RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Hurlshort]

Game Dev Tycoon attempts to guilt pirates into purchase.

Only 94% piracy rate on day 1.

 

Solid gold!

[Lexx]

Heh, pretty good idea. The screenshots in the pc gamer article are great.

[melkathi]

Game Dev Tycoon attempts to guilt pirates into purchase.

Only 94% piracy rate on day 1.

 

Started playing. Screenshots in the appropriate threat

Edited April 29, 2013 by melkathi

[Malcador]

Sob stories work! Hope it's worth that price for you, though.

[NOK222]

That's a very mature way to handle it. Props to them. 

[Tigranes]

Their site seems to be down a lot. (DDOS?) I mean, point being that it's a DRM-free game so there will be 'clean' versions flying around piratespace by now, but it's a nice touch. 

 

I'll check out the demo... as soon as I can get that far without the site plunking.

[Malcador]

Reddited so probably dead due to the load. The game does seem to call home and "you can use it on up to three of your computers for your own use", hmm.

 

Looking at the screenshots he put of the torrent, he also did a pretty crap job of dressing it up as a scene release

[Keyrock]

I wonder if this was done more as an earnest plea to pirates or more as a publicity stunt?  Honestly, I approve either scenario, and in either case, I thought this was cleverly done.  Bravo to the developers, I hope this game earns them a tidy profit.

[Bester]

Soooo. I didn't buy that a game with a player base of 200-3000 players could interest any hacker group. I went on {Magical Fairy Land} and there you go - their game isn't there. Lies, I say.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Tigranes
The location of the ponies must not be compromised

[NOK222]

I wonder if this was done more as an earnest plea to pirates or more as a publicity stunt?  Honestly, I approve either scenario, and in either case, I thought this was cleverly done.  Bravo to the developers, I hope this game earns them a tidy profit.

Both most likely 

[Bester]

Ugh! Got that Game Tycoon game. Got super rich off an RPG in the early 90s with 2d graphics and then everything went downhill, published 20 titles and all were ****. I don't understand how that's even possible. Anyone played it? Gimme some advice.

[melkathi]

Ugh! Got that Game Tycoon game. Got super rich off an RPG in the early 90s with 2d graphics and then everything went downhill, published 20 titles and all were ****. I don't understand how that's even possible. Anyone played it? Gimme some advice.

 

Not sure what you are doing wrong.

I am usually doing rather well.

The sequel for Bearplane, Bearplane: Blue Skies was my first title to reahc double digit profit in the millions. (very fitting as Bearplane was what got me out of the garrage)

Since then Ursus Ex: Bearvolution, though not getting the scores I wanted (8.25 I think) did great financially and so did T.B.O: Teddy Unknown.

Had a couple of games at a loss, but mostly because I chose publishing deals that weren't all that great.

 

Strategy games and 2d adventure games sell well on the PC. So do flight sims apparently. Action and casual games sell well on consols. Specific audiences can be tricky, so I wouldn't tackle those until you are certain you can deliver.

 

I'd say do not bring out sequels until you have a new engine. With a  new engine and new tech, the press is generally positively disposed towards the sequel.

Early on I'd say concentrate on specific aspects of each game: an action game needs little to no story, same for sports and racing games. An adventure game needs little gameplay and less AI.

If you are launching a new engine with new graphics options, then its good to put those to good use and show the customers what your new engine can do,

 

Also: PC never has a huge market share, but does have dedicated gamers. Nintendo is great for consols once you have the cash to pay licensing. Once Sony starts on consols they are also a great source of income. Sega is great for the early two consols but the handheld and the dreamcast will vanish very fast so may not be worth developing for.

 

My Legacy of Bear series of mature action RPGs about a vampire teddy bear are a bit of a disappointment even though they made a nice profit....

 

edit: make sure you don't overwork your team. When assigning them to tasks, keep them in the green. Even if its a very light green. If you drive them too hard during a project, they will make mistakes. And remember there are three stages with three areas each. So you have to assign 9 people to a project (in a three man tam everyone gets assigned three times on average...) So if you have a small task, assign it to someone who will have a  large task down the line.

Edited April 30, 2013 by melkathi

[Bester]

I'm not sure I found all the buttons. Like this for instance: I researched marketing and then I never found how to use it, the button never appeared.

 

Also, I'm not sure what they mean by things like Engine/Gameplay/Story. What exactly those words mean - it's a mystery. Like, ok... And RPG needs a story, fine. But if I add Engine, I'd think it adds a fighting system, and if I add Gameplay, I think it adds content. But in reality, all I need is story and everything else doesn't work with an RPG. They need to describe those things. Really worked bad for me.

[melkathi]

For marketing you have to click on the Hype bar at the top of the screen during development.

A large marketing campaign has so far been a waste of money for me. I got a loyal fanbase. Especially the Bearplane franchise which has an active modding community (someone ported the original Bearplane from the original DOS version to the newer operating systems).

