Why Do Games and Game Studios Fail? 389
LukeG writes "This new article discusses the reason behind games and their developers failing, noting the distance of those selling the games, from those that buy them as one possible cause. Doomed games such as Bablylon 5 come under the spotlight, while the ubiquitous Duke Nukem Forever is also touched upon." For me, this article brought to mind the twin disasters of Fallout Tactics and the Farscape based game.
Games fail. (Score:5, Interesting)
Gameplay (Score:2, Interesting)
slashdotting (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a cold hard fact that the games business is just that, a business. When push comes to shove if you aren't making money then the game is over. There are times, however, when I begin to wonder if the people with the money actually know what's going on. I remember buying a DVD when the technology was just breaking in the UK and finding one of those stupid marketing research pamphlets on the inside. Glancing over the questions one has always stuck in my mind. The question was to tick what was the primary reason for buying a particular film over another and among the list was 'the studio'. I couldn't, and still can't, understand how someone would think "Oh, that film was made by Warner Bros, it must be good, I'll get it." What made it memorable was that some marketing monkey boy must have believed that to be case. To me it showed a complete lack of understanding between the people releasing the DVD's and the people buying them. It has taken years of marketing research by the studios to realise that the kinds of people who like to buy DVD's want extra features about the making of the films and interviews with cast and crew. If they had just asked me at the start, or any other film fan, I could have saved them time and a whole lot of money. I guess I've only myself to blame as I never did send back the pamphlet. In the same regard I often wonder about the people in charge of which games get made, and which do not.
Now, a lot of games companies don't succeed due to a number of reasons, but most fail because their games aren't particularly good. Corporate natural selection, as it were. There are two other types though, that make no sense to me. One kind that make or are potentially making great games, but still fade away. Then there is my favourite enigma, the kind of company that seem to be making a game that almost the entire gaming audience can see failing right out of the gate.
Let me talk about the first kind as a sort of epitaph to the death of a good friend. The most recent example of this was the tragic demise of Appeal, the Belgian developer that had made Outcast. Outcast was a tremendous game in so many ways. Graphically it was unique thanks to the voxel technology they used so well. It had extremely sophisticated effects for the time, including software bump mapping, depth of field blurring and even some screen anti-aliasing. It's soundtrack was an auditory masterpiece thanks to the Moscow Symphonic Orchestra. The gameplay a brilliant mix of adventure and action. Yet despite critical praise, and reasonably good commercial success, somebody somewhere decided that the sequel would not be.
In Appeal's case, one of the problems was the initial choice of using voxel technology. Whilst it gave the game a very organic landscape, the engine took a long time to develop. For the sequel they wanted to move to polygons and so it was a case of back to square one as they worked on a new engine. But from the screenshots that are still available on the website that sits like an eerie ghost town, it looked very advanced. By aiming for the Playstation 2 platform as well as PC it would have given them a more stable platform as well as a huge market. After all, more and more games are becoming more open and free form for the player. But what may have been a huge hit was cancelled so Cutter Slade, the saviour of Adelpha, is no more.
Another company that went under despite critical praise was Looking Glass studios who developed System Shock 2, and the Thief series of games. In their case Eidos Interactive's decision was very strange as many of the employees were rehired by Ion Storm to work on, Thief 3. So evidently someone inside Eidos believes in the title.
The Wing Commander games were going from strength to strength, a home-grown property within the industry so no restrictive licensing was applicable. Each title met with critical and commercial success. Then Origin just stopped making them and the final serving of that brilliant universe was the spin-off movie that left a bitter taste. One can at least appreciate that the game series went out on a positive note.
