Maybe we should stop ignoring gaming's screams for help.

[Bad Jim]

I think publishers do actually have control of their spending. Shareholders would have taken action long ago if this were not the case. I do not think anything is critically wrong just because a game sells a large number of copies and still makes a loss, or is considered 'underperforming'.

Why? They're still posting good profits. Why is the industry inherently broken just because large numbers are involved? They gamble large amounts of money on games and not all of them do well, but nonetheless they are making overall profit.

Sure, there's doublespeak from industry talking heads trying to defend offensive DRM, DLC and so forth, but there's no evidence that publishers cannot limit their budgets should they have to, only evidence that they won't limit their budgets when they don't have to.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm also not sure I want Tomb Raider at this point, because it feels that buying it is supporting the crash of video games, which I don't want to do.

If we all just bought Tomb Raider it would make enough money and we wouldn't be supporting an industry crash.

Checkmate.

...That's a dumb statement, and you know it.

If we ALL have to buy Tomb Raider to justify its massive budget and avoid a crash, that's a certifiably bad thing.

Yes, I was poking fun at you. (Not even to be a dick, just a spin on the whole "Checkmate athiests" thing.) If you keep ignoring serious responses like the one I posted later people are probably gonna do that more often.

I wasn't ignoring it, it's a valid interjection.

I'm not entirely available right now, so I'm being selective of what I respond to. If my thought process is "Well, that very well could be", then I don't have time for it at the moment. Maybe I'll properly respond to it later, when I have more time.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm not addressing derivation.

Blockbuster movies regularly make half a billion dollars nowadays, and even the more unique films still turn profits fairly easily.

http://boxofficemojo.com/

Tens of movies at this point have taken over a BILLION dollars, easily overcoming their comparatively small budgets.

However, the first "Big Hit" of 2013 (Tomb Raider) in gaming was a flop, something unheard of in movies. That hardly seems analogous to me.

"Big Hit" flops are 'something unheard' of in movies? Seriously? Tom Cruise's oblivion was a box office flop, World War Z was looking very questionable for a while, to name just two.

And your "tens of movies" thing - you're cherry picking... you're putting the best of the movie scene up against what you claim is the worst of the gaming scene... I bet the averages across several titles are a lot closer (in relative differences between the losses and wins, not actual dollar amounts, obviously).

And Hollywood *does* have its troubles too, I'd say.
http://www.philstar.com/supreme/2013/03/09/917343/how-hollywood-murdered-movie-magic
http://www.deadline.com/2013/04/movie-attendance-likely-drop-2013-fitch/

No, the "first Big Hit of the year" being a flop is unheard of in movies.

Thanks for the links, I'll read them later.

 

[rob_simple]

What a lot of people seem to forget is we are not the majority of the target audience for games. By "we" I mean those of us who visit gaming websites such as this, follow the conferences and discuss the pro's and cons of gaming on forums. The vast majority of gamers are the ones who simply play games and avoid the "politics". We can talk all we like about how we shouldn't support X practice and should boycott Y company for their behaviour, but when it comes down to it, most companies care about the money first and in most cases they will keep on getting it, even if all of "us" stop supporting them.

What I mean is that we can talk all we like about how it is "our" fault for having these wants, but when it comes down to it, we are not the majority here. As long as COD fan No#5,472,402 wants a new COD with shinier shinies and expodier explodies then the market is going to keep on working to crank it out. We can complain as much as we like but as long as they think it will get them the money, they are going to keep on doing it, and there is not a whole lot we can do about it.

Case in point would be how if you look at this website in particular, WOW and COD are not particularly popular games and Assassins Creed 3 is hated by almost everybody, but those games have done pretty damn good for themselves. So clearly despite all of the people voicing the opinion that such games are bad, people are still buying them in droves.

Couldn't have said it better myself. You're preaching to the converted here, OP, that's why you'll constantly find threads where all but a very vocal (and misguided) minority are defending our rights to buy used games; where we constantly call out devs/publishers for forcing new tech that gives minimal returns but makes costs spiral out of control; and where we criticise the bandwagon jumping and homogenisation that has killed many series because, rather than standing out, they all just try to ride on the coat tails of whatever is popular at the time, ignoring the fact that people will still just buy what is popular and ignore your effort because it's not as popular.

