Fallout 3 - PC Zone UK Article @ NMA

[Dhruin]

NMA has a transcription of a PC Zone UK interview (http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35387) with Pete Hines on Fallout 3. Here's a snip:
We feel that we're doing Fallout 3 having done one and two, even though we didn't. Much like the Elder Scrolls, we look at what worked, we look at what didn't; we look at where we want to take it, how to move it forward and keep it relevant. But we also want to stay true to the stuff people remember and took to heart in Fallout, which was the kinds of quests you did, the choices that were laid before you, the way the game would play differently depending on how you were role-playing and the setting...That sort of stuff."

You also shouldn't expect the lewdness of Fallout 2, as Hines reckons it got "a little too caught up in trying to be funny or controversial or whatever." Which is a shame as certain PCZONE staffers thought, choosing to be a low-paid fluffer at a post-apocaluptic porn studio, only to find the fluid exchange left them with a traditional RPG poisoning, the height of hilarity back in 1998. Whatever the case, the smart bets are for Fallout 3 to be a free-roaming, first-person action/RPG with more dialogue, violence and grit than the Elder Scrolls has ever seen.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=4404)

[User Name]

Gleefully waiting for the shitstorm to arrive...

[Corwin]

If you visit NMA, you'll see the rabid fan response is already evident!!

[Lord Alex]

I soooo hate this.... Fallout and Elder Scrolls should never be mentioned in the same sentence together... apples and oranges.

[magerette]

If you visit NMA, you'll see the rabid fan response is already evident!!

Yes, there's enough F's on the first page of the thread to start a whole F alphabet. :)

I ask myself why Bethesda has gotten themselves into this.
I answer myself : $$$$

[guenthar]

THe people there are mostly idiots since there is not one bit of information on this game and all those interview should be ignored since they are just pr bs and don't have any real info in them. Even if Bethesda made this in a first person view they could easily make it as a turn based game or as both types of games.

(Ex. you have a first person view and you can switch it to realtime or turbased for the combat. In turnbased combat time will stop when you encounter an enemy and you have action points at the bottom of the screen and you move/attack/use an item with those points until there gone and it will be the enemies or other allies turns.)

With this you would go the same way as in an action game except you are the only thing doing stuff (so no twitch combat) and you only can do a limited number of things (move a certain distance, shoot a number of times, use a certain number of items) in different combinations. If it was set as both types (which would be easy) you can just turn it on or off in the menu. They could also have a menu specifically for configuring how allies work from determining what each one does in combat in basic or advanced mode to manually controling them in turnbased mode by switching your view to them when it is their turn.

PS. I would have posted it in their forum but their forum sucks and won't let me registered because I have a gmail account only.

[The Watchman]

So people are idiots for not buying PR bullshit ?!? /shrug. Meaby people wouldnt go ape over it if Pete wasnt as usual BSing around, heck people might even look forward to it if Beth wasnt notorious for dumbing down their games for braindead shitbox users.

[Dhruin]

It could be turn-based and first-person but it won't be. You don't honestly think it will be turn-based, do you?

[lilithn]

Ohhh, Fallout was too lewd, you wont have that, that's too much (translate: it would be labelled mature, means 'we' would get less money from the little kiddies worrying parents...) .It won't be funny either, since Fallout was too funny. We don't actually have any sense of humour. But you will have an action oriented RPG!

"with more dialogue, violence and grit than the Elder Scrolls has ever seen"
That won't be too hard to manage......

As for violence, I would like to see them make my favourite animation, when you shot one with too much damage, and the guy's whole side blew up, and slowly fall to the ground.... HAH! Or when caught on fire dancing...:)
That's what I surely won't see. I'm already fuming with anger, why is that? Not healthy.

[zakhal]

Perhaps they are going more for mad max style. Allthough that definely had its funny parts too.

[Ionstormsucks]

Well, I can at least understand a bit the many Fallout fans that are out there. Pete Hines is the PR guy at Bethesda, and you know how these people are. It's part of their job to lie to you. I think Bethesda could avoid a lot of the every-interview-discussion if they avoided mentioning Elder Scrolls on a constant basis when talking about Fallout. Meanwhile they should have understood that the average Fallout fan doesn't give all too much about Oblivion & Co. The problem about raging fans is self-made. You cannot say Fallout 3 will be a true Fallout one the one hand, and then come up with some Elder Scrolls comparison... that will scare Fallout fans away.

[Gorath]

This leads to the question "What´s Bethesda´s goal for Fallout 3?" Are they trying to win Fallout fans or do they simply want to draw 50% of the Oblivion crowd over to Fallout 3, and then grow the franchise from there?

[JemyM]

What I miss from the article is the companions. The guys you got with you in Fallout really improved the game. In Elder Scrolls you run around on your own, you have no friends at all. I do not see a FPS being able to support companions like the original game did. :(

[Maylander]

Let's keep one thing in mind here - making a game today costs a whole lot more than it did 10 years ago, and therefore they need to sell a lot better as well. A turn-based RPG would please the hardcore fans, yes, but it would not sell enough to be profitable. There simply isn't a big enough market for such games today - not even the original crew making Fallout 1-2 would be willing to make a game like that today.

Let's be real here, developers are funded by investors, and investors want to make money. Since game development costs so much these days, you need to sell a lot more copies than all the hardcore RPG fans in the world could buy. You need to get casual gamers to buy your game, or you'll lose money -> your job -> no more games.

Will Fallout be directed at the masses? Yes, will it please the most hardcore fans? No, of course not, neither would BG3 or PS:T2, the market has changed too much to make similar games now. Will it be a good game? Maybe, maybe not. If they really implement the free-roaming, lots of dialogues/conseqences style of Fallout it might be great even without being turn-based. Hopefully they'll focus more on 3rd person than 1st person, like in Gothic, since that would fit better in my opinion.

[Corwin]

Maylander, you have answered Gorath's question. Beth want to MAKE MONEY!! That's it. DO they care about the fans? Perhaps a little, but the bottom line is always KING!! Will they make a good game? I hope so. WIll it really be what I/we want from F3? I honestly doubt it. Will I buy it? Probably, even if only so I can review it for the site and rip it to shreds!! :biggrin:

[BillSeurer]

WIll it really be what I/we want from F3? I honestly doubt it.

Thank you for deciding what "we" want. What are "we" going to have for lunch today? I would hate to accidently get something that "we" don't like. And how about supper?

[dagoo7]

Thank you for deciding what "we" want. What are "we" going to have for lunch today? I would hate to accidently get something that "we" don't like. And how about supper?

Come now, you're sarcasm is a bit overwrought and unjustified here. Corwin was merely using the qualified "we" reference to refer to those of us (and that's likely pretty much all of us reading this thread) that played the hell outta Fallout 1 and 2 and have been eagerly awaiting an updated version of that game for years. And all previous posters expressed, at least indirectly, a desire for a version of the game that was true to the classic presentation and mechanics.

I enjoy a good sarcastic gibe as much as anyone, but save the ire for when its justified.

[Ionstormsucks]

Let's keep one thing in mind here - making a game today costs a whole lot more than it did 10 years ago, and therefore they need to sell a lot better as well. A turn-based RPG would please the hardcore fans, yes, but it would not sell enough to be profitable. There simply isn't a big enough market for such games today - not even the original crew making Fallout 1-2 would be willing to make a game like that today.

Let's be real here, developers are funded by investors, and investors want to make money. Since game development costs so much these days, you need to sell a lot more copies than all the hardcore RPG fans in the world could buy. You need to get casual gamers to buy your game, or you'll lose money -> your job -> no more games.

