Video Games: May the force of your wallet be with you

[Corvinus85]

22 minutes ago, Rhom said:

A lot of that depends on gameplay too though.  Fez and I definitely disagree on DA:I.  I found the gameplay there to be tedious and with very little imagination.  That feeling of worthless gameplay would later be topped by Final Fantasy XV.

On the other hand, I find the gameplay in Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a lot of fun; but the story was lacking because it was so spread out.

Of course, it does, but game play is generally the principal factor in whether or not I spend the money at all, regardless of game time.

[Werthead]

Completed my British campaign in Empire: Total War. I was pondering declaring war on Spain when they declared war on me, so I was able to take Florida and Gibraltar (and Morocco because why the hell not?) pretty quickly. Then it was just a matter of amassing a huge army and taking Hindustan.

Of course, what I didn't realise was that the victory conditions meant taking and holding the victory regions until the end year, not by the end year. So I then had to hold the territories for about 20 turns whilst both the Maratha Confederacy and Spanish threw everything they had at me. The Maratha are insanely overpowered, so in the end I just gave them my other two Indian provinces to appease them and get them to agree to a ceasefire. Then it was just a case of hanging on until the end.

Overall, very solid campaign. Might replay Deserts of Kharak and then I might do a Napoleon campaign (I'm working on the principal that my problems with the latest Total War games may be helped by going back and experiencing the evolutionary changes between titles that I missed out on first time round - when I jumped from Medieval II to Rome II - which may or may not work out).

[Whiskeyjack]

 

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I almost completely agree. I have only two exceptions so far: Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Witcher 3 (and I'm hoping Assassin's Creed: Origins, but it's way too early to tell). Beyond those, I have basically no patience for massive open world games and their tedious padding.

Nearly all my favorite games of the past few years have taken under 20 hours to beat (with quite a few being indies that took less than 5 hours). And the only that haven't are non-open, grinding games I can play while listening to podcasts (like The Darkest Dungeon).

 

45 minutes ago, Rhom said:

A lot of that depends on gameplay too though.  Fez and I definitely disagree on DA:I.  I found the gameplay there to be tedious and with very little imagination.  That feeling of worthless gameplay would later be topped by Final Fantasy XV.

On the other hand, I find the gameplay in Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a lot of fun; but the story was lacking because it was so spread out.

DA:I was the last open world game I was able to finish.  And I enjoyed it while I was playing, at least for a while.  But by the end, I was sick of all the filler.  And I don't have a ton of time to play, so it took me months.  Was definitely ready to move on once I was done.

When I tried to get into Witcher 3 a few months later, I couldn't do it.  Gave it about 5 hours and gave up.  I know everyone says its an awesome game, but pretty quickly I realized that I just wasn't very into it.  The thought of crafting and fetch quests and hunting down monsters felt like a burden.

 

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

While I may agree on which type of game I like to play more, I would be more willing to pay $60+ for an open world game, than I would for a 10-20 hour game, no matter how that game's story might be.

Yeah, I'm definitely the opposite.  I'd actually be willing to pay a lot more than that for the next Last of Us.

[Kalbear]

At this point in my life I have a lot more money than time, so $60 for 10 hours of a great experience is far better than $60 for a longer one that isn't as good. 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

A lot of that depends on gameplay too though.  Fez and I definitely disagree on DA:I.  I found the gameplay there to be tedious and with very little imagination.  That feeling of worthless gameplay would later be topped by Final Fantasy XV.

On the other hand, I find the gameplay in Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a lot of fun; but the story was lacking because it was so spread out.

It wasn't the gameplay so much as that I really enjoyed the characters and world-building of DA:I. I'd have preferred a more focused experience, but I thought it was still a really good game on it's own merits. For me, the writing is what makes an RPG, so long as there's a basic competence to the gameplay.

 

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

At this point in my life I have a lot more money than time, so $60 for 10 hours of a great experience is far better than $60 for a longer one that isn't as good. 