You're never going to convince the masses of this because they just don't care: they buy a new game when they want one and their thought process doesn't extend beyond that; if you want to try and convince them otherwise then you're a better man than me, but it would be on par with standing in the middle of a McDonald's and loudly announcing how unhealthy their food is.

Oh, and also...

We're stretching ourselves too thin. We want more, newer, better, flashier, and we want it all at the same price. Reading that sentence twice should reveal the problem. Gamers want more and more stuff in their games, but don't want to pay extra for all the more that they're getting.

Um...I don't. I was perfectly happy for graphics to stay the way they were in the PS2 days, when everything was distinct and functional, knowing that it would free up production costs that would give developers the ability to expand their games in directions that are actually interesting.

It is the publishers at fault, here, for assuming that all anyone cares about is how good things look. You just have to look to more recent E3 shows, where they spend ages wanking over how powerful their hardware is, and then two minutes towards the end go, 'oh and here are some games, I guess. Whatever'.

Gaming used to be about the games, about having fun, but now it's just a pissing contest to see who can cram the most polygons into their stupid pre-rendered cutscenes. That's where the money is really being wasted, and I don't ever recall hearing any gamer ask for this.

 

[Bocaj2000]

The problem isn't gamers being greedy, the problem is ridiculous mismanagement and bloated production costs. It's gotten ridiculous how much is spent on these games when it's not even needed, an absolutely massive chunk of which is purely dedicated to pointless celebrities and advertising when it isn't more mundane things such as staff turnover, licensing, or constantly rebuilding a game over and over like Duke Nukem Forever did.

Whether you like the game or not I think everyone can agree Witcher 2 was a properly impressive game. Visually it's one of the best games out today, it's soundtrack was beautiful and fully orchestrated, regional voice actors are of excellent quality, and it even had nifty packaging if you bought it retail. You know how much that game cost?

8 million

Which is a lot, to be sure, but now let's take a quick look at Tomb Raider. If the publishers made even just ten dollars from every copy sold, which I'd say is a more than conservative estimate, and they only just broke even at 5 million copies sold that puts their budget at at least 50 million dollars. Where the hell did all that money go? I'll say it right now, Witcher 2 was the more impressive feat by a longshot. It looked and sounded a hell of a lot better, was definitely bigger and more ambitious, and was made by a less experienced developer. Even taking into account cheaper staffing costs since CD Projekt RED is Polish that's just a staggering difference. What hole did all that money vanish into? What was it all being used on?

Now I'm just using Witcher 2 and Tomb Raider as examples here but even with other games it holds true. By all reports Star Wars: The Old Republic cost over $200 MILLION to develop and Halo Reach was around $60 million, Skyrim around 85 million, etc etc. It's pretty ridiculous. When you consider all the less popular titles though the average cost of an 'AAA' game hovers around $28 million... However I'll bet you Red Orchestra 2, which looks just as good as any of the above, cost less than half of Witcher 2. Hawken meanwhile was developed on a shoestring budget and looks better than most games out there today by a bunch of enthusiasts. Trine 2, again one of the most visually stunning games I've ever played, budget of around 2 or so million if I had to guess based on the original games budget of around half a million.

So no, it's not gamers fault. It's not even greed as far as I can tell, unless a lot of those budgets are vanishing into someone's pockets. It's just mismanagement and bloated unnecessary costs.

Agreed 100% and now I have the statistics to back it up.

"Games are too expensive"
Make cheaper games.

Cut. Print. Sell. Easy solution.

If the problem is more complicated than I'm assuming, then I'd like someone to fill me in.

 

[GoaThief]

I'm personally prepared to let the market crash. We will all suffer, but the industry needs to learn the hard way. There is no other way forward, in my opinion, at this point.

Captcha: "I want control" - looks like Microsoft are doing captcha's, now.