Will Fallout be directed at the masses? Yes, will it please the most hardcore fans? No, of course not, neither would BG3 or PS:T2, the market has changed too much to make similar games now. Will it be a good game? Maybe, maybe not. If they really implement the free-roaming, lots of dialogues/conseqences style of Fallout it might be great even without being turn-based. Hopefully they'll focus more on 3rd person than 1st person, like in Gothic, since that would fit better in my opinion.

I pretty much disagree with nearly everything you wrote down there...

[Brother None]

A turn-based RPG would please the hardcore fans, yes, but it would not sell enough to be profitable. There simply isn't a big enough market for such games today

Prove it.

This leads to the question "What´s Bethesda´s goal for Fallout 3?" Are they trying to win Fallout fans or do they simply want to draw 50% of the Oblivion crowd over to Fallout 3, and then grow the franchise from there?

Whatever is the answer, it's easy enough to argue that trying to balance between the two is unwise. There are plenty of people out there who would love to hear "It's going to be Oblivion with guns", but the flipside of it is that they would dislike it being "true" to the originals, and the strict sense of the word.

I don't think they're pleasing anyone now, trying to please both sides.

Meh. They should just starting releasing information already,

If you visit NMA, you'll see the rabid fan response is already evident!!

Thank the Lord we're so much better than those guys, what?

[Lucky Day]

Let's keep one thing in mind here - making a game today costs a whole lot more than it did 10 years ago, and therefore they need to sell a lot better as well. A turn-based RPG would please the hardcore fans, yes, but it would not sell enough to be profitable. There simply isn't a big enough market for such games today - not even the original crew making Fallout 1-2 would be willing to make a game like that today.

Let's be real here, developers are funded by investors, and investors want to make money. Since game development costs so much these days, you need to sell a lot more copies than all the hardcore RPG fans in the world could buy. You need to get casual gamers to buy your game, or you'll lose money -> your job -> no more games.

Will Fallout be directed at the masses? Yes, will it please the most hardcore fans? No, of course not, neither would BG3 or PS:T2, the market has changed too much to make similar games now. Will it be a good game? Maybe, maybe not. If they really implement the free-roaming, lots of dialogues/conseqences style of Fallout it might be great even without being turn-based. Hopefully they'll focus more on 3rd person than 1st person, like in Gothic, since that would fit better in my opinion.

you hit the nail on the head here.


You also shouldn't expect the lewdness of Fallout 2, as Hines reckons it got "a little too caught up in trying to be funny or controversial or whatever."


excellent! Fallout 1 and 2 had a swear filter and a violence which worked most of the time but there was no way you could turn this type of garbage off. I recall Beth saying the game would be released as Mature in the past but I hope this statement indicates a move in the right in the direction.

Knowing what didn't work with Morrowind and coming up with Oblivion was fine except there were many problems with Oblivion out of the box even with those Morrowind fixes. In particular the scaled encounters.

This is the biggest concern I have with Beth, not that it is isometric or turn based. Was Wizardry 8 any less of a great game than Wizardry I? Let's hope for some equivalent perspective.

As was stated before the comparisons to Oblivion are mostly for investors and people who look at sales numbers. Its also probably there to make sure expectations are clear for buyers and they aren't (as) screaming mad when the game is released.

If it does well then old Fallout fans are going to have to put up with a lot of new fans just as the Ultima fans had to put up with the new Ultima Online players who didn't even know there were 8 games before it.

[magerette]

Kharn wrote:
Thank the Lord we're all so much better than those guys, what?


Not if they all come over here to rant and rave. ;)

For those who laud the irreverent humor in FO2 and appreciate those moments in the game that make you blow beverages out your nostrils, you would think a sense of humor would be obligatory. There's no need to take offense at every remark.

That is, if you did take offense, and it isn't me that has no sense of humor. :)

[Briosafreak]

Everytime there's a newsblurb about FO3 the comments start to pile up at RPGWatch, this game will be your bread and butter Corwin :)

And Kharn was using a benign form of irony, with humour, I think, relax magerette :)

[Brother None]

I figured that this was already a parody of itself. But hey...y'know, extra irony can't hurt.

[magerette]

I figured that this was already a parody of itself. But hey...y'know, extra irony can't hurt.

Where FO and Bethsoft are joined, irony is inescapable. Glad to hear it was a failure of my innocuous sarcasm radar.

[Corwin]

In most successful RPG franchises, the same type of gameplay has been kept from one iteration to the next. Where it hasn't, there have been problems. (U8 sticks in my mind as a game which disappointed me for several reasons as they diverged too much from what made U7 great). To me, logically, FO 3 should follow on from FO2 in gameplay style/type, or IT SHOULDN'T BE CALLED FO3!! I realise not everyone agrees with me, but there's their problem!! :) I don't blame Beth for wanting to make Oblivion with guns; it's probably a sensible economic strategy. However, I don't have to like it!! If they surprise me, great but I'm not holding my breath. However, remember to keep it all in perspective; it's only a game!! :)

[abbaon]

A turn-based RPG would please the hardcore fans, yes, but it would not sell enough to be profitable.
The statement "a turn-based RPG couldn't turn a profit today" is an unprovable negative. Not worth arguing. The most you can reasonably say is, "Turn-based games usually sell worse than otherwise comparable real-time games. On average, turn-based game flow hurts sales." I've never seen data to support or contradict this idea, so I'm not about to endorse it myself, but publishers certainly act as though it's true.

[Maylander]

Hmm, proof you say? Very well. As far as I know, Fallout 1 sold 144.000 copies within the first two years after its release, and Fallout 2 123.000 copies. Now, considering Fallout being "the mother of all turnbased RPGs", I'd say these numbers are the ones to present to an investor if you want to make Fallout 3 identical.

Let's compare that to Bethesdas latest game. The Big O has, in fact, sold over 3 million copies within its first year, and will most likely pass 5 million before the first two years have past.

Do the math, if you are an investor and you are going to invest several million dollars into a huge game production, do you want a game that sells 5.000.000 copies within two years, or 267.000?

I may be a hardcore RPG fan, but even I'm not willing to throw money down the drain. Oblivion sells, Fallout doesn't. It never did. It's a myth that Fallout sold a whole lot - Baldur's Gate was the selling series that kept things going, not Fallout.

Turn-based RPGs have never sold well, and always been directed at the hardcore fans. 250.000 copies won't do anymore - you could get away with that 10 years ago when games cost so little to develop compared to today, but now it's not nearly enough.

Here are some numbers from 2000:
The entire Fallout series, turn-based, total sales: 267.000 copies sold
Baldur's Gate 1 without any add-ons or sequals, real-time, total sales: 500.000
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=95704

According to BioWare, the total sales of the Baldur's Gate series is now nearing 5 million copies sold. This includes BG1, BG2 and BG2: Throne of Bhaal.
http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/about/

Worth knowing about the gaming industry:
Developers do not choose their own games, investors do. Developers do not make any money themselves, they rely on investors to fund them, and unless they can convince the investors that this project is a solid hit when it's released, they get no money. This is a basic description of how the gaming industry works. Of course there's more to it than this, but the essence of it is: Publishers and investors decide which games will be made, and developers are unfortunately forced to do as they are told.

[GhanBuriGhan]

In most successful RPG franchises, the same type of gameplay has been kept from one iteration to the next. Where it hasn't, there have been problems. (U8 sticks in my mind as a game which disappointed me for several reasons as they diverged too much from what made U7 great). To me, logically, FO 3 should follow on from FO2 in gameplay style/type, or IT SHOULDN'T BE CALLED FO3!! I realise not everyone agrees with me, but there's their problem!! :) I don't blame Beth for wanting to make Oblivion with guns; it's probably a sensible economic strategy. However, I don't have to like it!! If they surprise me, great but I'm not holding my breath. However, remember to keep it all in perspective; it's only a game!! :)

Devil's Advocate: Not RPG, but e.g. the King's Quest series changed style and gameplay greatly with each iteration, with some success. Also both Ultima and Ultima underworld were great.
And would it really make anybody happier if they just called it "Fallout 3D", "Fallout - East Coast", or " Super Fallout Land" instead of "Fallout 3"?

