*spin-off* Game Design: Implications, Marketing, Sales

[green.pixel]

Too bad that level won't be seen in a game. I would love to see a game built on CE3 set in an enviroment like that, with huge levels and freedom to explore it, no matter the platform. Today, we are basically stucked with linear games trying to immerse the players with "blockbuster movie" atmosphere and gameplay which doesn't lasts much longer than those films . I really don't know why developers don't offer something like that, is it because of the cost to do it and the feeling it won't sell well, "new generation" of gamers not really been interested in it, or something else, I don't know. But that is what it is.

 

[assen]

Too bad that level won't be seen in a game. I would love to see a game built on CE3 set in an enviroment like that, with huge levels and freedom to explore it, no matter the platform. Today, we are basically stucked with linear games trying to immerse the players with "blockbuster movie" atmosphere and gameplay which doesn't lasts much longer than those films . I really don't know why developers don't offer something like that, is it because of the cost to do it and the feeling it won't sell well, "new generation" of gamers not really been interested in it, or something else, I don't know. But that is what it is.

It's just a swing of the pendulum back towards linear games after several years of sandbox games being in vogue. It's nothing to do with the incapable, evil dumb consoles; after all, the sandbox era really started with GTA3 on the PS2, a more incapable and dumber console in every way. Developers do offer sandbox games - Prototype, Brutal Legend, Borderlands come to mind - but they seem to sell less. You can hear a lot of the valid criticism towards sandbox games in the Zero Punctuation review of Borderlands.

 

[green.pixel]

It's nothing to do with the incapable, evil dumb consoles

I didn't imply it (not saying you did too that I said it).

Ithe sandbox era really started with GTA3 on the PS2

Didn't it start with GTA1 on PC?

but they seem to sell less.

But that doesn't mean developers should only make games that sell well, right? Industry wouldn't be where it is right now if there wasn't some kind of breakthrough progress during the years, right? We'd all be playing "jumping and collecting coins allong the way" and "fighting the monsters in hallways on another planet's base" games.

I really don't want FPS genre in the coming years to become CoD/Halo/KZ2/*name other linear fps you want* -like. There's only one problem, I don't get to decide that.

I perfectly understand that money makes the world go 'round. But I also think that developers and publishers, practically the whole industry should aspire making new and fresh games, not just the type of games which provide good sales report. People will buy good games. If you offer them only linear experiences, they will buy it, 'cause they don't have other choice.

You can hear a lot of the valid criticism towards sandbox games in the Zero Punctuation review of Borderlands.

Thanks, will check it out.

 

[assen]

But that doesn't mean developers should only make games that sell well, right?
...
I perfectly understand that money makes the world go 'round. But I also think that developers and publishers, practically the whole industry should aspire making new and fresh games, not just the type of games which provide good sales report.

You can't expect of a commercial game developer to do anything but maximise profit. Game development studios, contrary to popular belief, do not exist for some cool people to hang around and do the job they've always dreamed about, buying expensive videocards and talking about shaders all day long. (The large number of closing studios is testament to the fact that this wrong belief is held by some game developers, themselves.)

This does not mean that all developers will make exactly the same game - some of them might attempt to maximize profit by exploring an untapped niche.

PS. Sorry, the Zero Punctuation review I was thinking of was Brutal Legend, not Borderlands.

PPS. GTA1 on PC was niche; GTA3 on PS2 was a blockbuster.

 

[green.pixel]

You can't expect of a commercial game developer to do anything but maximise profit. Game development studios, contrary to popular belief, do not exist for some cool people to hang around and do the job they've always dreamed about, buying expensive videocards and talking about shaders all day long.

I'm well aware of that, as probably most of the people on this site are.

The large number of closing studios is testament to the fact that this wrong belief is held by some game developers, themselves.

What studios closed because they've been developing high-end games in need of high-end hardware? If that's what you are saying - that they've worked on games for a niche PC market. I'm not kidding, I really don't know.

