Eurogamer Expo 2009
Posted by The Lord of Leisure | Filed under Gaming
The 31st of October not only brought all freaks of nature for all Hallow’s eve for gathering chocolate, drinking too much and dressing only slightly worse than they do normally, it was the time of year for another Eurogamer expo in London, where companies from around the globe showcase their upcoming wares for the months ahead.
On the back of the successful first year, they moved to a bigger venue, and allowed even more happy go lucky people to enjoy the wonders of events only really enjoyed by those willing to travel to PAX or Quakecon in the US.
Just like last year, the place was stuffed to the gills with XBOX 360s, Playstations, Wiis (which looks strange to write down as a plural) and even some PCs on the main floor, which was a change from last year in itself. The poor old PC has taken a real bashing of late in terms of gaming creditability and it was good to see some games being showcased on the platform even if there weren’t many.
There was a good showing from most companies, all competing for your hard earned pound, more than ever right now, even though we’re all told the recession is all but a faint memory. Ubisoft, Valve and EA had some strong titles on show, with some of the best being described below;
Left 4 Dead 2
We saw some screenshots of the Hard Raid campaign during a talk being given by Valve’s Chet Faliszek (yes, a real bloke who works for em! OOOOOOOOHH!!), one of the highlight’s of the Saturday afternoon to be sure.
It was pretty sweet as he was explaining why they did some of the things they did with the game, what decisions they made for the player experience while monitoring people’s play over at Valve using their own in-house system which records the players themselves as well as their actual gameplay. Sometimes it’s only events like this, where you get to hear from the developers first hand do you understand what they do.
During the Left 4 Dead 2 QA part of the discussion, I waded in asking about a little zombie factory where you can practice your skills in Versus in the game as you could Single Player the campaigns but not the zombies. Chet responded and this will be quoting from the Eurogamer site now, that “they thought about that and considered a practice area, and they’re looking at it”
After the presentation, Chet was around the Left 4 Dead play area where lots of podcasting people (ah, that takes me back to August last year…) were waiting to pounce on him, which was a shame as we had a chat about various things too;
Here’s the gist of it:
There is no Left for Dead 3 coming next year, the release for the sequel apparently just worked out it was a year after this time round. Hmm, wonder if something else will be out instead?
He really didn’t want to talk about the children of the Valve forums moaning about the PC demo being late by a day, which is more than fair enough from a PR point of view and besides what could you possibly say about the matter? People are people as they say.
I even suggested a mode where the survivors from both games go at each other along with the zombie horde as not all of time can escape to safety at the end.
Apparently that had been on the table in a mode called “Only room for one” where only one of you get to escape and it’s just a matter of time before you all turn on each other, but they didn’t want Human on Human killing in this. He did however say nothing is 100% off the table. (If said mode does turns up now, I’ll be smug for about 5 minutes….)
Valve is a really neat place to work at, it’s also the place he’s actually stayed at the longest in terms of employment so that must say something itself. I couldn’t get over the fact everyone was their own boss and got to contribute what they wanted. The fact it seems to work too, well, bugger me, maybe others should do the same eh?
Brink
Now, Brink was a game I had not heard of at all, until the expo, and to be honest I only went because of their previous record of various Quake and Wolfenstein games actually being fun to play. I lost track of how many hours I lost to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory in clan play or just having a laugh at some eight year old’s expense.
So I wasn’t sure what to expect from the session to be honest. What I did see wasn’t that bad (which I know sounds worse than it should be, but bear with me on this) and you got a glimpse of something while familiar, was looking to be unique in certain ways.
Brink from what I saw from the presentation was a sci-fi world where two lots of people lived on a isloated island city thing and got jolly angry at each other. They shot at each other doing lots of moves that fat people can only dream of, and oh my god, there was something that wasn’t supposed to be there. Dun Dun DUHHHHHH!
OK so based on that, you’d think “All hands were lost at sea. Bring out the Kazoo of grief.” But unfortunately for the cynic in me, that is not the case. Granted it is a FPS in the true sense of the world, but like some other efforts it does provide more than the standard run, gun and cry affair that a lot of FPSes are now.
You can co-op with other players while earning experience points depending on an selectable objective you change at will during the game by using command posts dotted around, and even change class to achieve objectives as well.
