Syndicate: Human Rev...uhhh..., First screens leaked Options

[Adarael]

Thank you for delving into this topic, it appears to be one that you are close to due to your line of work.

That's one way to put it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I have been having a way more satisfying experience buying games like AaA: A Reckless Disregard For Gravity, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Delve Deeper, Dungeons of Dredmor, Dwarfs?!, E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy, Frozen Synapse, Hinterland, Magicka, Minecraft, Mount&Blade: Warband, Space Pirates And Zombies, Survivors of Ragnarok, Project Zomboid ... just to name a few. And that is before I even get into mods.

Frozen Synapse and Magicka are some of the most awesome things I've bought in quite a while. I wanted to like EYE more, but it's got a few too many problems for me to be truly happy with it. Magicka has bugs too, but at least they're only cosmetic.

I would also like to point out that there was a RTS Shooter that did relatively well on a console a few years back now, Battalion Wars (Gamecube), so I know the mechanics and easy interface are possible.

Ehh. I worked on Battalion Wars 2, and I'd like to point out that while Battalion Wars is an "rts", it's an RTS in the same sense Chess is - you could order your units from point a to point b on the map, but that's all you could do. There was no skill activation, no weapon selection, no patrol routing, just... go here, do this. And the AI would take over whenever orders weren't issued.

Not sure what BW1 sold, but BW2 sold around 350,000 copies, if my memory serves me.

I am bringing these things up because I know that there are other possibilities than FPS treatments of older IPs, which where largely held in high regard because of their game mechanics, which were decidedly not FPS. Hell, they could call games like Shadowrun, XCOM, and Syndicate by completely different names, that is all they would have to do, and we would never even know the difference. They are just trying to abuse the nostalgia of gamers to sell more copies, all flash, no substance, IMHO. In these instances, their marketing is wrong - I know why they do it, but it still doesn't make the end product a better experience that can't just be replaced with a better quality product, in this case Deus Ex 3 not turning out like Deus Ex 2 and E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy.

You say abuse, they say revive. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) I mean, No Mutants Allowed raged for 2 YEARS when Fallout 3 came out, because it wasn't an isometric perspective game. But it wasn't the end of the world. It was different, but it wasn't a bad game, as much as I personally would have preferred something more like Dragon Age 1.

Of course there are other treatments than making an FPS. All I've been pointing out in this thread is that making it an FPS over a different style of game is almost 100% certain to make it sell more, when combined with a halfway decent budget and a brand name people recognize. Their marketing isn't "wrong", since attaching that name does boost sales. I think the term you're looking for is that it sucks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) But it definitely works.

Oh and PC gaming dying is a straight up myth, pure BS, one that Devs like Valve, Activision Blizzard, and a multitude of Indy Devs thrive on because they don't have to go up against as much competition as Devs on consoles have to face, especially with their product still having to be tied to retail space. The install base for a lower system requirements in PC gaming is damn near astronomical to boot. PC Gaming has been happily "dying" for a decade or more now.

I would never claim otherwise. After all, like I said, I buy most of my games on the PC. I think the most major contributor to "PC gaming is dying" is the fact that console sales have exploded so much that PCs are making up a smaller and smaller percentage of core gamers. But that's due to market expansion, not PC shrinkage.

TL:DR - Syndicate reboot didn't have to do us like this and could have still turned a sizable profit.

Sure. But EA doesn't want sizable, any more than you want an "okay" game. They want the biggest profit possible.

There's room in the gaming industry for risking, lower-profit games. But the design director needs to be a *very* convincing person when talking to shareholders & execs, if he wants to take a risk like that with a property that they regard as a "sure thing." The more experimental your game, and further off the beaten path it is, the more likely they'll want you to invent a new IP for it, so that if it fails it doesn't taint the well.

I disagree. Some FPSes are sure, but not all. There are plenty of FPSes that fail as well. Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Painkiller: Resurrection, or Revolution for instance.

So much for sure bets.

Mathematically they are a sure bet. Individual FPSes fail, yes, but their rate of failure to recoup investment is much less than other genres.

