THQ... Next Crytek?

[Furyo]

My reply is nonsense? I promise you no large AAA publisher would ever have looked at it twice when presented with it. Way too hardcore, no broad appeal, etc etc. It became a sleeper hit amongst the hardcore crowd and now other publishers will get the sense they can make those games too. But the risk to take on this franchise was way too high for such meager estimated rewards. That's the other problem it has going for itself, you can't grow the target demographic of Dark Souls to a comfortable size for a major AAA franchise the size these large publishers have.

 

Risk averse also means passing by a few hits every now and then. Namco had to take the risk, and they did and won.

[Vilham]

I am not disputing your general claim, but this claim about Dark souls is pretty wrong. Dark souls was not a sleeper hit, demon souls was. Dark souls was pretty much guaranteed to sell 2m+ units.

[AlexM]

Yeah at that point dark souls was a pretty good investment. If you all remember demons souls was very stupidly dropped by Sony. If they hadn't done that it probably would still be exclusive to their system and they would have had a major selling point during the ps3 vs xb360 era.

 

 

Also a note on tomb raider. It would have most likely made a profit if they hadn't spent so much money on things that dont matter like paying exorbitant amount of money to celebrities to do voice acting and mocap. Seriously, the people who made those decisions must be so disconnected from reality. I don't notice celebrities in games and I certainly don't care. 

[blackdog]

And the ups and downs are part of a sustainable model IMO, Nintendo still has an absurd, absolutely absurd stockpile of cash to weather the hard times. I think the fact that they can always rely on the quality of the product differentiates them from the parasitic publishers, whose primary interest is to take a good franchise and milk it for every last drop. It's a focus on quality of product as a way to sustain long-term profits, versus a profit-focused approach which views franchises as commodities to be rotated in and out.

Do the really? Differentiate from the others i mean.

I think they are just acting like so, and they fooled everybody. They are underselling the competition: it works for one/a few companies in different businesses.

And by the way they really have two businesses going on at the same time, one boosts the other and vice-versa so I don't see them as a term of comparison.

As I remember, they weren't doing great at all before the Wii, they hit it big then and their stash comes from making a dirty cheap console… that has been taking dust in most households as the novelty wear off.

They have been the only selling well their own titles, and not simply because they were great games for the platform. I've tried some Ubi games and they are as good party titles as Nintendo's, but they don't come bundled with the console. Correct if I'm wrong in thinking that game sales account for the bundles.

Another reason you cannot compare them is that they are basically the sole providers for their own platform. Ubisoft and Activision, or EA, don't have means to differentiate, they cannot boost their own sales juggling two businesses: of course they milk the hell out of titles! And frankly, I think stuff like COD has quality, I might not like it, but much more people do so…

I dunno the innards of business, but I guess that if they have to put out a title per year, that's necessary for their sustainability, whether Nintendo can sits on its ass after putting out a Mario game because of its sales, the indirect sales of hardware it causes, and the royalties from other companies.

Like Valve not putting out shit for years because of Steam. Or Blizzard because of WoW.

id Software tried to make quality games, draining their stash, and look how it worked out for them. I think companies see that as a cautionary tale.

[Furyo]

I am not disputing your general claim, but this claim about Dark souls is pretty wrong. Dark souls was not a sleeper hit, demon souls was. Dark souls was pretty much guaranteed to sell 2m+ units.

 

Apologies, I got the two confused....

[-HP-]

 

I am not disputing your general claim, but this claim about Dark souls is pretty wrong. Dark souls was not a sleeper hit, demon souls was. Dark souls was pretty much guaranteed to sell 2m+ units.

 

Apologies, I got the two confused....

 

 

Who doesn't, I still don't know which is which and I've played both. Title naming fail.

[Alf-Life]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-08-the-transformation-was-painful-we-paid-the-price

 

Massive interview with Cevat.

[dux]

As I mention on Pogo's facebook post; Free to play is not the future of games.

[AyzOn]

Im not even affected by any decision Cevat made and I actually didnt even care.

But after reading the Interview... wow. I dont like that guy.

[cashed]

an Ex-Frankfurter i work with sent me that article. Real arrogance. What really disgusts me is the assumption that ppl can live for a month or more without getting paid...

[marks]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-08-the-transformation-was-painful-we-paid-the-price

 

Massive interview with Cevat.

 

More like ... Cetwat ?

[Izuno]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-08-the-transformation-was-painful-we-paid-the-price

 

Massive interview with Cevat.

 

At least the interviewer asked a lot of direct questions, with several cases of followup attempting to ask the questions many, many people want answers to.  +1 for eurogamer i guess.

[Pampers]

Take a shot everytime "transformation" is mentioned in that text

[Steppenwolf]

I don't understand this whole f2p plan. Crytek was always such a cutting edge technology driven company. For the best technology and best gfx you need the best people. But i don't see how f2p would tempt anyone to move around half the globe or even within Europe. It's not very interesting from my perspective.

[robert.briscoe]

 

 

Some people live in very tight financial planning. That’s their own privacy. They can do whatever they want. Those guys, when they get under pressure it can become emotional.

 

What a cunty thing to say

Edited August 9, 2014 by robert.briscoe