We (at least on this board) all know that some of the best known PC-centric developers went mutliplat. because of piracy PC can't provide good ROI. Crytek being the last one. What''s interesting is that there's also piracy on consoles as well, but impact on sales is non-detrimental or is never mentioned in reports vs rant on PC piracy ; PS2 had record-breaking sales, but also had high piracy rates. So the question is why games on consoles are sold more than their PC versions even with piracy on those other paltforms? Is it because the sheer quantitiy of 50+ millions eqal gaming boxes vs. # of gaming-ready PC configurations, different sensibilities of the user base, or something else?
Really sorry for the OT , but I would like to know the answers, so we could continue this in a new thread, no need to go OT in this one.

 

[Neb]

What studios closed because they've been developing high-end games in need of high-end hardware? If that's what you are saying - that they've worked on games for a niche PC market. I'm not kidding, I really don't know.

The interesting thing is that some of the biggest and most known dev houses got big due to PC market and high-profile/complex games.

So the question is why games on consoles are sold more than their PC versions even with piracy on those other paltforms? Is it because the sheer quantitiy of 50+ millions eqal gaming boxes vs. # of gaming-ready PC configurations, different sensibilities of the user base, or something else?

Becouse for some obscure reason consoles are counted as one unit and digital sales on PC side is ignored. The fanboy recipe!

Being in a thread regarding engine/game from Crytek, a developer that got fat and round on the PC market with Far Cry and Crysis games. Becoming one of the biggest dev houses buying up other dev teams and producers of state of the art graphics/tech.

 

[assen]

What studios closed because they've been developing high-end games in need of high-end hardware? If that's what you are saying...

No, I was saying that developers will go out of business even more quickly than usual if they put "fresh and new" before "whatever sells" in their priorities.

Nebula: the truth is that there is lots of piracy on virtually all consoles except PS3; ironically, while we have a fairly good idea what the piracy rate is for the PC versions of our games, we have no idea about the console SKUs - only the console vendors probably know something.

As for Crytek, honestly, I don't know how they make ends meet; the sales of Far Cry, Crysis and Warhead can't explain their huge headcount and takeovers. There is income which can't be directly judged by an outsider (engine sales, "help" from IHVs, private investors?), so it's hard to tell.

 

[assen]

The interesting thing is that some of the biggest and most known dev houses got big due to PC market and high-profile/complex games.

The PC market is changing... I know what we used to sell making obscure RTSes for the PC in the early 2000s, and I see now what we are selling making slightly less obscure citybuilders 8-9 years later; collapse is a good word. I'm not sure whether it's due to bigger titles taking a bigger share of the pie (unlikely, because I know what other RTSes sell, it's still way less than before); death of the strategy genre; piracy; shift to consoles; shift to Facebook/iPhone/etc crap; but it's definitely there.

And yes I'm including the digital sales in today's numbers

 

[green.pixel]

How come console exclusives' developers can "get away with it"? Sure, since they'are mostly owned by platform holders, they have bigger budgets (how much bigger?), but still... What would happen it they were independent and their games didn't sell so well? Go out of business? What if, say, GT5 failed miserably in sales, how would they recoup the astronomical $60 mil. costs? Sony would just "inject" new pile of money in Polyphony and move on? And for example, Heavy Rain, I would definitely not want to see their game not have good sales, but there is large possibility that could happen with their adult-themed game.

That doesn't sound fair to me, exclusives get to blow much more money and dev time, but hey, a lot of stuff in the world isn't fair...


Thanks, Al.

 

[AlNom]

Spun off from CryEngine 3 Thread surprise surprise!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

How come console exclusives' developers can "get away with it"? Sure, since they'are mostly owned by platform holders, they have bigger budgets (how much bigger?), but still... What would happen it they were independent and their games didn't sell so well? Go out of business? What if, say, GT5 failed miserably in sales, how would they recoup the astronomical $60 mil. costs? Sony would just "inject" new pile of money in Polyphony and move on? And for example, Heavy Rain, I would definitely not want to see their game not have good sales, but there is large possibility that could happen with their adult-themed game.

That doesn't sound fair to me, exclusives get to blow much more money and dev time, but hey, a lot of stuff in the world isn't fair...

There's a lot of reasons why consoles can sell so much better, and thus why devs are increasing shifting developement money over to consoles versus PC.

1. Relative lack of piracy compared to the PC platform. Even taking into account X360/PS2, the ratio of pirated to purchased games is much greater for the PC platform.

