Poll: Which do you prefer: an ambitious failure, or a safe success?

[ImmortalDrifter]

I differ from the OP in that I don't really consider MW2/3 to be successes. Did they succeed at making a lot of money? Sure. Did they succeed at making a good multiplayer or singleplayer experience? Haha no.

They did in fact deliver a good single/multiplayer experience, if they didn't, it wouldn't make lots of money would it? Success isn't really debatable, personal enjoyment is, they aren't related. It seems to be a bad habit on the internet to confuse the two.

OT: I really can't answer this. Failures are failures regardless of intent, trying is worth something, but not much. At the same time, "safe" games are bland and boring, but tolerable. I guess i dislike them both equally.

 

[Lionsfan]

I guess it depends on how big of a failure the ambitious one was. Did it have good story concepts? Or just a few glitches that made the game not be that fun? Normally I'd prefer an Ambitious Failure over a Safe Success

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Failure as in sales wise then definitely ambitious failure any day of the week or if you mean a genuinely broken game failure wise then I'll take the safe one. At least with the failure some aspects of it that were good can be adapted and changed to be put into other games.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

I really want to say ambitious failure, but if It came down to it the Safe Success would be getting my money every time

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

Well it depends on how much of a failure the ambitious game is. If the game is generally unplayable, I will tend to prefer the safe success just because the other game is so frustrating. Like Dead Rising. I would list Call of Duty over Dead Rising any day because I felt the controls and difficulty of the latter were so undeniably frustrating that I couldn't play it for more than five minutes.

However, if the gameplay is generally good just with some big flaws, I will prefer the ambitious game. Like [Prototype]. Good game overall, but with some big flaws that I feel (or at least hope) was the result of corporate meddling. I definitely prefer the tale of Alex Mercer over Call of Duty any day.

 

[Kahunaburger]

They did in fact deliver a good single/multiplayer experience, if they didn't, it wouldn't make lots of money would it? Success isn't really debatable, personal enjoyment is, they aren't related. It seems to be a bad habit on the internet to confuse the two.

They delivered a popular singleplayer/multiplayer experience. Twilight delivered a popular literary experience. Neither was very good by most reasonable standards. So, financial success, but not (respectively) a game design or writing success.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Sure. Did it succeed at being a high-quality book? Nope. The last dimension of success is the only one I care much about.

Says who? Im sure the fans of Twilight would disagree with you. Are you saying that your opinion of what is high-quality is somehow better then others?

Well, let's put it this way: I've seen convincing arguments that Twilight is low-quality, have seen no convincing arguments that Twilight is high-quality, and my personal experience with what little of the series I could stomach has fit with the assessment of Twilight as low-quality.

Same thing with Modern Warfare Whatever, except that I have more information to base my assessment on since I played MW2 for a year and change.

 

[SoranMBane]

I genuinely would rather play a game that's broken but tried something new than a game that's functional but doesn't make any attempt at innovation. The ambitious game might frustrate me quite a bit if it's broken enough, but at least it would be interesting. The safe game, no matter how polished it was, would just be boring by comparison, and I'd rather be angry than bored.

 

[distortedreality]

I would take another Mirrors Edge/Alpha Protocol/LA Noire over most of the big releases of the last couple of years. They weren't great, but at least they tried something new, which is exciting.

Apathy should never come into any creative undertaking.

 

[Emiscary]

Neither if you don't mind.

 

[RatRace123]

Ambitious failure, you can take the unique parts of the game that worked and try again until you finally get something beautiful.

Safe success just gets you, well it gets you a contract with EA and Activision. (Ba dum tish.)

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I realize the "correct" answer is ambitious failure, but I'd actually prefer a safe success.

A failure is still a failure, no matter how ambitious. If a developer knows their stuff then they should be able to make ambitious successes.

I'd definitely prefer an ambitious failure to a safe failure though.

yeah this.

a success is a success, depending on the developer and such, i don't mind a safe success one bit.

but then i look at mw3 and a few other things...and i sigh at it.

ambitious success > safe success > ambitious failure > safe failure

 

[VonKlaw]

As much as I like developers trying to think outside the box, an Ambititious Failure makes me feel like I just wasted my £40/$60 far more than a safe success that I will atleast enjoy.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Ambitious Failure, everyone playing it safe leads to utter boredom.

 

[MetalMagpie]

An ambitious failure is great as long as I didn't spend money on it!

It's always fun to try games that attempted something interesting but failed to pull it off. But they're still failed games, and as such have limited value except to go, "Wow, I would love to play a good version of this!"

And they can make small software houses go bust, which is almost never good.

The world needs a mix of the two. Sometimes an ambitious failure leads to an ambitious success (if the company manages to get the money for another one). But equally, a safe success can lead to an ambitious success, because there's likely to be more investment in future titles.

 

[endtherapture]

An ambitious failure.

KoTOR2 is one of these. It tried something radically different with the story, it failed because Lucasarts didn't give it enough time to be made. I enjoyed it more than KoTOR1 though.

Also Alpha Protocol.

 

[TheGreatAndPowerfulZOG]

AMBITIOUS FAILURE! Am I the only one who instantly thought ME1 vs ME2?

 

[Kahunaburger]

Well, let's put it this way: I've seen convincing arguments that Twilight is low-quality, have seen no convincing arguments that Twilight is high-quality, and my personal experience with what little of the series I could stomach has fit with the assessment of Twilight as low-quality.

Same thing with Modern Warfare Whatever, except that I have more information to base my assessment on since I played MW2 for a year and change.

So what your you're saying is that nothing but your own opinion matters

No, I'm saying that I base my opinion on the evidence and analysis that I've seen. If you have evidence or analysis you believe will change my opinion, feel free to present it. Otherwise, "well, that's just, like, your opinion, man" is not a counter-argument that is likely to make me change my opinion of Modern Warfare Whatever, Twilight, etc.

and that you dont know the difference between the terms low-quality and dislike.

I like many things that I consider low-quality. For instance, the movie Con Air is hilarious, and Steel Reserve is the perfect beverage for the right sort of gathering. I also dislike many things that I consider high quality. For instance, I'm not very interested in most of the modern literary fiction canon.