[Adarael]

Also, as an additional clarification: I have not worked on any "rebooted" francises like Syndicate, X-Com, or Deus Ex. But I think about this kind of thing a lot, because there is a distinct possibility that one day I will, and I do work on a lot of games tied to highly-beloved IP, because WB Games owns the rights to (for example) Batman, Lord of the Rings, and Mortal Kombat.

[Stahlseele]

Make a Mortal Kombat with Lord of the Rings and Batman-Characters!
Watch every Nerd explode into rage.

[Wounded Ronin]

I want a fighting game: Mortal Kombat vs. Lord of the Rings!

[hermit]

There's room in the gaming industry for risking, lower-profit games. But the design director needs to be a *very* convincing person when talking to shareholders & execs, if he wants to take a risk like that with a property that they regard as a "sure thing." The more experimental your game, and further off the beaten path it is, the more likely they'll want you to invent a new IP for it, so that if it fails it doesn't taint the well.

And that worked so well for many franchises, like Shadowrun, like Fallout (before Bethesda made it *something* worthwhile again), like Duke Nukem, like JA:BIA will, or like Master of Orion. It also works really well in Hollywood, where it originates. If you make everything a streamlined, easily marketable product, odds are a lot of these will fail because they bore people. Lots of wells were tainted by this kind of risk-averse business strategy.

Mathematically they are a sure bet. Individual FPSes fail, yes, but their rate of failure to recoup investment is much less than other genres.

Statistically, yes. But a low statistic possibility does not mean you're safe. It's no guarantee no bad thing will happen if you are careless, or just unlucky. Lots of Japanese had to find out the hard way that a highly imporbable freak Tsunami can actually happen to them. They felt safe behind lower-cost statistically plausible height tsunami walls. Statistically they were extremly safe. IRL there're now tens of thousands dead and a nuclear meltdown catastrophe. So playing it safe and cheap may look well statistically but is no excuse for sloppyness, nor a guarantee all will be well.

There are many high-profile IP FPS that fail.

[Seriously Mike]

I want a fighting game: Mortal Kombat vs. Lord of the Rings!

So Freddie Krueger vs Jason Voorhees in the new MK is not enough for you?
I gotta say, being owned by a large movie corporation has its perks.

[KarmaInferno]

There are many high-profile IP FPS that fail.

I think you are missing the point.

Individual games can fail, yes, regardless of format.

But OVERALL, FPS games are MORE LIKELY to turn a significant profit than RTSes. They pose LESS RISK than RTSes. Therefore they are more likely to get green-lit by management.

Even a highly successful RTS is likely to generate significantly less revenue than a "moderately" successful FPS game. It's simple math.

This has nothing to do with "what would serve the game subject better". It's all about what will get a guy in a suit sitting in a corporate boardroom to sign on the dotted line.




-k

[CanRay]

This has nothing to do with "what would serve the game subject better". It's all about what will get a guy in a suit sitting in a corporate boardroom to sign on the dotted line.

-k

Always comes down to executive meddling... It's no longer a bunch of folks in a garage doing what's right, it's people in a boardroom doing what's most profitable for shareholders. Look how well that worked for Team Bondi, the company that made LA Noire. Hand-over-fist money, but placed into administration now.

"Well, there's a party going on outside
All my friends got ya terrified
Don't call no cops or the state police
Don't break up this blown out symphony
You think I'm wasting all my precious time
You say my music outta be a crime

Well, give the radio back
Give the radio back
Yeah, give the radio back to the maniacs
To the maniacs" - Give The Radio Back, Alice Cooper

[Critias]

You don't think you're being a little melodramatic there, Ray? It's a business, producing a product. Of course it's going to try and make a popular one.

[CanRay]

Tell that to artistic filmmakers, songwriters, and so on.

[Adarael]

Always comes down to executive meddling... It's no longer a bunch of folks in a garage doing what's right, it's people in a boardroom doing what's most profitable for shareholders. Look how well that worked for Team Bondi, the company that made LA Noire. Hand-over-fist money, but placed into administration now.

Really, really well, actually. Team Bondi was overbudget on LA Noire by tens of millions of dollars, and was released three years late. For most game studios, that means you close down and everybody is now riding the Unemployment Train. Rockstar invested in LA Noire because they thought LA Noire had promise. Without that, everybody would have been out of a job WITHOUT releasing the game.