A game license that broke my heart when it was cancelled was the planned Babylon 5 game. It was in production during the height of the show's popularity. It was to be a space shooter with the unique ship handling that characterised the Star Fury's of the show. When the Star Wars games had been so successful why cancel this promising project? It's interesting to note that the great TV series suffered similar problems from the mysterious people in charge. J Michael Stratsynski was messed around as to whether the fifth series would be green lit. Thus the fourth series had the narrative crammed into it leaving the fifth with little to do, only truly reaching its high in the final episode "Sleeping in Light". Why was this series messed around with? Well, the powers that be wanted a spin-off series, too blind to see they were destroying the very thing they wanted to prolong. The spin off was an abysmal failure.
There will of course be information that we are not privy to in each of these cases. Perhaps the games were vastly over-budget. The games cancelled mid-development may have been further from completion than I believed or were over ambitious in their scope and rather than scale back, cancelling was preferable. Or maybe it was simply personal or creative differences. For whatever reason I certainly would have loved to see the games come to fruition and I wonder what inner politics during development led to their downfall.
Now we come to the second type of company and no matter how strange the first are, the second are even more curious. Their are a few examples that spring to mind in this category, from Eidos' impossible release schedule that destroyed the Tomb Raider series by not giving sufficient time for innovation, to the merciless march of the Army Men. Two prime examples stand out above all others, a lovely pair of double D's, Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever.
I want to make it clear that I am not out to vilify the companies or individuals responsible, far from it. I have the utmost respect and admiration for anyone who has the energy, enthusiasm and courage to go out and create a game and release it to the unforgiving public. For those of you not familiar with the story of Daikatana it was the brainchild of an id Software employee called John Romero. He left id to form Ion Storm alongside Tom Hall with grandiose ideas about big epic games, large teams, fantastic designs, plush offices and all the cokes you can drink. Back in the optimistic technology boom he got it.
The game was being developed for the Quake engine, then when Quake 2 was released they decided to switch engines to keep Daikatana looking competitive. This was not an easy move. The team suffered personal and technical difficulties and was burning money rapidly. The game suffered lengthy delays and when released was a critical and commercial failure. Now Daikatana had some commendable design elements that just didn't quite work together.
How did this game ever reach the shelves though? In November 1998 the game was a year behind schedule and eight key team members, dubbed the "Ion Eight", walked out on the company. Surely that should have sent alarm bells ringing at Eidos that all was not well in the glass tower. I wouldn't advocate firing the personnel, instead why not take the talent and put them to work on other projects. After all, Ion Storm was also working on (in separate offices) Deus Ex and Anachronox. The fact that Daikatana was finished despite all the problems is a credit to John Romero's passion and drive for the project and I personally would like to see him return as a lead designer for PC games.
Finally though let us talk a bit about one of the most long awaited games ever, Duke Nukem Forever. As the saying goes, he who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it. And Duke Nukem looks a lot like Daikatana from where I sit. It has suffered huge delays. It has an ambitious design, probably unrealisable. It has a following whose hopes are so high that it could not possibly meet the expectation. Evidence of this point can be seen looking over the forums at 3D Realms website where one blind worshipper believed that once released Duke Nukem might destroy the games industry by raising the standard beyond everyone else. Has this fool been living in a dream world, has he not played some of the amazing games that have come out in the five years that Duke has been in development? Ironically 3D Realms made the decision way back in 1998 to switch to the Unreal engine to save time! How many other Unreal-powered games have been released since then?
I'm going to go further than 3D Realms are prepared to, and make an educated guess that it will be out by the end of the second quarter of 2003 or it will never see the light of day at all. How have I reached this conclusion? Well, given that the 3D Realms website contains no new information for that past two years about the game (and the movie/screenshots no longer cut the mustard) I base it on two premises. One, if it was going to be released for this Christmas we would have heard something, anything, about it by now. Two, if it is not out by the end of the second quarter 2003 then Doom 3 will be all too nigh on the horizon. And if the brief history of computer games has told us one thing it's that nobody can beat John Carmack on his own turf.
