So I got to thinking about games communities, Intellectual Property....

[alanschu]

Like if you wish to play a game that lets you what planes make up that Carrier Task Force in the middle of the South Pacific?

 

 

(I really need to get back on that....I imagine there will be time....SOON!)

[Monte Carlo]

Fallout isn't a good example. Their hardcore fanbase is, in my view, utterly unique and completely incapable of being satisfied. Unless FO3 was going to be a turn-based, old-skool CRPG. Designed by a bloke on a leash in their basement.

 

Maybe an imperfect but more apt comparison would be the (rabid) fanbases of franchises such as Dr. Who and Star Trek. The people refreshing those IPs with new movies and TV series did a pretty good job of winning over and then using them as a viral marketing tool (in the old days we called it word-of-mouth).

 

So, it must be very tempting for games developers to throw a hissy fit when their old customers don't like their new offerings. But, before, tears dribbling down their little cheeks, they blast their fanbase out of the airlock like Ripley cuddling her cat, maybe they want to consider if it's possible to utilize them as an asset.

 

It must be extremely tempting for Bioware (for example) to get royally pi$$ed off with the hate. But it's chicken-and-egg... how did Bioware get where it is. Hey, I'm sure a scorched earth strategy will turn over a whole new generation of adoring, Bio-engineered fan-drones, but then again it might not. Bio understands this, ergo it's online community and odd let-me-tell-you-about-how-many-Genlocks-I-killed-today Facebook thing.

 

Cheers

MC

[Hell Kitty]

It's only vague because complexity can manifest in many ways.

 

That's the problem.

 

completely incapable of being satisfied.

 

Sometimes it feels like people are more interested in being right about how awful a game is than they are in getting a game they would enjoy.

[Mamoulian War]

So I've been thinking about something for a while now, and I thought I'd air it out, see what you guys thought so on and so forth.

 

Also, these are my own opinions, I'm not a mouthpiece for any company, but I would be very interested in hearing what you think in regards to what I feel is sound business logic.

 

I'm thinking of games which are traditionally PC IP, like Fallout for example, and how fallout has jumped from PC only to being a multi-format IP, a few other games have done this, now what I have noticed is that the few obsessive/hardcore fans get really really upset, I mean the hardcore fallout fans went mental, they were really unhappy about the fact that Fallout 3 would be Oblivion with guns.

 

Now back track a little, a small hardcore group of fans is obviously upset, now is it better to appease that small group of fans and make a niche game, or to make a game which has a far wider appeal, which is infact the case with fallout 3, we can't really say different because it's sold bucket loads of copies so obviously has a much wider appeal.

 

From a business perspective, cleaning out the old skool fans, despite the noise they will make is probably a smart move as after all the reason companies make games is to make money, and those old guard hardend fans are actually far fewer than the potential audiance.

 

I personally believe that, while harsh, in order to reboot an IP, you HAVE to burn the old fans, and business wise Bethesda, the example I am using here, did an awesome job with FO3 in rebooting the IP, while at the same time burning the crazies over at NMA and such. Just my 2 pence.

 

So do you believe it's wrong? Should intellectual properties keep doggiedly to their roots to appeal to a small hardcore, or should they branch out, and if needs be, burn the biggest fans of the IP in an attempt to reach a larger audience?

 

 

It depends very heavily on what you want to achieve, your budget and audience you are aiming to appease, in gaming bussiness, or in any other bussiness, it is easily possible to make more money with small budget and right marketing strategy with 100K units sold, than to make money with AAA budget and 1 million units sold...

[Purkake]

I will be interesting how this turns out with Deus Ex 3.

 

Sometimes I feel like we have mostly lost a level of complexity between the super-hardcore wargames and the super mainstream games. Considering that the gaming industry is bringing in more money than the movie industry, the niche market should be much larger than it is now. I guess it has a lot to do with the costs and time required, maybe the $60 game market will have to collapse(because of the increasing costs of making games) before the market really expands to cover all the niches.

Edited October 14, 2009 by Purkake

[Slowtrain]

it is easily possible to make more money with small budget and right marketing strategy with 100K units sold,

 

I think eventually the game development market will move in this direction. There will always be a few super high-budget aim-for-the-sky games in development, but spending less money on smaller games that require fewer units sold to turn a profit is an altogether less risky and more sound business strategy.

[Slowtrain]

the niche market should be much larger than it is now.

 

 

Game development is such a young field though (relatively) and it needs some time to sort itself out.

 

Right now it is going through a major growth spurt but that won't last and then devs and publishers wil have to rethink strategies.

 

 

Everything old is new again. Eventually.

[Nightshape]

Now back track a little, a small hardcore group of fans is obviously upset, now is it better to appease that small group of fans and make a niche game, or to make a game which has a far wider appeal, which is infact the case with fallout 3, we can't really say different because it's sold bucket loads of copies so obviously has a much wider appeal.