I know it's tempting to assume the people making the yes/no decisions on what games to fund are heartless assholes, but let's not be ridiculous here. The people making games are making them because they love them. They just want to make the games they love AND not go bankrupt in the process. It's like Ford: for every Ford GT they make, they have to make 5 different versions of a sedan/SUV, because that's the shit the market wants.

[Wounded Ronin]

So the bottom line is that commercialism ruins everything?

Mainstream taekwondo is to hardcore 70s full contact karate as contemporary FPS titles are to Sid Meier games from the late 80s?

[Wounded Ronin]

So Freddie Krueger vs Jason Voorhees in the new MK is not enough for you?
I gotta say, being owned by a large movie corporation has its perks.

I honestly didn't know they had that. It sounds perfect for MK actually.

[CanRay]

Yeah, the Freddy DLC came out, and I cried. BlockBuster is closed, and there's no places to rent games here any more. I can't justify buying it, however. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Already beat the storyline... I've also figured out that Sonya Blade shops at Victoria's Secret Ops store. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[CanadianWolverin...]

You don't think you're being a little melodramatic there, Ray? It's a business, producing a product. Of course it's going to try and make a popular one.

I really don't think it is melodramatic.

We don't need the big outfits, the publishers for good games. If trip A games think they require millions of dollars to make games and are bloated as a result, that really is their problem, not ours as the customer. A lot of the popularity of games these days has little to do with game mechanics IMHO and a whole lot more to do with advertising dollars spent in a way that resonates with people with discretionary funds and desire some entertainment.

Minecraft is pretty bloody popular, it makes Notch and Mojang bank (we only know this because he is very open with his bookkeeping), and its not even out of Beta yet - but can pretty much guarantee that no corporate suit would have signed the dotted line on that game. And there are many, many other Indy titles these days that are in the same situation and all the better for it IMHO.

Hell, seeing what can be done with web browser games these days, IMHO, Syndicate and other IPs revived would be better of as that than a console attempt at a blockbuster. This game will suffer for its departure from mechanics that were essential to the kinds of stories gamers had with it, just like other IPs we have known, enjoyed, and then gnashed our teeth at their sequels.

There is more than one way to make bank and not all of them have to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

[Seriously Mike]

I honestly didn't know they had that. It sounds perfect for MK actually.

Well, not exactly. They will, as Jason DLC was announced recently, and Freddy DLC is already available.

[hermit]

But OVERALL, FPS games are MORE LIKELY to turn a significant profit than RTSes. They pose LESS RISK than RTSes. Therefore they are more likely to get green-lit by management.

My point is that "less risk" does not equal "no risk", especially if you count on pre-existing IPs to turn a quick buck. It might even work once, but it will not work again.

This has nothing to do with "what would serve the game subject better". It's all about what will get a guy in a suit sitting in a corporate boardroom to sign on the dotted line.

Tade deficits are made that way. Nobody wants to buy crap product, and it won't repeatedly happen; this means an erosion of customers and, ultimatly, collapse. This has happened to the video games industry once already, and it will happen again, given these business politics.

It's like Ford: for every Ford GT they make, they have to make 5 different versions of a sedan/SUV, because that's the shit the market wants.

And that's one of the problems here: There's more than one market in the world. America's not even the most profitable market anymore. You can't dump oversized, overpriced and hideously uneconomic cars like the Ranger (or whatever that thing is called) on China. Nobody there wants such a car. It couldn't even operate in most Chinese or European cities for simple space reasons. It's how GM managed to go belly-up, though. Focusing on sales projections and market optimisation is only going to get you so far, especially if your market research is biased, and it almost always is (Volkswagen is doing absolutly crappily in the US, too, for the same reasons).

[Grinder]

So the bottom line is that commercialism ruins everything?

Seems so. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[CanRay]

So the bottom line is that commercialism ruins everything?

Seems so. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Not necessarily. The idea of maximizing profits at the expense of everything else (Including morals) ruins everything. Somewhere along the way Execs forgot that there are people down there, and think the only "Persons" that matter is the Corporation (Which is a legal entity) and themselves, and maybe their fellow Execs.

Maybe that's me being cynical. Maybe they never had that idea to begin with. I don't know. I should just shut up now.