I would like to believe that Duke Nukem Forever, or the next Tomb Raider, will be great. That they'll make me eat my words. But when these games come out, all I'll be able to think about is how great Outcast 2 or Babylon 5 might have been. I suppose I have the better of the two worlds in this instance. In mine I can pretend that Outcast 2 was a monumental epic game that rivalled all before it. In Duke's, the game as always, will have the final say and all the hype and expectation will only add salt to the wound.
Now I've had my say, I'd like to hear your thoughts. What do you think of those pulling the strings in the games industry, are they making the right choices and the right games? What about Duke Nukem Forever, a destined failure, or potential ground-breaker 3D Realms suggest. Use the comments form below to vocalise and discuss.
By Richard Clifford
Re:Page 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
All Images
How did this game ever reach the shelves though? In November 1998 the game was a year behind schedule and eight key team members, dubbed the "Ion Eight", walked out on the company. Surely that should have sent alarm bells ringing at Eidos that all was not well in the glass tower. I wouldn't advocate firing the personnel, instead why not take the talent and put them to work on other projects. After all, Ion Storm was also working on (in separate offices) Deus Ex and Anachronox. The fact that Daikatana was finished despite all the problems is a credit to John Romero's passion and drive for the project and I personally would like to see him return as a lead designer for PC games.
Finally though let us talk a bit about one of the most long awaited games ever, Duke Nukem Forever. As the saying goes, he who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it. And Duke Nukem looks a lot like Daikatana from where I sit. It has suffered huge delays. It has an ambitious design, probably unrealisable. It has a following whose hopes are so high that it could not possibly meet the expectation. Evidence of this point can be seen looking over the forums at 3D Realms website where one blind worshipper believed that once released Duke Nukem might destroy the games industry by raising the standard beyond everyone else. Has this fool been living in a dream world, has he not played some of the amazing games that have come out in the five years that Duke has been in development? Ironically 3D Realms made the decision way back in 1998 to switch to the Unreal engine to save time! How many other Unreal-powered games have been released since then?
I'm going to go further than 3D Realms are prepared to, and make an educated guess that it will be out by the end of the second quarter of 2003 or it will never see the light of day at all. How have I reached this conclusion? Well, given that the 3D Realms website contains no new information for that past two years about the game (and the movie/screenshots no longer cut the mustard) I base it on two premises. One, if it was going to be released for this Christmas we would have heard something, anything, about it by now. Two, if it is not out by the end of the second quarter 2003 then Doom 3 will be all too nigh on the horizon. And if the brief history of computer games has told us one thing it's that nobody can beat John Carmack on his own turf.
I would like to believe that Duke Nukem Forever, or the next Tomb Raider, will be great. That they'll make me eat my words. But when these games come out, all I'll be able to think about is how great Outcast 2 or Babylon 5 might have been. I suppose I have the better of the two worlds in this instance. In mine I can pretend that Outcast 2 was a monumental epic game that rivalled all before it. In Duke's, the game as always, will have the final say and all the hype and expectation will only add salt to the wound.
Now I've had my say, I'd like to hear your thoughts. What do you think of those pulling the strings in the games industry, are they making the right choices and the right games? What about Duke Nukem Forever, a destined failure, or potential ground-breaker 3D Realms suggest. Use the comments form below to vocalise and discuss.
innovation isn't everything. (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the best films are great because of strong plots, excellent storytelling, and good cinematography, without breaking any new ground. Is there anything really innovative about Ang Lee? Steven Soderbergh? Not really, but they utilize existing techniques well, and know their craft.
Same with games. It doesn't look like Doom III is going to break any new ground - just do a lot of things that were done before, better. But they are the *right* things - suspense, atmosphere, art.
Games and their Dying exposed (Score:5, Interesting)
1. What it is your selling must be quality. If its a software game, people must believe that besides the graphic illustrious factor, the game is quality to play. Take the recent release of Battle Field 1942. Theres a game I have seen crash more people's pc's than most.