Agreed; though I rarely pay $60 for a game, I wait for sales or I buy indie games. Even AC: Origins I got for $50 instead, and that's the second most I've paid for a game all year (for some reason I bought Destiny 2 for $60, and that's it).

[AndrewJ]

23 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I've been researching PS4 games for my son ahead of Christmas but I'm not finding a great range for his age.  At age 11 he has outgrown the Lego* games now but he isn't ready for the mature nature of most of the biggest titles; plus we want to play couch co-op style, which already limits the selection of games. 

 

Fitting your bill perfectly - The original Knack is looked upon with a lot of disdain. i never really saw anything of that game. But I saw a "quick look" of Knack 2 a little while back. It looked to be a moderately fun platformer that was playable in Co-op. It's probably not something I'd play myself, but it would be very suitable for co-op with an 11 year old. I think the second game was a bit better received than the first.

Something that is not quite what you were asking for, but could be worth considering... Is there some sort of Uncharted collection for PS4? It's not co-op - it would be something for him to play by himself. And while Nathan Drake shoots/kills a lot of bad guys, it's all pretty low impact stuff. It's mostly just a good fun, rollicking adventure. So, if your son is wanting to get into something a little more "grown up", but not too grown up, then Uncharted could be a good option. (And I'd suggest a collection of the earlier games rather than Uncharted 4. While you could just go with the fourth game, it's really the conclusion to the series, plus I simply think Uncharted 2 is a better game. FYI, I never played the first - only 2, 3 and 4)

[Rhom]

Yes, there is a UC collection.  That’s how I played the series last year for the first time.

[AndrewJ]

Yeah... I thought I recalled that there was, but wasn't 100% certain.

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

At this point in my life I have a lot more money than time, so $60 for 10 hours of a great experience is far better than $60 for a longer one that isn't as good. 

What I find interesting is that as the average age of gamers is going up you'd expect more gamers to fit into that more money than time category. This would suggest demand for narrative driven single player experiences would be on the rise. But some game industry execs are signalling the extinction of single player games. I suppose the game industry execs want single-player to die because it is much easier to monetise multiplayer games, and squeeze a lot more than the $60 price tag out of the players. The only way to squeeze more than $60 out of people who play single player games is to make more story DLC / expansions, which is a lot more expensive to make than cosmetic items hidden away in lootboxes. 

[Werthead]

Seven: The Days Long Gone came out today. Looks pretty good. It's made by a bunch of ex-Witcher 3 developers and it's similarly a massive open-world game. It's a bit more focused as a stealth/combat title (it's not an RPG as such) and they chose an isometric view to massively simplify development: it looks amazing but was made in about a sixth of the time as Witcher 3. Might take a look when I can afford it, it seems to take some cues from Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun but is more open world with some parkour options and the ability to climb up things much more easily.

[KiDisaster]

I ended up grabbing Wolfenstein 2 during the autumn sale, was surprised to see it half off so soon after release. Played through it in a couple of days. It's surprisingly short and seems to end kind of abruptly. I know it's meant to be a trilogy so that makes sense but still. Enjoyed it overall though. Slaughtering thousands of nazis and KKK assholes is never a bad time, and the cast of over the top characters they've got really make the game. 

I've also hit the power limit cap on all three of my Destiny 2 characters. So I have pretty much nothing else to do in that game until the DLC comes out, which thankfully is in just a couple of days. 

In the meantime I've finally got around to starting Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun cause I was in the mood for a stealth game and like some of you have said, it is very, very good. I'm on mission 3 or 4 right now (Mugen and Yuki need to steal some documents from a high ranking official in a tightly guarded compound) and it is already getting really tough. 

[MercenaryChef]

On 11/29/2017 at 5:12 PM, Kalbear said:

At this point in my life I have a lot more money than time, so $60 for 10 hours of a great experience is far better than $60 for a longer one that isn't as good. 

