What does it take for a game to become truly HUGE??
by Anguel · in General Discussion · 08/13/2006 (6:56 pm) · 9 replies
I've been wondering. What do you guys think it takes for a game to become truly huge?? Like Halo, or Counter-Strike, WoW, etc.... I'd say it's being a great game, but The Chronicles of Riddick was amazing, I loved that game, the critics loved it.... but it just didn't take off somehow. Starbreeze is making another game "The Darkness". http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/thedarkness/index.html
Will this game suffer the same undeserved fate even if it is just as great?? Metroid Prime also, sure it did good, but it's not as huge as it could have been. Is it because these games are 'too unusual'?? Or is it a lack of marketing?? Halo had no marketing force behind it though(from what I remember anyways) but I suddenly heard about it from EVERYONE and EVERYWHERE. Counter-Strike started off as just a mod, now it's it's own series of successful, popular games. Psychonauts had marketing, and from what I heard was AMAZING. Yet it didn't seem to get all of the commercial success it seems it deserved. I don't hear people talking about their 23rd time through Psychonauts, just things like 'The Maul' in Halo, and what happened the billionth time they went through Scholo in WoW.
ANYWAYS.... what's your input??
Will this game suffer the same undeserved fate even if it is just as great?? Metroid Prime also, sure it did good, but it's not as huge as it could have been. Is it because these games are 'too unusual'?? Or is it a lack of marketing?? Halo had no marketing force behind it though(from what I remember anyways) but I suddenly heard about it from EVERYONE and EVERYWHERE. Counter-Strike started off as just a mod, now it's it's own series of successful, popular games. Psychonauts had marketing, and from what I heard was AMAZING. Yet it didn't seem to get all of the commercial success it seems it deserved. I don't hear people talking about their 23rd time through Psychonauts, just things like 'The Maul' in Halo, and what happened the billionth time they went through Scholo in WoW.
ANYWAYS.... what's your input??
About the author
#3
08/13/2006 (8:33 pm)
Good idea, good execution, money, and advertising.
#4
08/13/2006 (9:39 pm)
Once Jon's baseline criteria has been met . . . all that's left is for timing, serendipity, and unrealistic customer expectations to cast the deciding votes.
#6
I wonder if Halo would have done as well had it been on PS2 with competition to deal with. Would it have done better? Would it have been just another face in the crowd along with Red Faction, and Rainbow Six?
I think 50 Cents Bulletproof sold a million copies even though the game got horrible reviews. I hear garbage being played on the radio everyday with single note melodies from a $70 Casio keyboard that's going tripple platnum.
I'm no expert, but my plan is to make something, toss it in the air and hope it sticks. Make another one, toss it up, again and again. Get exposure the best you can. It's tough. I read that out of 200,000 downloads only 45,000 actually bought Geometry Wars at $5 a pop, and that's on XBLA which is about the most exposure your gonna get for an indie game. Less than 1/4 of their total exposure bought the game. That's only $225,000. And that's doing really well for a single indie style game. Mutant Storm is the same exact thing but with better graphics, more music, more weapons, a different look for each stage, different modes, I think it even has a two player mode. I kind of like it better. The game just isnt selling like GW. I don't get it.
-Ajari-
08/14/2006 (12:26 am)
That's a good question. I'm sure there have been people who have paid millions of dollars for that answer. I think that's a moving target though. I wonder if Halo would have done as well had it been on PS2 with competition to deal with. Would it have done better? Would it have been just another face in the crowd along with Red Faction, and Rainbow Six?
I think 50 Cents Bulletproof sold a million copies even though the game got horrible reviews. I hear garbage being played on the radio everyday with single note melodies from a $70 Casio keyboard that's going tripple platnum.
I'm no expert, but my plan is to make something, toss it in the air and hope it sticks. Make another one, toss it up, again and again. Get exposure the best you can. It's tough. I read that out of 200,000 downloads only 45,000 actually bought Geometry Wars at $5 a pop, and that's on XBLA which is about the most exposure your gonna get for an indie game. Less than 1/4 of their total exposure bought the game. That's only $225,000. And that's doing really well for a single indie style game. Mutant Storm is the same exact thing but with better graphics, more music, more weapons, a different look for each stage, different modes, I think it even has a two player mode. I kind of like it better. The game just isnt selling like GW. I don't get it.
-Ajari-
#7
Find your cool kids, survey them, make a game they gonna like then all the sheep dollars will follow.
08/15/2006 (2:10 pm)
What makes a great selling product is to get some kind of ground swell approval from "the in crowd". If the cool kids are playing a particular game, then the rest of the sheep will buy into it so that they can also be cool.Find your cool kids, survey them, make a game they gonna like then all the sheep dollars will follow.
#8
"solid product planning"
aka:
market evaluation techniques deployed.
what is working and how can we "Capitolize" on it?
how can we take an already successfull product bring it up a tiny ensy weensy bit
(so we dont have to work to hard)
and Bam sell it up and make a bagillion zillion dollars from all the sheeple out there.
honestly tho its all in the product what you thought might have been great does not mean the mass's will qualify it.
(ridick Sucked.. see what I mean?)
you need to calculate a target audience and work with it.
not disregarding the rest of your statements mostly valid indeed.
but this one point I think was overlooked and it is Very important for a success in this Capitolist environment.
08/15/2006 (2:50 pm)
I am surprised noone really said: "solid product planning"
aka:
market evaluation techniques deployed.
what is working and how can we "Capitolize" on it?
how can we take an already successfull product bring it up a tiny ensy weensy bit
(so we dont have to work to hard)
and Bam sell it up and make a bagillion zillion dollars from all the sheeple out there.
honestly tho its all in the product what you thought might have been great does not mean the mass's will qualify it.
