Rarity of cRPGs? Good or bad?

[Darth Barth]

I am curious to what actual real life game developers think of the shortage of computer RPGs that has occured in the last few years? It began shortly after the release of Pool of Radiance 2 (ominous!) and continues to this very day.

 

There are two ways to view this in my opinion. On one hand, it is bad. So very bad. It is something that harasses you when you try in futility to sleep at night. This... "It" is the deathknell of the PC gaming industrial complex that magazines have talked endlessly about with disturbing enthusiasm since damn near Creation. Its the Big One. 11-point oh-no! Do you as a developer have your doubts when you see the PC industry as it is today? Or..

 

On the other hand, it is actually pretty nice. Less competition with larger user base, means $$ cha-ching! You laugh yourself silly at the thought of a potential and literal Zounds! of users out there, most of whom have an addiction and now they have decent paying jobs instead of paper routes! The kicker with the ace is that most of those have an estimated 70% larger purchasing power since they have no girlfriends or wives who demand exuberant gifts! On top of that, you have gathered a relatively decent bit of renown since there are less people to spread that praise around to! Do you as a developer see the glass as half full?

[Feargus Urquhart]

I think I may have commented in another thread that the tough thing is that it is hard to get a publisher to invest in a more traditional CRPG. For us to make one, we would most likely have to do it with our own money. It is something we kick around quite a bit, since after NWN2 we will have at least a part of an engine.

 

Chris Avellone and I were talking at lunch on Friday about how we could do it. One of thing the thinks we are kicking around is trying to do a certain amount of design and pre-production while we are working on other projects.

[DemonKing]

Chris Avellone and I were talking at lunch on Friday about how we could do it.  One of thing the thinks we are kicking around is trying to do a certain amount of design and pre-production while we are working on other projects.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That sounds like a good idea - I think Leon from Troika stated recently that they should have been pursuing new projects/publishers during their production schedules because their demise came about when they finished one cycle but had no new projects to move on to, mainly because the management were so busy acting as developers, they never had time to properly pursue new projects.

[WITHTEETH]

I wish there were more adventure games, like gabriel knight, Kings Quest, and Longest Journey. adventure games use to be the wave.

[Jack_Wellington]

to do a certain amount of design and pre-production while we are working on other projects.

 

Can it become a danger to work on a project that is more creatively motivating for a developer at the same has another project? Did you ever have problem because of this or is it just more stimulating for the developer? Any trick to make it work?

[Mark Havel]

Do not do this in working time I suppose.

[Hawkwise]

Thing is with RPGs is they are not as popular as FPS games are right now, or other games. The industry goes where the money is for the most part. Like the movie industry. Super hero movies, and movies with happy endings are big now. Jerry Brockheimer sigh. Music industry follows the money too, Rap and Kiddy Pop (darn you Boys 11 Men, why are there eleven? (i know its a 2) ) used to be the big gig. Now it seems to be shifting towards Crappy Pop-Rock.

 

Either way it will shift back when people get tired of storyless FPS.( Hire me as an intern). I dont care what people say, Half Life 2 was rated on the quality of the engine rather than story or gameplay. So when they shift back to the RPG market EA will churn us out some RPGs with as many expansions as The Sims (shudder). Thankfully there are companies like Obsidian to make quality games. Remember MR. Subliminal from SNL?

 

 

 

Eric Ic Foster

 

P.S. If we want RPGs to keep being made people have to stop downloading them for free. High Five to the people at Steam for making it hard to steal, or atleast harder.