I am in the same boat. I have bought so few games and finished even fewer. the last game I finished was the last of us. it might have been the best game I have ever played in my whole life.

currently I am slowly slogging through ghost recon wildlands. I love a tactical shooter. this game hasn't disappointed though I play so infrequently that I have trouble getting in the groove when playing. I did snipe a soldier in a moving vehicle from 724 meters the other day which was pretty awesome. 

[The Anti-Targ]

EA says people are less interested in linear (single player) games. Yeah, that's why linear games continue to be among the most beloved and well reviewed games.

 

[Caligula_K3]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

EA says people are less interested in linear (single player) games. Yeah, that's why linear games continue to be among the most beloved and well reviewed games.

 

I don't think they're wrong, to be honest. Some linear games are very well reviewed and have sold well, true (the Uncharted games, The Last of Us, Bioshock: Infinite, and more recently, Mario Odyssey) but many have also been sales duds: the most recent Tomb Raider and Deus Ex games, the new Wolfenstein, etc... The trend is definitely towards larger, open world games, preferably with multiplayer components, many of which are also reviewed well and sell well: Assassin's Creed: Origins, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3, etc...

Now, I like a mix of games; I enjoy a big open world one every now and then, but I also enjoy playing a focused, 10-20 hour linear game. I just played through Pyre, which was an excellent 10 hour game. But I think it's pretty likely that those 10-20 hour games are more and more going to be for indie and mid sized studios. It's too bad, because Bioware games, for example, could clearly benefit from losing the open world format. But I don't think EA are the villains everyone paints them as (in this case, at least) for noticing market trends.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I don't think they're wrong, to be honest. Some linear games are very well reviewed and have sold well, true (the Uncharted games, The Last of Us, Bioshock: Infinite, and more recently, Mario Odyssey) but many have also been sales duds: the most recent Tomb Raider and Deus Ex games, the new Wolfenstein, etc... The trend is definitely towards larger, open world games, preferably with multiplayer components, many of which are also reviewed well and sell well: Assassin's Creed: Origins, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3, etc...

Now, I like a mix of games; I enjoy a big open world one every now and then, but I also enjoy playing a focused, 10-20 hour linear game. I just played through Pyre, which was an excellent 10 hour game. But I think it's pretty likely that those 10-20 hour games are more and more going to be for indie and mid sized studios. It's too bad, because Bioware games, for example, could clearly benefit from losing the open world format. But I don't think EA are the villains everyone paints them as (in this case, at least) for noticing market trends.

In the video they guy assumes what EA means by "linear games" include games like Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Dragon Age: Inquisition, TW3. EA is trying to send the market in the direction of the persistent revenue model, which requires open-ended multiplayer-centric games.

What I do think is the case for linear / single player focused games is that it's much harder to squeeze a profit out of a big budget game that gets middling reviews and middling gamer enthusiasm. A game that only has the purchase price for revenue will need to sell more to make profit than a game that has a persistent revenue component through microtransactions, lootboxes etc. And a game that has a persistent revenue component is one way of getting revenue out of people who buy used games. So there is a strong business case for making games that can generate persistent revenue. But if that's all you do, then you are going to saturate a market that is smaller than the total gamer market, and mediocre games are still going to fail to make money, because there are just too many games with persistent revenue components, and most people, even if they do spend what seems to me to be ridiculous amounts of money right now, have a finite amount of money to spend on games. So if EA is going to put its eggs in the lootbox basket they will eventually fail.

I think some major studios will always make single-player focussed games: Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, Nintendo, Sucker Punch. But looking at those three examples (which are just teh ones that immediately came to into my head) it's curious that those studios are all exclusively associated with a hardware platform, and so they benefit from a certain level of fanbase support which delivers a certain amount of sales because the game is exclusive to "my favourite platform". And there is a certain benefit not directly linked to a game's immediate profitability for a platform to have it's own unique content, which is not simply another multiplayer with minor distinguishing fesatures from all the rest, with persistent revenue.