 

I would say Gameplay adds the fighting system. Story greatly affects content, but so does level design. Engine I would say allows you to get the most out of the capabilities of your engine. So if you have a lvl 3 3D graphics capable engine, you spend all your resources on graphics but none on engine, the graphics, while great, wont truly reach the capabilities of your own engine. On the other hand, if you push engine but not graphics, then in the real world, people would be commenting that you can only truly enjoy the game with a texture mod

 

So for an action game I go full gameplay, quite a bit of engine, and a bit of story, then add good level design and AI and try to push graphics as high as possible. It works quite well. It's the action RPGs that I have trouble with. I have to spend resources on story, world building and dialogue and that takes away from gameplay.

 

For a strategy game I found AI to be very important. You want the AI oppenent to be a challenge.

[Morgoth]

Bulletstorm designer Adrian Chmielarz talks about how game design needs to evolve on the Next-Gen hardware or otherwise, studios will face destruction due to lack of interest from customers.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-25-the-next-generation-is-going-to-be-also-possibly-even-for-the-very-first-time-the-next-generation-of-game-design

 

Then along came BioShock Infinite, "proof that the old territory is on fire and we need to go". It is, as he's heard it excellently described, the "end of an era".

He says the real limiting factor in current-generation machines wasn't the power, "it was the memory". "Give me the same processor but give me 8GB of memory; you would see games on 360 or PS3 you would not believe," he said. "We get that next generation.

 

Either way, nice read. And I agree with him on pretty much everything.

[NOK222]

Ugh! Got that Game Tycoon game. Got super rich off an RPG in the early 90s with 2d graphics and then everything went downhill, published 20 titles and all were ****. I don't understand how that's even possible. Anyone played it? Gimme some advice.

JA ja. I made a few games in the 80's, all good, got rich, made a game for nintendo that sold a lot. Got a studio, but then quickly bankrupted cause I didn't research fast enough to make a new engine.

 

They should just let you edit your engine slightly over time. Although eventually you'll have to make a new one from scratch every so often 

[pmp10]

Bulletstorm designer Adrian Chmielarz talks about how game design needs to evolve on the Next-Gen hardware or otherwise, studios will face destruction due to lack of interest from customers.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-25-the-next-generation-is-going-to-be-also-possibly-even-for-the-very-first-time-the-next-generation-of-game-design

 

Then along came BioShock Infinite, "proof that the old territory is on fire and we need to go". It is, as he's heard it excellently described, the "end of an era".

 

He says the real limiting factor in current-generation machines wasn't the power, "it was the memory". "Give me the same processor but give me 8GB of memory; you would see games on 360 or PS3 you would not believe," he said. "We get that next generation.

 

Either way, nice read. And I agree with him on pretty much everything.

I wish he was right but can't really see what is he drawing his conclusions from. 

Spec ops didn't kill Battlefield or CoD and the criticism of Bioshock Infinite gets easily lost in an ocean of praise.

Just because a small minority started to notice problems with gameplay paradigm doesn't mean that rest of gamers will suddenly stop following production values or expecting familiar design.

[Drowsy Emperor]

A lot of talk but little said overall. Even less done.

 

Just because some of the people who've grown up with games want something different, something more from them, doesn't mean that the primary audiences are ready for, or even want a different experience.

 

The primary audiences, the kids, teenagers, casual players is where the money is. And they play whatever the new hottest thing is, and its not Planescape Torment or Ico.

 

What the man is actually saying is that he's tired of making games in cloning vats. I can understand the sentiment, but the people financing those projects couldn't care less.

[Morgoth]

The primary audiences, the kids, teenagers, casual players is where the money is.

 

Right. That must also explain why Fallout 3, Skyrim, CoD GTA etc. all sell so terrible. Oh wait.

[Morgoth]

Demographics isn't the issue here. Core games can sell incredibly well. There's definitely a large (if not the largest) audience out there for these. The issue is that there are too many, and particularly too many copy-paste clones out there. And people are just losing interest in playing another xyz shooter because it's s waste of time.

 

Bioshock Infinite, despite huge names behind it, is a waste of time because it uses the same old gameplay paradigms. That was the point Adrian was trying to make.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Morgoth

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

The primary audiences, the kids, teenagers, casual players is where the money is.

 

Right. That must also explain why Fallout 3, Skyrim, CoD GTA etc. all sell so terrible. Oh wait.

 

 

And these are all sophisticated, clever games that are beyond a teenagers ability to appreciate?

 

The man is proposing making games precisely opposite to the type you name. That's why he's destined to fail.

 

Skyrim, CoD, GTA are all updates of older games that sold well at some point. That's exactly the dominant way of thinking in the industry and the reason its not likely to go the place he's talking about.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Drowsy Emperor

[Morgoth]

And these are all sophisticated, clever games that are beyond a teenagers ability to appreciate?

 

 

Now you bring personal taste into the discussion, and thus disqualify your own point.

 

Besides, the line between what teenagers enjoy and what adults enjoy is very very blurry.

[Morgoth]

How do you enjoy your Wii U btw? Enjoy those casual games?

[Morgoth]

New GTA V trailer:

 

[Morgoth]

 

Confirmed: Michael's son is Bobby Kotick.

 

Oh I just love you R*.