[Aptorian]

@ Silencer and Lucifers Heaven - I completely agree, there is definitely some strange Hollywood accounting going on, and the companies are obviously driven by a need to satisfy their stockholders/investors by showing ever increasing profits, but I also think that you need to be some kind of wizard to actually understand just how big and expensive the projects of the AAA industry are.

Lucifer quotes some numbers that are lower than my estimates, I have seen people working in the industry listing much higher average wages (chalk that up to the financial crisis, lowballing before contract negotiations, what ever), but I think one of the issues is just how many people actually get involved in the making of the game. Ever see something like Ubisofts end credit scrolls? They like to add every single person working for the company + all the freelance developers houses/consultants that are involved and those lists must include a thousand people. Yes, most of them are not working on one project constantly, but that is still a hell of a lot of paychecks that need to be signed and property that needs to be maintained and managed.

What ever back to what I think is the actual issue, how do you change this? And should you change this? Everybody wants bigger and better games every year. So long as the industry can provide them who cares how they go about making their money? I've actually heard people specualte that a collapse could happen. Which would be bad for the AAA industry and videogames publishing in general but out of the ashes of such an event I think you would simply see even more indie developers flourish. It would be like the late 70s, early 80s all over again.

The only problem I have with the way videogames are made today is the actual working conditions. Game developers don't have unions. They work insane hours and have long periods were they cant find work. The stories you hear about year long "crunches" makes you think of asian sweatshops rather than a cool workplace. The problem of course is that if you started to unionise and regulate the way game developers work you'd probably see the cost of developing a game double or triple or who know what which would, probably, be disastrous for the publishers.

[Lucifer's Heaven]

Aptorius, on 29 May 2013 - 04:32 PM, said:

@ Silencer and Lucifers Heaven - I completely agree, there is definitely some strange Hollywood accounting going on, and the companies are obviously driven by a need to satisfy their stockholders/investors by showing ever increasing profits, but I also think that you need to be some kind of wizard to actually understand just how big and expensive the projects of the AAA industry are.

Lucifer quotes some numbers that are lower than my estimates, I have seen people working in the industry listing much higher average wages (chalk that up to the financial crisis, lowballing before contract negotiations, what ever), but I think one of the issues is just how many people actually get involved in the making of the game. Ever see something like Ubisofts end credit scrolls? They like to add every single person working for the company + all the freelance developers houses/consultants that are involved and those lists must include a thousand people. Yes, most of them are not working on one project constantly, but that is still a hell of a lot of paychecks that need to be signed and property that needs to be maintained and managed.

What ever back to what I think is the actual issue, how do you change this? And should you change this? Everybody wants bigger and better games every year. So long as the industry can provide them who cares how they go about making their money? I've actually heard people specualte that a collapse could happen. Which would be bad for the AAA industry and videogames publishing in general but out of the ashes of such an event I think you would simply see even more indie developers flourish. It would be like the late 70s, early 80s all over again.

The only problem I have with the way videogames are made today is the actual working conditions. Game developers don't have unions. They work insane hours and have long periods were they cant find work. The stories you hear about year long "crunches" makes you think of asian sweatshops rather than a cool workplace. The problem of course is that if you started to unionise and regulate the way game developers work you'd probably see the cost of developing a game double or triple or who know what which would, probably, be disastrous for the publishers.

I keep writing things and then deleting them for not being able to say it as well as I would were this in person

I will let these two videos talk about the heart of the issue for me, as he does it well.
I will preface these by pointing out that Jimquisition is an obnoxious, arrogant, arse, but that doesn't make his points any less valid and is the shtick of the persona.
Dark Souls and Dark Sales
Perfect Pasta Sauce

Spending the appropriate amount of money on the necessary things, using the fantastic third party options available to speed up development and reduce costs (like using pre-built engines and other tools where appropriate), targeting your audience and using realistic expectations about what money you will see from them to guide what you spend. And letting the devs make the games they're good at and love, because then, as their own target audience they can often shine.
"Why not make some mid tier games, with some mid tier budgets to attract the midtier demographic?"
^All that is how I think you "save the game industry", and mid to high level companies that think about a diversity of games and amounts of money are what would successfully rise "out of the ashes".