2. Attention to Multiplay. Developers out there are, and I can't quite understand this because its so BLOODY OBVIOUS, are continuing to develop games in single player, when it can be easily seen there should be a multi player aspect. Need for Speed hot Pursuit 2 on the Playstation 2 recently released, won't support online play, but the PC version does. If you want a game to succeed, MAKE IT MULTIPLAYER, at least then you can play humans.
2a. Now on the server side, one can learn a great deal from id here. Make it so the server binary is freely available, and can run easily on windows and unix platforms. The fact that quake3 and its off shoots are STILL going from (how long ago was it released?!?) demonstrates that this can definately be a factor.
3. Pride. Gamedevelopers: Stop projecting your point of view as if you thought it was the entire communities. It seems to be, that you are developing without listening to the community. There are certainly some development houses that are releasing beta previews etc...and this is a great idea, however make feedback interactive, get people INVOLVED in this, not just, send email here, we MIGHT look through it. Set up websites, with multiple answer radio buttons, so users who aren't terribly fantastic at communicating these things, can simply fill it out. You will retain a lot of players this way.
4. PRICE. Here in Australia, we pay up to $100 AU for a game. Work from the point of view that our average salaries might be the same in terms of figures to those in the US, now work with the fact you get 2 of our dollars to your 1. This is DEFINATELY a factor in Australia, I am not so sure about the US.
5. Poor programming. Some games I see developed, look visually stunning, but the attention has clearly been focused on 3dsmax side of things, rather than the actual coding. The responsiveness of an action game can sometimes be classed as worse than a dogs breakfast. Developers, CONSULT PEOPLE, I wonder how many games get released because the boss pushed the developers to get it out, and no one asked public gaming people to have a look at it. Now it fails, developers get fired...etc...
What do YOU think?
Re:HTTP 403.9: IIS can't handle the load (Score:1, Interesting)
Finally though let us talk a bit about one of the most long awaited games ever, Duke Nukem Forever. As the saying goes, he who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it. And Duke Nukem looks a lot like Daikatana from where I sit. It has suffered huge delays. It has an ambitious design, probably unrealisable. It has a following whose hopes are so high that it could not possibly meet the expectation. Evidence of this point can be seen looking over the forums at 3D Realms website where one blind worshipper believed that once released Duke Nukem might destroy the games industry by raising the standard beyond everyone else. Has this fool been living in a dream world, has he not played some of the amazing games that have come out in the five years that Duke has been in development? Ironically 3D Realms made the decision way back in 1998 to switch to the Unreal engine to save time! How many other Unreal-powered games have been released since then?
I'm going to go further than 3D Realms are prepared to, and make an educated guess that it will be out by the end of the second quarter of 2003 or it will never see the light of day at all. How have I reached this conclusion? Well, given that the 3D Realms website contains no new information for that past two years about the game (and the movie/screenshots no longer cut the mustard) I base it on two premises. One, if it was going to be released for this Christmas we would have heard something, anything, about it by now. Two, if it is not out by the end of the second quarter 2003 then Doom 3 will be all too nigh on the horizon. And if the brief history of computer games has told us one thing it's that nobody can beat John Carmack on his own turf.
I would like to believe that Duke Nukem Forever, or the next Tomb Raider, will be great. That they'll make me eat my words. But when these games come out, all I'll be able to think about is how great Outcast 2 or Babylon 5 might have been. I suppose I have the better of the two worlds in this instance. In mine I can pretend that Outcast 2 was a monumental epic game that rivalled all before it. In Duke's, the game as always, will have the final say and all the hype and expectation will only add salt to the wound.
Now I've had my say, I'd like to hear your thoughts. What do you think of those pulling the strings in the games industry, are they making the right choices and the right games? What about Duke Nukem Forever, a destined failure, or potential ground-breaker 3D Realms suggest. Use the comments form below to vocalise and discuss.