[bjon045]

Those numbers are meaningless without the associated development costs. Baldurs gate was based on an existing franchise (with a huge fan-base), whereas Fallout was a completely new piece of IP, using the Forgotten Realms and AD&D license isn't exactly free.

Interplay was dislisted from the stock exchange a year after ToB came out so perhaps if you used Diablo (8 million units sold) it would be a better example (although many would argue Diablo is not an RPG).

[Ionstormsucks]

To me it seems that Bethesda have made up their mind anyway - and nothing will change that. Let's just see an wait. Personally I don't see much sense in acquiring an established game license if you do not want to touch on the fan-potential. So if they make Fallout 3 another Oblivion I'll just not buy it.

[Maylander]

Interplay didn't go down the drain because of anything Black Isle did - in fact, Black Isle kept Interplay up for quite some time. It was other divisions that failed, not Black Isle. Black Isle was a victim in Interplays mess.

Also, the drawback of using someones license isn't really the cost of the license itself, but the fact that after you're done working on the product you don't own it, meaning you can't control anything about the future of the game or any of its content. Also, during the making of a licensed product you have much more input and rules you have to take into consideration, so it's quite a difficult task to manage license owners, investors, fans, etc.

[aries100]

Here's an interesting number:

I once read that the Danish Hit(man) company, IO Interactive, did use about 15-20 million USD to develop the latest Hitman game, Hitman: Blood Money. And this was simply because of the graphics engine they used and the licenses they needed to buy in order to make the game.

This made it very clear to me that today developing games costs more than they did 10 or even 5 years ago. This also made it painfully clear to me that today developers (and publishers) need to sell more copies of games than ever before.
A game that totally over say 18 months sold about maybe 250,000-400,000 copies just wouldn't cut it in today's highly competitive market. The game wouldn't even make its development cost, I think...

On another note, yes Oblivion shipped maybe 3 million copies in the first year (since march 2006), but how many of these copies were actually sold, or how many of these copies have since been returned or sold on e-bay, for instance ? (I've read and heard several people saying that Oblivion made them excited at first, but then, for some reason, they stopped playing...)

On yet another note, I think that a well-turned, well-written game with turn-based game could sell fairly well - if the devs. and publishers were to realize that the game might only sell about 500,000-600,000 copies (or probably about 1,000,000).
This means catering to a select eletist group of people that will buy such a game and maybe will be willing to pay 100 USD for such a game rather than the normal
50 US Dollars.

[Brother None]

(snip)

Your entire basis of comparison is false.

Sales of Oblivion and Fallout can not be directly compared. Oblivion was based on an existing license and had intense media coverage. Fallout was a new IP with little PR. More importantly; they are from different era's of gaming industry. Fallout was a good seller for its days, Interplay considered it a minor hit, as evinced by the quick release of Fallout 2.

Sales of Baldur's Gate and Fallout can also not be directly compared, again, both in nothing being an original IP and lack of PR/media coverage.

Look, if the difference was so easy as that you could explain it away in one forum post, the discussion would be over. However, facts are:
"The gaming industry" assumes that realtime outsells turnbased. No matter the truth, this is the assumption.

This assumption has never been really been proven. It is true that turn-based doesn't outsell real-time, it is one factor in sales that you have to consider amongst all others. To pretend it is a definite kill-all, to pretend that somehow a well-licensed, well-presented, slick game would fail just because it has turn-based combat is a foolish, unproven assumption.

Also, this mechanical "developing games costs more" has to stop. The market is bigger too, and the costs don't have to be as exorbitant as, say, the costs of Oblivion if the industry obsessed less about the way it looks, not to mention that producing Fallout 3 on the Oblivion engine is already a lot cheaper than producing Oblivion. If you actually think it's smart to play along in the high-risk game of high investment high returns you have roughly the same business smarts as Herve Caen and, with Mr Caen, most of the gaming industry.

[BillSeurer]

On another note, yes Oblivion shipped maybe 3 million copies in the first year (since march 2006), but how many of these copies were actually sold, or how many of these copies have since been returned or sold on e-bay, for instance ? (I've read and heard several people saying that Oblivion made them excited at first, but then, for some reason, they stopped playing...)

That happens to every game. You don't think people dumped copies of Fallout and Fallout 2 soon after they were out? Heck, the Fallout 2 bulletin boards were filled with people who were completely pissed off about the almost unplayable state of Fallout 2 when it came out and I am sure that many of them, just like today's gamers, abandoned the game before it was patched into playableness (think Gothic 3). IIRC there were a lot of places back then, at least a lot more than today, where you could actually return games and get your money back. A lot of people forget that it had a really rocky start which may account for its low sales compared to Fallout 1.

On yet another note, I think that a well-turned, well-written game with turn-based game could sell fairly well - if the devs. and publishers were to realize that the game might only sell about 500,000-600,000 copies (or probably about 1,000,000).
This means catering to a select eletist group of people that will buy such a game and maybe will be willing to pay 100 USD for such a game rather than the normal
50 US Dollars.

I agree that a good turn based game *could* sell well. However, somone with money has to agree too and I just don't see that happening. Money always flows to where there has been recent success (thus all the "me too" games). In rare cases something new comes along and then money flows that way too.

A while back I read some articles about the computer gaming industry as a whole. Something like only 10% of the games under production ever see the light of day and look at how many of those are crap and fail. It's no wonder that investors are skittish.

[Maylander]

Indeed BillSeurer, it takes a lot to convince investors these days because of all the failed projects. They want to be sure they'll make money or they're not willing to invest at all.

This is part of the reason why I don't think there will ever be a big production turn-based RPG again - there is not a single one, ever, that shows high enough sales to convince any major investors.

Also, Fallout was a hit? No it was not, very far from it in fact, during the time of Fallouts release we had games like Diablo and Baldur's Gate that completely crushed it on all charts. As far as I know, Fallout has never hit any charts at all, not even right after its release.

Imagine you are going to convince an investor to fund a turn-based RPG, which game would you bring up as an example to prove that this really would pay off? As far as I know, no turn-based RPG has ever had a high profit. Not a single one. Maybe some ancient Commodore 64 game back in the days when a game was developed by a five-man team consisting of programmers, with no graphical artists, audio specialists and so on.

When it comes to economics, it's not really about proving that something isn't profitable, it's about proving that it is profitable. Noone likes to take big risks when huge sums of money are involved.

Edit:
Don't get me wrong, I do not consider turn-based RPGs dead, I just don't think it's likely that any big developer is going to make one. Lots of indie developers make such games, and they will continue to do so.

[doctor_kaz]

Is there any doubt left that Fallout 3 will essentially be Oblivion with guns? Bethesda has already said in the past that it won't be an isometric RPG because that's not what they do well, and that interview is obviously referring to the Codex/NMA folks that aren't going to like the game.

If the game has good shooting mechancics, then it might not be that bad. I thought that Oblivion could have been the excellent RPG that it was hyped to be if it had less size and that terrible monster/loot scaling.

The profitability of PC RPG's can't be that bad. Black Isle and Ion Storm managed to stay afloat only when they made PC games. They went out of business when they started making dumbed down shit for consoles because it was supposedly going to make them tons of money.