Dead Space only needs to sell that much to "save the series" because they constantly upped the costs and expectations. The first game was a great success critically, publicly and financially. EA declared it a commercial success at 1 million copies. So what happened between 1 and 3? Because I can guarantee NOTHING in the games industry has increased in price so much over the last 5 years so as to require over quintuple the amount of sales to be a success (I say "over" to account for the difference between praised success and enough to "save the series"). That difference in price was their choice, and they even changed the series to an action series along the way, away from both what the series' fans wanted and what the devs had proven they were great at.


Yeah, some of the working conditions are absolutely shit. Though keep in mind it's only some. And amusingly enough (and unsurprisingly) it's many of the ones that have these stupid overblown concepts of money that are bad. There are still quite a few companies around that are by most reports a blast to work for. Most of them being midlevel (Valve, Red 5, CDProject) and indie companies.
Also, that no unions thing is only a problem in some places (namely the US). In Australia, no matter the job you do, you fall under the purview of a union and we have pretty good employment laws anyway(for the moment).

[Aptorian]

And on another note.

Gamefly is running a summer sale that started today:

http://www.gamefly.c...26#.UajgBEDLqaU

It's worth noticing that Bioshock Infinite is on sale at around 50% of what it was realses for which is pretty fucking awesome if you didn't buy it already but also something of a slap in the face to us who bought it on release.

Last year, I decided that I had plenty of disposable income and so I wanted to support the games I liked or was particularly interested in by buying them at full price (or at what ever pre-order discount you could find from something like Greenmangaming), then I sat by and watched as every single AAA game I bought was reduced from full price to sometimes 75% off in less than a month or two if you knew where to look. Tell me, why should I go out and buy a game at full price if I know I can save at least half my money by just being patient? I really don't understand this business model. With the THQ games I could sort of understand it because the company was dying but from 2K, Square/Eidos, EA? The only way it makes sense is if they are simply trying to pad what ever end of year/quarter result that is coming up for review by the board of investors. And I don't understand it because in the long run you are teaching your customers that they shouldn't buy your stuff for 60 dollars. That's at least one thing that I admire about Activisions evil corporate attitude, they know what their products are worth and they don't cut prices, Call of Duty games and Blizzard franchises do not go on sale for the first year or so if at all and when they do it's never for more than 33%. This teaches the consumer that if they do want to buy an Activision-Blizzard product they might as well buy it now or have to wait 2-3 year for a good offer.

That said, you really should go buy Bioshock Infinite for 16 pounds. It's a hell of a fun FPS game.

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 31 May 2013 - 10:21 PM

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I beat sleeping dogs. That's two games I. A row (also bioshock infinite) that were able to hold my attention and get me to plow all the way through, something I have issues with these days. Next up, not sure. Maybe finish the first metro game, maybe finally throw in kingdoms of amalur, maybe borrow witcher 2 from my buddy.

[Obdigore]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on 01 June 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

I beat sleeping dogs. That's two games I. A row (also bioshock infinite) that were able to hold my attention and get me to plow all the way through, something I have issues with these days. Next up, not sure. Maybe finish the first metro game, maybe finally throw in kingdoms of amalur, maybe borrow witcher 2 from my buddy.

KoA was great but I got distracted by something else... Skyrim maybe? And didn't quite finish it.

I'm stuck in the first Metro game, at the Nazi building on the surface after you save the little boy, i just can't figure out how to get to where the compass is pointing...

Thinking of putting in a different game but I don't know which one.

[Lucifer's Heaven]

Aptorius, on 31 May 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

And on another note.

Gamefly is running a summer sale that started today:

http://www.gamefly.c...26#.UajgBEDLqaU

It's worth noticing that Bioshock Infinite is on sale at around 50% of what it was realses for which is pretty fucking awesome if you didn't buy it already but also something of a slap in the face to us who bought it on release.

Last year, I decided that I had plenty of disposable income and so I wanted to support the games I liked or was particularly interested in by buying them at full price (or at what ever pre-order discount you could find from something like Greenmangaming), then I sat by and watched as every single AAA game I bought was reduced from full price to sometimes 75% off in less than a month or two if you knew where to look. Tell me, why should I go out and buy a game at full price if I know I can save at least half my money by just being patient? I really don't understand this business model. With the THQ games I could sort of understand it because the company was dying but from 2K, Square/Eidos, EA? The only way it makes sense is if they are simply trying to pad what ever end of year/quarter result that is coming up for review by the board of investors. And I don't understand it because in the long run you are teaching your customers that they shouldn't buy your stuff for 60 dollars. That's at least one thing that I admire about Activisions evil corporate attitude, they know what their products are worth and they don't cut prices, Call of Duty games and Blizzard franchises do not go on sale for the first year or so if at all and when they do it's never for more than 33%. This teaches the consumer that if they do want to buy an Activision-Blizzard product they might as well buy it now or have to wait 2-3 year for a good offer.