By Richard Clifford
Less force, more mind (Score:4, Interesting)
One reason is probably that a key board interface is much worse than a game pad and proportionatly very few computer game players own game pads. So on a computer game you have to have some type of good/unique interface, but that alone is not enough, you have to have an actually genuine story line. I would even go as far as to say that for most games you could put more necessity into the story than the graphics. It's the whole book vs. movie idea. The mind can make much more vivid images than a screen if given a good story. This is one reason that I think the Myst line made out so well. The interface was Ok at best compared to a lot of other games, but the visuals and the story really did suck you in. It really did become your world as the game tag line went.
I'm not saying that this goes for all games but it _definetly helps_. For instance First person shooters don't really require a plot, ie. Doom, or even much of an intracate one, i.e. Half Life. But a really nice one that has everything the other games has will do better. Marathon was this. It was an amazing game and I think one of the few reasions it didn't catch on quite as well as say doom is that it started out on the Mac.
It's like a really good movie. It isn't all flashy and smooth graphics, it's the good story along with all that.
Just my thoughts.
Worst game ever (Score:4, Interesting)
In my opinion, the most disasterous game ever is still E.T. [snopes.com]
Re:Games and their Dying exposed (Score:4, Interesting)
However, its major redeeming features include _having a story_, _being self-directed_ (the player can do whatever the player likes, even if its detrimental to the game / plot, althoug the game notifies you of this) and comes with the tools used to create the game in terms of placing objects and scripting the NPCs so the user can easily tweak / change / edit / make new features for the game.
Re:Technology before Content (Score:2, Interesting)
business and common sense (Score:1, Interesting)
What I have noticed in any industry is how there are floods and fads that will bastardize and destroy the very thing that is driving the fad. This most often leads to a situtation of saturation, leading to 'teams' and 'board rooms' of people that make decisions based on canned methodoligies where once they [the decisions] where made by the creators and thus the ones with the passion for it. No, that never guarantees success, but I believe most can see how true from the gut dedication is ALWAYS more effective inch per inch than an institionalized bureaucratic redtape mess thinly veiled as a creative process. (for that matter you can substitute work, fighting, etc for 'creative')
Ever wonder why sequels of movies generally suck? Because usually they are less driven by the initial creative story telling desire than by a short termed quest for money. A good businessman will understand that get-rich-quick schemes are short lived and few to find. A good businessman is a facilitator that will put the right people into the right positions and then coordinate their activities while taking care to "protect" them from the outside issues that are distracting and unproductive. After all, imagine if a scientist had to do every single step of every test, observation, research, fund raising, etc himself? Not as much work would get done than if parts were handled for the scientist. Making games is becoming much more complex, but yet how much of that complexity is dealing directly with the technology and local process of making games as opposed to the "business" side of things? How many resources of a gaming company are spent on legal, marketing, general management and other support roles? Factor that in for small companies then the large behemoths. notice how efficiency of the business infrastructure drops (requiring more support) as the organization grows? Notice also how this is not usually policed, thus resulting in the stereotypical yet sadly accurate situation of budget cuts resulting in cuts to the workforce while keeping support? That is a bad business decision as much as if a fast food restaurant dumped all but 1 worker to man the friers, front registers, drive-through, cleaning/bathrooms, burger making, box folding, etc while there is a shift manager, assistant shift manager, night manager, general manager, etc. (this is assuming they are not doing the other tasks of course)
Basically the picture I am trying to paint here is one of chaos and gross inefficiency. When this happens you will eventually end up with two choices: produce crap that is highly candied and marketed, or produce good quality that sells itself. It is very hard to convince the army of suits that the latter is the best way as that would lead to their demise or being forced to actually work. (I consider producing something work, not creating a self perpetuating interchange of paper) Many people (especially irresponsible parents) will blindly buy anything that has the outward appearance of being cool (fancy box, neat commercials, etc) which is why those entertaining American beer/piss commercials are so successful. So, like with politics you can partly blame the company and then blame yourself and your fellow consumers. Stop being sheep as you must surely realize if you used some gray matter that money is the vote of business. If you buy some crap game just to fill your computer disk or to fill your empty life then you are really just telling the company that it is a good game. They will then rightly (based on your feedback) produce other such games.