[Werthead]

Quote

 

I don't think they're wrong, to be honest. Some linear games are very well reviewed and have sold well, true (the Uncharted games, The Last of Us, Bioshock: Infinite, and more recently, Mario Odyssey) but many have also been sales duds: the most recent Tomb Raider and Deus Ex games, the new Wolfenstein, etc... The trend is definitely towards larger, open world games, preferably with multiplayer components, many of which are also reviewed well and sell well: Assassin's Creed: Origins, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3, etc...

Now, I like a mix of games; I enjoy a big open world one every now and then, but I also enjoy playing a focused, 10-20 hour linear game. I just played through Pyre, which was an excellent 10 hour game. But I think it's pretty likely that those 10-20 hour games are more and more going to be for indie and mid sized studios. It's too bad, because Bioware games, for example, could clearly benefit from losing the open world format. But I don't think EA are the villains everyone paints them as (in this case, at least) for noticing market trends.

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider actually sold very well, 7 million copies and climbing and sold faster than its forebear (which is understandable, as people were dubious of the reboot and waited for it to drop in price, and were more willing to go all-in on the sequel on release). It's one of the few recent games that outsold its predecessor and its own sequel, provisionally titled Shadow of the Tomb Raider, was rushed into production ahead of schedule because of how well it did. Combined with Square's Marvel deal, it's pushed the next Deus Ex game back in the development slate (but fortunately not cancelled it), as the sales of that game were less than hoped for, although still profitable. The review industry has to take some responsibility for hyping the microtransaction "controversy" in the game which turned out to be utterly meaningless but discouraged a lot of early sales of the game.

Linear, focused games can be very, very good but they also tend towards shortness. I think back in the day that it was acceptable for a single-player game to be 10 hours long and then done because the cost of the game relative to income was lower and development costs were a fraction of what they are now. It certainly doesn't help that people automatically assume that a game will drop in price by 30-50% within a year of release so will often hold out for that, whilst a multiplayer game will be the busiest (and most fun) immediately after release and will drop off after that. The reverse, of course, is that single-player games have a much longer tail. No-one in their right mind is going to buy Modern Warfare 3 or something now, as the SP campaign isn't good enough and the people still playing MP will be dwarfed by those playing the newest games. On the other hand, people will be buying and playing (possibly bolstered by the occasional remaster/upgrade) StarCraft, Baldur's Gate, Homeworld and The Last of Us for decades to come. Rockstar certainly hit a good spot with GTA 5, which has a very solid SP game and a very robust multiplayer mode. The long tail on the PC version of GTA 4 and 5 has really surprised Rockstar, with sales of both games (even 4, which will - somehow - be ten years old next year) still steady years after the console sales have fallen off a cliff (hell, Vice City and San Andreas are both selling quite well for 13-and-15-year-old games).

Open-world games can be fun, but there are very, very few studios capable of doing them reasonably well: Bethesda, Rockstar and CDProjekt Red are reliable, BioWare and Ubisoft's myriad studios very much are not (although the recent Far Cry games have actually been decent, but Assassin's Creed veers towards the grind; granted I haven't played Origins yet).

[Caligula_K3]

11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

In the video they guy assumes what EA means by "linear games" include games like Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Dragon Age: Inquisition, TW3. EA is trying to send the market in the direction of the persistent revenue model, which requires open-ended multiplayer-centric games.

What I do think is the case for linear / single player focused games is that it's much harder to squeeze a profit out of a big budget game that gets middling reviews and middling gamer enthusiasm. A game that only has the purchase price for revenue will need to sell more to make profit than a game that has a persistent revenue component through microtransactions, lootboxes etc. And a game that has a persistent revenue component is one way of getting revenue out of people who buy used games. So there is a strong business case for making games that can generate persistent revenue. But if that's all you do, then you are going to saturate a market that is smaller than the total gamer market, and mediocre games are still going to fail to make money, because there are just too many games with persistent revenue components, and most people, even if they do spend what seems to me to be ridiculous amounts of money right now, have a finite amount of money to spend on games. So if EA is going to put its eggs in the lootbox basket they will eventually fail.