That said, you really should go buy Bioshock Infinite for 16 pounds. It's a hell of a fun FPS game.

I have so many games to get through that what you are describing is generally my tactic. I almost never buy anything off steam unless it is on sale. There are occasional exceptions, but not many. This is in part driven by our stupidly overpriced games market. Video games in store here release at $90-$100, as oppose to $60. This used to be somewhat understandable, but now that our dollar is regularly on parity or above vs the USD it's ridiculous. Steam used to just charge us the US price in USD, so it was great for that. However after our dollar reached so high, a bunch of the major publishers made Steam increase prices on their games. So now there's a really weird range of prices depending on publisher. Some AAA games come out $50-$60 on steam, some at $80-$90.
I am also not exactly wealthy at the moment, so I can't justify $100 for a game even if I wasn't patient.
I will admit I sometimes cheat; play an illegitimate copy, then get the game when I can afford it. Although really, this is as much because I use those copies of games to try it before I buy. Something I feel is generally a must these days given how few companies I trust to deliver on the product as they advertise it

I am looking forward to trying Sleeping Dogs, it's been on my to play for a while.
I am also thoroughly looking forward to trying Remember Me

KoA was kinda good, but really damn easy. And repetitive after a while. Also, absolutely nothing you can find in the game compares to the stuff you can craft (it was fairly easy before crafting too).

[Silencer]

Lucifer, on 02 June 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

Aptorius, on 31 May 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

And on another note.

Gamefly is running a summer sale that started today:

http://www.gamefly.c...26#.UajgBEDLqaU

It's worth noticing that Bioshock Infinite is on sale at around 50% of what it was realses for which is pretty fucking awesome if you didn't buy it already but also something of a slap in the face to us who bought it on release.

Last year, I decided that I had plenty of disposable income and so I wanted to support the games I liked or was particularly interested in by buying them at full price (or at what ever pre-order discount you could find from something like Greenmangaming), then I sat by and watched as every single AAA game I bought was reduced from full price to sometimes 75% off in less than a month or two if you knew where to look. Tell me, why should I go out and buy a game at full price if I know I can save at least half my money by just being patient? I really don't understand this business model. With the THQ games I could sort of understand it because the company was dying but from 2K, Square/Eidos, EA? The only way it makes sense is if they are simply trying to pad what ever end of year/quarter result that is coming up for review by the board of investors. And I don't understand it because in the long run you are teaching your customers that they shouldn't buy your stuff for 60 dollars. That's at least one thing that I admire about Activisions evil corporate attitude, they know what their products are worth and they don't cut prices, Call of Duty games and Blizzard franchises do not go on sale for the first year or so if at all and when they do it's never for more than 33%. This teaches the consumer that if they do want to buy an Activision-Blizzard product they might as well buy it now or have to wait 2-3 year for a good offer.

That said, you really should go buy Bioshock Infinite for 16 pounds. It's a hell of a fun FPS game.

I have so many games to get through that what you are describing is generally my tactic. I almost never buy anything off steam unless it is on sale. There are occasional exceptions, but not many. This is in part driven by our stupidly overpriced games market. Video games in store here release at $90-$100, as oppose to $60. This used to be somewhat understandable, but now that our dollar is regularly on parity or above vs the USD it's ridiculous. Steam used to just charge us the US price in USD, so it was great for that. However after our dollar reached so high, a bunch of the major publishers made Steam increase prices on their games. So now there's a really weird range of prices depending on publisher. Some AAA games come out $50-$60 on steam, some at $80-$90.
I am also not exactly wealthy at the moment, so I can't justify $100 for a game even if I wasn't patient.
I will admit I sometimes cheat; play an illegitimate copy, then get the game when I can afford it. Although really, this is as much because I use those copies of games to try it before I buy. Something I feel is generally a must these days given how few companies I trust to deliver on the product as they advertise it

I am looking forward to trying Sleeping Dogs, it's been on my to play for a while.
I am also thoroughly looking forward to trying Remember Me

KoA was kinda good, but really damn easy. And repetitive after a while. Also, absolutely nothing you can find in the game compares to the stuff you can craft (it was fairly easy before crafting too).