A simple little addition, long missing is Leaning round corners to shoot. Thank god someone finally remembered to put that one cover feature back, long forgotten since people who had never touched a mouse and keyboard starting getting upset.
One thing which got a great big cheer was the fact that dedicated servers was in the package as standard, something PC gamers got annoyed about (I got annoyed about the price to be fair) with Modern Warfare 2.
Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood said I suck for asking a difficult question. The question was; what was there to make this stand out from all the other FPSes out there who were doing the same thing. Bit of a bastard question sure, but let’s be fair it’s a good one. The game did look good to be fair but in a lot of ways it wasn’t different to anything before.
For more, visit: http://www.brinkthegame.com/
Splinter Cell: Conviction
A surprise was seeing the Splinter Cell: Conviction E3 demo in the afternoon and it was just a couple of Ubisoft guys who came along and showed it off, it seems a hell of a lot better than the original demo back at E3.
Basically all the stuff you saw in the E3 demo happened but they actually showed it wasn’t auto pilot at all, something which was a complaint after people saw the original demo before.
The demo included how you use the crowd as a way of hiding from the bad guys, with everyone running away from you, you run with the crowd, the bad guys go in the opposite direction to investigate, easy opening to sneak in.
They showed some different ways of working the same scenario as much as they could with the same level triggers in place for the purpose of the demo, and tried to put down fears that might have been in place before.
I know it’s pretty much been highlighted with the text so far but honestly, it was amazing the difference just someone else showing something like Splinter Cell could actually be, and now it appears the game really is really worth waiting till February next year.
Assasin’s Creed 2
Of course one of the big pullers at the expo was the fact that Assassin’s creed 2 was on the floor, and despite many people including myself was losing badly with the PS3 controls and also we were playing the Tokyo Game Show code, which had a nice bug where it looked like you started floating through the air at the point you’re meant to assassinate the villain type guy, then your arms would flap before you fell back to the ground, it was a good indication of how the final game will play out when it comes out later this month Xbox and PS3 (PC is next year…..grrr….).
Everyone pretty much knows now the story of Oxo or whatever his name is, and the fact that Assassin’s Creed 2 covers his life as well allowing you once more to view the world from Desmond, the guy from the first game who was forced to relive his ancestor’s life for some naughty people’s aims, so we won’t recover that particular ground, if you want to read the story aspect, Google is your friend.
The demo at the expo was centred around your character being told about a naughty fellow who may be connected to the happenings going on so far, and you set off across town via a variety of methods not too dissimilar to the first game, except you can swim, take a gondola and the auto-pilot has been taken away from the climbing up walls part too.
You were able to hire people to help you out, and the best part was to hire ladies of the evening to “distract” guards while you sneak your way past. Once there you got the set-up with the bad guys while you still move about, setting yourself up for the kill.
All being well, you get the guy and the whole world fades out while we see a very familiar scene from the first game where the dead guy still manages to read War and Peace out loud before snuffing it, and that was pretty much the demo.
It was sad that this would be the only way to actually trial the game without buying as there would be no demo to the general public, just as before but at least the expo provided an opportunity to play before you pay.
Other Games
Alien Vs. Predator was on show as a multi player affair on the PS3 (actually a lot of games were on the PS3, less than the Xbox come to think of it), while looking good, there was practically no difference to the modes of previous games, the alien still seems to be the easiest to kill, with the Predator being top dog, human close second. When will they learn to balance better?
I had the opportunity to play Uncharted 2: Something Something for the first time, having heard some good things about it, and to be play the PS3 exclusive was a hoot, with some terrific set-pieces and despite my ongoing problems with controllers instead of Mice and Keyboards, it wasn’t bad. Now if only I had £400 free….if only I had any money…..why am I poor?
The new Mario game for 4 players on the Wii; only one thing to say. It was f**king annoying!
Star Trek Online was shown on the PC platform and it was an offline affair, some predetermined missions which weren’t that varied so maybe it may not be fully representative of the final experience, but to be honest, I’ve actually now had my fill of the MOO games like World of Warcraft etc, therefore it wouldn’t be something to revisit until perhaps the next expansion.
