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Ok, so Dark Souls prime sold around 2.4 million copies world wide as of 2013. When compared to a truly mass market game for all people of the same era, Mario Cart wii sold around 35 million copies.
So that is how I define niche. It is marketed to a small group sub set of the gaming community. I love Dark Souls, but its not a mass market game. Thats not a knock against it at all, its just the reality of the market.
Edit: I just looked up Dragon Age Prime and it sold around 3.2 million, which is respectable. But it also isn't a mass market game either and was targeted at the people who loved those old computer RPGs.
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Richard Lewis deleted his account or he got shadowbanned on Reddit?
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Dragon age origins was a shit game anyways
and mid lc is only lc yo
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Czech Republic18921 Posts
A game that sells over 2.5 million units is not a "mass market game"?? Well, what is then? GTA V or bust?
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On August 13 2014 03:33 cecek wrote: A game that sells over 2.5 million units is not a "mass market game"?? Well, what is then? GTA V or bust? No, by definition, a game that is not bought by a large portion of the market is not a mass market game. Niche maybe is a bit strong for the audience for Dark Souls, but it is a very specific type of audience, who want a specific type of game. Its not FIFA or Call of Duty, Battlefield or Animal Crossing.
It doesn't make the game bad or not successful. Hell, I would say they were super successful, since there were 3 of them and they are making that Bloodborn game, which also sounds super awesome. Its just not a game for the people who play Mario Cart or even Call of Duty.
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With the amount of yang Richard Lewis was talking about reddit recently, I'm not really that shocked. He really didn't like that they banned Chanman. Just surprised it took this long.
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On August 13 2014 03:46 Plansix wrote: With the amount of yang Richard Lewis was talking about reddit recently, I'm not really that shocked. He really didn't like that they banned Chanman. Just surprised it took this long.
I would think they would shadowban him on legitimate grounds, not to fuel his bitter drive or to acknowledge his rantings.
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Czech Republic18921 Posts
Well, I guess it's just semantics. (Is that how you use that word correctly?) I would personally call Dark Souls a mainstream game, while you would call it niche. Doesn't really matter, I guess. It's not really near the popularity of CoD or Fifa like you said. That's true obviously, but what is?
Speaking of actual niche games (from my point of view), has anyone played Gods Will Be Watching, yet? We talked about it a couple days ago here. I finished it today and really really liked it. The setting is really nice, the actual gameplay and mechanics are really cool. It's really unfair at times (I played on classic), but I liked that. Story I found interesting too, there's even the cool aspect + Show Spoiler +of Burden always reliving the same moments over and over again. Kind of like Bladeruner in a way, maybe? Or maybe he's just insane and it's all in his head while he's dying of dehydration on the desert planet :D The game actually forced me to get a pen and paper and make notes. What I didn't like is that the story is linear and just presented to you, you don't make any meaningful choices. And even if for example one of your crew dies, they come back in the next mission, which is a little lame. But I guess it would be pretty impossible to balance otherwise. Also, I think the writing could be a bit better, some of the dialogues seemed pretty 'simple' in a way. And some of the sprites could use some work, I think. The dog for example looks like ass and when the characters walk they look weird. But apart from that I thought it was great. I also don't get the all the negative reviews the game got. There was a free demo, they made kickstarter for the game saying that they want to expand the demo to the full game. And there are people complaining that the game is not what they thought it would be and that it's too hard. I dunno if it's fair giving bad reviews to a game because you're dumb and didn't do your research. The game does what it says on the tin and does it well.
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On August 13 2014 03:40 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2014 03:33 cecek wrote: A game that sells over 2.5 million units is not a "mass market game"?? Well, what is then? GTA V or bust? No, by definition, a game that is not bought by a large portion of the market is not a mass market game. Niche maybe is a bit strong for the audience for Dark Souls, but it is a very specific type of audience, who want a specific type of game. Its not FIFA or Call of Duty, Battlefield or Animal Crossing. It doesn't make the game bad or not successful. Hell, I would say they were super successful, since there were 3 of them and they are making that Bloodborn game, which also sounds super awesome. Its just not a game for the people who play Mario Cart or even Call of Duty. Are Assassins Creed, NBA 2k, PES, Halo or Legend of Zelda niche titles? Because some of those games have similar sale numbers are Dark Souls.
Sales is a relly shitty way to view this. A "mass market game" that flops can easily sell as much as a "niche" game that is very sucessful.
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Niche =/= sale. Niche is just what demographic the game is trying to appeal to, lol.
If you try to make a game that appeals to fan of the original fallout games, it's a niche game regardless of if it outsold shit like mario kart. A niche game can easily end up super successful or appealing to people not a part of that niche.
