Dragon Age 2 - What Went Wrong @ RPS

ChienAboyeur said:

I found it weird that after listing so many bad points in DA 2 and possibly having more to say, the guy still opened his article with stating he thinks DA 2 is still a good game. As if it was required to avoid being flamed… I am curious of reading an article of his on a bad game.

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The point is that the article is about what is wrong with the game. Since the article will then be 100% negative by default he wanted to make sure people knew there were good things as well.

I liked the game, I played it for 50 hours and then started a second character. I wouldn't do that if the game wasn't fun to play. It is very flawed and has a lot of issues, but it can still be a fun game.

DoctorNarrative said:

The point is that the article is about what is wrong with the game. Since the article will then be 100% negative by default he wanted to make sure people knew there were good things as well.

I liked the game, I played it for 50 hours and then started a second character. I wouldn't do that if the game wasn't fun to play. It is very flawed and has a lot of issues, but it can still be a fun game.

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Woo I'll print that and will stick it on the wall facing me when I use my computer. Myself what I regret about that game it's all the non sense it triggered. I also find it quite fun despite the clear flaws, and seriously more fun than quite many RPG I played those last months, I only see DKS giving me more fun, not even FNV, DQ9, PQ2, EB2, and quite many other. But on another point of view it's clear Bioware and EA gave the staff to beat them, and it's probably not that bad Bioware get beat rudely in that affair. But my feeling of justice is a little hurt anyway because I also feel all this reaction as a huge injustice with a lot of blind exaggeration.

ChienAboyeur said:

Either these consumers have already paid and their money is already in Bioware's coffers or they will buy the game at a price reflecting more its gaming value but in one year or so. In both cases, their critics are irrelevant.

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Most publishers do assume some relation between review and sales. It is not direct, and it's hard to tell how much influence they have, but are you really denying it exists at all?

Now it might be true that at this point the relevance has gone down. I usually publish reviews quite a while after publishing since GB's reviewers spend a lot of time one games. Does it make me irrelevant? Maybe.

I'll be curious to see Dragon Age 2's sales numbers.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

One could argue that the non-changing of the city is actually prt of Varric's story … (aka "framed narrative", THE buzzword of Dragon Age 2 ! - next to the infamous "awesome button").

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Yes I agree and hopefully the framed narrative is dropped in the next game. Terrible idea that wasn't done right in the game.

I don't see how the framed narrative would demand an unchanging city. In the contrary, it would have provided every opportunity to explaun and comment the changes that were going on in the "skipped" periods.

Couchpotato said:

Terrible idea that wasn't done right in the game.

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You mean, even if it "was done right", it would still be a terrible idea?

Because I don´t think that DA2 is bad in terms of basic ideas/concepts, those were pretty promising (on paper). The game fails in execution.

DeepO said:

Because I don´t think that DA2 is bad in terms of basic ideas/concepts, those were pretty promising (on paper). The game fails in execution.

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I agree. The premise, setting, and overall concept were very promising. Unfortunately, the execution was generally very mediocre.

Brother None said:

Most publishers do assume some relation between review and sales. It is not direct, and it's hard to tell how much influence they have, but are you really denying it exists at all?

Now it might be true that at this point the relevance has gone down. I usually publish reviews quite a while after publishing since GB's reviewers spend a lot of time one games. Does it make me irrelevant? Maybe.

I'll be curious to see Dragon Age 2's sales numbers.

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Reviewing is in a ditch. In Wrestling, people buy their seats to cheer and boo wrestlers. Controversial is the best as it appeals to both sides, those who like and those who dislike. Makes more money.

Video sites/magazines etc… are tools in the marketing strategy.
Pre-term/short term as a promotional outlet for publishers to build up the hype, peer pressures, group effects… (releases of features, teasers, exclusive interviews and all) and in mid-term/long term as validation of the sales realized during the short term life of a game (this is when marketing starts to advertize for the game through the reviews notation and selected extracts)

Reviewers are entangled in a circular environment. Hype impact often supercedes reviews impact. This, in addition to buyers' behaviours, leads reviewers to adapt their notation to the predicted sales on short term. A game expected to sell well is generally noted high. Even better, the mark does not correspond with the content of the review.

Here's the described cycle:
-publishers build up hype successfully=>pre-ordering/purchase on release/first week of day of the game is big=>to match the perception of the first batch of buyers, reviewers set a high mark on the game=>publishers use the review marks (selectively) to advertize for the game in mid term/long term. Self validating environment.

GhanBuriGhan said:

I don't see how the framed narrative would demand an unchanging city. In the contrary, it would have provided every opportunity to explaun and comment the changes that were going on in the "skipped" periods.

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I see the framed narrative as a cover by designers to provide a cheap explanation on the absence of big decisions as Bioware calls them. In ME2, they have a video game clerk cracking a joke on old fashioned gamers who can not taste the new generation of game, that gives players the opportunity of big decisions and something else, wanting back the good old days when the most mattering decisions were about to drink and eat.

The framed narrative story is useful from the game designers' point of view. It does not help from the player's point of view.

The framed narrative requires that the player keeps always the time two levels of committment in the time line: first, he must keep seeing the past as the past but also accept that he must act in the past to keep the action going. The past is the past but for most of the game, the past must be dealt with as the present.
The player must accept that he knows the end of the story while he does not know of it and discovers it as he is playing it.

