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Canada11561 Posts
What's the measure of your success?
For instance EA said they needed to sell 5M copies of Dead Space 3 to survive. That's insane.
Could a AAA company produce a new RTS and not blow their budget on making insane graphics that are 3D? Probably not.
But could a mid-sized company release BW and just fixed a few things like dragoon ai. (According to Patrick Wyatt, the dragoon just thinks it's smaller than it actually is. Sounds like that's fixable.) And release it on Steam for $20 with LAN and fixed the weird networking problems?
I think so. I think it could be quite popular and would be a great success.
90's were an awesome time for games in the sense that we had a huge graphics revolution, but it was still pretty cheap to produce. So you could create awesome games that look aesthetically good and aren't prohibitively expensive that you need to sell 5M copies to survive. Apparently when SC was being developed, some 80 RTS's were also being produced. No wonder we had such good RTS's in the 90's. The cream rose to the top. Now it's a lot harder as AAA game companies are having a graphics 'arms race' with each other to make even more realistic, realistic graphics. That get's expensive in a hurry.
See the the OP get's hung up on a game being difficult as being what stop people from playing. And sure two years ago 80M people played Farmville, but you don't need that number of players to be successful. You don't even need to cater to them to be successful. Heck, I'll play Mount & Blade: Napoleonic Wars which is super limitating for a FPS. Musket fire, slow load. But it's still hilariously fun. Difficulty or lack of difficulty doesn't matter. Fun does. And difficult can be fun.
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Fun is just a buzzword when you can't actually think of any real reasons as to why the game is good, don't use it.
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On September 10 2012 09:04 Kaal wrote:
Fun is just a buzzword when you can't actually think of any real reasons as to why the game is good, don't use it.
I know that BW had much more interesting units that captured the heart of many fans while as StarCraft 2 had many unit to fill similar roles. Coupled with the fact that it was challenging to utilize the utmost potential of the said subject, this conjures up much excitement and hence the 'fun' factor got introduced on the plate.
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I'm actually confused by what is going on here. I would be honoured by the arguments he is making, and the constant usage of 'BW elitist' means this is not opinion coming from someone biased for us at all.
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On September 10 2012 10:21 Hesmyrr wrote:
I'm actually confused by what is going on here. I would be honoured by the arguments he is making, and the constant usage of 'BW elitist' means this is not opinion coming from someone biased for us at all.
He is saying that the market have changed. The demands are far into 'casual games' rather than challenging ones. So if Brood War were to be released today, no one would have played it.
Which is completely banana since if BW were to be released today, Blizzard would still have Diablo + WarCraft franchise under their belt and they would still be vastly popular among fans. So people would be hyped for a StarCraft expansion and because of the accessibility of computers these days in contrast to the 1999, there would be consumers for the game and with our current knowledge of the game and knows the nuances, you can bet your ass that the game would last very long time with even MORE players.
By the way if we are talking about the 2012, the BW graphic would be highly defined instead of the pixalated version we are seeing. The graphical department wouldn't have any trouble.
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Considering games like CoD and LoL are the most successful games today I don't think that's a bad thing.
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BW is an anomaly. It succeeded in very specific conditions for very specific reasons. Of course it would not be as successful today. You are removing it from its context.
I feel like you could do a better job with this blog if you laid out the historical reasons why BW succeeded when it did and for what reasons, then explain why those reasons do not hold today and how the conditions are different. You have some valid points -- easier, "casual" games are obviously in style -- but your analysis isn't very comprehensive ...
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Terrible blog. You earned your 1 star, buddy.
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Canada11561 Posts
On September 10 2012 09:04 Kaal wrote:
Fun is just a buzzword when you can't actually think of any real reasons as to why the game is good, don't use it.
"Fun" is a buzzword? We don't play for fun. Gaming is serious business. I could write essays on why I think certain complicated games are played over and over again a decade after their release. But I'm not doing it to punish myself, so there must be some level of enjoyment aka 'fun.' One doesn't play a game for 5 years on the vague hope that it will eventually become enjoyable. But if the game is fun enough, you will put in the extra work to master difficult skills. A good game is a good game even if it has elements that are difficult to learn.
But my main thrust was simply how do you measure success? Because I can easily see the game could have been successful if released for the first time now given correct pricing, distribution, marketing, and budget. Just not an AAA $60 physical copy with a massive budget success. For competive gaming you'd acually want a much smaller pricing than $60 anyways. You need an easy entry, so it can spread far which is what something like Steam's sporadic sale's work wonders.
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EPT