 

I'm not sure we can say this about EA's business model, yet. They're clearly prioritizing multiplayer (why else is Bioware making a Destiny style game?) but they also still seem to be willing to support single player games, although with a multiplayer component so they can exploit the lootbox revenue stream. Mass Effect: Andromeda got five years of development despite Bioware Montreal being a mess. I find it interesting that EA didn't pull a Dragon Age 2 with it early on. For the Star Wars game that was canceled, all reports seem to indicate that development was a complete mess. It's also interesting that EA is now entering the indie publishing market and actually committing to these shorter, single player games, albeit in a low risk way. Until we get news that Dragon Age 4, A Way Out, and Fe are being cancelled or turned into MOBAs, I'm skeptical of the argument that EA is exclusively becoming a multiplayer company.

Your point about a lot of the single player experiences coming out as exclusives on consoles is pretty interesting. It does seem to suggest that the key to making money off these games is as much about selling hardware and services as the game itself. I bought a Switch mainly for Zelda and Mario Odyssey; but I've bought four full prices games for it now, and a few indie ones as well, and I'm sure I'll sign up for the online service when it comes out, etc...

@Werthead You make a good point about the staying power of single player games; but how much money do developers and publishers make when a game is 50% off, or in later years, up to 90% off? In other words, if the price for Dragon Age: Origins on Steam is $5 during the Thanksgiving Sale. EA is of course making some money from these purchases. But are they making more money from these backsales than they'll be able to make from Anthem in the one or two years it's active, provided it's a success?

[A True Kaniggit]

So what do y'all think about Final Fantasy 7 Remake being released in multiple installments? Is it just a cash grab? I prefer to believe them when they say they want to do the story justice, and are unable to do so in only one game.

Either way they're getting the money out of me. 

[aceluby]

6 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

So what do y'all think about Final Fantasy 7 Remake being released in multiple installments? Is it just a cash grab? I prefer to believe them when they say they want to do the story justice, and are unable to do so in only one game.

Either way they're getting the money out of me. 

It's a bunch of bullshit and they won't see a dime from me.

[Werthead]

14 minutes ago, aceluby said:

It's a bunch of bullshit and they won't see a dime from me.

Why?

A lot of these older games - FF7s and the older games in the series, the Baldur's Gate titles and so on - are as big and expansive as they are because they were also relatively straightforward to make. Paint lots of backgrounds and scan them in. Create 2D sprites or 3D character models and drop them into the backgrounds. Very easy, very fast and very cheap by today's standards.

Take those same flat, 2D environments and turn them into 3D game spaces and you immediately increase your workload by an exponential rate. A 3D model or asset in HD takes many more man-hours to create and fine-tune than a low-res 2D sprite. BioWare have often said that they will never be able to make a game as big as Baldur's Gate II, it's simply impossible in a modern 3D engine (which is why BG2 is still their biggest game and dwarfs all of their other titles with handmade content: DA:I and ME:A are arguably bigger, but rely on procedural content, to some extent, and repetitive use of assets and took between 2 and 3 times each as long to develop than BG2).

FF7 isn't a mega-long game - you can polish it off inside 25 hours easily and even a completionist run outside of going really crazy (doing chocobo racing, fighting Ruby and Emerald etc) is still going to take about 45-50 hours max. But it's a hugely detailed game with an absolute ton of environments (including some very elaborate ones that were created just for you to run across the screen). Translating all of that into state-of-the-art high-res 3D is insanely expensive. Plus it sounds like they are expanding some missions/quests, adding some new elements and adding voice acting for very line of dialogue in the game (which is a lot).

So, especially given the rate of return on the likes of FF13 and 15 was apparently dubious given their development times, I can see Square's rationale.

Unless your argument is that the FF7 remaster should just be exactly the same game with the backgrounds blown up into high-res and the character models redone, not the total ground-up remake which Square are doing, in which case fair point.