Xcom Publisher: Strategy Games Are Not Contemporary

[Linoleum Boy]

Strategy Games Are Not Contemporary. Yeah right. Starcraft 2 sold 1.5 Milion copyies in 2 days.

 

[Retardinator]

Just because the biggest seller in the universe is an FPS doesn't mean that you should ruin franchises and re-genre them. Did Starcraft 2 become a reboot of Starcraft that was actually an FPS? NO! And you're a dumbass for saying it should have been.

 

[odeed]

Guys, you've missed the point he was trying to make. He is NOT saying that Kanye is better than Ray Charles, nor is he even saying that their music is similar. What he is trying to get across, is that the medium evolves. He is using African American music as a metaphor, and it is perfectly reasonable. Kanye is an example of probably the best hip-hop artist recording today (opinion guys, I also hold many others similarly high esteem: Nas, MF Doom, and OFWGKTA are all examples of excellent modern performers pushing the boundaries. /massive parentheses), in the same way Ray Charles was one of the best Rock and Roll Blues musicians of his time.

African American music has moved through phases throughout the century: First, in the late 19th- early 20th century, you had the spirituals and chants (stemming from slavery days, working in the fields), these evolved into traditional blues (spawning legends such as Blind Willie McTell and Robert Johnson), in the 1920s-40s, you had jazz evolve (Sammy Davies jr.), this became Big Band Jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway), then you have blues rock (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Ray Charles), this eventually branched into Psychedelic Rock (Jimmy Hendrix) and Funk (James Brown), finally, in the 80s, Hip-Hop arrives (Run DMC), it evolves (Biggie, Tupac), and evolves (Kanye, Nas, Jay-Z) 'til we get to modern day. Of course, this isn't to say that any of these genres have gone extinct, but the majority of African American music follows these trends.

The point I'm trying to make is that he's probably right, if Ray Charles was around today, as in, was Kanye's age, there is an extremely high chance that his musical skill would've been channeled through hip-hop. It is a weird thought, I know, but I hate the idea that hip-hop is an inferior art-form.

The upshot of this, in terms of gaming, is that we have to continue evolving the medium, yes, it's nice to have modern, nostalgic games, that harken back to earlier times (Torchlight). For the most part, though, we should be embracing new technology and techniques, to help move the medium forward.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Hm... this makes me wonder: turn based strategy or real time strategy (and by real time strategy I mean all games in real time that have strategy, not just normal RTS games)? I think I prefer real time strategy games in single player, as I love the "think on the fly" style.

Which is why X-Com: Apocalypse was so good, you could choose.

I think what pisses me off here is just shitty marketing. I hate the thought that some **** behind a desk is trying to manipulate me into buying a product, which by all accounts looks terrible, by appealing to a good game I played when I was 15.

I mean.. what they actually trying to do? Who are they actually targeting? Do they honestly think that there's a massive overlap between people who played and enjoyed the X-Com games and will thus recognize the brand and those who will want to buy and play the game they've actually made? As it is, those who are too young or never played X-Com don't recognize the title as having any positive value, and those who do remember X-Com feel let down by the fact that the game being produced has nothing to do with the franchise they have fond memories of.

It's a bullshit marketing ploy to get people to pay attention to what is otherwise shaping up to be a really mediocre and uneventful looking game in an overcrowded sea of mediocre, uneventful FPS games, and that's what's worst of all. The controversy actually seems to be working for them, I keep seeing posts and articles about this game all the time. Who the hell would even have noticed it if they hadn't basically trolled anyone over the age of 25.

Personally, I'm hoping the hype bubble collapses like a stone when it's released, because unless it's actually really good the critical reception is probably going to be a bloodbath of Kane and Lynch proportions. Poor metacritic, stagnant sales, and then we can all forget this crap ever happened and move on.

 

[Luke Cartner]

This is why 2K games should not have been trusted with the XCOM franchise and why despite loving the XCOM games I not going to bother with the game in question.
As for not contemporary tell that to the guy who did Frozen Synapse because that feels very contemporary.
What he meant was he cant hustle all those dumbed down console sales with a classic PC game so instead he used the franchise name and nothing else.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Yes strategy games are the thing of the pass. a pass that was WAY BETTER than now. <.<

Im shock the market hasn't reached saturation point for shooters. so many cookie cutter shooters out now. Bleh.

 

[adamtm]

I know, but the brass balls here to call it simply "XCOM" not "XCOM: Origins" or "XCOM: Tactical".

