Larian Studios - Status Update - Funding Secured for Two Projects

Originally Posted by rune_74
I was trying to point to a double standard we have on this site, oblivion is not considered by many of you to be an RPG but dragon knight saga is. Ditto to dragon age 1 and 2….Dragon knight saga is a good game, but it is rpg light as any other rpg on the market.

It's all opinion though. Oblivion is not a very good RPG in my opinion because an RPG to me is choice and consequence. Oblivion offers no meaningful choices in quests, the world or even in character creation since you can max everything. That makes it a lacking RPG to me.

To someone whose idea of a good RPG is exploration though, or loot collecting, Oblivion might be an RPG masterpiece. That's the whole point, these things are not set in stone and vary by the person.

Vanilla Oblivion is a fairly mediocre CRPG, imo. I don't think many people would argue that its best asset is modability. Even the exploration and loot was poor (imo) because of how extreme the level scaling was.

That's not to say it isn't an enjoyable game, because obviously many people enjoyed it greatly. For me it's a game where the right mods are a necessity however.

I have pretty much the same opinion of an unmodded FO3, but that actually became one of my favorite games in recent memory after I finished modding it to my liking.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Ahh well i didn't mean to imply that as you the guys running the site have these feelings, I look at this site as a product of those that use it. I should have used the word community and I apologize for that.

Are you sure you're talking about RPGWatch? A common ( but certainly not unanimous) opinion here is not that Oblivion was not an RPG, but that the leveling scheme made the game too drab and defeated one of the greatest joys in a typical RPG. That being to develop your character so that it is no longer that easy to squash babe in the woods.

It seemed to me that the Oblivion leveling scheme was geared to FPS mindset, so that combat was the main focus. IIRC, They even said at one time they wanted combat to always be challenging. By mid game, I felt my character wasn't getting anywhere and it was easy to leave the game and I felt no need to come back.

So if you ever hear me say Oblivion was not an RPG, I don't mean it in the technical sense. But only in the sense I was not getting that very typical RPG feeling of character building. Still, I never said Oblivion was not an RPG. And I don't think I have heard that expressed much here . . . . in THIS community.

harcdore = porn
crpgs = games

I consider everything here a hardcore crpg. The ones that don't fit that description, for me, are the mix games like Deus Ex, Bioshock, Mass Effect, etc. Some of those are great games, just not a hardcore crpg.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I call this good news. We will get two rpgs from Larian Studios. Hopefully we can finally kill Damien. Something the divine should of did when he was a child.

I also have to agree with Lars on what the industry thinks of hardcore rpgs. If it doesn't have dlc plans or micro-transaction most are not interested. For this reason that's why there is only three big rpg developers out and its shrinking. That is a sad thought.

I'm also getting tired of hearing its to hardcore and company's using the term as if it is detestable. Another causality of streamlining for sales. So just let me wish Larian Studios good luck and hopefully one day you get a chance to make your dream rpg.

I don't get it. If sales are so bad for these types of games how were these types of games even made in the 90s-early 00s?

Were sales of these games higher back then than they are now? I find that hard to believe. The audience for games seems to be as large as it's ever been, and I really doubt that the 'hardcore' audience (I use that term loosely) is any smaller than it was 10 years ago. While the proportion of 'hardcore' gamer compared to halo/sports game etc. players is likely smaller than it was back in 1998, I really doubt that the actual numbers are smaller.

If publishers were able to make a profit out of a game like BG in 1998, when the game-playing audience was much smaller in general, why can't they do the same today?

Or are games so expensive to produce now that one must have blockbuster-movie level sales to be profitable? Just doesn't add to me.

Originally Posted by Captain Smollett
I don't get it. If sales are so bad for these types of games how were these types of games even made in the 90s-early 00s?

Were sales of these games higher back then than they are now? I find that hard to believe. The audience for games seems to be as large as it's ever been, and I really doubt that the 'hardcore' audience (I use that term loosely) is any smaller than it was 10 years ago. While the proportion of 'hardcore' gamer compared to halo/sports game etc. players is likely smaller than it was back in 1998, I really doubt that the actual numbers are smaller.

If publishers were able to make a profit out of a game like BG in 1998, when the game-playing audience was much smaller in general, why can't they do the same today?

Or are games so expensive to produce now that one must have blockbuster-movie level sales to be profitable? Just doesn't add to me.

Games are much more expensive now…it's not even close to what it used to be to make a game.

Originally Posted by Captain Smollett
If publishers were able to make a profit out of a game like BG in 1998, when the game-playing audience was much smaller in general, why can't they do the same today?

Or are games so expensive to produce now that one must have blockbuster-movie level sales to be profitable? Just doesn't add to me.

Production budgets are skyrocketing. There were times when you could make a whole game with up-to-date production values for 20k. Now you need much more. But if you have higher budgets you also need more platforms. Manufacturing and distribution for consoles is very, very expensive. As it seems the market does not support mid level product, meaning the majority of the customers buy block busters, a few buy niche products, but not enough people are buying games in the 2 - 10M$ range. Therefore we see a continuing trend towards the edges of the spectrum. Games either go digital only, are dirt cheap shovelware (horse games for little girls) or AAA blockbuster with a 50-100M$ investment upfront for production, manufacturing, distribution and marketing. Games like Drakensang and Divinity are stuck in the middle. They have to fight an uphill battle to secure distribution and shelf space.

If you follow Larian's announcements you'll see they are trying to self-publish as far as possible to become less dependent on publishers: co-funding, publishing in Germany, their own DL service, other bread & butter products (Belgian TV stuff). That's probably the right way for a small studio. Retail is dead in the UK and the US for all except the AAA products - but for what do you need a publisher if he can't secure shelf space ?!

I guess that's why Germany is still important to them (Larian, that is) s a market : Middle-tier products are still relatively good sold here.

I wonder, however, what will be the end of this evolution ? Of this "continuing trend towards the edges of the spectrum" ?