Mass Effect 2 was on the floor, but god damn, you had to look hard to find in the basement, along with naughty fighting games, FIFA 2387255723 and some Hard Rain game that looked like it was one step away from being shown on ITV4.
And it was the same as what has been shown before, next to no content, the gameplay was almost exactly the same and if it wasn’t for the fact it said Mass Effect 2, you wouldn’t know the difference at all. Seems to be one to not get overly excited about, and perhaps was the reason why it was hidden away.
Beatles: Rock Band was set-up in the basement and all through the day you could destroy all the classics on stage;
Oh dear.
As for the expo itself, it was better than last year in some respects, the venue bigger, the snacks mildly cheaper, the location was a big plus as you could walk outside and take in the wonderful view of the riverside. Just the sheer number of games to try though was staggering, with even smaller dev teams showing off their wares in the indie section, where some unique ideas were to be seen, with the small hope that platforms like Steam, XBLA or the Playstation network will welcome and promote some of their efforts. You could have had a go at the PSPgo systems if you wanted, but let’s be fair; Why bother? Oh and pick up lots of free t-shirts as I managed to do so, just wandering around!
There was however one though really wrong which I hadn’t thought possible and despite it’s insignificance, it must be raised. I felt at times like a fish out of water. Seriously, in the land of social lepers, I was the one who made the elephant man look sexy.
It was mainly down to the smug Eurogamer volunteer staff (at least I hope they were volunteers) they had guarding various places who, for some reason, maybe they were never hugged enough as children, all had something crammed up their arrogant backsides, because if you even acknowledge their existence, you are made to feel like you fell out of a dog’s bottom.
But alas, as always in life you must forget about such “arse buckets” because in all honesty, if you actually want to trail anything, talk to the people in the industry, understand why and how things are done, it’s pretty obvious for the mere mortals of the gaming world, the Eurogamer Expo seems to be one of the premier events in the UK. Here’s to next year chaps!
Crash course indeed…
Posted by James | Filed under Gaming, Opinion
So Valve have announced some DLC ‘fulfilling’ their ‘promise’ of post-release support for Left 4 Dead….. technically, that is. In terms of covering their asses this ranks right up there at the top. Let me quote from the press release to put this into perspective:
While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of “Crash” is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game’s
existing Versus campaigns.
So, and perhaps this is just badly worded, their ‘bridging campaign’ will be easily completed within 30 minutes? Talk about scraping something together….they already had a good idea (if not some parts of the levels themselves) of how it worked and flowed since they cut out the ‘joining’ bits between the campaigns before the original release.
It’s just lip service to make their bruised egos and consciences feel better. Now they can say, with absolute technical certainty, “We provided post-release support.”
Thoughts “round-up”…
Posted by James | Filed under Gaming, Opinion
I haven’t been posting much recently but that doesn’t mean i haven’t been thinking…. er, about the site!
Mark Rein (of Epic Games fame) has officially stated that there is at least half of all current gen 360 owners playing on SDTV sets. This validates my point (which i ranted about in one of our podcasts 
) about developers supporting type faces that display properly on SDTV sets…. and which, in my opinion, are often still too small on HDTV sets anyway. Rare backtracked on their oversight and fixed the font sizes in Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts but there are lots of games out there for which the writing is just illegible and fuzzy on SDTVs.
It’s just pure laziness on the part of developers to not test this stuff and discrimination on the part of developers against people who have less and perfect eyesight. You shouldn’t have to wear glasses to play games when you don’t to watch TV or a DVD/Blu Ray disc on your HDTV. Looking at other HD content, you’ll notice that the writing in programming doesn’t have decreased screen real estate – so why does it in games?
Next up, the Wii sales decline…
Following on from the price increase of the Wii, Nintendo are still not considering re-lowering it. Despite decreasing sales and a competing product that undercuts it (the 360) Nintendo surprisingly aren’t considering the fact that now their product is over-priced (especially in its life-cycle)… no. Instead they’re blaming the dip in sales of console hardware on a lack of big titles on the Wii. I find this funny because Wii Sports Resort is out, now, meaning that the casual gamers (i.e. the majority of Wii owners) should be lapping this and the Motion Plus hardware up like the proverbial ‘hot cakes’ – which would drive word of mouth and thus sales of the Wii console…
Despite all this, i’m going to predict that the Wii will see a price reduction within the next 6 months. Why? Partially due to this sales decrease…. but mainly because they brought those extra production facilities online to account for the huge demand and those facilities are presumably still pumping out Wii components which will be piling up somewhere by now. Having lots of unmovable inventory is not good business (just ask the car manufacturers!) and to head off any complaints from share holders i believe that there’ll be a modest price cut within 6 months because i can’t see demand increasing to the levels it was at during this economy and at their level of installed base.