Imagine you are going to convince an investor to fund a turn-based RPG, which game would you bring up as an example to prove that this really would pay off? As far as I know, no turn-based RPG has ever had a high profit. Not a single one..

Um, Final Fantasy?

[Maylander]

Again, Black Isle didn't go bankrupt, they got dragged down by Interplay. RPGs are still (very) profitable, but Baldur's Gate was the big moneymaker for Black Isle, not Fallout.

Also, the latest FF games are real-time.

[doctor_kaz]

How did Black Isle make money off of Baldurs Gate when they didn't even make it or the engine?

Interplay -- Black Isle -- same thing. They managed to stay in business making PC RPG's and didn't go bankrupt until Fallout: BOS came along. I know that 2 Milllion+ sellers for the PC aren't very common, but the PC can't be that bad.

Ditto for Ion Storm. "Hey guys, let's dumb down Deus Ex 2 for the X-Box! Who cares if the fans of the original game think it sucks! Console games always sell better no matter what and we're going to make billions and billions and billions of money easily!!!!"

(1 year later...)

"Whoops! Um, guess we were wrong. Anyone know where I can find a job?"

[Brother None]

Also, Fallout was a hit? No it was not, very far from it in fact, during the time of Fallouts release we had games like Diablo and Baldur's Gate that completely crushed it on all charts. As far as I know, Fallout has never hit any charts at all, not even right after its release.

*sighs*. Fallout was the number 2 seller on release: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg/browse_thread/thread/a076dc74e3c2ef26/a83c910a7d71f45b?lnk=gst&q=fallout+author%3Aanarchy%40netcom.com&rnum=181#a83c910a7d71f45b (http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg/browse_thread/thread/a076dc74e3c2ef26/a83c910a7d71f45b?lnk=gst&q=fallout+author%3Aanarchy%40netcom.com&rnum=181#a83c910a7d71f45b)

When it comes to economics, it's not really about proving that something isn't profitable, it's about proving that it is profitable. Noone likes to take big risks when huge sums of money are involved.

I know how investors think, thank you. Do differentiate between their skewered version of reality and actual reality, tho'.

And don't try to shift the burden of evidence. You claimed that turn-based games wouldn't sell in today's market. You have yet to back up this claim. If you can't prove it, just admit so, don't try to shift the burden of evidence. I agree with you that big turn-based titles are unlikely. However, if you're going to try to argue that the unlikeliness of these titles is actually caused by a *real* lower demand for turn-based games rather than the delusional thinking of investors, I'll disagree.

doctor_kaz: what you are saying is true. It is ridiculous to think it is impossible to survive in the gaming market by catering to specific niches, including existing fanbases. It is not that difficult to produce games that you know have an existing market and toning down the costs until you can produce it in such a way to make it profiteable.

Unlike what investors think, that isn't the high-risk game, that's the low-risk end of the market. The high-risk is selling games to casual gamers via hype, a method that can crumble if you take a wrong turn, as it did with BIS and Ion Storm and as it could well do for Bethesda.

[fatBastard()]

Why are we even discussing the possibility of a turn based Fallout 3?

I mean, Bethesda acquired the license, and they have never, I repeat, NEVER made anything even remotely resembling a turn based game. What they have made, however, is a highly successful real time engine that had the collective gaming press oohing and aahing across the globe ...

If any of you actually think that Fallout 3 is going to be turn based, then I've got an Eiffel tower for sale :p

I wholeheartedly agree with Corwin that if you're going to make a game called whatnot X or Y or Z, then you can't just change the basic formula of the game. Look at the so called "C&C Generals". What the heck did that game have to do with the C&C franchise? Pure brand name capitalizing, nothing more.

Apart from that then I have to say that the perspective on the gaming world that Maylander is putting forth in this debate is like a mirror image of my own.

One of the major consumer illusions is the whole "I'll vote with my wallet" philosophy. It doesn't work unless the vast majority of consumers can agree on something and that usually takes such a damn hefty incentive to provoke that it very seldom happens (e.g. the brief boycott of French wine after the nuclear test blasts on the bikini islands some years back or the Muslim boycott of danish goods after the cartoon mismatch). Can any of you honestly say that before the mobile phone you thought to yourselves: "Dang, what I really need right now is a phone I can put in my pocket"? No? Well, that is a prime example of the "big players" creating a need where there wasn't one no matter what the average guy on the street has to say about it. It's the same with publishers today. If they don't see the need for TB games, then there is no need and vice versa. As someone else in the thread said (too lazy to look up who ;)) The whole "me too" trend in publishing is overwhelming. Piranha Bytes finished the English version of the Night of the Raven expansion for Gothic 2 a few months after the German version was released yet it took Jowood more than 2 years to get off their lazy butts and release it. The publishers rule supreme and their word is law, no matter how uninspired, narrow minded or downright stupid it is ...

Errmm, where was I. Oops, that was a sort of writing while thinking happening here. Sorry about the messy jumble of thoughts :biggrin:

[BillSeurer]

And don't try to shift the burden of evidence. You claimed that turn-based games wouldn't sell in today's market. You have yet to back up this claim. If you can't prove it, just admit so, don't try to shift the burden of evidence. I agree with you that big turn-based titles are unlikely. However, if you're going to try to argue that the unlikeliness of these titles is actually caused by a *real* lower demand for turn-based games rather than the delusional thinking of investors, I'll disagree.

The investors think the other way: provide proof that your game is going to sell. So, what's the proof? The problem is, there isn't much, if any. Turn based games by major studios gradually died out. All the mega hits today are not turn based. Any investor is going to look at that and put their money where?

[doctor_kaz]

If you're talking about success purely of turn-based games, you could point to Advance Wars, Final Fantasy, Civilization IV, Heroes of Might and Magic V, Silent Storm, and maybe Arcanum, which supposedly sold pretty well. Does that mean that you could acheive that same success with a turn-based post-apocalyptic RPG? Perhaps not. But the commercial successes for turn-based games are there. There are more real-time commercial successes than turn-based successes, but there are also more real-time games period. Does the market favor real-time games as a whole? Probably, but there is a healthy place for turn-based games.

I agree with a previous comment -- there's basically no point to this debate anymore. Bethesda is making Oblivion with guns or a heavily modified version of that. They haven't said so specifically, but all indications are that it's true.

[Maylander]

I'm talking about turn-based RPGs, turn-based strategy games have always been fairly popular.

Regarding Arcanum. Yet another example of a game that didn't sell well despite many hardcore fans thinking it did. Hardcore players do not make up a big percentage of the market, so games targeted towards that segment simply won't sell enough - hence why Troika went down like a sack of potatoes. Arcanum sold 234.000 copies, which is more than Fallout did, but still far from enough to be a profitable game to make.

I know this is all a bit sad; hardly any of the truly great games (except Baldur's Gate 1-2) sold enough to be profitable for developers to make. We have to understand one thing - we here at RPGWatch do not represent the average gamer, and average gamers are the ones you need to reach if you're going to make money in the gaming industry. As much as I hate the fact that the most successful games are very often not the best ones, I still understand why investors force developers into making such games - there's a whole lot more money in it.

The most selling game in the history of gaming, The Sims, sold a total of 16 million copies worldwide and happens to be the most casual game I can think of. Sadly enough, you need to make ten Fallout games to match one of the Sims games in terms of income. Scary isn't it?

[GhanBuriGhan]

The whole turn-based and perspective debate doesn't touch me all that much. I am much more worried about the care taken with setting, dialogue, and a healthy dose of difficult decisions with actual consequences and different outcomes, plus a good diversity of skills allowing different approaches to the game - all the things where Oblivion was frequently a setback compared to Morrowind. If they can nail those aspects, I would personally consider it a worthy Fallout sequel, real-time first person or not. I'm not too hopeful.