You're personally prepared to force thousands of hard working people out of jobs because you want MOAR of whatever particular genre floats your boat? I applaud your generosity and altruism.

Perhaps the Captcha should be considered in relation to matters closer to home.

 

[Griffolion]

You're personally prepared to force thousands of hard working people out of jobs because you want MOAR of whatever particular genre floats your boat?

Nope, I don't want to force anything. However I am willing to let the industry feel the consequences of it's destructive behaviour that it's been doing for years now. At this rate, no forcing is needed, it's going to happen. And, at the point where people are losing jobs, I don't think pointing the finger at someone on the Escapist forums is going to be the first thing many will do. They will look at their employers and ask, "why?".

It has nothing to do with the genre of games being released, it has a lot to do with the industry not producing whatever genre they wish to make in a reasonable, sustainable manner. Like the OP said, Tomb Raider shifts 5m copies and yet under performs. Dead Space 3 [a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/dead-space-3/3030-38270/forums/dead-space-3-needs-to-sell-5-million-units-to-be-v-550919/"]needed to shift 5m copies[/a] or EA would not consider continuing the franchise. What kind of things in development are haemorrhaging that much money? I believe there's a Jimquisition that makes a similar point, and that's my stance, too.

Perhaps the Captcha should be considered in relation to matters closer to home.

The only bit of control I'm content to hold in this industry is where my money goes as a consumer. So long as it's underpinned by a sense of sustainability and responsibility, I'm quite happy to let the industry go where the free market takes it, as it is ultimately defined by the consumer.

 

[Julius Terrell]

I was quite happy until the ps2 era ended. Back then there were still plenty of genres for everyone. Now NOTHING gets developed unless it sells a shit load of copies. I love my niche genres and I don't give a damn about the rest of the industry. The rest of the industry could go tomarrow, but I'll still have my music games. We're a community. We have a deep passion for our games. Too bad the suits at the top will never care about that stuff. The word community only means who's pockets run the deepest.

It's only a matter of time before another crash happens.

 

[ATRAYA]

All I ever asked for was a good story and competent gameplay. Everything else was the decision of higher ups who shouldn't have any say at all in game development, but do anyway because they have all the money.

Advertising takes up a massive amount of cash as well. Publishers need to learn that word of mouth, especially with the internet being used by most of their consumer base, is VERY effective if you make a good game. If developers make something they're really passionate about and the game has a mind-blowing story, you can bet your ass people are going to talk about it (ex., Bioshock: Infinite).

 

[mirage202]

They do it to themselves really. In the mad rush to increase the pixel count and individually rendered skin pores in the next QTE fest or CoD wannabe costs spiral. Why should we feel any sympathy for the industry that creates its own issues?

As far as I am concerned they have ignored "us" for so long, they lost any right to me feeling bad for them. If they would only take note at how popular the indie scene has gotten with all these lost genres then maybe, just maybe they could make a change.

I know I have personally played a large numbers of indies that I always think at the end "I'd love to see this redone, with a bit more attention to detail in the art department and the extra gameplay and features that a large dev studio could implement".

Won't happen as they are all too busy chasing CoD/WoW/LoL money and until they stop, I am out of fucks to give over a problem of their own doing.

 

[infohippie]

I really don't think people are asking for the kinds of things devs put into games these days. No one cares if your tree foliage is slightly less blurry than the competition or if your characters hair has some fancy tress fx bullshit added to it. The sooner we have devs and publishers spending less time on useless shit like that and instead as you said being more responsible with development the better.

I think a bigger problem though is the kind of marketing budgets the publishers spend these days. It's fucking insane to spend 50+ million on marketing the third or fourth game in a series when everyone who cares is already well aware of it. Games are bought based on word of mouth and reviews rather than TV ads and billboards, about time publishers realized this.

But if they didn't blow a massive wodge on marketing every time, then the poor marketers might have to look for honest work! Please, won't you think of the marketers?

 

[sXeth]

The comparison to movies largely falls apart because movies don't indulge in the same silliness games do. The ones that do often fail (many of the early 2000s major flop movies went into all sorts of impractical CGI and way out of their budget as a result, which is the equivalent of the fancy hair physics, stubble rendering, and so on in games).