Simply calling it XCOM denigrates the entire brand, and brands are importan. All the other examples you give include part of the original name but add a distinct sub-title to distinguish it. Imagine if they made a lof of shitty Star Wars prequels (oh wait, they did) but they called them nothing but "Star Wars". Everyone would say "Star Wars Sucks" refering to the more recent version but denigrating the original.

But this is just a part of an overall betrayal. The Star Wars prequels for all their shittyness were clearly in the same universe, but this XCOM game doesn't seem to have ANYTHING to do with the classic series!

I don't think you understand quite how little in common this Xcom-in-name-only has with the rest of the series.

This looks exactly as if 2K Marin just had their own idea for an FPS game set in the 1950's and at the last minute the XCOM name and a few VERY trivial aspects of lore are slapped on at the end. And then they have the nerve to say it is not a reboot... but a prequel. This this game is now CANON! No.

No. Wrong, you can't do that.

This looks EXACTLY like 2k's PR agents forced 2k Marin to adopt this IP - to spite it being completely unsuited to the game they are making - as they know that it will make the game more marketable.

This game - that no one can really call XCOM - is simply whoring out the brand recognition of X-Com. I don't think you understand how PR guys sell things, they don't appeal to your logic, they appeal to the lower brain of emotional associations of a huge population; the public don't "know" what the Xcom brand is, they have just heard in many places that is has a good reputation. And they exploit that, just to a tiny extent, enough to increase sales a bit.

This is the betrayal that EVERY gamer is rightly aghast about as if it can happen to XCOM, it can happen to games that they are fans of!

I am a big fan of the Hitman game series. But I'd be mad as hell if the IP was plastered over a generic FPS war shooter wand didn't use any of the elements, characters, themes or motifs of Hitman... just the name. Hitman would have been in the public consciousness vaguely known as the name of a good game, till it was whored out and the name then meant nothing but a much more familiar bore-fest.

XCOM fans have been crying out for a proper new XCOM game for decades now, no other game has done it as well. The very legacy of the Xcom name has always been a reason to make a great turn-based strategy game again, but that reputation is being whored out here. Decreasing any possibility of a great continuation of the XCOM games.

So this is really just about the name.

I'm wondering why nobody cried in mass-outrage over the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie, its really the same situation with continuity, yet Star Trek 2009 is the highest rated Star Trek movie on both IMDB and rottentomatoes...

Or NeoBSG, had fuck all to do with the 80s BSG, wasnt even the same universe.

Or Fallout 3 had tangentially anything to do with the Fallout franchise, while Fallout and Fallout 2 were direct sequels F3 took just bits and pieces of the lore and made their own game, all that stayed was the broad setting of post nuclear civilization (the only thing in common with Fallout 1+2 were the BoS and Harrold as an easter-egg, not even the SuperMutants were the same), yet GOTY awards etc etc.

The fact is you can have great franchise reboots, like Fallout and you can have really shit franchise reboots like Shadowrun.
The genre does not play a role in this, nor the title. What plays a role is how good the actual game is.

If you want to argue that nu-X-Com looks very unengaging, generic etc. pp. im all with you.

Going into betrayal-rage-mode because its not a TSG or doesnt tie into canon is SILLY.

What interests me most is why this massive backlash, because for example Starbreeze is making a Syndicate reboot which will also be an FPS (and not an isometric tactics game like the original), and I have yet to hear a word about anyone caring.

 

[Thoric485]

UFO: Enemy Unknown sold 600k on PC alone, back when the market was a fraction of what it is now. This piece of crap will sell <250k on PC just like Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2.

 

[Alar]

I don't normally curse on these forums, but... What the fuck, 2K? Seriously? Some things go beyond 'modern' and 'contemporary'. Strategy games are AMAZING, they make you think, they're usually competitive, and they're often quite remarkable in the fast that people play them forever.

In the words of the Spoony One, "BEEETRAAAYAAAALLL!!!"

 

[kypsilon]

I understand that they're trying to make a buck here by cashing in on what's probably a relatively cheap IP at this point in time, but if you're going to do that, take a goddamn chance and make the game that the gamers who played it will remember. The nostalgia factor alone would sell this game to anyone who played the originals.

Hell, you don't even need to make an outrageous production out of it. Put it up on Xbox Live Arcade, or PSN or Windows Live games or something.