2. It's far easier for a kid/teenager to convince his parents to buy him a Wii/PS3/X360 than it is to convince them to buy a Gaming capable computer with a video card that often costs more than a netbook. And then trying to convince them to upgrade it every 1-2 years (especially if you had convinced them it was for "school").

3. If you aren't a kid/teen and are just graduating from college with lots of college loans, a console that lasts for 5-10 years is far easier to justify on your budget than a gaming PC + upgrades every couple years.

4. Parent's would prefer not to try to figure out why X game doesn't work on their PC with A, B, C, D, E hardware components when it works fine on their friends PC with A, D, F, H, I hardware components. And M, N, O versions of drivers for each of those components.

5. Increasing developement costs + Increasing packaging costs + Static non-increasing prices = reduced return on investment. Means devs would prefer not having to worry about the thousands of differing hardware and driver combinations that might exist on PC, even with something like DirectX making it all somewhat sane compared to how things were prior to DirectX.

I don't really like the shift but I can certainly see lots of reasons why we're having this major shift.

I'm quite certain many devs would love to make ultra cutting edge games on PC that they would only be able to dream of doing on console, but economic factors kind of get in the way of that. Especially when you turn around and see how easy it is for people to pirate and play your game for free on PC after you've spent 3-4 years (or more) working 12-18 hour shifts (during crunchtime) to make the game.

And then to compound that, the next time you go to make a game, your budget is now lower, to combat the effects of piracy, so you end up being rushed having to meet a deadline dictated by the funds available, and possible with a less than optimal number of people working on it. So you end up working harder with less people in less time, meaning you'll probably also have to skimp on QA, so you have bugs on release, get downrated in reviews, and people pirate your game even more...

I'm actually amazed that there are still devs willing to develope for PC only or PC first, and I love them for it.

Regards,
SB

 

[green.pixel]

1. Relative lack of piracy compared to the PC platform. Even taking into account X360/PS2, the ratio of pirated to purchased games is much greater for the PC platform.

But that was my main question - why do peoople buy the same game more on consoles vs. PC versions? Ease of use as you said, accessibility, probably?

Btw, do we have any precise sales numbers? What BZB said:

Well if we go back to one of the previous threads on the matter, someone posted some of the platform breakdown profits from a few of the larger publishers, and it turned out that the games sold on the PC made as much profit as games for individual consoles. Sure the PC makes less than the other consoles put together, but then you can say that any particular console makes less than all the other consoles (and PC) put together

I'd appreciate it if someone could find that thread.

2. It's far easier for a kid/teenager to convince his parents to buy him a Wii/PS3/X360 than it is to convince them to buy a Gaming capable computer with a video card that often costs more than a netbook. And then trying to convince them to upgrade it every 1-2 years (especially if you had convinced them it was for "school").

3. If you aren't a kid/teen and are just graduating from college with lots of college loans, a console that lasts for 5-10 years is far easier to justify on your budget than a gaming PC + upgrades every couple years.

Gaming-capable computer with ~ the same perfomance/IQ/features (save the exclusives) doesn't cost much. Hell, with <100$ graphics cards and 50$ CPU you can play majority of titles in 1080p/30+ fps! It would be interesting to see someone for the sake of a test specs a PC with the nearest as possible perfomance to consoles.
If people can be satisfied with sub-720p/30fps on consoles, why couldn't they be satisfied with the same or (always) higher IQ on a PC? That's the thing, people still use the "gaming PC is costly" excuse, they are not informed enough on the subject, they think that for a gaming PC you need 500$ graphics cards.


Thanks btw for a well rounded and informative post.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If I remember right, other than Activision-Blizzard, most of the major pubs console income dwarfs their current PC income. And each year that goes by see's more of a shift from PC to console.

It's hard to judge Activision-Blizzard compared to other pubs as the vast majority of their PC income is tied to the Warcraft Online brand. Likewise, the Blizzard part of that is still focused only on the PC gamescape. And even for them, I believe their financial breakdown only shows PC as being an equal share to PS3 or X360 but not both.