Movies also do tend to keep their marketing far more in line with their demographics, and don't tend to all try and chase after the super-blockbuster Avengers-esque market. Rob Zombie isn't making movies with trailers plastered everywhere, worldwide major theatrical releases, and millions of dollars of CGI, because they know its not going to hit a large enough market with a horror film to ever justify that.

 

[Rob Moir]

No, the "first Big Hit of the year" being a flop is unheard of in movies.

Define "first big hit of the year". That's pretty much a movable feast isn't it, because I can counter with a big budget film from Feburary this year, Jack the Giant Slayer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Giant_Slayer#Box_office) and you could argue that Feb isn't near enough the beginning of the year (though I think Tomb Raider came out in March/April) or that a film budgeted at $200 mil isn't big enough (!) but that's not going to move the conversation forward when we could be discussing other more relevant things.

 

[lacktheknack]

No, the "first Big Hit of the year" being a flop is unheard of in movies.

Define "first big hit of the year". That's pretty much a movable feast isn't it, because I can counter with a big budget film from Feburary this year, Jack the Giant Slayer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Giant_Slayer#Box_office) and you could argue that Feb isn't near enough the beginning of the year (though I think Tomb Raider came out in March/April) or that a film budgeted at $200 mil isn't big enough (!) but that's not going to move the conversation forward when we could be discussing other more relevant things.

Jack the Giant Slayer was not a hit, let alone a big hit. <link=http://www.metacritic.com/movie/jack-the-giant-slayer>Ratings were very mediocre, and it <link=http://boxofficemojo.com/search/?q=jack%20the%20giant%20slayer>didn't even breech a hundred million dollars worldwide. That's not how I'd define a "hit". Compare to The Avengers, the go-to summer blockbuster. It had <link=http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-avengers-2012>generally good reviews (two thirds of the reviewsare outright positive, with one outright negative), <link=http://boxofficemojo.com/search/?q=the%20avengers>got back most of its budget on opening weekend and brought in over half a billion dollars worldwide. I'm not sure exactly where the "big hit" line is, but I'm pretty sure that The Avengers in on one side, and Jack the Giant Slayer is on the other.

Similarly, <link=http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/tomb-raider>Tomb Raider got very good reviews, surprised many people, was talked about a lot by people on this site, other sites and people I know in real life, and it sucked in a very sizable sales count (at least by video game standards) in the first month. I'm not exactly sure what the Blockbuster Count is for video games, but it checks off everything I'd consider to be a "big hit" in video games, and I imagine most would agree to some extent.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

That was one point I was trying to make. I just think that gamers are partially responsible for communicating to AAA that extending beyond their financial limits is something we want.

For evidence, read Gamespot comments. While anecdotal, an alarming amount of gamers I personally know fit the bill as well.

If publishers can look at the sales figures DrOswald provided (among other things) and continue along the road they've set out on, they are beyond "helping" and no amount of screaming at them in Gamespot comments will change that.

Well, hey. A man can dream, can't he? We've reversed decisions in gaming before (see the Xbox 180), so I don't see why a coordinated group can't do the same. It'll be hard to get people on board, though.

Oh, and also...

We're stretching ourselves too thin. We want more, newer, better, flashier, and we want it all at the same price. Reading that sentence twice should reveal the problem. Gamers want more and more stuff in their games, but don't want to pay extra for all the more that they're getting.

Um...I don't. I was perfectly happy for graphics to stay the way they were in the PS2 days, when everything was distinct and functional, knowing that it would free up production costs that would give developers the ability to expand their games in directions that are actually interesting.

It is the publishers at fault, here, for assuming that all anyone cares about is how good things look. You just have to look to more recent E3 shows, where they spend ages wanking over how powerful their hardware is, and then two minutes towards the end go, 'oh and here are some games, I guess. Whatever'.

Gaming used to be about the games, about having fun, but now it's just a pissing contest to see who can cram the most polygons into their stupid pre-rendered cutscenes. That's where the money is really being wasted, and I don't ever recall hearing any gamer ask for this.