(ridick Sucked.. see what I mean?)
you need to calculate a target audience and work with it.
not disregarding the rest of your statements mostly valid indeed.
but this one point I think was overlooked and it is Very important for a success in this Capitolist environment.
#9
You need to make a game that is irrestitable to a most people who play games.
That is of course the most simple and complex answer to a question since 'how do you know you are in love? you just know.'
But's it's true nevertheless.
It's funny... I hear people all the time talking about how to make games that will sell. Truth is, games are about how you feel when you play them. The only way to know you have a HUGE game on your hands is to feel it. You either are in touch with what makes people have fun or you are not.
It's like being funny. You can't calculate it. You have to feel it. And what makes someone funny? When someone laughs. And what makes a game HUGE? What everyone has a good time with it.
Why do shitty made games of movies still make a lot of money? Because people enjoy playing a game about the movie they liked. That's it. It's about how much fun you have. Quality is only as important as it helps something be fun.
I follow movies alot and it's always interesting to me to see critics calling the masses stupid becuase they latch onto a 'shitty' movie. The jokes on the critic. Nobody takes movies as seriously as critics. Masses take moview for their face value. Masses are ussually to busy with 1000 other things in life to care about how fine a movie is. It's 2 hours of their life. They don't really care how the movie stacks up to other movies.
It's the same way with games. You give me a LOTR game and I'm going to buy it simply because I liked the movie so much. And I like games. Cool, a game about something else I liked. Doesn't matter if the game isn't groundbreaking as long as it's at least good enough not to spoil the movie for me.
That's what most people who try to calculate how to make a game huge get wrong. They dont' get what it is that made the player buy the game in the first place. They bought it because it seemed like it was going to be a good time. 1/10000 care about the finer quality of a game.
The real truth of it is... that it really takes someone who feels about fun the same way most people feel about fun to make a HUGE game. That's the plain truth of it. It's never going to be the best game that is the HUGE game. It's going to be the game that everyone thinks will be fun to play.
Marketing knows this... that's why they spend all the time trying to convince people that a game is going to be fun. Cause that's all that sells a game.
Now... I'm not saying that quality doesn't matter. I'm saying that it only matters enough that it makes the game a fun time or prevents the game from becoming unfun. Take the LOTR movies. Nobody in hollywood thought that the masses would like a fantasy movie. But everyone else on the planet did. And Peter Jackson did NOT make LOTR movies anything less than beautiful epics... because if he didn't... they wouldn't be fun for people to watch... because that's what they were about. Most people don't want a shitty fantasy movie because fantasy is about the opposite. Someone made films what people wanted to see and everyone went to see them... multiple times.
That's my opinion. I've never finished and sold a game. But I pay attention. And I understand the idea because it's the same for any kind of entertainment you ever want to make to sell to people.
08/15/2006 (10:31 pm)
I can tell you how to make a game truly HUGE.You need to make a game that is irrestitable to a most people who play games.
That is of course the most simple and complex answer to a question since 'how do you know you are in love? you just know.'
But's it's true nevertheless.
It's funny... I hear people all the time talking about how to make games that will sell. Truth is, games are about how you feel when you play them. The only way to know you have a HUGE game on your hands is to feel it. You either are in touch with what makes people have fun or you are not.
It's like being funny. You can't calculate it. You have to feel it. And what makes someone funny? When someone laughs. And what makes a game HUGE? What everyone has a good time with it.
Why do shitty made games of movies still make a lot of money? Because people enjoy playing a game about the movie they liked. That's it. It's about how much fun you have. Quality is only as important as it helps something be fun.
I follow movies alot and it's always interesting to me to see critics calling the masses stupid becuase they latch onto a 'shitty' movie. The jokes on the critic. Nobody takes movies as seriously as critics. Masses take moview for their face value. Masses are ussually to busy with 1000 other things in life to care about how fine a movie is. It's 2 hours of their life. They don't really care how the movie stacks up to other movies.
It's the same way with games. You give me a LOTR game and I'm going to buy it simply because I liked the movie so much. And I like games. Cool, a game about something else I liked. Doesn't matter if the game isn't groundbreaking as long as it's at least good enough not to spoil the movie for me.
That's what most people who try to calculate how to make a game huge get wrong. They dont' get what it is that made the player buy the game in the first place. They bought it because it seemed like it was going to be a good time. 1/10000 care about the finer quality of a game.
The real truth of it is... that it really takes someone who feels about fun the same way most people feel about fun to make a HUGE game. That's the plain truth of it. It's never going to be the best game that is the HUGE game. It's going to be the game that everyone thinks will be fun to play.
Marketing knows this... that's why they spend all the time trying to convince people that a game is going to be fun. Cause that's all that sells a game.
Now... I'm not saying that quality doesn't matter. I'm saying that it only matters enough that it makes the game a fun time or prevents the game from becoming unfun. Take the LOTR movies. Nobody in hollywood thought that the masses would like a fantasy movie. But everyone else on the planet did. And Peter Jackson did NOT make LOTR movies anything less than beautiful epics... because if he didn't... they wouldn't be fun for people to watch... because that's what they were about. Most people don't want a shitty fantasy movie because fantasy is about the opposite. Someone made films what people wanted to see and everyone went to see them... multiple times.
That's my opinion. I've never finished and sold a game. But I pay attention. And I understand the idea because it's the same for any kind of entertainment you ever want to make to sell to people.
Torque Owner Nauris Krauze