And you thought that the economic situation couldn’t get any worse…
Posted by James | Filed under Gaming, Opinion
Word has reached us, from MCV, that prices on many console games are going up as of this year from a RRP of £40 to around £54.
Let me reiterate that for you, FIFTY FOUR POUNDS STERLING!!!11!!111!01010011011
I thought that the current economic climate, combined with the fact that we’ve always been gouged on price by the games and technology industries would perhaps lead to slightly decreased prices if not keeping them at the same level. Instead some companies have decided that they’re not getting enough from us and rather than increase the price on the very cheap US market (where they sell a hell of a lot more copies than in the UK) they want to gouge us even more. Their excuse (in quote form):
“Exchange rates between the Euro and the pound are making it very difficult for publishers to show an acceptable operating margin in the UK,” THQ’s EVP of worldwide publishing Ian Curran told MCV.
Now, i’m no mathematical genius or economic analyst but i call bullshit on this. Let me help you reach the same conclusion.
First off, i don’t think console prices have increased or decreased since the £5-10 increase upon the release of the Xbox 360 in December 2005 so we can make the comparison between the relative cost of purchasing a console game and the currency exchange rate between US dollars and pounds sterling…. found here. If we take the exchage rate through each year, starting in 2006, then we can plot the change:
Looking at the trend it is obvious where the crash occured in 2008, however, things are looking up and the pound is already improving. Now, this is the thing that gets me. In Jan 2006 you got $1.77 for every £1, in Jan 2009 you got $1.44 and this month (July) you got $1.63. That is NOT a big change…. of course it’s a massive change if you take into account where it had climbed to but if you’ve read any of the blurb surrounding the whole economic crash you’d know that the rate of increase that it had reached over the last few years was all based on lies and deception…. hollow promises and wishful thinking. It was a fantasy that eventually became grounded in reality…. and it affected pretty much everybody.
You see, if this was purely a UK thing then yes, i could understand the price hike…. but America lost a lot of worth in their currency as well so it’s all relative. Now, if they’re telling me that suddenly it costs more to make a current gen game 3 years after release when tech is locked down and code tricks are known on an iterated engine that has seen multiple releases this generation on the Xbox 360… i don’t believe them. If they’re telling me that they’ll suddenly get £10 less revenue on a sale than they would 3 years ago then i definitely don’t believe them (since the proof is up there in the graph) as they’re only making $0.14 less per pound revenue per copy than they were 3 years ago. The situation is also similar in the conversion from Euros to Pounds with a loss of €0.68 per £1 reveune.
Let’s say that off of every title that is £35 upon release they make £29 revenue from the shop sale (which isn’t that outlandish) they would have received $53.36 (€42.05 from £ and $53.40 from €) in July 2006 and $47.27 (€33.64 from £ and $47.10 from €) in July 2009 which is a discrepancy of $6.09 when converting from £->$ or $6.3 when converting from €->$. Maybe over such large volumes that $0.21 makes a huge difference but i’m not thinking that this is the cause (or at least a legitimate cause for such a huge price increase). The varying factor that i can’t investigate is haulage prices over the last few years – though i can make an approximate assumption based on crude oil prices.
Now, in 2006 there was a spike in prices (i forget the reasons but i remember the price hike here at the pumps in the UK) which put oil, per barrel at around $65-70…. in comparison the price of oil is now between $60-65 having been lower than this for half of the year – which should put haulage costs at around the same point, if not slightly cheaper. It’s possible, however, that they’re trying to claw back some of the money lost in that second half of 2008 where oil prices soared and the exchange rate “crashed”… but even with that assumption you would expect this to be a temporary price hike and also nowhere near the announced £15 which would yield revenue of approximately $78.24 per copy sold… which is just ludicrous.