Yeah? Well, until recently, I was the graphics whore to end all graphics whores. We therefore balanced each other out.

The reason they talk endlessly about technological advancement and new hardware at E3 is because that's what people want. And I HAVE heard gamers ask for this, over and over and over, in real life and on the web. I don't know how you've missed it. Maybe you never go to other gaming websites?

Quite frankly, most would agree that E3 is a significantly better barometer of what gamers as a collective want than you are.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

It's a chicken or the egg debate. As to whose to blame, on one part its the majority of consumers wanting a certain something and publishers responding to numbers ad mass opinion. If there was a massive hubbub about a games budget or female protagonists and so forth as there were with the Xbone and ME3 then we'd see some changes, but as already has been mentioned the Escapist a niche is a minority, a niche.

You really can't get angry at a business too much for trying to release a product that sells, and how do you do that, do ideas that work and are easy to accomplish.
I myself have put a game onto Steams Greenlight through a small indie company, and whislt a fair number of the comments are positive it doesn't enstill a lot of confidence to see the pie chart with 57% saying 'no'. And businessmen are all about their pie charts and success rates; why waste time with something unproven when we've got statsics that show feature Y is really popular?

Half the time a publisher ot developer just doesn't care about Opinion X, because they want to do this thing or another. Volotion knows that a sizeable group of people (and Yahtzee) don't like the wacky direction the Saints Row series has taken, but they wanted to produce it that way (they even quoted Yahtzee in a QA at GDC last year about the games tone).

 

[freedash22]

I really hate to say this but the gaming industry is terminally ill. It is dying. Not by the hands of gamers, but by people who seek to irresponsibly and unsustainably control us and mercilessly cash in on the very things we cherish the most. We are already doing everything we can to steer it in the right direction and that is where the problem lies. We gamers, do more firefighting for the industry than the industry does for its own. It's usually like this nowadays. Just look at this year's E3.

I know a lot of us here fear a gaming crash, but don't you think it's time to finally push the master reset button?

 

[Fox12]

I don't think it's the gamers fault at all. Not a single person I know, not one, is saying "finally! another console generation!" Everyone is asking the same question. "why?" The graphics are about the same, the new systems aren't even backwards compatible, a certain system wanted to take all our consumer rights away, and developers are only now optimizing their respective systems. The corporations are the ones plowing forward, not us. There are still TONS of games I want to buy for the PS3, so I don't feel an immediate need to own a PS4.

The bloated gaming costs are a result of bad business practices. They should do what Hollywood does (eck) and have several blockbusters interspersed with smaller budget products. Unfortunately, nowadays every game has to be a blockbuster. A modest budget game with modest success, like Dark Souls, with the occasional massive budget AAA project would be a smarter strategy. The Walking Dead was the best game of the year, and it certainly wasn't AAA.

It's not the consumers fault that companies can't manage their money. Square Enix has been under the control of one of the most inept presidents I've ever seen behind a business, so I'm not surprised he tried to blame Tomb Raiders sales to cover his own stupidity. He was recently fired, and the company is already improving. EA is run by vultures, vultures who are clever but not necessarily smart. Capcom... I don't even know what Capcoms problem is.

The point is, these companies are hurting themselves. Some are doing things right, and some are not. I doubt the industry will crash, as it's the only industry that is currently GROWING, and during one of the worst recessions we've ever seen. Furthermore, there are tons of great games being released every year. Compare that to Holly Wood. I don't even go to theaters anymore, and I rarely watch movies. Some companies are hurting, it's true, but as a whole, I think gaming is going to be fine.

 

[Fox12]

No, the "first Big Hit of the year" being a flop is unheard of in movies.

Define "first big hit of the year". That's pretty much a movable feast isn't it, because I can counter with a big budget film from Feburary this year, Jack the Giant Slayer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Giant_Slayer#Box_office) and you could argue that Feb isn't near enough the beginning of the year (though I think Tomb Raider came out in March/April) or that a film budgeted at $200 mil isn't big enough (!) but that's not going to move the conversation forward when we could be discussing other more relevant things.