As for why piracy is so much more prevalent on PC. There's no Xbox Live for example to encourage people to use a legit copy of a program. Add to that there is no hardware hacking in order to pirate. You don't even need to burn a game to a CD/DVD anymore. It is literally as easy as typing in the game you want into google, downloading it and installing it. Of course, the potential big got'cha in that whole process is that it's becoming increasingly popular to inject worms/trojans (usually keyloggers) into cracked executables.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Nebula: the truth is that there is lots of piracy on virtually all consoles except PS3;

Define 'a lot'. On PC you don't need to get your box chipped and you can find whatever you want on torrents from the comfort of your own home. For consoles you need to go looking for piracy solutions. Thus on PC, piracy is more an opportunity crime, as simple and easy as copying music, which is why it's commonplace. I know people with pirate content off the internet (movies, software) who also own consoles and don't pirate games, which to me underlines the different take on the machines (though of course it's a tiddly sample to base an opinion on!).

Going forwards, PS3 shows how a robust system can be built, and MS shows how piracy can be dealt with through service control. I'll be surprised if console piracy doesn't take a bashing next gen, which is where Crytek are aiming - their engine will be 'unpirateable' rather than posted up on torrents 2 weeks before official launch!

 

[assen]

Going forwards, PS3 shows how a robust system can be built, and MS shows how piracy can be dealt with through service control. I'll be surprised if console piracy doesn't take a bashing next gen, which is where Crytek are aiming - their engine will be 'unpirateable' rather than posted up on torrents 2 weeks before official launch!

I'm not sure MS shows anything positive in that regard - 360 torrents are widespread. Here on the outskirts of Europe, hardcore gamers treat the Xbox the same as they treat the PC - a box to play pirated games on; they reserve the little money they pay for gaming for World of Warcraft, and the occasional multiplayer-focused game on Steam.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

The ability to play on Live is a serious advantage though, I see a lot of guys on the local websites discussing their next ODST Firefight session regularly. Can't get that with a pirated Xbox.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not sure MS shows anything positive in that regard.

Do you think next-gen they'll repeat the mistakes of this gen and fail to include security measures similar to PS3? I'll add now I come to think about it that piracy on the XB360 can't be that bad if you look at title sales. PS3 is uncracked, ergo all gamers playing a title will need to buy the game. If a cross-platform title sells 1 million on PS3 and 1.5 million on XB360, that'd suggest the same degree of sales given install base. If piracy was rife on XB360, proportionally fewer games would be sold as user would be pirating them instead. AFAICS from data thrown around over the past years, XB360 titles are selling as you'd expect for comparable disc sales relative to PS3. I don't see how if there are millions of pirates on XB360, its tie-ratio wouldn't be well below what it is and well below PS3's.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Shifty's logic sounds right.

Although, piracy is more widespread in Europe and in particular Eastern Europe, Russia, and maybe the Far East, like China? But there aren't too many consoles in these areas anyway, so even drastically lower attach ratios wouldn't have much of an effect on global sales data...

And also note that most of these markets don't officially have Live either, so there's less of a driving force for buying multiplayer enabled games.

 

[liolio]

Actually I heard of multiple persons owning two 360s one for online gaming, one off line used to play pirated games. Anyway pirates are not always the ones than buy the least.
For example my 360 is connected on live silver for demo and patches and arcade games, I don't want to get banned thus I didn't cracked my 360 but that doesn't mean that I buy a lot of games probably a lot less than an hardcore gamers that would use the aforementioned set up.
Nevertheless Ms should have done much better in regard to the security, they are actually lucky that on-line gaming has gained so much ground in the consoles so create intensive for users to not get banned.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Do you think next-gen they'll repeat the mistakes of this gen and fail to include security measures similar to PS3? I'll add now I come to think about it that piracy on the XB360 can't be that bad if you look at title sales. PS3 is uncracked, ergo all gamers playing a title will need to buy the game. If a cross-platform title sells 1 million on PS3 and 1.5 million on XB360, that'd suggest the same degree of sales given install base. If piracy was rife on XB360, proportionally fewer games would be sold as user would be pirating them instead. AFAICS from data thrown around over the past years, XB360 titles are selling as you'd expect for comparable disc sales relative to PS3. I don't see how if there are millions of pirates on XB360, its tie-ratio wouldn't be well below what it is and well below PS3's.

Depends on how you interpret it. It could also mean the ratio could be 2:1 instead of 1.5:1 if everyone in the US that pirated a game instead bought 1 or 2 games a month instead of pirating 5-6 games a month.

Regards,
SB