I never understood the mentality that most corporations have of increased profits year on year… for every year ever. Economics doesn’t work like that and it’s a mathematical/economic impossibility… it’s IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE!! I really hope this ‘initiative’ and the bullshit corporate speak that goes along with it fails miserably. I’m tired of being stepped on – you’re not making as much money anymore? Well put the price up in ALL the countries that have suffered economic problems (”pro-tip”: that includes the US).
Not sure what the corporate side of the games industry believe the UK is like but i’m sure it includes the allegorical “streets paved with gold”…
Wow…. really? Only that much?!
Posted by James | Filed under Gaming
There was a posting on gamesindustry.biz denoting the latest milestones of the console install base:
- NDS – 9.1m
- Wii – 5.4m
- Xbox 360 – 3.9m
- PSP – 3.3m
- PlayStation 3 – 2.2m
- DSi – 0.3m
I always forget how relatively small we are as a country – especially when we hear how we’re one of the more rampant consumer markets for computer games in Europe. We always go on about how much of a runaway success the Wii is but, in reality, in the UK it’s only got 1.4 million over the 360…. obviously, the PS3 is lagging pretty far behind.
The Nintendo DS by comparison is a behemoth. I know when the occasional DS versus PSP discussions break out (usually in the American-centric forums i visit) there is an overriding notion that the PSP has decent install base but not decent game support. This does not appear to be true for the PSP/DS over here. It has a decent install base (though not for the length of time it’s been on the market) but it doesn’t look worth developing for when you could develop a game for the 9 million DSes out there with a lower overall budget.
I guess you learn something new every day!
Deniable undeniability…
Posted by eternalduoae | Filed under Gaming, Opinion
So it came to pass that PEGI was given the legal right to rate games for the UK as well as most of the rest of Europe. And lo, the games industry said it was good. – Sacred texts of Lament, vol 2., Ch. 7, Page 249
I’ve written elsewhere about my misgivings over the whole BBFC vs PEGI games ratings systems for us in the UK market, so i won’t go into the reasons, but now the game is over and PEGI are the victors. However, to my mind it all seems a bit pointless. One of my issues with PEGI is that it’s a system that is so widespread that it doesn’t cater to each individual country’s sensibilities or customs…. what could be offensive in, say, Germany, wouldn’t cause an eyelid to flutter in France. It turns out that the UK government agrees with me, at least on some level, because they’ve announced that, while PEGI is the de facto ratings body for the UK, the Video Standards Council (VSC) holds the ultimate veto on whether a game or game content is allowed.
Now, this seems very silly to me.
On the one hand you have the BBFC… who provide a more thorough ratings process, who have experience in dealing with content that may cause offense to our culture and sensibilities and also in enforcing those bans or that censorship and who constantly do it in regards to film (and in the past games). They also use the universally understood film ratings system for games.
On the other hand you have PEGI who’s ratings system is less thorough in that it leaves it up to the developers/publishers to effectively rate themselves, who have a lot of experience in dealing with ratings (though they constantly give out higher age ratings than the BBFC ever did for the same games) but have no real knowledge of the sensibilities or potential offence of content within games. To combat this lack of knowledge the VSC have been given overall control on whether games will be banned or censored within the UK (regardless of PEGI classification) despite having no prior role within the UK legislature with regards to rating or regulating the content of film or games. Conversely, the PEGI rating system is quite convoluted with not only age ratings but symbols depicting various ‘watch words’ for content such as drugs or swearing.
So which method of regulation would you choose? Personally, having them all in one body makes more sense to me while having two bodies having to cover the same ground seems like a patent waste of resources:
VSC will exercise this new power independently of the PEGI system, providing a ‘fail-safe’ for the UK – protecting children through PEGI and addressing UK-specific sensibilities by refusing classification of any game which falls foul of the Video Recordings Act. This decision is the right one for consumers in the UK.
Yeah…. really, the right decision for who? I’m not so sure. This way there is a loophole that allows more censorship, more legal proceedings against developers/publishers from the public and potentially lower sales for games sold at higher ratings under the PEGI system.
I’m just glad i’m well over the 18 age limit.
