self-righteous vengefulness, who, by rejecting his own desire of revenge and embracing his childlike curiosity about the world and its inhabitants ends up teaching compassion to his queen and stops her from becoming the genocidal puppet-tyrant she was about to become, gaining the unbridled freedom he craved for in the process).
So they caved in and with FFXIII gave their audience a giant corridor even more corridoresque than the already corridorly FFX, which sold more copies than 12, despite all the complaints about its galring flaws.
One thing that Jim ignores is that there are plenty examples of mediocre, designed-by-commitee, branded-for-mass-appeal, expensive exercises in shallowness which sold a lot more copies than expertly crafted niche products.
Sure, the business model he rails against is so morbidly unsustainable that it deserves all the scorn it receives, but it's not a pure product of insular circle-jerking among industry execs as he implies.
***
The thing is, the biggest culprit seems to be the need to make sure most games' budgets conform to AAA norms. Players are used to lavish cinematics, hours and hours of gameplay time, extensive customization and a certain modicum of freedom, and offering these things costs money - on top of the ever-increasing graphics pipeline.
Which is why I think that to survive the most expensive AAA games are going to become prestige projects: that is, expensive games not meant to be profitable on their own but which exist to showcase the talent of a company developers and increase the brand recognition.
Yet when Squeenix delivered what they were asking for with FF12, the very same people complained because the game had no story (except it was there, if you bothered to speak to the NPCs instead of waiting to be spoon-fed everything in the next expository cutscene), that the protagonists deeds felt meaningless (ignoring the fact that "Big Epic Clashes of Armies that storytellers love to talk about so much are Not the most important historical events" is one of the main recurring themes of Matsuno's games), that its battle system was boring (because of course having a great customizable IA which spared players the busywork of micromanaging every meaningless encounter with mooks meant that you spent a lot less time fiddling with the battle menues: oh the heresy), that the protagonist was a non-entity (despite the fact that he acts as the commoner foil to Ashe's aristocratic self-righteous vengefulness, who, by rejecting his own desire of revenge and embracing his childlike curiosity about the world and its inhabitants ends up teaching compassion to his queen and stops her from becoming the genocidal puppet-tyrant she was about to become, gaining the unbridled freedom he craved for in the process).
So they caved in and with FFXIII gave their audience a giant corridor even more corridoresque than the already corridorly FFX, which sold more copies than 12, despite all the complaints about its galring flaws.
One thing that Jim ignores is that there are plenty examples of mediocre, designed-by-commitee, branded-for-mass-appeal, expensive exercises in shallowness which sold a lot more copies than expertly crafted niche products.
Sure, the business model he rails against is so morbidly unsustainable that it deserves all the scorn it receives, but it's not a pure product of insular circle-jerking among industry execs as he implies.
***
The thing is, the biggest culprit seems to be the need to make sure most games' budgets conform to AAA norms. Players are used to lavish cinematics, hours and hours of gameplay time, extensive customization and a certain modicum of freedom, and offering these things costs money - on top of the ever-increasing graphics pipeline.
Which is why I think that to survive the most expensive AAA games are going to become prestige projects: that is, expensive games not meant to be profitable on their own but which exist to showcase the talent of a company developers and increase the brand recognition.
I think that's a big part of the problem right there. Publishers don't give a crap about satisfying gamers, their priority is satisfying the shareholders, who themselves don't care about games, they just care about the stock price and what kind of dividends they're looking forward to.castlewise said:
I've often promoted the idea that gamers should be the primary investors in the game industry. I myself hold some game related stock and I think if the majority shareholders were actual gamers, the publishers would think more about the integrity of their product than what sort of attractive buzzwords they can attach to their "brand."
Seriously people, pick out your three favorite recent games, go to one of those low transaction fee trading sites, and invest in those publishers. Yes, even if it's EA, you know why, because EA will take a shareholder more seriously than a customer when he writes in about the quality of a product they've released.
I have to disagree in large part about your Final Fantasy suppositions, Jim. Traditional Final Fantasy was not doing "Fine". Traditional Final Fantasy has been on its deathbed since FF9 flopped at the end of the PSX era, when these kind of games basically stopped selling at the numbers they were. Compare FF8 sales numbers to FF9 and you get a pretty clear picture of the mindset Square Enix had when it decided that this kind of game was basically dead and they had to adapt or die out.