[Corwin]

Which is the point I've been continuing to make. I don't like it, but I realise the economic reality. This is a key reason why I'm keen to support the small Indie developers; they are our only hope!!

[Maylander]

Ghan has a very good point - Fallout 3 might still be a very good game if it's Gothic in the Fallout setting, instead of Oblivion in the Fallout setting. We can't be sure they're going to make it a modern version Oblivion just yet - the developers are Fallout fans as well, and hopefully they realize that Fallout *can't* have a world with no consequences.

[Brother None]

Which is the point I've been continuing to make. I don't like it, but I realise the economic reality.

'k. Somehow I don't feel the necessity of defending the investors' point of view. When I think a product is crap, I say it is crap, I don't go "ooh, but I get this decision, y'know, it's economic reality to produce crap pasta."

If you want to, ok. I don't play the defeatist game.

Maylander, you still haven't backed up your claim that turnbased games wouldn't sell enough to make a profit in today's market.

That said, your idea of the market is skewered and you're not reading what's being said. Nobody is questioning that the potential of the casual market is big, but who the hell thinks this is a safe market to play in just because the Sims sells 16 million copies? Arcanum turned a profit, as did both Fallouts (you need to stop spouting factually incorrect remarks on that topic. Troika has affirmed Arcanum turned a profit, we know the Fallouts did*). Did Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel? Nope. Now which one of these fits in which of your imaginary market models, exactly?

*The Fallouts that are still selling, by the way. Chuck Cuevas cited NPD Funworld as putting cumulative Fallout 1/2 sales at 900,000. This is vs Brotherhood of Steel's 19,000 copies.

[fatBastard()]

So basically what you're saying is that over the course of 10 years and with 900k copies, the 2 Fallout games have sold as much as half of what Gears of War sold in the first month alone ... yes I can see the big bucks are rolling in :p

And just to make this clear: It is not being a defeatist to know thy enemy.

[GhanBuriGhan]

Kharn, if we turn the argument around: Could you describe a turn-based RPG of your imagination that you would recon would sell on the level of the current crop of action/ real time RPG's. Who would be your target audience, how would you advertise it. Just curious.

[doctor_kaz]

I'm talking about turn-based RPGs, turn-based Regarding Arcanum. Yet another example of a game that didn't sell well despite many hardcore fans thinking it did. Hardcore players do not make up a big percentage of the market, so games targeted towards that segment simply won't sell enough - hence why Troika went down like a sack of potatoes. Arcanum sold 234.000 copies, which is more than Fallout did, but still far from enough to be a profitable game to make.?

Considering that Arcanum was only made by essentially three people, 234,000 probably was more than enough to make it very profitable.

When people look just at copies sold, they only look at one part of the equation. How much did the game cost to develop? How long did it take? Fallout and Fallout 2 probably cost a mere fraction of what it took to develop Oblvion. A 1st person Oblivion style shooter will have to have a huge budget. One need look no further than a game like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to see this. That game has only a fraction of the content of what a 1st person shooter/RPG would have and it took six years to make. The standards for a game like this change completely when you have to create competent shooting mechanics. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is basically the model that an "Oblivion with guns" game would have to follow to be any good.

Gears of War is another game that has been mentioned in this thread, and it also cost a fortune to make. Games like this require much, much higher sales levels to break even. The Madden series is the top selling US game series and I have seen analysts speculate that it still loses money! (because of the astronomical licensing fee). And in the console market, for every Gears of War, there's at least one Viva Pinata.

[Brother None]

So basically what you're saying is that over the course of 10 years and with 900k copies, the 2 Fallout games have sold as much as half of what Gears of War sold in the first month alone ... yes I can see the big bucks are rolling in :p

Considering the budget of the one game vs that of the other...yes, bucks. It's Interplay's only current source of revenue, amusingly enough.

Unless you're arguing all games should be Gears of War because that such a hit grrrrlol!

And just to make this clear: It is not being a defeatist to know thy enemy.

It is if you shrug and do nothing about it.

Could you describe a turn-based RPG of your imagination that you would recon would sell on the level of the current crop of action/ real time RPG's. Who would be your target audience, how would you advertise it. Just curious.

Sell on the level of? Do you mean sell like Oblivion or sell like a flop? Because that's the thing...you may think linking hits and flops arm in arm is a good idea to float a business upon, but it's come down crashing around our ears more than once.

I'm not pretending a turn-based Fallout 3 could outsell Oblivion, I'm "pretending" that to demand of any and all games to sell those kind of numbers is ludicrous. The market simply isn't that big.

Oddly enough, in profit margins, a market with big sellers with high budget and a market with low sellers with low budgets are roughly the same. The difference between the two markets is that the latter is low-risk and the former is high-risk.

I don't think you paid attention to Economy 101 if you think that the market for games like Oblivion is "better" than for niche RPGs just because the numbers are bigger. Smart money would invest in both markets. Apparently there isn't much smart money in the gaming industry, as evinced by the high frequency of companies going belly-up.

As for your question, I don't know, I'm not best equipped to answer that, I haven't been trained in PR, but I know enough to know that Troika was a profiteable company by doing low-budget games tailored to a niche market. So is Spiderweb. Neither are taken serious by the industry and the consequences of that hurt both. In a healthy market, a Troika could produce mid-budget games for its fairly large niche market sans problem.

Unless you think there's some kind of Godly "minimum budget" that games now have, something that's been amusingly implied with "games are more expensive to make now!" A drôle if uninformed remark.

[fatBastard()]

Unless you're arguing all games should be Gears of War because that such a hit grrrrlol!
Heck no! ... but try to explain THAT to the publishers :(

In a healthy market, a Troika could produce mid-budget games for its fairly large niche market sans problem.

Unless you think there's some kind of Godly "minimum budget" that games now have, something that's been amusingly implied with "games are more expensive to make now!" A drôle if uninformed remark.
Very true ... but again try to explain that to the publishers/investors. As far as I can recall Troika had financial problems with basically all of their titles because they couldn't get the necessary investors to cover their development costs. The result was very buggy games and even though they did sell (and I bought the lot of them) there can be no doubt that the word of mouth + lack of marketing cost them quite a few potential customers.

The whole sequel focus, franchise milking and license based games, like for instance movie tie ins, is a clear indication of the resistance the investors have towards betting on "unproven" game models. It is sad but that's what the market looks like today and that is also why there is no way in heck that if Bethesda is going to be making Fallout 3 then it will be "Oblivion with guns" :'(

[Gorath]

Considering that Arcanum was only made by essentially three people, 234,000 probably was more than enough to make it very profitable.

Mobygames lists way more than 3 people in Arcanum´s credits. No idea how many of them really worked on the project full time but it´s certainly closer to 20 than to 3.

When people look just at copies sold, they only look at one part of the equation. How much did the game cost to develop? How long did it take?
And maybe even more important when talking about sales numbers: What´s the effective net revenue after COGs? Because that´s (AFAIK) the basis for the calculation of developer royalties. For example 234k * 20$ = 4680k. That´s about 4.5M for the publisher. If the dev gets 15% of this his royalties are about 702k, which practically equals 0 because the publisher deducts the game´s budget.
If Arcanum sold primarily on a budget price point the numbers might be clearly smaller. It would be interesting to know if 234k was US sales or worldwide sales though.
Anyway, it´s not clear whether Troika earned more than their advance with Arcanum.

[magerette]

And most probably even less with ToEE. Does anyone know the sales figures for VTM:Bloodlines? It would be somewhat ironic if they went out of business directly after making their best-selling game.