Further reading:
http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/media_releases/6215.aspx
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/vsc-given-tough-powers-for-non-compliance-of-pegi-system
Site Downtime
Posted by The Lord of Leisure | Filed under Site News
Sorry for the downtime from the Eggmen, despite people thinking it was due to alcohol fueled rage, it was in fact due to storage issues from the web host. As you can see all is now well.
Thanks all!
Community support of games…
Posted by James | Filed under Gaming, Opinion
I was a big fan of Titan Quest when it came out and played through the game pretty religiously for a month or two. Unfortunately, i’m not much of a min/max-er and i also tend to burn out on games if i play the same one too much… but conversely i ‘forget’ about or won’t be bothered to return to games if i leave them too long. I’m a bit ADD in that sense.
However, early on (from when the demo was available) i became a little involved with the fledgling community over at www.titanquest.net in trying to help sort out peoples’ problems with the game – of which there were a few before, at and after launch. It wasn’t an official outlet for the game or anything, it was just something that the fans had put together and as my interest in the game waned so did my presence there. However, i was subscribed to the newsletter and, out of general curiosity, never unsubscribed.
To describe what i have seen through that newsletter as heartwarming or inspiring would be an understatement. Though Iron Lore quickly went under after they released the expansion pack, Immortal Throne, the community lived on and not only played the game or talked about strategies but they improved the game… they fixed it by making use of the included editor. TitanQuest, fully patched up was at release 1.1, the community have pushed that to 1.17, trying to quash all the remaining bugs while keeping to what they see as ‘the developers’ vision’ for the game by adjusting things that may have been erroneously assigned when compared with similar things within the game. The last patch release was 1.17a which is specifically aimed at the digital downloaders out there (Steam, Direct2Drive etc) who may not have been able to play with those on the core fan patch or indeed to get the game working properly.
Outside of these fixes there are also complete, game-sized mods available within the forums… amazing feats of love and patience in my eyes considering the game was released in 2007, an aeon ago in terms of the game industry but relatively short in terms of producing content.
It just goes to show how releasing the tools to the community of a game can really add to the value and also the longevity of the title and it struck me especially considering the way Valve has so far handled the Left 4 Dead issue recently but also the tonnes of games that have been abandoned due to their fairly poor release state more than any other reason. Developers/publishers, give your fans a voice, a way to make the game live on and everything will be okay…. your game will continue to sell through time and people won’t resell.
(Please note that i’m still asking you to not release games with authentication DRM since none of what i’ve talked about would probably have been possible if it had been included in the game – thank you)
Left 4 Dead 2 or “How Valve dropped the ball”
Posted by James | Filed under Gaming, Opinion
Since the announcement of the sequel for L4D i’ve had a bitter taste in my mouth. On the one hand, Left 4 Dead was a good game – it still is, though the player base has fallen off of a cliff – on the other hand it was released in an unfinished state and only relatively recently patched up to include the two versus campaigns that were missing. Promises were also made as to the post-release support:
Eurogamer: In terms of updating post-release, do you have any firm plans for what you’re going to do?
Chet Faliszek: Yes. Stuff we haven’t announced but it’s really cool. It’s the coolest thing ever [grin]. There’ll be more scenarios, and those scenarios will introduce new elements.
…and these have pretty much failed to make it through, instead they’ve been moulded into a full-blown sequel. The problem is that my copy of Left 4 Dead is almost useless as it is – none of my ‘friends’ in the groups i’m with play it regularly anymore, they all play Team Fortress 2 – and the game can be broken if people play it in a certain way and so no one plays.
Unfortunately, what i think Valve should be doing seems to be what they’re doing for Left 4 Dead 2:
This could be the platform for zombie apocalypse games for a while.
No! No, no, no! You already HAVE the platform for zombie apocalypse games: Left 4 Dead – please use that. PC gamers don’t need a sequel, they need paid for DLC that slots into Left 4 Dead and which would allow any free maps or more paid-for maps, characters, AI improvements and fixes to be shunted into it.
By releasing the separate entity with a separate executable, front end and all that jazz you’re making the first game redundant. Who cares if user created maps will work on either game? No one’s going to be playing on “last years’ title” when they can play on the fixed and improved new game.