And as a last more personal point, I don't give a f**k about shooters. Make my isometric strategy game an isometric strategy game.

 

[Speakercone]

One of the most lauded games of the 90s was called Xcom: UFO Defense where you controlled a squad of shoulders on an isometric grid.

A squad of shoulders eh? To command them must take some serious skill.

yeah, I'm pretty sure someone has to make a game where you control a bunch of shoulders

On the topic at hand: Here's the likely business reasoning: He has a statistic in front of him which says that FPS games are the highest selling type of game in the market currently. Strategy games, meanwhile, sell substantially fewer units. He then reasons that in order to make the maximum amount of profit, he should make an FPS with heavy marketing backing to relaunch the Xcom brand in more profitable waters. He knows that new IP is highly risky and also that he has intellectual property that has an amount of brand loyalty, and he reasons that this is a brand that will sell.

What he doesn't understand is that a 'brand' in terms of a game includes a type of gameplay. I'm not sure, for instance, that a new Mortal Kombat being made as a facebook game would go over very well, even if on paper a social game stands to make more money. Exceptions exist for very longrunning franchises, like Mario's constant sport games or Final Fantasy doing Tactics and FF Dissidia, but for these to work, you have to treat them as if they were new IP. As if, in short, you had something to prove.

Come to think of it, getting a FB message informing me that my friend has just torn my head off would be mildly entertaining. Bring on the MK social game!

 

[Hyakunin Isshu]

This is awful news.

This game is going to play like Mass Effect, at best.

 

[Hristo Tzonkov]

I don't understand the outrage, I really don't.

There have been a gazillion game-franchises that had sequels/prequels that were not the same genre.

"I won't buy/play X-Com because it's not a turn based strategy game" seems like a very weak argument.

Lets try it with some other titles:

"I won't buy/play World Of Warcraft because it's not a RTS"
"I won't buy/play Halo Wars because it's not a FPS"
"I won't buy/play X-Com:Interceptor because it's not a turn based strategy game"
"I won't buy/play Fallout Tactics because it's not a RPG"
"I won't buy/play Final Fantasy Dissidia because it's not a jRPG"

silly

If your argument is that the game is bad, I'm totally ok with it though.

Would it make you happy if they named it X-Com: Ground Combat or sth? Is that all you needed?

First:WoW isn't exactly a sequel to Warcraft 3.It's just a new franchise set in the same universe.Fallout Tactics wasn't popular because it was non-canon.For hardcore fans this is a much bigger selling point.The gameplay is actually a pretty refined take on the older Fallout games despite being mission based.I can't comment much on the rest because I haven't played them.

Second:Your main point is void enough but the game was famous exactly because it was a turn based strategy game in a certain setting.Recreating the setting and redoing the genre has already been done with no success.People just want the original.How can you get people interested in such a game if it's just the setting that a lot of people don't know.Also they aren't even going for a little less mainstream genre.It's a damn shooter and it's gonna be a shoddy moneygrab I can already see it.Long time fans will be forced to buy it to see how their favourite game gets butchered and they'll get sales on top from other folks who are new.Win win.Rather than making a true successor to the original that only a limited audience will like.

I'll still play it but I'm ready to write it off as another of 2k's bad decisions lately.

 

[Quanta Starfire]

The point I'm trying to make is that he's probably right, if Ray Charles was around today, as in, was Kanye's age, there is an extremely high chance that his musical skill would've been channeled through hip-hop. It is a weird thought, I know, but I hate the idea that hip-hop is an inferior art-form.

I don't think it works though. My question is, can the conditions that lead Ray Charles to be who he became be replicated for a black man born in the late 70s? I believe the answer to that is "No, they cannot".

The upshot of this, in terms of gaming, is that we have to continue evolving the medium, yes, it's nice to have modern, nostalgic games, that harken back to earlier times (Torchlight). For the most part, though, we should be embracing new technology and techniques, to help move the medium forward.

It's silly to think that there's no way that entire genres of games can't really benefit from those advances though, or that bringing those genres forward can't evolve the medium, especially when contemporary examples of those games exist not just on PC, but on consoles as well, and even handhelds. Civilization, Valkyria Chronicles, Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, the Advance Wars series. Surely there's more. Do they pull in CoD numbers? Fuck no, and it's silly to design your games under the assumption that they will EVER pull those kinds of numbers unless you happen to be the provider of one of those franchises to begin with.

