What the F*** Is wrong with the games industry?

EA?

- Zen

 

there a few people who are dedicated in playing pc games compared to the casual gamer

so, when a good game comes out only dedicated gamers would buy it, sometimes it's not even enough to meet the money that was spend in making the game

 

Yeah, like Mael says, there aren't enough games-buyers around. Too many platforms, and a lot of rivalry for the cash of the customers.

Building a computer game is about one of the most complex endeavours humans ever undertake. Complexity affects the effort (cost) associated with building it.

Increasing the costs further are such factors of the highly skilled (and therefore paid) nature of the workforce, the high price of software development tools and equipment and the low fault tolerances.

With the relatively high price of games, successful releases are probably quite profitable. However, as Jar recently pointed out to me, there are a fair number of games that don't make it to market. The huge expenses of development, even partial development, are then completed wasted. The money may as well have been thrown in the toilet.

I'm pretty sure most financial analysts would agree that throwing money in a toilet is not exactly a sound business strategy.

I suppose one way to improvethe viability of the companies would seem to be reducing the number of failed projects. However, the games market changes very quickly, and development projects are inherently long, so I can't see how - short of crystal balls - they'd be able to do this reliably.

 

And yet another "rant" topic - double yeah :grin:

There should be less games produced while at the same time they should be better programmed - a lot of games nowadays require post release patches to make them playable. Also prices should be lower or at least country oriented (basically 30-40$ in US and Poland is a totally different amount of money). This way piracy would take much smaller part of the market away. Last thing would be to optimise games better. Programmers nowadays only rarely check whether their game will work well on any hardware that was medium&up system earlier than half a year ago. The way it is now people first spend their money on hardware, then they either don't buy games at all or buy pirated copies, the result of which is not too good for the companies.

Sheriff your sig pic is outstanding. I hereby vote it the best sig pic in the forum.

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Dragoon on 2002-03-07 10:02 ]</font>

 

My wife, who made it, will be overjoyed. Thanks Dragoon!

About the patching. I think the early (before-actual-readiness) releases might be caused by commercial issues. This would suggest that the financial situation wouldn't be improved by insisting on technical readiness (I'm not fully behind my own opinion here, since it could be that short-sightedness causes them to force early release).

BTW, why is it you keep saying "another rant thread" after MY posts? Do I sound like I am ranting? WELL??? DO I????

 

Hey Sheriff, I just noticed you didn't really set it as your sig pic, you only attached it. Now you'd better set it the right way or I'll tell your wife

 

If you ask me consoles like playstation 2, gamecube etc... Suck bigtime! There is no feeling in using those little levers to aim your sight etc... no feeling at all! It becomes so imobile using the wheels instead of a mouse... and as said before the more consoles there is, the less quality on the new games and high prices! That sucks

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Cruor on 2002-03-07 15:51 ]</font>

 

Ahhh, Dragoon, it is such a pleasure to have someone given me an opportunity for one of my speciality monologues - the humiliating admission.

Here is comes ...

... I didn't know there was such a thing as a sig pic. I have been using this place for 7 months and hadn't spotted it. What a goobertron, as Lysa would say.

[EDIT]Hang on - what the buggery are you going on about. Have I missed something? the only way to set the pic as my sig is to reference the image from my sig box, which is what I did the first time! Dragoon, you buffoon!

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Give Sheriff all your hard-earned cash, Jar

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sheriff Fatman on 2002-03-07 16:06 ]</font>

 

finally, somone else who doesn't like consoles... i mean, yeah, granted i started gaming on atari and nintendo, but since then it's been computers all the way... they need to consolidate all the consoles into one, or possibly two, so there wouldn't be so many different gaming options, and developers could concentrate on making new games, not new systems... of course, what are the odds of this actually happening?

 

What good would that be for the "Mindless Millions" that we call our future. With the consoles they can go straight from watching "MTV Cribs" to playing "Grand Theft Auto 3"!

[EDIT] I agree with Dragoon, Sheriff, your sig pic is the best. Now if you could just get a pic of Sheriff sitting on his All Knowing Ass.
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You know what? I'm glad I'm not a laboratory animal. Do you have any idea how many of those little bastards get cancer?


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Vlad the Imposter on 2002-03-07 16:17 ]</font>

 

Blizzard makes a profit. Hell, they're probably rolling in money. Ion Storm (at least one of the offices) is making a profit as well I think, or at least has enough cash to last them until they release their next games - Thief 3 and Deus Ex 2 - both of which I predict to be huge sellers.

Lots of games are coming out, no denying it, but the quality of many leaves a lot to be desired.

 

A good example of the declining quality of games is the Final Fantasy series. Number 9 comes out, a few months later number 10, and now there are rumors of a number 11 that was being worked on before number 10 was even finished. The graphics have improved, but no matter how hard they try none of the recent FF games can match FF7 or FFT. FF 10 was a real disappointment to me. You don't get the freedom as in FF7 and even FF8. They need to slow down and put quality over quantity.

 

I think I know what's going on. You must remember to check the "Show signature" box every time you post to have your sigpic appear. And you probably don't do it seeing how most of your recent posts don't have this pic attached.

BTW what's a goobertron?

PS. Give up rhyming in the future Sheriff, OK?

 

Yeah, Jar had a go at me about not always attaching my sig. Like I told him - I only do it when I feel the need to assert my identity.

A goobertron is you.

Give up rhyming, Dragoon? Are you a loon? It won't happen soon! Go jump in a lagoon.

 

I think I'll ask Jinxed to change my nick to something like "Xcrtdwp". Try rhyming that one Sheriff.

I somehow knew a "goobertron" would be you

 

You think I can't rhyme that? Are you a pratt. Now scat, before you cause the death of another cat.

Goobertron is you. E - W - E, you!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sheriff Fatman on 2002-03-08 11:56 ]</font>

 

It's usually hard to rhyme something you can't even spell.

Yes, I already know goobertron is you - you really don't have to remind me, goobie.

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Dragoon on 2002-03-08 14:53 ]</font>

 

I think that pc games will be comeing back this year or beginning of next. Xbox has really hurt the pc game industry now its out. Back to normal just another console, unforetunantly this one has all ready sucked the life out of some rather good companies. So it may take a while to recover but it will happen.

 

The XBox is really strange - good console, but overpriced. Great games (at least at the initial launch), but not many good games coming out in the future from what I hear. Top that off with a shitty controller, and the highest price for an extra controller I've ever seen, and you've got one box packed with bittersweetness. High pricing, and not enough goodness to justify the cost.