Jagged Alliance 3 - Canned?

[KalosKagathos]

Strategy first has done that many times before. They have even released unfinished press versions of games without telling anything to the developers.

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I dont know about Akella but Strategy First's history is full of bad releases. Som of the worst I have ever heard infact. They lie to customers and they lie to developers of the games they publish. SF has a reverse midas-touch. Generally I avoid buying anything from them. Im amazed they are still operating after all the years.

Really? I've never had major technical problems with any of SF's releases, although I have to admit that my experience with them is limited to JA, Disciples and Robin Hood. Sure, there was a minor bug here and there, but nothing like the werewolves' physical damage immunity not applying to critical hits. Interesting.

Anyway, the reason I don't put much faith in the console taint version is because, come on, nobody could seriously believe that a tactics game had any future on consoles without a big name like Final Fantasy or D&D to back it up. JA3 must have been developed as a niche title from the very beginning.

 

[zakhal]

Really? I've never had major technical problems with any of SF's releases, although I have to admit that my experience with them is limited to JA, Disciples and Robin Hood.

Of course they have had som succesful releases too. Othervice they would have gone belly up by now! But you propably never played ww2ol on its release or one ill-faited flight sim that SF released as a press-version without telling anything to the developers.

They actually asked the developers for somthing to show to the press but instead of doing som advertisement they released the game! It actually read in the game readme that it was a press version.

Heres som googled comments from DEC2002 from a discussion about ww2ol release (it was horrible):

Since Strategy First has a history of releasing unfinished games, like Strike Fighters Special Edition, Ha! and the currently bugged to hell, Hearts of Iron, i would have to lean toward the publisher being at fault. Much like the music industry, with singers sueing record labels…

I always thought that it was SF that teached paradox how to release games. The latest HoI3 is just amazing example of the "reverse-touch".

From gamespot:

Strike Fighters: Project 1 has already been released once, in a fiasco in which an early version was put in a box and sold at the retail chain Wal-Mart to meet a shipping deadline and then withdrawn just as quickly. Three months later, the game is back as an "official release." And unfortunately, Strike Fighters might be the only game that has ever been released twice in an unfinished state.

Publisher Strategy First

Another unnamed game from SF:

Technetium Games had the product and the opportunity to build a great new pinball franchise, they could have leveraged Steamworks for achievements and ranking, Steam's DLC feature to sell more tables and so much more. And they could have even done that without a publisher since Steam is their only way of distribution anyways.

Instead they chose "Strategy First" a publisher with a long history of fraud and deception and taking advantage of indie developers, ruining quite a few in the process.

Technetium themselves whined about the low price tag of their game and after Valve and Strategy First take their share, there probably isn't much left over … and they can be lucky if they even see some of that money if Strategy First's history is any indicator of their current behavior.

But that was years ago. But the beta releases still continue like the new disciples you mentioned or Space Empires 5 or Brigade E5: New Jagged Union.

Anyway, the reason I don't put much faith in the console taint version is because, come on,nobody could seriously believe that a tactics game had any future on consoles without a big name like Final Fantasy or D&D to back it up. JA3 must have been developed as a niche title from the very beginning.

Somhow I never got the message that JA3 was going to be a niche-title. Niche titles dont usually get printed previews in games magz worldwide and pushed through delays for several years just to improve 3d graphics or add more features. They simply dont have the budget for it.

As a niche title I consider somthing like say Armada 2526 or one of many matrix games titles that have pretty much zero markerting and low production values (i.e poor graphics and limited UI).

But I have to say you are propably right about the console-release. I doubt SF ever even thought about it because their game would never have passed any mircrosoft or sony quality control test.

 

[KalosKagathos]

Somhow I never got the message that JA3 was going to be a niche-title. Niche titles dont usually get printed previews in games magz worldwide and pushed through delays for several years just to improve 3d graphics or add more features. They simply dont have the budget for it.

As a niche title I consider somthing like say Armada 2526 or one of many matrix games titles that have pretty much zero markerting and low production values (i.e poor graphics and limited UI).

By niche I meant "it would sell around 200000 copies, make a little bit of money, get some decent reviews, but ultimately be overshadowed by Call of Duty n+1 in the minds of general public", not "low-budget trash that would bomb spectacularly".

 

[zakhal]

By niche I meant "it would sell around 200000 copies, make a little bit of money, get some decent reviews, but ultimately be overshadowed by Call of Duty n+1 in the minds of general public", not "low-budget trash that would bomb spectacularly".

Would 200000 even be enough for jagged alliance with modern 3D graphics - not to mention if you want to do profit? I mean all the voice overs and dialogue in different languages (you know the germans and russians demand it). That alone costs a lot. And the game is complex. Open dynamic campaign, etc. Lots of scripting and AI to do. Testing them alone would be a chore just to make sure all missions work together. New 3D graphics while keeping all the details that were in the 2D JA. Modern well-designed and tested user interface.

Weve seen several JA niche clones now and they have all failed miserably. To be honest I dont think its possible to do a modern version of JA with niche budget.

 

[KalosKagathos]

Would 200000 even be enough for jagged alliance with modern 3D graphics - not to mention if you want to do profit?

Why not? 200000 copies sold equals 10 million dollars. Granted, a good deal of that money will end up in the pockets of retailers, local publishers, and box manufacturers, but there still should be enough left to cover the budget.

I mean all the voice overs and dialogue in different languages (you know the germans and russians demand it). That alone costs a lot.

I'm pretty certain that local publishers pay for translation and voice acting.

And the game is complex. Open dynamic campaign, etc. Lots of scripting and AI to do. Testing them alone would be a chore just to make sure all missions work together. New 3D graphics while keeping all the details that were in the 2D JA. Modern well-designed and tested user interface.

Come on, the reason the industry moved to 3D is because it's less expensive than 2D, particularly HD. Take a look at fighting games that were released this generation: BlazBlue (2D) has 12 playable characters, The King of Fighters XII (2D) has 22, Soulcalibur IV (3D) has 34, and Tekken 6 (3D) has 43. Notice a pattern here? 2D animation can take a lot of time, and time is money.

And why would scripting get much more complex if you added an extra dimension? Logical variables are still limited to 2 values.

Weve seen several JA niche clones now and they have all failed miserably. To be honest I dont think its possible to do a modern version of JA with niche budget.

And I can't see how it's possible to do a JA game with an AAA budget. Not a lot of people are interested in this kind of games, cool graphics or not.