So the monster of big business while annoying to all but the empty headed suit is a monster created by consumers actions. Stop being the stereotypical stupid spoiled brat American and show a little buying self control.
Oh and next time you get pissed at the price? See the above paragraph...
Re:Games fail. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do bussinesses fail in general ? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Raven.
P.S. The ability to manage people has nothing to do with one's school or even GPA.
testers (Score:5, Interesting)
Lemme tell you: nobody pays any attention to the testers.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen the words "not a bug" "not a defect" or "will not fix" (!). Seriously, if a team of people are spending 60 hours a week (yeah, 60) on average playing your game, you might want to listen to what they have to say.
If we say the enemies sometimes see you through the walls in a level where being seen means game over, then LISTEN you %$#@ stupid programmers/VP/marketing drones!
Seriously, the testers can tell you if the gameplay sucks, we know, we spend a lot of time playing it. If any part of it sucks, we'll notice, and you should listen.
I'm ranting, I know, but serioulsy, developers, listen to your testers.
And, also, try to schedule enough time for testing. Giving a week, a single week of testing time, is not smart. Not smart at all. Finding bugs is one thing, fixing 'em is another (and fixing a bug will very often create 2 new bugs).
I used to love testing game (I was good at it), but there's so many times a guy can be blamed for someone else's mistake before he's had his fill (testers are the bottom of the barrel, guess wich way the shit goes when trouble brews).
Re:This is a very complicated issue: (Score:4, Interesting)
Add this to the fact that modern business management theory, for long-term planning, doesn't project out more than two years. If a project takes longer than that to turn a profit, it's not viable. So you wind up seeing one of two things happening -- either the company will license a rendering engine from another company, and use that to produce another derivative-looking game, as you describe, or they'll get about 60% through the game development before the suits realize that it's not going to be on the shelves in two years, and either panic and force the programmers to switch over to a rendering engine licensed from another company (reducing the game to the previous response, but delayed a year and a half when the programmers have to start over), or start a massive fingerpointing campaign to assign responsibility/blame for the fact that the programmers' projection of three years was accurate.
Multiply this by several games, for a large game company, or have the people funding a small game company get antsy about throwing more money on the fire, and you wind up with a company in financial trouble that can be acquired relatively cheaply by another game company -- who will look at the games under development, see that they're going to have to have more money thrown at them for a year or more to pay off, and cancel them because they can't immediately serve as a source of revenue to pay off on the acquisition.
Re:Games fail. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Games and their Dying exposed (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm mostly convinced, except for the multiplay. There are lots of fine games without multiplay - they tend to be about story, which is something that try as you might you can't have in deathmatch. Only Neverwinter has tried to do story with multiplay, and I'm not sure how well that works.
I think if your game supports multiplay, you have to have it. But if you're writing, say, Deus Ex, a shooter admittedly but one about story and sneaking and missions, multiplay will just seem lame. That game, however, was one of the best I'd played in years*, and I clearly wasn't the only one.
*I thought it was game of the year when I played it two years after its release... the games since have had more polygons, but there's more to a game than just having 4500 polygon projectiles flinging at your head with 3D stereo sound.
Why do game studios fail? (Score:1, Interesting)
This means that every single title the studio does must be enough of a hit to convince the publisher (or other publishers) to work with them. Most game developers are also much more hardcore game players than their fans, which makes it hard to design a game with broad appeal. Unless you're id software, you can't design a hardcore game and expect it to sell well. Even id's sales have been progressively declining from Doom through Quake 3. (Should be interesting to see how well Doom 3 does, but that's another matter entirely).
So basically, independent game studios are in a position where if they fail once, they go bankrupt. Studios can fail even through no fault of their own, ie, they make a critically acclaimed game that isn't marketed much and doesn't sell well.