This, every letter of this post. Though I don't often buy games off Steam, the prices "Down Under" are actually sickening. Small market we may be, that doesn't translate to a 30% markup on all your games (especially when you consider that, as Luci notes, you can't trust a game is worth the full price very often these days). Especially not today where buying digital is becoming increasingly possible; I can understand a bit of a price-up on physical copies due to the relatively small populations you're shipping to, but to do it to digital copies is actually daylight robbery (though probably a life-saver for some retail stores, come to think of it...).

Ugh.

[Aptorian]

Here's an in house technical analysis of Killzone Shadow Fall's demo. I understand about 1% of what they are talking about here but it certainly sounds very impressive when they compare things to the PS3.

http://www.guerrilla..._Postmortem.pdf

Lucifer, on 02 June 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

I am also thoroughly looking forward to trying Remember Me

I am looking forward to Remember Me as well. It was one the high lights for me at last years E3. I've heard rumours that the combat system is not that good but that was not what I was interested in to begin with.

Now the question is, do I support this new IP or do I just wait a couple months and buy it for cheap. Decisions, decisions.

Funny thing is, Steam used to be the cheapest place to get games when they went on sale but now a days they are getting beat by places like Greenman Gaming, Gamefly and even EA's own online store when it comes to the big titles.

[Lucifer's Heaven]

Aptorius, on 02 June 2013 - 05:06 AM, said:

Here's an in house technical analysis of Killzone Shadow Fall's demo. I understand about 1% of what they are talking about here but it certainly sounds very impressive when they compare things to the PS3.

http://www.guerrilla..._Postmortem.pdf

Lucifer, on 02 June 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

I am also thoroughly looking forward to trying Remember Me

I am looking forward to Remember Me as well. It was one the high lights for me at last years E3. I've heard rumours that the combat system is not that good but that was not what I was interested in to begin with.

Now the question is, do I support this new IP or do I just wait a couple months and buy it for cheap. Decisions, decisions.

Funny thing is, Steam used to be the cheapest place to get games when they went on sale but now a days they are getting beat by places like Greenman Gaming, Gamefly and even EA's own online store when it comes to the big titles.

I threw my money at it. It looks cool and was a game that was definitely on my to check out and possibly grab list. I ended up pre-ordering it though, because on top of wanting it someone pointed out the there is a weird cull of female protagonists in video games. The guy who came up with Remember Me and was one of the lead developers apparently had to fight tooth and nail for the entire production cycle to keep the main character a female, because the publishers said people wouldn't buy it if he didn't change it. That's shit and disgusting. And on top of that I have a habit of always making my characters female when I can, so for me at least it's really not an issue.
So yeah, the tipping point for me pre-ordering it was moral. I want to support the game in the only way I can to do my part to prove the publisher's wrong.

Yeah, I think the sale thing is Steam being a victim of it's own success. It's probably in part due to the publishers putting their foot down with pricing as they have already done.
Silencer I am pretty sure the retail store thing is part of the reason. But god forbid the publishers start selling wholesale games to our retailers at prices so they can compete and aren't ripping us off, instead of locking out competition's ability to compete

[Aptorian]

The reviews for Remember me are all over the place and I am getting some really mixed messages from people. Some people like the combat system, others don't. Some people like the story, others don't. Some people like the world, others don't. I won't be buying this but I sure hope this game doesn't flop.

Gamefly's Summer Sale continues and I bought Tomb Raider and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron for 9.99 pounds each. Pretty freaking sweet deal. Now to not getting around to playing them because I am still obsessed with Skyrim.

http://www.gamefly.c...1100&cat=OnSale

Also, several sources now confirm that the Last Guardian actually exists and not just that, it will be releasing for PS3 (and probably PS4) in 2013! I thought this game was stuck in developers hell.

http://www.neogaf.co...ad.php?t=576049

http://www.gameinfor...al-e3-site.aspx

[Illuyankas]

I saw some videos of someone LPing the first few levels of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (which is a real word, seriously) and I'm going to buy the PC port day one. I don't even care about any other levels past the first, you parry a giant robot's stomp, catch its arm and throw it in the air, run along the missiles it fires at you and then cut it into a million pieces

Then you cut dudes in half and eat their spines

[Lucifer's Heaven]

Aptorius, on 04 June 2013 - 07:18 PM, said:

The reviews for Remember me are all over the place and I am getting some really mixed messages from people. Some people like the combat system, others don't. Some people like the story, others don't. Some people like the world, others don't. I won't be buying this but I sure hope this game doesn't flop.