Square Enix, instead of taking the path of trying to resurrect something that many viewed as a dying genre, took the path of trying to change what Final Fantasy itself has meant. Gradually taking the series more and more off the rails of what we viewed the series to mean. This isn't something I can't fault them on and I really don't understand why people still rail on them for "abandoning" traditional final fantasy when it was clear that it just wasn't working anymore. Ever since then they've only been going in more crazy directions to try and find a traditional final fantasy that would give them those FF8 sales numbers.
And people really can't sit on their high horse and throw shit at Square Enix for doing that when the most egregious Final Fantasy games so far, one that many view to be the most outlandish, insane entries into the series that makes no sense and is completely unfun to play, Final Fantasy 13, has been the best selling game in the franchise since Final Fantasy 8 [http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiiis-creators-justify-a-third-game-in-a-se].
So no Jim, this IS our fault, we DID tell Square Enix that the traditional RPG is dead and we want this slurry of action oriented combat and traditional combat, we did it with our wallets. We can scream and cry that Squarenix is killing traditional RPGs and releasing half-baked mannequin simulator trash like Lightning Returns, but our cries land on deaf ears if there are still six million customers out there throwing money at that business model while we gnash our teeth at Squarenix making what is unarguably a good business decision even if it's a terrible gaming decision.
I don't want to say Final Fantasy and changed and we just need to move on, mostly because Bravely Default is proof that they are perfectly capable of making good JRPGs still, but it's time to admit that people do actually like this stuff and buy it instead of proclaiming every time they release a new game that Final Fantasy is dead and they'll be bankrupt within the quarter. Really those cries are just background noise at this point.
Square Enix, instead of taking the path of trying to resurrect something that many viewed as a dying genre, took the path of trying to change what Final Fantasy itself has meant. Gradually taking the series more and more off the rails of what we viewed the series to mean. This isn't something I can't fault them on and I really don't understand why people still rail on them for "abandoning" traditional final fantasy when it was clear that it just wasn't working anymore. Ever since then they've only been going in more crazy directions to try and find a traditional final fantasy that would give them those FF8 sales numbers.
And people really can't sit on their high horse and throw shit at Square Enix for doing that when the most egregious Final Fantasy games so far, one that many view to be the most outlandish, insane entries into the series that makes no sense and is completely unfun to play, Final Fantasy 13, has been the best selling game in the franchise since Final Fantasy 8 [http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiiis-creators-justify-a-third-game-in-a-se].
So no Jim, this IS our fault, we DID tell Square Enix that the traditional RPG is dead and we want this slurry of action oriented combat and traditional combat, we did it with our wallets. We can scream and cry that Squarenix is killing traditional RPGs and releasing half-baked mannequin simulator trash like Lightning Returns, but our cries land on deaf ears if there are still six million customers out there throwing money at that business model while we gnash our teeth at Squarenix making what is unarguably a good business decision even if it's a terrible gaming decision.
I don't want to say Final Fantasy and changed and we just need to move on, mostly because Bravely Default is proof that they are perfectly capable of making good JRPGs still, but it's time to admit that people do actually like this stuff and buy it instead of proclaiming every time they release a new game that Final Fantasy is dead and they'll be bankrupt within the quarter. Really those cries are just background noise at this point.
FFIX sold 5.3 million copies making it the sixth most successful FF game. The problem as you stated plainly was that it came at the end of the PSX era and was no fault of the game itself.Sticky said:
Brand name + marketing + shiny new console = success. It's the same reason FFX (and even FFVII) were so popular.
He said with endearing characters, not Vaan and Penelololololol. Problem with FF12 is all it really had was exploring, and more exploring, and a weak weak story that was basically irrelevant because you spent 100 hours running around the world doing everything EXCEPT the story.Nixou said:
I liked FF12, but I thought it was a huge step in the wrong direction for the series. Unfortunately they overcompensated in the other direction with FF13 and we got little to no exploration at all, AND still had some of the worst characters to ever grace a video game.
When it came to SQENIX, I found the comments of Yosuke Matsuda bizarre (initially I though it was April Fools day joke). Bravely Default at last count sold 300,000 copies. That's the same number as FFXIII-3. Also everybody knows that FFXV is another action RPG. Personally I think this just PR and not a real change in the companies course. They may throw in more resources at 3DS and mobile development where SQENIX publishes most of their traditional JRPG's.