How's the game coming along?

[hermit]

Actually, what they care about is themselves and the shareholders, not the corporation. Corporations are happily ruined for the sake of shareholder short-term profit any day of the week.

[CanRay]

Ah right. At least those are people.

[Adarael]

We don't need the big outfits, the publishers for good games. If trip A games think they require millions of dollars to make games and are bloated as a result, that really is their problem, not ours as the customer. A lot of the popularity of games these days has little to do with game mechanics IMHO and a whole lot more to do with advertising dollars spent in a way that resonates with people with discretionary funds and desire some entertainment.

Small note:
People respond well to gameplay. People also respond well to good looks, sound, animation, et cetera. Weren't we lamenting in another threat that "good AI is dead"? All that costs money. A small team with a low budget can make Minecraft, or Limbo, or Braid. No small team with a low budget can make Grand Theft Auto IV, Assassin's Creed, or Battlefield 3.

There's room in this world for low-budget and high-budget games, and I've worked on both. But make no mistake, small "out of the garage" teams cannot make huge games, because they just don't have a big enough budget.

And that's one of the problems here: There's more than one market in the world. America's not even the most profitable market anymore.

Just to clarify: are we saying "most profitable market in the world" in general, for cars, or for video games?
In general: True.
For cars: Not really. Higher volume, but lower revune. China sold about 30% more cars than the US did in 2010, but on average cars sold in the US are worth 2 or more times what those sold in China are, ergo, more revenue in the US. Western automakers have expanded into the Chinese market, but the ultra low-cost cars made by Geely, Dongfeng, Chery and SAIC dominate the market.
For games: Hard to say. Potentially yes, but in order for that to first happen you have to navigate both the bureaucracy of the PRC's censors, AND figure out how to not have your game pirated left right and center, due to a total lack of laws protecting against piracy. It works for World of Warcraft, but it doesn't work for Nintendo, for instance.

It's how GM managed to go belly-up, though. Focusing on sales projections and market optimisation is only going to get you so far, especially if your market research is biased, and it almost always is (Volkswagen is doing absolutly crappily in the US, too, for the same reasons).

No, that's not the case.

GM went belly up due to bad fiscal management, UAW post-retirement costs maturing, and failure to change their business model based on market research. In a nutshell: they failed because they DIDN'T listen to their fiscal projections, market research, and due dilligence. The market research said time and time again: "American consumers want smaller, more efficient cars, and don't see "made in Detroit" as something to be proud of. Make hybrids & efficient commuter cars and you'll cash in." And they didn't.

It's not that market research was wrong. It's not that the research was biased - that's why everyone pays independent firms to do this kind of research. It's that they saw the results and did not listen. Ford listened to the same reports and same companies, and that's why Ford's market share grew while GM's shrank, and also why Ford was able to weather the automotive crisis relatively unscathed. It's not that Ford was lucky, but that it listened. This is also why Ford does a brisk business in European countries - because they produce cars the European market wants, because they've listened to the research.

I understand the point you are trying to make.. But this kind of research is done by professionals who do ALL kinds of sociological research, and have been doing it for decades. They are correct and unbiased vastly more often than they are biased and incorrect. Failures on the corporate end are almost always because of two things:
1) They failed to listen to their own research;
2) They couldn't bring themselves to take ANY risks, because they adhered to the research too closely. (I.E. "Let's make a brown shooter set in the middle east!" or "Giant SUVs have always worked for us, and we have enough cash to just wait it out until people want them again!")

The bias is in the purchaser of the research, not the research itself.

[hermit]

Ah right. At least those are people.

Well! More often than not, banks or hedge funds. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

For cars: Not really. Higher volume, but lower revune. China sold about 30% more cars than the US did in 2010, but on average cars sold in the US are worth 2 or more times what those sold in China are, ergo, more revenue in the US.

Certainly, but you also have to take into account currency rates then - for a euro-based company, for instance, any dollar they earn is vastly devaluated (and for a Chinese company, it is even more valuable). Also, the American market is carved up and not expanding, where there is promise of growth in developing countries (Brazil's suppsoedly pretty hot for cars, as is india). Volkswagen, for instance, has not much to gain in the US save for prestige. I'm not sure if it still applies but in the recent past their US branches were bleeding money a lot, and they were looking to cut them loose.