[Stanza]

Publishers don't like having sales volume or profits published. The contracts devs have to sign almost always include limits on how much they can disclose, plus publishers seldom provide the numbers to the devs -- after all, if the devs don't know how many units were sold, they won't know if/how much they're getting shortchanged by the publishers. Granted, there's more than a bit of personal cynicism in that statement, but how sales are tracked for units shipped vs. units sold vs. returns vs. whatever else... It's all a huge, complex mess. And the publishers certainly like it that way. Same is true across all of the entertainment industries.

Getting accurate figures usually requires taking the publisher to court, and you can kiss your company good-bye if you do that. There was one dev house that was doing that recently, but the coverage of it has dropped off the radar. I can't even remember who it was any longer.

Apparently Bloodlines is making its way to Steam. Anyone know if Steam provides info about sales figures? I'd hope Valve would be better about it, given their own wranglings with publishers.

[bjon045]

Troika did not go bust because their games did not sell, they went bust because they didn't sell quickly enough. This is what one of the top guns at Troika said in an interview about a year ago if I recall correctly. Their games are still selling today. I still see arcanum boxes sitting on shelves where I live :)

EDIT: Interview here:

http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/troikagames.php

GB: Of the three games you developed (Arcanum, ToEE, and Bloodlines), which game was the most successful commercially? Were you disappointed at the sales figures for any of your games?

Leon: To date the most successful in terms of units sold has been ToEE, I believe – though I don’t have any exact numbers on Vampire yet. I think that when all is said and done Vampire will be comparable to ToEE numbers, if not surpassing them. One of the problems with our games is that they sell good numbers, but it takes a long time for them to do so. Arcanum is still selling a small but steady number of units each quarter, for instance. But longevity doesn’t matter in this business – it’s all about how much you sell in the first few months.

They had 12 developers/designers at the end of production on Arcanum, 35 employees after TOEE/Vampire:Bloodlines.

[magerette]

So ToEE was tops. Interesting interview, bjon045.

I suppose this means Atari is garnering the proceeds at this point. Now that's ironic, being as how making Troika push the bugfest out the door before it was ready is one of the main reasons it sold so poorly initially. :)

Edit: I use the term bugfest affectonately. Not affection for the bugs, but for the game that hooked me despite them.

[Gorath]

Rights don´t simply disappear. Somebody picks them up. Either Troika still exists as an empty shell to collect royalties for their 3 games or somebody else jumped in.

Chris Sawyer (owner of the Rollercoaster Tycoon franchise) sued Atari for incorrect accounting.
The other case is Spark Unlimited vs. Activision over Call of Duty: Finest Hour. Full(!) annotated contract on Gamasutra.

The Escapist had a long and detailed Troika post mortem some time ago.

[doctor_kaz]

Mobygames lists way more than 3 people in Arcanum´s credits. No idea how many of them really worked on the project full time but it´s certainly closer to 20 than to 3.

The majority of the effort for that game was done just with three people. At least that's what I read in an interview with one of the Troika founders.

[aries100]

This is actually a much more deeper and complex problem (or challenge) than we think it is. On the bottown or basis of this lies the very core of how our society runs. Investors, banks, shareholders etc. want to see a quick return of their buck (aka dollars). For that very reason they focus alone on the first months or so shipments or selling of copies. And if a game doesn't sell (or ship) like a million copies in the first month or so, the investors are going to be grumpy. (it's like the movies where the first weekend often decided whether or not the film is hit or not).

That's way the three guys that made Arcanum is saying: that investors only look for the quickest way possible to get their bucks, dollars, yen and eruos, back. They don't seem to understand that a game that sell maybe 250,000 copies in the first month or so, or 500,000 copies in the first 6 month or so, can be slow hit, and that over time such a game might actually outsell a game that has sold maybe 1,5 million copies in its first 1-2 months. (if we look at it over a 10 year period).

And that's the way it is :)

And that's why investors won't invest in a turnbased game...

[Role-Player]

The investors think the other way: provide proof that your game is going to sell. So, what's the proof? The problem is, there isn't much, if any. Turn based games by major studios gradually died out. All the mega hits today are not turn based. Any investor is going to look at that and put their money where?

Both Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior/Quest are huge franchises in North America and Japan, respectively. Even the latter is somewhat popular around NA. Both are certainly what can be called mega hits.

The Shining Force series, which combined turn-based strategy and role-playing, were incredibly successful in their time. The last turn-based title in the series to be released in the US, if I recall correctly, was Shining Force 3 for the Sega Saturn. By comparison, the most recent iterations of the series have used action and realtime components but failed to entice gamers and prove to be a success.

SquareEnix's Front Mission series have also been fairly well received in its original country of release as well as outside. It could possibly be well received in Europe if they bothered releasing more of the titles here.

Series like Lunar, Phantasy Star, Star Ocean and Suikoden have all met with good to great critical reception, if not outright commercial success. Pretty much all of them Pokewhatchamacallits are turn-based as well.

Even if the other series somehow don't provoke a shift in the general notion of turn-based being unsuccesful, one can't really claim Final Fantasy and Pokemensch aren't "mega hits".

[Moriendor]

that investors only look for the quickest way possible to get their bucks, dollars, yen and eruos, back. They don't seem to understand that a game that sell maybe 250,000 copies in the first month or so, or 500,000 copies in the first 6 month or so, can be slow hit, and that over time such a game might actually outsell a game that has sold maybe 1,5 million copies in its first 1-2 months. (if we look at it over a 10 year period).

And that's the way it is :)

And that's why investors won't invest in a turnbased game...

You forgot one not so tiny and actually quite important detail which is called the price tag ;) . The number of copies sold means almost nothing. The number of copies sold at full price means everything. Just because a game like FO continues to sell and just because it has sold maybe a million copies during its entire 10 year lifetime, doesn't mean it is a financial success.
So I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say that investors don't understand something (what actually?) about the sales numbers.

If you are seriously accusing them of not investing money in such "great" slow-selling "hits", then that's like calling someone stupid who signs a one year bond with an 8% annual interest rate rather than the "great" five year 2% annual interest rate deal ;) .

It's only natural that investors want a reasonably quick return on their investment. The write-off periods for loan redemption and interest only last that long (different from country to country obviously). A game that sells slow will lead to major direct losses and if you factor in the loss of profit/interest from the not returned capital then it's even worse.

The only reason that a game like FO has had such a long life at retail is that the distribution rights have been traded on and on and on from one company to another and yet to another. Those sellers probably make a small profit from every "new" incarnation of FO (like the current Ultimate Collection that is -at least here in Euro land- distributed by a company called GSP (http://www.gspsoftware.co.uk/)) but the folks from Interplay have apparently long had to wrap up their losses and call it quits (literally in their case ;) ).

[Brother None]

This is actually a much more deeper and complex problem (or challenge) than we think it is. On the bottown or basis of this lies the very core of how our society runs. Investors, banks, shareholders etc. want to see a quick return of their buck (aka dollars). For that very reason they focus alone on the first months or so shipments or selling of copies. And if a game doesn't sell (or ship) like a million copies in the first month or so, the investors are going to be grumpy. (it's like the movies where the first weekend often decided whether or not the film is hit or not).

Sure, true enough, *but* the problem is a lot more salient in the immature gaming industry. Generally speaking, the media industries (film, music, games) tend to be the worst cases of the short-term thinking you described. But both music and film, while sharing the same problems as games, have a special bit of room cleared out for the niche films or niche music that others won't cover. Considering the production costs sometimes involved, the level of professionality sometimes seen in niche films or music is impressive.

Games has this too (Spiderweb), but we can hardly call that filling out the niche properly, and the mainstream media and companies spend way too much time looking down their nose 'pon it.