 

Trick question?

 

This seems like a thinly veiled attempt to troll the few NMA people we have left. Obviously it is a better idea to try to appeal to the widest audience possible from a business perspective. Companies do what they do to make money, not to appease a bunch of crazy hardcore fans, I'd like to hear someone try to argue the opposite.

 

Fallout 3 is just an example, one that we all know of, I could use others.

[Maria Caliban]

Now back track a little, a small hardcore group of fans is obviously upset, now is it better to appease that small group of fans and make a niche game, or to make a game which has a far wider appeal, which is infact the case with fallout 3, we can't really say different because it's sold bucket loads of copies so obviously has a much wider appeal.

 

Yatzee's greatest words of wisdom:

"Fans are clingy complaining dip****s who will never, ever be grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill, tremulous voices, the happier you

Edited October 14, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[jero cvmi]

From a business perspective, cleaning out the old skool fans, despite the noise they will make is probably a smart move as after all the reason companies make games is to make money, and those old guard hardend fans are actually far fewer than the potential audiance.

 

I personally believe that, while harsh, in order to reboot an IP, you HAVE to burn the old fans, and business wise Bethesda, the example I am using here, did an awesome job with FO3 in rebooting the IP, while at the same time burning the crazies over at NMA and such. Just my 2 pence.

 

So do you believe it's wrong? Should intellectual properties keep doggiedly to their roots to appeal to a small hardcore, or should they branch out, and if needs be, burn the biggest fans of the IP in an attempt to reach a larger audience?

 

What do you mean ny "cleaning out" and "burn the old"? People who will buy what they're sold will always be there by the millions, and so will be others that are more picky. All of them will find something that fits their tastes sooner or later. If a company chooses to cater to the first group, they can completely ignore the other. Does McDonalds care about what hardcore vegans have to say about their cuisine? Why would Bethesda care about what NMA has to say about their game? They're not their target group, plain and simple. Does that mean that all criticism should stop? Why? Bashing the stupidity of mass culture is fun. As a matter of fact, it should be an olympic sport.

[HoonDing]

Bashing the stupidity of mass culture is fun. As a matter of fact, it should be an olympic sport.

[Oner]

Now back track a little, a small hardcore group of fans is obviously upset, now is it better to appease that small group of fans and make a niche game, or to make a game which has a far wider appeal, which is in fact the case with fallout 3, we can't really say different because it's sold bucket loads of copies so obviously has a much wider appeal.

This begs the question: why make a sequel to a game that has a small hardcore group of fans, and change it to appeal to more people? Then why make a sequel in the first place? (Beth gets bonus points for making a sequel to their own game and disguising it as another.)

[213374U]

You just have to match your budget to the audience.

This is the key. It's ridiculous to expect companies to produce a $50M game and whose intended audience are the folks at NMA.

 

 

This begs the question: why make a sequel to a game that has a small hardcore group of fans, and change it to appeal to more people? Then why make a sequel in the first place? (Beth gets bonus points for making a sequel to their own game and disguising it as another.)

Because really, really good ideas are difficult to come by. And by changing a few aspects that, for some people, are part of the original charm of the IP, you can cater to a greater audience.

[Lady Evenstar]

Now back track a little, a small hardcore group of fans is obviously upset, now is it better to appease that small group of fans and make a niche game, or to make a game which has a far wider appeal, which is in fact the case with fallout 3, we can't really say different because it's sold bucket loads of copies so obviously has a much wider appeal.

This begs the question: why make a sequel to a game that has a small hardcore group of fans, and change it to appeal to more people? Then why make a sequel in the first place? (Beth gets bonus points for making a sequel to their own game and disguising it as another.)

 

My take was that they liked the original games and thought a new generation of gamers would enjoy the Fallout world as well. I think that the existence of a hardcore subset of the fans of the original games was neither here nor there from their point of view. There are quite a few folks, myself included, who enjoyed the original games and Fallout 3. From time to time Bethesda reps have commented that they seek input from gamers who do not frequent their forums. I'm guessing that the disconnect arises from certain groups of fans feeling that they represent "the" voice of Fallout fandom, and Beth viewing theirs as one voice among many.

[Amentep]

Now back track a little, a small hardcore group of fans is obviously upset, now is it better to appease that small group of fans and make a niche game, or to make a game which has a far wider appeal, which is in fact the case with fallout 3, we can't really say different because it's sold bucket loads of copies so obviously has a much wider appeal.

This begs the question: why make a sequel to a game that has a small hardcore group of fans, and change it to appeal to more people? Then why make a sequel in the first place? (Beth gets bonus points for making a sequel to their own game and disguising it as another.)

