HungryHungryOuroboros

It took me far too long to process that as because the game is from an overhead perspective and human figures are small rather than because they are really small bikinis that barely cover anything.

Ah ****, I forgot about the "no royalties contract" part. All the same, I'm sure Obsidian didn't pick a deal that could turn $45 million-ish(a good rough guess from Fallout 3 sales) into $10 million. They probably got a raw deal and a lot less than they should have, but I'm still sure plenty more than is reasonable to expect from an OPTIMISTIC projection for Eternity.

Your guess is very bad. Game sales usually give 15% to the developer. That means our(very rough) estimate is a $45 million cut off of New Vegas's $300 million.

Considering the kind of money EA brings in, not enough people hate them, and those who do don't hate them enough.

You can't keep a company the size of Obsidian running on projects the size of Eternity. Eternity is not New Vegas. It's not going to bring in $300 million. To "go independent , they'd have to fire a LOT of people.

From what I understand, Atari's "publishing" of the Witcher games is a different scenario. The games are made in Poland and, it seems, Atari is closer to being a company that imports, localizes, and sells it internationally. Info on that seems a bit harder to find, so anyone who knows better please correct me. I also remember them fussing when CDProjekt patched their retail versions to be DRM-free, but I can't find that story with some quick googling, so I may be wrong in that.

You're forgetting that, because women would lose physical fights because they're women, dressing like that allows them to DISTRACT THE ENEMY. Nevermind if the enemy is female, gay, asexual, uninterested in that particular body type, not particularly fond of brunettes, etc. ...The "distracting the enemy" excuse is REALLY demeaning to men, actually. The "can't help himself" logic isn't exactly a glowing appraisal of male self-control.

A move which is definitely appreciated.

The only retro shooter made in the past ten years, off the top of my head, would be Gun Godz by Vlambeer. There are a couple arena shooters in the sub-$20 range. There is not a single full-priced retail shooter that doesn't fall under the "modern shooter" label. I'm defining them as a shooter that is of the genre that appeared post-Halo, which is so distinct in its mechanics and how it is played and paced that it is distinct from the type of shooter that existed in the 1990s. There's a difference between being a BAD shooter(and there ARE very bad retro shooters, many of which in the "cheap Doom cash-in clone" category) and being a MODERN shooter.

There's no such thing as a soul that ISN'T fictional.

Syndicate was established as a top-down tactical shooter. EA turned it into a generic FPS Fallout was established as an isometric PC RPG. Bethesda turned it into a crappy first person shooter with quests. Dragon Age was established as a semi-strategic throwback title. EA turned it into Mass Effect With Magic(and Only One Dungeon). Shadowrun was established as a tactical RPG. Microsoft turned it into an FPS. Wasteland was established an a party-based isometric RPG. In pitch meetings, publishers attempted to change the genre.

Half-Life is the beginning of the modern shooter. Based on narrative, lots of time spent looking at setpieces, very little time spent actually shooting things. Second of all, no, no they really are not. To say otherwise is stupid. Yes, you very much can. Ducking behind a chest-high wall or around a corner and waiting for your health to regenerate is a big part of the modern shooter. The modern shooter. Name one.

Adding elements doesn't make something cease to be retro. Super Meat Boy is retro, despite the small level design, speedrun pace, and quick respawn at the start of a short level. You can advance a retro genre without discrediting it as essentially a niche retro throwback. Project Eternity is going to come with its own set of advancements, but nobody is going to pretend that it's not a niche retro throwback. Roberts has referred to the crowdfunding as "an element" of his funding strategy. He will get private investment to cover it all if crowd funding doesn't kick in, but private investment is part of the funding strategy no matter what. Roberts has funded the game thus far via private investors

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/10/wing-commandeered-chris-roberts-star-citizen-preview/ Everything in the Star Citizen demo is very obviously there as a nostalgic hook to Roberts’ longtime fans, to the extent that the logo for the space combat portion of Star Citizen currently uses the Wing Commander font. I’d be stunned if the final game follows suit though (not least because I can’t imagine EA letting it go unchallenged), and the actual universe underneath it is very different to any of Roberts’ past space games. ... The game’s name comes from the fact that in this universe, citizenship has to be earned. How you go about it though is completely up to you. If you want that Wing Commander flavour, sign up for a tour of duty in the military and you can focus on combat in a solo/co-op part of the universe. For more freedom, grab a ship and just do your own thing, Privateer/Freelancer style, only within a living economy and ever-expanding universe of mystery and intrigue, only with players instead of just NPCs and no one jerk getting to hog the Steltek gun. ... And that’s just the start. If Roberts manages to implement all the features he wants, Star Citizen will be one of the greatest space games ever. You’ll be able to host your own universes for instance, as in Freelancer. Also, Star Citizen isn't solely crowd-funded. There has been ACTUAL investment by private investors. This also makes it a poor example.