Just because a game like FO continues to sell and just because it has sold maybe a million copies during its entire 10 year lifetime, doesn't mean it is a financial success.

Yes it does. Your basic understanding of the concept of full price selling is correct, but you are reading it wrong. These games are still turning a profit, through edition and re-edition. There is nothing about this market that differentiates it from the DVD market. Sure, for the DVD market, initial sales matter. But do you honestly think Warner Bros. doesn't care anymore how many Matrix editions and re-editions they can sell? Why wouldn't this apply to games?

[Moriendor]

Yes it does. Your basic understanding of the concept of full price selling is correct, but you are reading it wrong. These games are still turning a profit, through edition and re-edition. There is nothing about this market that differentiates it from the DVD market. Sure, for the DVD market, initial sales matter. But do you honestly think Warner Bros. doesn't care anymore how many Matrix editions and re-editions they can sell? Why wouldn't this apply to games?

It might not apply to games in some cases because the company that originally invested the money (and we were talking return on investment here) might not benefit directly from the long term sales. Which might be especially true if a company like Interplay is involved that has (factually) gone out of business. One would have to know what exactly Interplay did with the distribution rights for the Fallouts but it could very well be that they sold them off for a flat fee and that they no longer participate in the earnings on a per copy basis.

But that doesn't even really matter in regards to the original investor because you have to consider that a game that does not turn in a profit gets written off as a loss by the company at some point. Then, after the write-off and a big, fat quarterly/annual loss, the calculation starts from scratch and -yes- it might be that a budget game becomes profitable then because all the previous negative factors (developing/publishing/distribution/marketing costs etc) have been written off. But that's after a lot of cash has gone up in smoke due to the write-off so you're only making a very theoretical profit on paper ;) .

[Brother None]

One would have to know what exactly Interplay did with the distribution rights for the Fallouts but it could very well be that they sold them off for a flat fee and that they no longer participate in the earnings on a per copy basis.

Last time I checked they still get royalties for sales of Fallout 1/2.

But that doesn't even really matter in regards to the original investor because you have to consider that a game that does not turn in a profit gets written off as a loss by the company at some point. Then, after the write-off and a big, fat quarterly/annual loss, the calculation starts from scratch and -yes- it might be that a budget game becomes profitable then because all the previous negative factors (developing/publishing/distribution/marketing costs etc) have been written off. But that's after a lot of cash has gone up in smoke due to the write-off so you're only making a very theoretical profit on paper ;) .

What does that have to do with anything? We're talking about a game being profitable from budget to 10 years later, which includes any and all costs and does not factor in your "write off". I'm sure that it'll seem even more profitable if you *do* do such a write off, but that's not what we're talking about here.

[Gorath]

Fallout was certainly highly profitable due to the large number of sold budget, low budget and ultra-low budget copies sold worldwide. Which, I assume, was one of the primary reasons for Beth to buy the license. They can build upon a huge installed base.

Successful long sellers are the exception though. Hundreds of games every year are discounted after 3 months, fail to gather traction with a huge fan base, sink down the budget line over the next year or so and then simply disappear.

[Moriendor]

What does that have to do with anything? We're talking about a game being profitable from budget to 10 years later, which includes any and all costs and does not factor in your "write off". I'm sure that it'll seem even more profitable if you *do* do such a write off, but that's not what we're talking about here.

You have to factor it in though. A company can only determine a profit of a certain product if it sets a price for the product (the manufacturing cost). It's what goes into the inventory, too. A company (a publisher) that has a certain number of games (boxes) in stock needs to attribute a value to that stock. So if you have a full price game, then your accounting department calculates a value of -say- EUR 22.97 per boxed copy (a totally made up number, of course ;) ). A lot of other costs like stock-keeping etc depend on this value. Now if you can not sell your product at that price anymore due to a lack of demand, then you do a write-off to lower the value of the product. If you were in the red up to the time of the write-off then you're basically cutting your losses and starting from scratch. The cut losses go into the statistics and the product continues to be sold on the basis of a price of -say- EUR 7.92. That's how you go from making a loss to making a "profit" (sort of) if you are the original investor who funded the project from start to finish.

The question in regards to Fallout is: How much -if any- money did Interplay lose initially and were they able to make up for those losses from the long term sales.

However, even if they did make a profit in the long run, it still doesn't validate the investment. As I said above... if you -as an investor- have the option to buy a 1 year bond at an 8% interest rate or a 5 year bond at 2% interest rate (assuming that the level of interest rates is pretty much guaranteed to remain stable during that period and the risk is the same for both papers), then taking the latter of these two options would be mighty stupid. Sure, you're making money and a profit but why settle for less than you have to?

If I were an investor then I'd want a timely return on my investment as well. If I'd cough up $5 million then it had better pay off well because even if I did nothing with that money but leave it in the bank, I'd still get $200,000 (assuming a 4% interest rate) just for the money sitting there, doing nothing. Every year. So after three years (usual development cycle for a game) I could have $5.6 million from just picking my nose all day :) . Does it seriously surprise anyone that investors don't just happily throw $5 million bucks at a project that might (or might not) be a long term seller? Remember. If you still had the $5 million, you'd be making $200,000 every year from doing nada. You need one hell of a long time seller to make a profit of at least $200K year after year if you can only sell the game at a budget price.

[Dhruin]

Sorry, Kharn, this long-term-profit argument isn't very strong at all. Mo is right. There's a very simple reason investors and company managers want a fast return: they have already invested the cost of production and need to recoup those monies and pay their current commitments now, plus they need a Return on Investment that meets a certain level or they may as well close down, put the money in the bank and just take the interest.

What good is a dribble of income years down the track if there isn't enough income now to pay the bills? The only exception is a company that is strong enough and diverse enough to pursue this strategy on a limited number of titles, while being propped up by other titles generating faster income. Even then, any good manager would have to ask if they were better off putting their personnel into something that would generate a better return.

[Brother None]

Sure, that's all true, but it keeps begging the question; why doesn't this apply to CDs or DVDs? Obviously, it does. And it *could* apply to games too. That's not a matter of economics, since the economic basis for these three industries are roughly the same, it's simply a matter of good economics.

And that's not just the exceptional movies or music that keeps selling high numbers (y'know, Godfather DVDs), there's a whole segment of the industry dedicated to it.

Any sane businessman would not answer Moriendor's question with "I'll just buy only 8% interest rate bonds" (unless he knows he can sail blindly 'pon them), any smart businessman would diversify over several bonds, both the long-term ones and the short-term ones. Hell, trying to go for the quick buck through Bubble-hypes may be the more visible side of the stock market, but it's not the only side of it, there's a good reason oil & food are quite popular on the markets, always and anywhere.

So, sure, you're technically right, *if* the argument was that producing mid-budget games aimed at the long-term to the exclusion of producing any other games is a viable business model. Of course it isn't.

But doesn't it strike you as odd that no matter how well your logic may work, the gaming industry is the exception in this undiversified portfolio, not the rule?

[Gorath]

Sure, that's all true, but it keeps begging the question; why doesn't this apply to CDs or DVDs? Obviously, it does. And it *could* apply to games too. That's not a matter of economics, since the economic basis for these three industries are roughly the same, it's simply a matter of good economics.


And that's not just the exceptional movies or music that keeps selling high numbers (y'know, Godfather DVDs), there's a whole segment of the industry dedicated to it.