Good call, man! Virtually everyone has become a dog with their tail between their legs since the economic bugfuck in 2008. You can smell the fear, but the worst part is is that anytime fear like that raises its ugly head, the best that the people in control can seem to do is patronize the fuck out of their audience so they can blindly tell themselves they're safe.
Hello, welcome to the forums.Yminale said:
You may notice that after FFIX, the series started to slowly decline. This is no coincidence, FF9 really was the beginning of the end for traditional Final Fantasy. It was where FF began to stagnate and Square started trying to find more and more places to take the series as a whole. We can see where that has taken the series so far.
And this is a supposition, while true it does owe some success to the launch of the PS3, that is not the entire reason FF13 was so ridiculously popular. 6.6 million sales don't just appear for games on the merit that they are the first on a new console. Plus look at FFX's sales and realize that even with the new console boost, it still didn't make FF8 numbers in sales. FFX and FF13 share many similar features in that regard.
EDIT: I moved this response to a new post
I'll have to argue with you about this, because one of the reasons FF12 was considered empty and shallow was specifically because of the lack of things for the player to simply do, there weren't really any combat related goodies to be had in the game and people tired of it quickly. Which resulted in most of the complaints about the game, people who blazed through it due to the game not giving them any options to play around with. I can't blame them for hating it because of that, it is a valid complaint.Nixou said:
...That is until they made International Zodiac Job System version of the game. Which I hold if FF12 was originally had that in the game, it would be considered one of the best final fantasy games of all time. The lack of players exploring the world would have been nicely resolved, and the story, which players really had to talk to a lot of NPCs and do a lot of battles to understand, would have been dispensed to the player at a nice pace to not make the game seem like a blur of busywork.
And I feel even games like FF13 would be salvageable if they just took the extra development time to add extras like that for the players. Final Fantasy was once renowned for the extras that the players could partake in, a tradition they've seemingly killed in favor of faster development times. Which I think is the true factor for what has been harming the series as of late.
SQENIX dropped the ball on FFIX. Marketing for the game was poor compare to FFVIII and FFX and it was obvious that SQENIX wanted focus more on FFX and FFXI. Even with all the problems FFIX sold over 5 million copies on name recognition alone. I still see people asking about what happened FFIX (and these are people who played all the latest FF games).Sticky said:
Actually it was the first to appear in TWO next generation consoles (all other FF games usually debuted on one console) and that definitely helped sales.
Well that's a channel to avoid; I never realised the history channel made stuff about videogames. Cherry picking micro-trends from bigger trends doesn't work and certainly isn't evidence; it lends truth to a lie but it's still a lie no matter what colour of truth you paint it.God of Path said:
I got to the bit where he talks about sales figures for "the first three installments of Assassin's Creed" (which totally forget about brotherhood, revelations and black flag like they aren't a thing (and they buck the trend he's trying to prove.) Then being old, I remembered that ubisoft count in ubidecimal and this clown from the video saying that the first three Assassin's Creed games are 1,2 and 3 is something I shouldn't stand for; he's either not a gamer at all or a totally biased fanboy of hmmm, let's say Nintendo and hasn't a clue what he's talking about when it comes down to anything else. Seriously, I expected him to end the video with how next time - ancient aliens kill innovation in videogames, drink the dew, eat the pudding" type thing.
And I agree, Square really did drop the ball with FF9, that doesn't change that it was a very clear indication that they had abandoned old Final FantasyYminale said:
Sorry, that didn't make the edit, but I mentioned that they are both similar in that regard, which is why I agree with you on this too.
Neither of these change the fact that Square looked at the old games, saw which ones were popular, and capitalized on them with FF13. Is Jim, or anyone else, really in a position to throw shit at them for doing that when FF's popularity has been declining as a whole since the PSX era? I'm not really arguing about the quality of the games themselves, I'll be one of the last people to defend some of the newer FF titles, but it's easy to see why Square got tripped up by some of the sales numbers when designing their newer titles (a mindset that is likely the worst one for developing an FF game)
I still think the next FF could even keep the action/RPG hybrids if they just kept the player occupied throughout the entire course of the game. Something the newer games are woefully incompetent at doing.