Sell- ability of a Torque game.

#1 linky and linky immediately spring to mind.

A lot of effort put into them, a fair bit of coin invested in the latter, the former done by just 2 guys and hired coders. Neither of them look like Kork.

Difficult to say how things actually sell as there are no financial reports like the multinational publishers sometimes give out when they want to publicize how well something is selling.

#2 The multinational publishers give out reports? Where can they be found.

#3 All the multinats give out fiscal reports every quarter which are incredibly boring and contain no game info - it's for shareholders, but they also give out info on game sales (when they want to - though hardly ever on PC). They're just out in the gaming media. CoD5 sold 11m units. Never tell you what that actually translates to as in cash received for the publisher (retail gets something daft like half) and they certainly never say what percentage the dev team profits.

In fact I hate to think how small the percentage of a full price 3A game the dev company that made it are entitled to.

You'll just have search through the media for snippets.

#4 @John: Asking about the sell-ability of a Torque game is like asking paintbrush and canvas manufacturers whether they can be used to make good art. The answer will always lie with the game designers, programmers, and artists. Absolutely, Torque has to do its part by being of high quality, but in the end, it will be the people who use Torque who will determine the sell-ability of a game.

#5 I think it's a fair question and, using Deborah's metaphor, not all canvases are created equal, nor are all brushes. So it's hard to do Dali style artwork with a horsehair brush. The tool needs to match the task.

Saleability of the game depends a lot on who you are marketing to. While your more hard core gamers might sit through a 4 hour download of a game and then the additional hour to patch it and a loadtime of 5 minutes, your more casual gamer will walk away and never even try the game. On the other hand, your more casual gamer will probably be more forgiving when it comes to AI, physics, and rendering quality. Your hard core gamer is going to demand a LOT in those areas.

#6 @Judy: You summarized more elegantly what I was trying to get at. While it is true that not all brushes are created equal, it is subjective whether Dali art is more sell-able than art made by a local craftsman with a horsehair brush. There are certain people who would only collect famous works of art, and there are others who not only "forgive" but in fact prefer more "crude" forms of art. The same holds true with games. I actually like games with a more cartoony feel, but many of my gamer friends will only take a game seriously if it bridges the uncanny valley. That doesn't mean the cartoony games are more or less "sell-able" than the realistic-looking ones. It just all depends on your market.

However, when it comes to artistry, you cannot rely on the market alone. You also have to have the right team. If you have a market, but a loose team with no clear-cut goals, the best tools in the world aren't going to make your game more sell-able. There are many people out there with Photoshop that can't produce high quality graphic art (and I unfortunately fall in this category T_T).

And, of course, coupled with that, you need good tools. I know Torque has the ability to create mass market "sell-able" games because I've seen developers make games like Penny Arcade Adventures with it. I've also seen students create more casual games like And Yet It Moves and Snapshot Adventures, both of which achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success (albeit not like Penny Arcade). On the flip side, I have seen people pick up Torque and start half-finished projects, then come back and say that people can't make "real games" with Torque. Seems kind of silly, given the amount of people who continue to make games with Torque.

So we can argue the weights of what is more important: tools, people, or market. Ultimately, you need all three to make a sell-able game. In my opinion the most important element is people because I believe the right people will make the best choice regarding tools and market.

And, if you think I'm trying to "pass the buck" off of GarageGames, I am not. It is our job to provide a "sell-able" game engine to you guys. We also make choices about market, tools, and people. But even here, I believe the people are the most important element of how we get things done, day to day.

#7 If enough time is devoted to the game, I think it could do quite well, don't forget, Tribes was developed with the original Torque.

I agree with the Portal reference, but noone is going to buy a Torque copy when the real game is cheap anyway.

#8 Stubbs the Zombie for Xbox was developed using the Halo engine.
They even plastered it on the case to brag about it.

Halo sold how many millions of copies???

And Stubbs the Zombie....not so much.

The simple truth is, there are engines being used that blow torque out of the water. The good news is, that doesn't matter.

I don't think the success of PAC-MAN had anything to do with a game engine. The success of a title starts with gameplay. If the game is fun, the word will spread, and the money will follow.

Having the most state of the art graphics helps for 1 thing...immersion.
Sure you can get the player immersed in the environment, but now that you have their attention...what will you do with it?

If you want to think in terms of "sale-ability" for generating a profit, think more in terms of "scalability". How many markets can your title capture. Can your title work on handheld devices? Can your title work as a flash game? Can your title work on consoles? PC? How many platforms can you scale the app to. If your title depends on a specific engine to run, you are limiting the title's potential. Unless, the advanced physics are what MAKES the gameplay.

If the game is garbage, it doesn't matter how many markets you hit...or what engine you run.

#9 But also, don't forget that using a more expensive engine people will have higher expectations.
If you were using UE3 (for example) people would want your game to look as good as Gears 2, since we are only paying a couple of hundred $ for a complete engine plus documentation and source and getting to make fun and original games, is pretty good, don't you think?

PAC-MAN didn't even have a game engine, I think it was based on vertex graphics, my pong games don't have an engine, mostly all written in the Game.cs file and using vertex graphics 98% of the time.

#10 Even pac man required a game engine. Your engine is what is responsible for handling all aspects of the game, from screen draws to user input. Nowdays, engines are so robust they have been mistaken for the acutal game.

Chess is still chess no matter what engine you run it on.

#11 True that it's still technically an engine, I just refer to game engines as fully featured ones (like Torque).

#12 The pac-man engine was cutting edge at the time, featuring input handling, colour graphics, sound, and collision detection ;)

#13 How much we have advanced since then..



and it's still good fun! ;)