The highlighted part is your mistake. The business model isn´t similar. Games are ageing quickly, they are not part of the mass market and there are just a few sales channels. Only few games can avoid the sad fate of being more or less worthless after only 2 years.
Take a mainstream movie for comparison. A random list of income streams: cinema, pay per view, pay tv, pay tv (classic), tv, tv (classic), DVD, DVD back katalog (repeat endlessly), DVD CE, DVD Dir. Cut, Blue Ray / HDDVD, IP-TV, video store, video store online / mail, travel licenses (plane, ship), merchandizing, product placement, etc.
After a certain time movies stop ageing. The Godfather will always be one of the best movies ever, an all-time classic, Coppolla´s masterpiece, Brando´s comeback movie, Pacino´s way to the top, whatever. (-> target audience for back katalog!) Zork however is just worthless. Hardly anybody would spend a few cents on a copy of Zork in a new DVD box.
Film studios can afford to invest in long-sellers in addition to blockbusters because (a) they´ve learned over the last 80 years how to assess risks and sales potential. (Example: a 50M$ Clint Eastwood movie is always a safe investment.) (b) They minimize their risk by pre-selling the movie and using external investors for funding. (Lord of the Rings was funded with stupid German money, based on an immediate tax write-off.). Collecting advances on some of the channels listed above makes them sleep much better. ;)
Furthermore investing in a bunch of promising low or mid budget movies can be a worthwhile strategy because they can make big bucks if only one of them becomes a surprise hit. The guy who spent 2M EUR on this year´s foreign language Oscar winner The Lives of Others will probably be more than happy. It´s currently at 40M$ worldwide, only counting cinema.

Games lack most of these income sources. The business is growing up, now we have Steam, etc. , but it will take a long time until the gap to other entertainment industries is closed.

[bjon045]

Publishers are interested in games that are long sellers like Fallout, it's just they have no way of knowing what is going to be a long seller and it is far easier for them and safer to publish a game with the latest and greatest graphics that is going to sell 300,000 in the first 3 months and give them a quick profit even though it may slide into obscurity once reviews start becoming widely available and games with even better graphics are available.

I would say the Godfather DVD is a good example to compare with fallout, however I think a better example would be the Godfather VHS tape, maybe if fallout got a small overhaul like support for higher resolutions (I dunno this may be already possible) and a re-release then you could say it is comparable to the Godfather DVD. As it is, the Godfather VHS still sells copies.

[Corwin]

Which again, leads me to wonder why no company makes regular upgrades to their games. The hard work has been done; all that's usually needed is more up-to-date graphics, and sometimes a better interface. That should be much cheaper than a new game!! How many would buy updated classics? I would!! :)

[Dhruin]

But that's not the hard work, Corwin. The production of the art assets is the hard work.

I'm not an artist in any way and I've forgotten the exact details but I've seen stuff like a good artist can produce one high-ploy model in two days (or one day or one week or whatever)...the point is, across the thousands of art assets needed for a game, it takes thousands + of man-days production.

That doesn't mean it could never work in some cases but it isn't a simple thing. Are you better off spending 2/3 the budget of a new Fallout on re-writing the old one or creating a totally new one?

[Corwin]

What about using an existing system, like Laz did with DS? Yes, there was additional work involved, but imagine a large, full-time studio doing it and I'd think the risk/cost factors would be quite reasonable. I could be totally wrong, of course, guess I'd just like to see a lot of re-made classics!! :)

[Brother None]

Games lack most of these income sources. The business is growing up, now we have Steam, etc. , but it will take a long time until the gap to other entertainment industries is closed.

Conceded, but that's a difference in scale, not in absolutes (hence the economic basis is roughly the same, just not identical). That doesn't explain why the gaming industry doesn't recognise that a long seller is an asset *at all*. Nobody in the industry took Troika seriously, no publisher would back them up long enough. That has nothing to do with a healthy entrepenurial attitude, like I said, a spread portfolio is a good thing, and there are surely publishers out there big enough to be able to afford backing up a company that cranks out slow, but steady bucks.

This is a vicious cycle, y'know, one of the reasons the gaming industry isn't maturing is because it refuses to face the simple economic fact that the high-profile high-risk-only game they're playing is pure economic insanity, and one of the reasons they have to play that game is because they're not mature. It's not going to be changed if people just keep saying "meh, that's just the way it is."

Of course, it'll inevitably change, but that's another topic.

Publishers are interested in games that are long sellers like Fallout, it's just they have no way of knowing what is going to be a long seller and it is far easier for them and safer to publish a game with the latest and greatest graphics that is going to sell 300,000 in the first 3 months and give them a quick profit even though it may slide into obscurity once reviews start becoming widely available and games with even better graphics are available.

Uhm, not to nit-pick, but while, as Gorath effectively argues, the long-term selling market is hardly risk-free, it's not like the short-term selling market *is*. Remember, the compete in the short-term selling market at all, you have to go high-budget. If you flop in the low or mid-budget range, you can survive. If you flop in the high-budget range, you generally go belly-up.

As an investor, if looking at risks, I'd probably prefer Troika to Bethesda. Troika had mid-range games that sold enough to pay for themselves and then some, and each game so far was a long-term hit. Bethesda has a *lot* more, but also invests so much that one flop is all that is needed to topple the entire structure.

[Avantenor]

Longselling: There is also this technical barrier. Fallout was designed for Windows 9x and it's DOS background. Today we're using a NT-based OS like XP or Vista. Yes, there is normally a possibility to make old games run on XP or Vista, but it's always another solution. For LucasArts-Adventures a simple solution is ScummVM, but for Daggerfall you need another programm. When you're good enough, you have heard of VDMSound and can grab it somewhere (because the original project website is down), that's the easy way. Or you're simply not informed enough and so you choose DOSBox as your favorite virtual machine. Good luck, it's not that easy as it seems. For Warcraft II i.e. I didn't find a solution for my graphical issues. The Riddle of Master Lu doesn't work and so on.

Film and music industry can rely on longselling without further work to be done. CD is the same since almost 20 years, the only change in production since then is introduction of copy protection (and its problems for replay). In film market, of course, DVD is not as long available as CD and is changing now to BR / HD, but compared to games it's very easy to shift between these media. And normally there are standard definitions for all formats and players. If something doesn't work, there are two solutions: Medium or player are defect. If the media is defect you can bring it back and get another copy. If the player is defect you can try to repair it (guarentee) or simply by another one for a few bucks. A DVD-Player costs 50 €.

For PC there are standards also, but different combinations of hardware, the problem for a game not running on your PC could be everything. To get over this problems first you have to locate the problem. Copy protection or your dvd drive? Is it your video card? Or only chipset drivers? Maybe even an old BIOS version? When I take a look to NWN2, its various problems and lots of solutions, I could start crying ;). And these changes that M$ implements to force people to buy a new OS isn't helpful, too. To get these games back to retail market, you need programmers to look over your code or find another solution to make these games run on XP or Vista. And of course, you have to support it, with all its consequences. There are only two examples coming to my mind there this had been done: EAs Command & Conquer - The First Decade (I was quite perplex that EA was doing this ;)) and Ubisofts Settler 2 (but only in combination with a Collector's edition with it's Remake Settlers - The Next Generation).

That old games can sell as well, I will not deny. Best examples are mobile games, many of them are based on old DOS or C64 games. But that's only small source code. The only solution for todays games I could think off, would be a online plattform with a virtual machine running in the background to guarantee a failure-free game experience. Or something like XBox Arcade, since all Xbox 360s have the same hardware.

Also I agree, that there is a market for middle class games. That's proven, just remember that there are still many adventures and dtp / Anaconda has earned enough money with selling adventures that they now can finance more mainstream games. Or Frogster, a publisher mainly selling mediocre titles, now looking for mass market titles. But I don't think that's the market, Bethsoft has in mind with Fallout. Nearly all studios and publishers are looking for the big success. Developing games with small earnings does not impress your shareholders, that only works for privately financed companies.