Jack the Giant Slayer was not a hit, let alone a big hit. <link=http://www.metacritic.com/movie/jack-the-giant-slayer>Ratings were very mediocre, and it <link=http://boxofficemojo.com/search/?q=jack%20the%20giant%20slayer>didn't even breech a hundred million dollars worldwide. That's not how I'd define a "hit". Compare to The Avengers, the go-to summer blockbuster. It had <link=http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-avengers-2012>generally good reviews (two thirds of the reviewsare outright positive, with one outright negative), <link=http://boxofficemojo.com/search/?q=the%20avengers>got back most of its budget on opening weekend and brought in over half a billion dollars worldwide. I'm not sure exactly where the "big hit" line is, but I'm pretty sure that The Avengers in on one side, and Jack the Giant Slayer is on the other.

Similarly, <link=http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/tomb-raider>Tomb Raider got very good reviews, surprised many people, was talked about a lot by people on this site, other sites and people I know in real life, and it sucked in a very sizable sales count (at least by video game standards) in the first month. I'm not exactly sure what the Blockbuster Count is for video games, but it checks off everything I'd consider to be a "big hit" in video games, and I imagine most would agree to some extent.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

That was one point I was trying to make. I just think that gamers are partially responsible for communicating to AAA that extending beyond their financial limits is something we want.

For evidence, read Gamespot comments. While anecdotal, an alarming amount of gamers I personally know fit the bill as well.

If publishers can look at the sales figures DrOswald provided (among other things) and continue along the road they've set out on, they are beyond "helping" and no amount of screaming at them in Gamespot comments will change that.

Well, hey. A man can dream, can't he? We've reversed decisions in gaming before (see the Xbox 180), so I don't see why a coordinated group can't do the same. It'll be hard to get people on board, though.

Oh, and also...

We're stretching ourselves too thin. We want more, newer, better, flashier, and we want it all at the same price. Reading that sentence twice should reveal the problem. Gamers want more and more stuff in their games, but don't want to pay extra for all the more that they're getting.

Um...I don't. I was perfectly happy for graphics to stay the way they were in the PS2 days, when everything was distinct and functional, knowing that it would free up production costs that would give developers the ability to expand their games in directions that are actually interesting.

It is the publishers at fault, here, for assuming that all anyone cares about is how good things look. You just have to look to more recent E3 shows, where they spend ages wanking over how powerful their hardware is, and then two minutes towards the end go, 'oh and here are some games, I guess. Whatever'.

Gaming used to be about the games, about having fun, but now it's just a pissing contest to see who can cram the most polygons into their stupid pre-rendered cutscenes. That's where the money is really being wasted, and I don't ever recall hearing any gamer ask for this.

Yeah? Well, until recently, I was the graphics whore to end all graphics whores. We therefore balanced each other out.

The reason they talk endlessly about technological advancement and new hardware at E3 is because that's what people want. And I HAVE heard gamers ask for this, over and over and over, in real life and on the web. I don't know how you've missed it. Maybe you never go to other gaming websites?

Quite frankly, most would agree that E3 is a significantly better barometer of what gamers as a collective want than you are.

All you've said is that it's unheard of for a highly successful film to be unsuccessful. Well, yeah, that's self explanatory, and doesn't add anything to the discussion. Rob Moir was right.

 

[nathan-dts]

EA's online pass is dead, the Xbox One got aborted and reborn, Sony and Nintendo have incredibly indie friendly services.
Gaming isn't screaming for help. Valve and Sony pretty much sorted out any questions of morality, this generation, with their Steam, PS3 and PS4 DRM policies. Gamers also did something that I've never seen happen before, made a corporation change their mind.

We're in a good place, right now. Enjoy it.

 

[lacktheknack]

All you've said is that it's unheard of for a highly successful film to be unsuccessful. Well, yeah, that's self explanatory, and doesn't add anything to the discussion. Rob Moir was right.

Tomb Raider had everything pointing at "highly successful"... but it wasn't highly successful.

The tautology failed.

THAT'S THE PROBLEM.