Gamefly's Summer Sale continues and I bought Tomb Raider and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron for 9.99 pounds each. Pretty freaking sweet deal. Now to not getting around to playing them because I am still obsessed with Skyrim.

I will be checking the game out tonight
Grimmy seems to think it's good over all, so I'm being optimistic.

I just checked out Gamefly, and I'm not sure I can use it. The games seem to say they're available in the US, Canada and Mexico. So looks like we may get stiffed again. (the site is in USD for me, so I assume there is a EU version of the site too).

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Full hd remake if fable 1 the lost chapters. Fuck yeah.

[Silencer]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on 05 June 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

Full hd remake if fable 1 the lost chapters. Fuck yeah.

Meh. While I confess I moderately enjoyed Fable II, it comes with the caveat that I only did so when playing co-op with a friend. Mainly because of our awesome light-RP banter and crazy antics. The Fable games themselves are mediocre to terrible, never mind the burning desire not to throw any money at the King of Lies Hype, Peter Molyneux and his associates... >.>

The best bits about Fable are not enough to counteract the rest of them, imo.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

We aren't talking fable 2 and 3, which were terrible disappointments. Fable 1 was a great game, its only flaw was being too short. From what I hear the lost chapters nearly doubles the length. It might not have lived up to the unreasonable hype, but it was a great game in a lot of ways. It's one of those games that is greater than the sum of its parts. There is something great about the atmosphere and the world. Albion is a place I will undoubtedly pay money to return to.

2 and 3 were kind of shit though. Especially 3.

[Silencer]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on 05 June 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

We aren't talking fable 2 and 3, which were terrible disappointments. Fable 1 was a great game, its only flaw was being too short. From what I hear the lost chapters nearly doubles the length. It might not have lived up to the unreasonable hype, but it was a great game in a lot of ways. It's one of those games that is greater than the sum of its parts. There is something great about the atmosphere and the world. Albion is a place I will undoubtedly pay money to return to.

2 and 3 were kind of shit though. Especially 3.

I was talking about all three, though. I meant the only Fable game I enjoyed to much extent at all was Fable 2 - but exclusively when played co-op. 3 was atrocious and 1 was midling at best. Again, it's redeeming moments and features were not really enough to make up for that to me - and that's not counting the ludicrous promises made and subsequently broken (with, iirc, no real acknowledgement and two repeat performances) which drags the games into "boycott" territory, more or less...and yes, I didn't even take the hype at face value, and it still puts me off regardless.

So that's what I was getting at by referencing Fable 2. XD But, you know, different strokes, etc...

[Rictus]

Oh ye lovers of CRPGs, here be my question: Is Baldur's Gate Reloaded (the original game ported to the NWN2 engine) worth a damn? Thoughts?

[Jagh-o-matic]

Hi All -

obsessive video gamer here. Over the past 12 months, mostly Civ V, SWTOR, and Torchlight II. Just finished Tomb Raider 2013 - a tidy little game, that. Very much on the interactive movie side of things, lots of collecting/exploring bonus stuff but entirely linear beyond that, with enough quick-time events to bring back memories of Dragon's Lair. Very satisfying however in terms of varied mechanics, OK story, length, pacing, graphics & sound. Smooth pacing right through the end - most games become unbearably tedious in the final sequence. Note that I have never before played a Tomb Raider game.

I found my suspension of disbelief oddly jarred by Lara's (increasingly scarred) shoulders. They just looked like any old girl down the street - should've been a little more like this: http://25.media.tumb...pwfnjo1_500.jpg

Granted, the most accomplished athlete/acrobat of any gender on the planet would've spent weeks in traction after the first 15 minutes of gameplay, but still - girl needs a little meat.

Next on the docket ... Skyrim! (I know, I'm going backwards in time. Waiting for some price drops.)

[Obdigore]

Fable 3 is free on xbox live at the moment. While not the most well received game, I'm going to DL it and try it out.

[Morgoth]

Fable three was shit 90% of the time.