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Well I started the discussion about “mass market” and “main stream” because CSM complaint there were more Tomb Raider like games than Dark Souls games. And I pointed out that the market for Dark Souls is not super huge and can’t really support a release like that every year. And also that they make games for more than one type of person, like music and movies.
As for the Gods will Be Watching, I think the game has a solid premise, but I agree with a lot of the criticism. The joy of that game is the tension about of making these really high stakes decisions that have really brutal consequences. However, the game is fucking hard and has no check pointing. So what happens is that you have to trial and error your way through some events, which drains the tension from the game, which is the main draw.
I think Gods Will be watching is a great concept, but the creators got a little tunnel vision and wanted to make the game brutally difficult to match their brutal choices. The problem came when people were showing up for the tension in the choices and the difficult started detract. Its like the boss in Dark Souls that requires you to run a mile to get to it, which is just a fucking chore.
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Train Simulator is basically the very definition of a niche title, yet they seem to be able to release a shitload of content all the time. Fighting games are at least as niche as Dark Souls, and there is constant new content as well. There are plenty of examples where a smaller but loyal fanbase is able to support constant development, its really not that simple.
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I gave up on Gods Will Be Watching for now after losing because of failed 92% success chance lie check after over 30mins of playing second chapter. Game could be amazing but stuff like that can be really annoying.
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Czech Republic18921 Posts
There's 5 difficulty modes, tho. Classic, classic light, puzzle mode (no rng), puzzle mode light and narrative. The difficulty shouldn't be an issue at all, anyone can choose what challenge he wants out of the game.
And I totally disagree that the difficulty detracts from the tension, I think it adds to it. In GWBW there's a mission where you're being tortured and interrogated. One of the torture methods (you get to that point after like 25 minutes of play in the mission and you have to start over every time you die) where the interrogator just points a revolver at your face and plays russian roulette with every answer he doesn't like. It's bullshit, pure rng, unfair, etc. But I guarantee you will be holding your fucking breath every time he pulls the trigger. It's an awesome moment in the game., the fact that you worked so hard to eve get to that point makes the moment so much stronger. If it was at the beginning of the mission it would have no effect at all. Same principle applies to the long runs to bosses in Dark Souls. It's deliberately designed to be hard to even get to them, because it makes you appreciate even getting the chance to fight them. If you could just save right before the bosses, the game would be WAY less memorable.
Btw, you don't even need to take any risks at all in the second mission. I completed it with only lying at 100% lie chance and you can even confess + 100% lie through the whole russian roulette. I did it on my second playthrough, because I wanted to see if it's possible.
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Games still use percent based speech checks? Sad.
Last game i had the misfortune of encountering that in was FO3.
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On August 13 2014 04:13 SKC wrote: Train Simulator is basically the very definition of a niche title, yet they seem to be able to release a shitload of content all the time. Fighting games are at least as niche as Dark Souls, and there is constant new content as well. There are plenty of examples where a smaller but loyal fanbase is able to support constant development, its really not that simple. Niche is defined as "a specialized but profitable corner of the market." I don't see a problem with the way I described Dark Souls. There is nothing wrong with a game being made for a specific group of people. The problem was when someone asked "Why aren't all games like Dark Souls?" and people took umbrage with the answer.
Edit: Gods Will Be Watching - Those difficulty modes were not in the initial release, which was what many of the reviews are based on. The normal mode, which specifically stated it was the way is was meant to be played, was super fucking hard to the point of being unfair. And I don't like repeating 45 minutes of game play due to failing to a RNG, which can totally happen in that game.
And the running part in Dark Souls is fucking stupid. It just makes me put down the controller faster. I like hard game, but not ones that waste my time because they feel it "adds to the tension".
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Czech Republic18921 Posts
Oh, I didn't know the other game modes were not in the game.
I really think the main problem is people not getting the game/not doing enough research. GWBW is a puzzle game with story elements. You're presented with 6 hard puzzles where your goal is to manage your resources properly. It's made to be hard, all puzzle games are. And you wouldn't criticise Spacechem for being too hard, would you? You wouldn't open a level in a hard puzzle game and expect to beat it first time going into it blind, so why do people expect it here? Also, the demo was super hard and as random and unforgiving as the rest of the game, so you can't say people were mislead or something.
Also, rng is really not a big part of the game. In my first play-through, which took me 8 hours I died once to it. (1in6 Russian roulette) All the other fails was my own mismanagement. Honestly, the game has WAY WAY less rng than for example Hearthstone.
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Its pretty silly to compare it to Hearthstone. In most single player games, if you play well you are not supposed to lose. By definition that cannot be true in a multiplayer game, specially not a card game.
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