 

Well I think there's two parts to this question.

 

One is any game that has a hardcore group of fans probably has something that is probably appealing to gamers in general. So the question is, if a good game could be made to appeal to more people and still be a cool game, then why not try it?

 

The other part is a bit more nebulous and its "what makes a game?". Is it the setting? Is it the mechanics? Is the it the graphics and gameplay elements? Is it a gestalt of all of its elements? Does changing one element change the game into something else entirely? Or does it just make the game different but still connected? What if you change 5 or 6 things? 10?

 

I loved the SSI game Phantasie and for many years wished for a 4th sequel. But at no time did I expect the gameplay/graphics to remain totally unchanged had they done it!

[Niten_Ryu]

Fallout 3 managed to mix up muddy water real good. It showed that IP can move to new platforms, new engine, new view point, new development team and be nearly complitely different game from game mechanics point of view and still be a huge commercial hit. World is still Fallout world. You could take all the mobs, all the quests and move 'em to Fallout 2 (the writing or the quailty of the quests is of course debatable).

 

I'm not sure if target is specifically to burn old fanbase but developers have to deal with economic realities. To build heavy text AAA quality turnbased game nowadays is the risk that nobody want to take. And probably for a good reason. It don't mean 100% certainty that the game would be absolute commercial bomb, but none has tested that type of game in modern console/computer era.

 

Truth is that mass market and majority of the gamers want easy games. Light on text, relatively short and not to have complex game mechanics (or at least have 'em hidden like in Blizzard games). Some suggest that in next generation (probably start 2012-2014), AAA game budgets could be around 60 million. That kind of situation can't work, as only 1/3 of the games break even now. Personally I have hard time to imagine what kind of solutions games require in order to reach profitable in next generation. Gimmicky games with plastic crap on the box like Guitar Hero or Wii Fit? Semi interactive movies with massive amounts of quicktime events? Or will the gaming industry finally implode and budgets come back to where niche games might be possible.

[Maria Caliban]

I agree with this 100%.

 

I also feel the same way about originality/innovation. If something happens to be innovative then great, but I don't think it should be the aim.

 

I know a great deal of people say that 'innovation for innovations sake' is bad, but I disagree. I think a great deal of good in the arts has happened just because a person or group got tired of the way things were and decided they were going to try something different. Moreover, it

[vault_overseer]

Nice Fallout 3 holywar thread, bro.

[Slowtrain]

My personal issues with FO3 have little, if anything, to do with the fact that it is "not like Fallout".

 

I knpow there are some people who don't like Fo3 because it is not like the original, but there are also others who don't like aspects of FO3 simply because they don't like those aspects.

 

Such as the need for slo mo for every...single...shot...in....VATS.

 

Or level scaling.

[Amentep]

My personal issues with FO3 have little, if anything, to do with the fact that it is "not like Fallout".

 

I knpow there are some people who don't like Fo3 because it is not like the original, but there are also others who don't like aspects of FO3 simply because they don't like those aspects.

 

Such as the need for slo mo for every...single...shot...in....VATS.

 

Or level scaling.

 

I think there is always the "does what doesn't work for you outweigh what does" in subjective analysis of what you like.

 

But any game should be evaluated for what it is rather than what it isn't, I think.

 

Not liking Fallout 3 because it doesn't seem to fit the setting or continuity established in the first I can understand (although I can't see myself letting discontinuity trumping fun gameplay).

 

Disliking Fallout 3 because of VATS, or level scaling or how the dialogue and quests works I don't get.

 

Disliking Fallout 3 because its not isometric and turn-based like the previous entries I don't get, because IMO that's something it was never trying to be.

[Magister Lajciak]

So do you believe it's wrong? Should intellectual properties keep doggiedly to their roots to appeal to a small hardcore, or should they branch out, and if needs be, burn the biggest fans of the IP in an attempt to reach a larger audience?

 

Did you beat your wife today?

 

... Seriously, that's a loaded question, where you already prejudge the answer.

 

From a business perspective, cleaning out the old skool fans, despite the noise they will make is probably a smart move as after all the reason companies make games is to make money, and those old guard hardend fans are actually far fewer than the potential audiance.

 

I personally believe that, while harsh, in order to reboot an IP, you HAVE to burn the old fans, and business wise Bethesda, the example I am using here, did an awesome job with FO3 in rebooting the IP, while at the same time burning the crazies over at NMA and such. Just my 2 pence.

 

So do you believe it's wrong? Should intellectual properties keep doggiedly to their roots to appeal to a small hardcore, or should they branch out, and if needs be, burn the biggest fans of the IP in an attempt to reach a larger audience?