 

[Quanta Starfire]

Personally, I'm hoping the hype bubble collapses like a stone when it's released, because unless it's actually really good the critical reception is probably going to be a bloodbath of Kane and Lynch proportions. Poor metacritic, stagnant sales, and then we can all forget this crap ever happened and move on.

And then they'll act like a petulant child and say "Whoever gives this a bad review isn't getting review copies of our games anymore!", like they're doing right now with DNF.

 

[KuwaSanjuro]

I think the massive failure that was StarCraft 2 truly showed we don't want strategy games.
Wait StarCraft was a success, oh.

 

[Susurrus]

Not to hijack the thread, but what good strategy games have recently been released - Shogun, yeah fine, and afaik that was a big seller. Civ 5 - another big title. Age of Empires is soon to get a reboot. Starcraft II made a mint. The Command and Conquers were popular, no? Company of Heroes, which still has a big community 7 years after release? Sins of a Solar Empire, which took the market by storm (and which to date, has three expansion packs, and a fourth coming soon?). Men of War, a great WW2 series, with some of the most original singleplayer campaigns for a strategy game ever, also with a big community (admittedly much of it Russian, but the marketers did a horrible job of bringing it over here). Dawn of War?


Er... I'm sure I've missed loads, but I can't think of that many more.

I'm not sure what I'd call HoM&M5/6, but them too.

I'm also looking forward to Tropico 4.

If he means "There are far more FPSs than RTSs" then yes. If he means they are harder to make, yes. If he means that the really top FPSs generate far more revenue than most RTSs could aspire to, then yes. But RTS followers are more loyal, sticking with games for longer, allowing a better multiplayer base (because, by its very nature, most strategy games take far longer to play a single round, so don't exhaust their surprises as quickly). But if he really expects to make as much as CoD, then he won't, because X-Com isn't the right era, or the right It's likely to fall near the middle of the market, and in that case, I imagine, will make considerably less...

 

[Terminal Blue]

And then they'll act like a petulant child and say "Whoever gives this a bad review isn't getting review copies of our games anymore!", like they're doing right now with DNF.

Heh! True..

What interests me most is why this massive backlash, because for example Starbreeze is making a Syndicate reboot which will also be an FPS (and not an isometric tactics game like the original), and I have yet to hear a word about anyone caring.

1) Syndicate is a bit older.
2) Syndicate is already an action game with very loose strategic elements.
3) The formula laid down by syndicate has been quite influential on other games, so it's easy to imagine syndicate as an FPS whilst remaining true to its original.
4) Syndicate was a pretty safe bet for Bullfrog (which was already well established) and is generally not regarded as being as innovative.
5) Syndicate's setting and atmosphere is basically just generic cyberpunk.
6) The Syndicate reboot is very early in production.

Really.. you could take an FPS with cyborg implants and big weapons and throw in the Persuadotron and everyone would say 'wow, this game is like syndicate'.

 

[SageRuffin]

It's times like this that make me glad I stick to fighting games. I'm certainly not a "strategy" kind of guy (not in the context of this thread, in any case, which is why I'm not fond of the gameplay - and only the gameplay - in Dragon Age: Origins), and I barely know how to spell the original Xcom (as I've just heard of it recently), so this tidbit or news doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Street Fighter is now a JRPG. Are you okay with this?

That's a pretty poor way to make a point, but I'll humor you - considering that there was only one game in the entire series that I truly liked and it already dropped a long time ago, if they wanna "branch out into other genres" and whatnot (like they've actually done several times already), let them. I certainly can't stop them.

Worst case scenario, I'll just play a different installment of the series. Or, you know, I'll play a different game. Since I'm not fond of JRPGs, I'm not interested, ergo I move on. Doesn't seem like that hard a concept to me.

Then again, I like DA2 despite it's numerous flaws, some of them glaringly obvious; I view the term "dumbed down for consoles" as a thinly-veiled insult; and I think fighting games are the most intuitive gaming genre there is, so maybe I'm just weird like that.

 

[Sartan0]

The upshot of this, in terms of gaming, is that we have to continue evolving the medium, yes, it's nice to have modern, nostalgic games, that harken back to earlier times (Torchlight). For the most part, though, we should be embracing new technology and techniques, to help move the medium forward.

The problem with that is that he suggests in effect that the future is solely FPS. That is a sad, sad thing. I agree with the others who say: most are chasing Call of Duty to the detriment of all.