You know that you have defeated that wave of enemies as Varric tells the story in the present but you still have to fight in the past to make it happen and commit yourself to influence the event.

When one goes your way, the benefit of a framed narrative is neutered. As the city could change following the events, the events in the past could shape Varric's story. Varric's story could adapt according to what you did in the past.

ChienAboyeur said:

Reviewing is in a ditch. In Wrestling, people buy their seats to cheer and boo wrestlers. Controversial is the best as it appeals to both sides, those who like and those who dislike. Makes more money.

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Reviews are more important with games for some reason. While a poorly reviewed movie like Transformers can make a lot of money anyway with the right marketing and special effects there is a very strong correlation between review scores and success in the game industry.

Not 100% solid by any means of course. High rated games like Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil can still sell poorly and low rated games like Homefront can still sell well, but there is a much stronger correlation than with movies or music. Even beyond sales there have been many, many articles talking about metacritic scores being an internal barometer at publishers to decide how successful a game was and how well a team did their job.

The fact that DA2's lead platform version has a 79% on metacritic is a HUGE deal behind the scenes, I promise you. There was an article in Game Informer about how Dead Space getting an 89, missing a 90, was a HUGE deal. If that was even half true then a 79% has caused a lot of meetings and yelling in EA/Bioware offices.

Reviewers align their notation on the sales figures deduced from pre-ordering and first week after release. The full price life time of a game is pretty short nowadays, it lasts three months, not much more. Even the second week after release, prices can drop or plunge.

The high correlation between reviews and sales comes in this direction: good sales on the pre-ordering, first days after release make good reviews which are used as references to support mid-term/long term sales.

DeepO said:

You mean, even if it "was done right", it would still be a terrible idea?

Because I don´t think that DA2 is bad in terms of basic ideas/concepts, those were pretty promising (on paper). The game fails in execution.

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Both I dont want this method used in there next game. I personally dont like it and it may sound good on paper it wasn't done right and they will never get it right.

GhanBuriGhan said:

I don't see how the framed narrative would demand an unchanging city. In the contrary, it would have provided every opportunity to explaun and comment the changes that were going on in the "skipped" periods.

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Varric could just have been a type of person who just doesn't see these things ... Especially if he is a Dwarf with the life span of several hundreds of years ...

I don't know. I'm just trying to understand it.

But to me, personally, a "non-change" is a "no-go". This shouldn't be there, imho. I want so witness the change of a city ...

But maybe EA suits don't see changes in real cities themselves and so regarded this as not important ?

("Mind cinema" : A role-playing game with a banker as the protagonist : No change in the cities for hundreds of years - but even the smallest, the tiniest change in currencies is critically recorded ! :lol: )

ChienAboyeur said:

Reviewers align their notation on the sales figures deduced from pre-ordering and first week

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What? Reviewers do not have access to pre-order or first week sales numbers. The review scores from mainstream sites correlate with mainstream success because they're both targeted at the same audience. Your theory is a bit too conspiracy theory for me. Any foundation?

Publishers neither have a PR service.

Sales figures deduced from pre ordering and first week after release. Sales figures are not known directly, they are deduced. That is what I wrote.

A number of online retailer provide a pre order chart, which allow to get an overlook and an idea on the volumes.

The information can reach people who want it (probably a non professional here with no insider information) based on Steam data (something like 70pc of the PC market)

http://www.gameconnect.net/gc/steam/news/35989/steam-sales-charts

Reading economics papers also help as they might release the expectations of sales by the publisher (might find one link back for GTA 4 as I followed the case)

So found it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3357074/Grand-Theft-Auto-IV-could-outsell-Halo-3.html#

etc

So, yep, people with no insider information has no access to the numbers of pre order but can get a an idea on volumes.
People with insider information might be given a foretaste of numbers or at least hints at how well a game performed as publishers have pre order/first day/first week sales expectations and can inform if they are on par with their plan.

ChienAboyeur said:

based on Steam data (something like 70pc of the PC market)

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Nooooo. Recent estimates make digital sales 50% and Steam is 70% of THAT. Steam is like 30-40% of the PC market.

Actually, I was fed this piece of data by Steam supporters who have no end telling how Steam is good and everybody should use it. Which I dont.

It's still a HUGE percentage, which is why I hope Gamestop's purchase of Impulse brings in some competition.

DoctorNarrative said:

It's still a HUGE percentage, which is why I hope Gamestop's purchase of Impulse brings in some competition.

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Competition certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, but is it really an improvement seeing two "evils" battle it out? Personally, I would have greatly preferred that Impulse stayed the same and continued to grow. However, Stardock has been in the midst of a shocking decline in quality (and sales as a result) with their past two games, and my guess would be that this transaction was a necessary move for them to stay in business. Their logic just doesn't add up as to why they say they are selling Impulse. They claim that they don't want to be a retailer, but because Impulse makes a solid yearly income for Stardock, they could easily hire a larger dedicated team to run Impulse and be guaranteed a consistent source of revenue, which would allow the game development team to stay as it is.

Nerevarine said:

However, Stardock has been in the midst of a shocking decline in quality (and sales as a result) with their past two games, and my guess would be that this transaction was a necessary move for them to stay in business.

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Everybody keeps saying this type of thing but Wardell swears that Stardock makes all its money from utilities and that Elemental broke even.