Oh, okay, so you're actually among the people who are ignorant about it and not just being obtuse. This makes me feel better. The modern console shooter is essentially a power fantasy. You walk down a linear hallway and shoot at the guys who run at you. There are big setpieces, but the levels themselves are a big line. A retro FPS would include puzzles, exploration, crowd management, resource management, and quick reflexes. Health and ammo are not managed resources in the modern FPS. Health regenerates, changing the pacing and purpose of the entire interaction players have with the level. The point is no longer to manage resources over a long term, but to create short-term spikes of excitement that then reset between encounters. Ammo is infinite, rather than also having to be stored. The number and types of weapons are reduced to the point that strategic weapon selection is no longer an aspect. Multiplayer maps, which are SUPPOSED to just be big arenas to shoot people, are more complex in modern FPS games than their single-player counterparts, which is completely fipped from how it works in the 90s FPS. A modern FPS is a hallway gallery shooting meant to give the player a power fantasy through highly detailed(but low on interaction) setpieces while the 90s FPS is, in every way, a mental and reflex challenge.

Well then there is everything equally nineties about throwing Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem into a blender. There, all first-person shooters are nineties! You're being either obtuse or ignorant to argue that the mechanical differences between 90s shooters and modern shooters don't make them essentially different genres. A 90s shooter Kickstarter would probably succeed, a modern shooter Kickstarter would not, because the former is a different kind of game entirely. Star Citizen is pretty, but mechanically it blends several of Chris Roberts' 90s children. The big floating text at the start of the video makes it clear: "We're bringing back 90s PC space sims". What do you think "rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated" referred to? Chris Roberts accidentally choking on a chicken wing?

...since when are 90s space sims like Wing Commander anywhere close to being more popular? I don't know what universe you're living in, that's an extremely niche old genre. You didn't watch the video, did you? There's nothing "90s" about that game. I watched the video within the first half hour of the Kickstarter going up. Like I've said, I follow this ****. There is everything 90s about tossing Wing Commander, Privateer, and Freelancer into a blender.

Double Fine has said that they want to make a Psychonauts 2, but wouldn't even try to Kickstart it. The original Psychonauts had a $13 million budget. I'm thinking that a budget in that sphere is unlikely enough that it may never be worth pursuing.

Former LucasArts adventure devs want to make an old school adventure game. $3 million. Former Black Isle and Troika devs want to make an old school isometric RPG. $4 million. Halo dev Christian Allen wants to make a shooter. $200,000. ...since when are 90s space sims like Wing Commander anywhere close to being more popular? I don't know what universe you're living in, that's an extremely niche old genre.

I'd like them to be puppies. I like puppies.

$3-4 million is a drop in the bucket for these people. Banner Saga got $700k? That's nothing. You're not competing with the people who spend $100 million to make GTA IV, $55 million for Halo 3, $22 million on Crysis, etc. Budget-wise they are, at best, five times smaller than the smallest AAA game. If you're a 6 foot tall man, it's like standing next to a 30 foot tall giant. Hell, ti's like standing next to a machine that can churn out 10 30 foot tall giants every year.

Both point and click and RPG games are about integrating game mechanics into the narrative. As an adventure gamer, I am very disappointed in my fellow point-and-click fans who treat the genre like a click-to-continue digital storybook where you're allowed to look at things.

Then a big section of the "game industry" is made up of arrogant, ignorant twats who don't know about video games and have one of the worst cases of conflict of interest in the entire world of entertainment journalism. As opposed to the number of "major publishers" of AAA titles? Not counting platform-specific publishers (since by previous argument that makes them automatically not AAA titles) that leaves us with what? EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard/Activision, Take-Two, Square? There are a few others in there that are "up there" but I'd say those are likely the publishers of the vast majority of AAA titles released... 1. EA 2. Ubisoft 3. Take Two 4. Activision Blizzard 5. ZeniMax Media(five fingers, hand #1) 6. THQ 7. Square Enix 8. Konami 9. Sega 10. Capcaom (10 fingers, hand #2) 11. Namco Bandai 12. Warner Bros. Interactive 13. Namco 14. Valve 15. Atlas(three hands)

Dragon Age 2's gameplay was AWFUL, and Dragon Age 2 would be painful to play no matter what narrative window dressing they draped over that massive turd. They didn't "focus on gameplay", they focused on making the game as close to Mass Effect but with Magic Because Mass Effect Made More Money.

See, once again, this is the perspective of someone who sees Kickstarter like regular shops, and pretends the two are nearly interchangeable "except some people may not want to pay that early". That's not how it works. People are ONLY willing to pay that early because the idea is niche and would not be made any other way. If their pitch was something that appealed to more people, it wouldn't be niche, it'd be closer to stuff that is already out, and people would have no reason to back it. There's an upper limit where an end product that would attract more people attracts less Kickstarter attention. This isn't speculation, I've seen it happen. Not many people here have been giving to projects and watching the trends for more than a year and a half now, not many people really know what makes Kickstarter work in the niche where it does.