For games: Hard to say. Potentially yes, but in order for that to first happen you have to navigate both the bureaucracy of the PRC's censors, AND figure out how to not have your game pirated left right and center, due to a total lack of laws protecting against piracy. It works for World of Warcraft, but it doesn't work for Nintendo, for instance.

Yes, absolutly (and for the record, the US market also has rather stringent media censorship laws for games, they're just different). For video games, the US market is at least balanced against the huge Asian markets (Japan, South Korea, China ...) and Europe, both markets that have decidedly different demands for games - from the Asian fascination with competitive online gaming to the fact that publishing an FPS in Germany is basically asking for the game to be banned from sale unless you really, really make sure it does not contain anything even remotely close to violence (the Fedeal Youth Protection Office (BPJS) goes so far as to try and scan foreign shipped packages from Amazon and other online vendors and confiscating any game that does not conform to this country's ridiculous moral standards for games). Pretty sure there're similar tripwires in other large Euro countries.

This is also why Ford does a brisk business in European countries - because they produce cars the European market wants, because they've listened to the research.

Point taken. Though they've been doing this since the 1920s, and unlike GM, to whom non-American branches always were red-headed stepchildren, they made an effort to think locally. However, GM, chose to listen to old market projections, ignoring the Hybrid trend. Of course, that also happened to Chrysler, who were mostly foreign-owned through the 90s and 2000s.

But this kind of research is done by professionals who do ALL kinds of sociological research, and have been doing it for decades. They are correct and unbiased vastly more often than they are biased and incorrect. Failures on the corporate end are almost always because of two things:
1) They failed to listen to their own research;
2) They couldn't bring themselves to take ANY risks, because they adhered to the research too closely. (I.E. "Let's make a brown shooter set in the middle east!" or "Giant SUVs have always worked for us, and we have enough cash to just wait it out until people want them again!")

Such research always depends on the parameters applied. Think of climate research - loads of highly intelligent and fnded people who produce absolute crap, for a Lobby that needs this crap. Their climate models ignore the existence of gravity, clouds, sunspots and air currents for the most part, and hence are hardly worth reading through, but they'Re considered to be adequate enough to base huge socioeconomic restructuring programs on. Same applies to market research. You'll get different results depending on what you ask, how you ask it, who you ask ... sociology is almost as much science as weather froecasts are, and almost as reliable.

And the second is precisely the problem I see with most video game products, and it's also what Hollywood is suffering from at the moment. Game design, like moviemaking, always has to blend economics and artistic impulses. If you only rely on the latter you get German arthaus movies that are as enjoyable to watch as drilling holes in your foot; if you only rely on the former you getv streamlined, boring, nth repetition of the same shit over again product that in the medium run is just as enjoyable as those arthaus movies.

[Seriously Mike]

And the second is precisely the problem I see with most video game products, and it's also what Hollywood is suffering from at the moment. Game design, like moviemaking, always has to blend economics and artistic impulses. If you only rely on the latter you get German arthaus movies that are as enjoyable to watch as drilling holes in your foot; if you only rely on the former you getv streamlined, boring, nth repetition of the same shit over again product that in the medium run is just as enjoyable as those arthaus movies.

Have you read the screenplay for the Hitman movie? It's floating somewhere on the Internet. When you read it (I think it's a final or near-final version), you'll be surprised how stupid execs messed up a pretty decent movie. The script has less plot holes than the final product, contains no reference to 47's childhood or footage from the "Dark Angel" TV series used to quickly shove it into the film and actually could be filmed with only minor increase in budget (because shooting a scene with commandos descending from a helicopter to a moving train would be a bit costly, but not exactly prohibitive). So sometimes, everything hinges on the execs' sanity, intelligence and imagination, and usually they lack all three, being patronizing morons with expensive suits and microscopic peckers.

[Adarael]

Speaking of Syndicate, it looks like Paradox Interactive (publishers of Magicka and Sengoku, both of which are fine, fine games) will be making their own thematic successor to the game. It's called Cartel.

Paradox’s Cartel: The True Syndicate Sequel?