Re:Why Games Fail (Score:3, Interesting)
A friend of mine dealt with this first-hand, unfortunately. He got his dream job; designing game levels. He was good at it, too, and the programmers at the company were very, very talented. The problem was 3-fold. The games their executives chose to work on were lame, niche-market licences. Among them was a game-adaptation of Hellboy..strong potential *if* marketed properly (which it wasn't). Hence, it was essentially left to Hellboy fans to hunt it down. Add a rush job near it's final completion, and..well, you get the picture.
The company i'm referring to, for those unaware, was Cryo Interactive. At one time, they had the license to the Aeon Flux game, which was inexplicably cancelled at some stage in development. Shortly after Hellboy was released, and Aeon Flux cancelled, they aquired licenses for a few "classic monsters" type games (i.e. Dracula, etc.) It never even started development before Cryo's parent company in France decided they weren't worth continuing, and closed 'em down.
What led to Cryo's downfall? Here's what I think:
1. Bad licensing deals. Whether this is attributed to Cryo's bargaining power as a developer, i couldn't say. Nonetheless, i've rarely seen companies do well that don't create wholly original games somewhere along the line. Virtually *any* game has potential if it's well-written/produced..however, even the best games can be doomed if they lack..
2. MARKETING! As Herkum01 meticulously pointed out, a lack of marketing has been the downfall of multiple games, both good and bad. Of course, we've also seen *bad* games get amazing marketing, only for everyone who bought/rented it to find out it sucked holy ass. Oni, imo, is a really good example of this. It's also a good example of:
3. Good Idea, Bad Execution. Even companies who get a good project once in awhile, as with Cryo/Aeon Flux, can muck things up beyond belief. The aforementioned Oni is a good example of this, however, in that an action-based anime-style game *could* make for a really cool game. As far as i'm concerned, it's play control was so awful, it was unplayable, no matter how good it's graphics/sound/errata. In the instance of Aeon Flux, I can only speculate that it failed because nobody quite knew how to properly market it, or perhaps they just didn't know where to start? Is it an action game? Should it be a first-person shooter or what? It seems that there are a lot of games that have no sense of where they should take the player, or what type of game they should be.
Just my
Re:slashdotting (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Games and their Dying exposed (Score:3, Interesting)
On the exact opposite of the coin, fucking developers keep de-emphazing single player mode for multi-player and online modes that I could care less about. I don't do online games. I don't do multiplayer. PERIOD. Sure I am the minority of the market, but a rather big one (would say ~30% judging on the gamers I have known over the years). Before you object, think of all the games you play single player and enjoy
More and more developers are making shoddy stories and short campaigns for single player mode expecting you to want to go online or play against of people even though plenty of us don't want this.
The problem with games and a reason they are failing is that they are ignoring large minorities that will actually purchase the game. There is still a market for turn based and single player games. Sure these markets won't take you to top 10 selling list, but you will still turn a profit.
Re:Games and their Dying exposed (Score:5, Interesting)
As another game developer, I'd like to second that. I'd mod it up if I had any mod points :)
Clueless comments in this story like "games fail because the programmers/artists/designers just don't care" just make me grind my teeth in frustration, especially when I usually come up against lots of other people in the industry who are the ones who really don't care [guyswithtowels.com].
Sure, it's sometimes the case, but it's pretty damn rare. Games developers are well known for working long hours. If they didn't care, I don't think they'd bother with that. If you think they get paid overtime, dream on.
Tim
Doom III (Score:3, Interesting)
Even on a Radeon 9700, 20-40fps is the best you will get save for a few scenes which are the rendering equivalent of looking at the ground.
The rest is just a blatant ripoff of Resident Evil with a bit of Half-Life thrown in.
People buy games mostly out of brand loyalty, advertising, and especially, especially, especially HYPE.
Serious Sam 2 still kills UT2k3 in gameplay, innovation, AND graphics, but no one will play a game made by some little guys called "Croteam."