 

You are assuming that the hard core is small, that when it is burned it will not spread negativity about the game that will put of new players and that new players will materialize to replace it. These assumptions held true in the case of Fallout 3 and the reboot was a commercial success. There are, however, plenty of failures or mediocre results of reboots.

 

Take the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise. Heroes of Might and Magic III was a successful game, but I guess the developers thought they could reach an even wider market by changing it. A major reboot of the franchise with significant changes came with the 4th installment - Heroes of Might and Magic IV. It was a major flop and the company went bankrupt. Many years later, the franchise was picked up by Ubisoft and Heroes of Might and Magic V was made, returning to the original formula and I believe it became the commercially most successful game of the entire series. Making changes will not necessarily burn the hardcore fans, but if you do decide to make the types of changes that will do so, you would better make sure that there will be an audience to replace them. In some games, the 'hardcore' can make up a significant proportion of the audience - evidently this was the case for the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise.

 

The Heroes of Might and Magic IV reboot was a major failure and the series was only salvaged years later by a return to the original formula. Now for an example of commercially mediocre results of a reboot, we can look at the PnP RPG industry. Dungeons & Dragons recently got rebooted (I & probably many other hardcore D&D fans would argue that it actually got booted, but that is another matter ) with the 4th edition of the game that made a major break with both mechanical and flavor traditions of the previous versions of the game. Wizards of the Coast is not going bankrupt and is earning money on the new edition, but the 4th edition, although commercially successful, is much less commercially successful than the previous edition - they might have gained some new blood at the expense of the old fans (as was their intention), but overall they have shrunk their market (though it is still large enough to be profitable). I guess the "hardcore" proportion of their fanbase was not so small and many are now completely opposed to the 4th edition, thus not only not providing sales, but also providing no marketing (or even negative marketing, and 'any news is good news' is just not true). Through their massive changes alienating a large proportion of the fanbase, they have also jump-started a competitor in the genre.

 

As you can see, it is not that simple. Alienating the 'hardcore' fanbase is a risky move that may come back to haunt the company, especially if the fanbase is substantial and enthusiastic about your previous product. Blizzard evidently agrees with this position at least as far as the Starcraft franchise is concerned. Starcraft 2 is shaping out to be a very fanbase-friendly sequel and Blizzard is making sure it follows in its predecessors' foot steps.

[Nepenthe]

So do you believe it's wrong? Should intellectual properties keep doggiedly to their roots to appeal to a small hardcore, or should they branch out, and if needs be, burn the biggest fans of the IP in an attempt to reach a larger audience?

 

I think it's virtually impossible to make a game that would appeal to a small hardcore fangroup - there's a multitude of reasons for this, most under the tvtropes article of fandumb.

 

The original product will have reached an awesomeness of nearly epic proportions on the minds of this fangroup, that nothing new will please them. Even getting the same game all over would probably not stand up to the idealised memory they've created of the original.

 

I'm not necessarily blaming these people. I dated a model/dancer/business administration student while in law school and it warped my way of viewing other women permanently.

 

So, in game design, don't see the point in pleasing a small hardcore minority - it can't be done. Of course, if the game met with success originally, it might be a good idea to find out what made the game good back in the day, and approach that with a certain amount of respect... Sometimes, even the same developer will fail in both ways (Ion Storm with Deus Ex 2).

 

In fact, Deus Ex 3 is sort of relevant to this whole thing. I'm really interested in how they balance the rpg/lack-of-rpg etc.

[jero cvmi]

Bashing the stupidity of mass culture is fun. As a matter of fact, it should be an olympic sport.

...

 

well that's the special olympics version of what i was talking about but yeah why not

This is the key. It's ridiculous to expect companies to produce a $50M game and whose intended audience are the folks at NMA.

exactly.

Because really, really good ideas are difficult to come by. .

especially if that's not what you get paid for.

[Purkake]

well that's the special olympics version of what i was talking about but yeah why not

This is the key. It's ridiculous to expect companies to produce a $50M game and whose intended audience are the folks at NMA.

exactly.

Because really, really good ideas are difficult to come by. .

especially if that's not what you get paid for.

 

The problem is that lots of smaller budget games(at least PC ones) fail horribly in the QA department.

 

Also, the problem isn't there being too few good ideas, but with actually implementing them. Even the best idea isn't worth anything if you can't make it actually work.

[213374U]

The problem is that lots of smaller budget games (at least especially PC ones) fail horribly in the QA department.

Fixed.

 

QA is seriously expensive, from what I gather. And I can only see it getting worse, with games increasing in complexity (technically, at least), and the willingness of the community to do the bugfixing by means of "unofficial" patches...

 

 

Also, the problem isn't there being too few good ideas, but with actually implementing them. Even the best idea isn't worth anything if you can't make it actually work.

Hehe. Bloodlines?

 

I seriously doubt that's the last Vampire game we'll see.