They could have made this into a really good user experience and an alternative to the free updates that people are used to on Team Fortress 2 (which they keep rolling out) but instead they’ve abandoned a game that was mal-nourished on and after release in favour of having another baby in the hopes that all will be made better. They’ve also made me wary of buying Valve games at full price upon release – games that are often more expensive from Steam than at retail here.
It’s a really inconsistant way of producing games…. you’ve got the Half Life series which is a self-contained experience that only requires bug-fixes and then the multiplayer games that require fixes, tweaks and new content to provide legs – otherwise they lose their value. Team Fortress 2 is being handled incredibly from the side of the consumer… they’re still getting more and more free content despite only paying for the game once (and often times at very cheap prices). Yet Left 4 Dead was barely supported; it had two campaigns missing in versus and only 4 on release… there was no SDK for community content and it was only recently when the survival pack was released that we got those two campaigns, the beta SDK and a new survival mode with one map. I feel cheated. Why is my money worth less to Valve for Left 4 Dead when someone else (who likes Team Fortress 2) is getting increased value for the money spent? Now, a further slap in the face is that my game is going to be obsolete whereas the equivalent minor updates to the engine and gameplay that are in Team Fortress 2 (compared to Left 4 Dead 2) are all ported into the existing game.
It boggles the mind.
Hardcore gamers not buying hardcore games?
Posted by James | Filed under Gaming, Opinion
While i do love and love to read Bill Harris, i think his take-home message from a recent post concerning the sales numbers of ‘hardcore games’ is incorrect. First off:
The installed base of the DS in the U.S. is 30 million units. The installed base of the Wii in the U.S. just crossed 20 million units.
It would be laughable to allege that only the “non-hardcore” are buying these systems. Almost everyone I know who plays games has a DS, and a good percentage of those people are in the “hardcore” category. To a lesser extent, that’s true of the Wii as well.
Even if only 5% of the people who buy a DS or Wii fall into the “hardcore” category, that still translates to 1.5 million DS owners and 1 million Wii owners. And I think that percentage is an incredibly low estimate, particularly for the DS.
So the story inside the story, at least to me, is that hardcore gamers who own the DS and the Wii aren’t buying the hardcore games.
The population of North America is 303-odd million (you can google that). That means that 10 percent of the population own a DS and 7 per cent own a Wii. I don’t believe that the hardcore gamer share of that population makes up even that much.
Of course these numbers are all just a prelude to reaching an unconnected conclusion in reality: not all people like the same things. There were around 11 million 360s in the USA in November 2008 and yet by August 2008 there had only been 4.7 million copies of GTA 4 sold even though 360 owners are more likely to be hardcore gamers who like hardcore games. That’s a ratio of 42%.
If we take it for granted that both the Wii and DS are owned by a majority of people who lie in the groups labelled as ‘casual’ and ‘under the age of 15′ then the number of hardcore gamers who own a DS and are capable of buying GTA game will likely to be fewer than the total number of gamers who could/’wanted to’ have done so on the 360.
Ultimately, people don’t buy the Wii and DS to play the same sorts of experiences that they could get elsewhere and the people that would and do will not all like or enjoy the same games. To me, it’s not surprising that these games sold badly – perhaps as badly as they did, yes that surprised me. Chinatown Wars was a harkening back to GTA 2 – a concept that hasn’t really been pushed in 8 or so years. The market that enjoys GTA doesn’t do it for the setting, they enjoy the 3D gameplay and translating that gameplay back into a 2D top-down will likely not garner the same success even if you applied the same marketing money and time to it (not that they did).
It’s the same with Madworld. It’s a niche game even on a hardcore system – why didn’t The Club sell well (for example) and would do even worse on a non-hardcore platform.
The ’story inside the story’ is that the Wii and DS are majorly owned by casual gamers. You need to market a hardcore game well (or adopt a certain aesthetic) for it to be successful in those target markets. You also need to realise that not every gamer is interested in the same types of games. Hence why you have aviation enthusiasts, train simulators etc…. those are hardcore games but they won’t sell to all hardcore players…. and they’ll sell even fewer if you change the traditional ‘playstyle’ and platform they were hosted on.
Therefore, i declare this doom and gloom scare to be over!
*By playstyle i mean 3D vs 2D…. FPS vs turn-based etc.
