Of course the last games will suck, but they will make nice profit just because they created a strong brand. It seems that the whole gaming industry is based on strong franchises nowadays. You rarely get some new and original ideas and these come from indie games. Creativity is getting choked by Profit. Nothing new here
Exactly. It's quite unfortunate really. Maybe someday we'll get a developer who cares more about the quality of the whole franchise rather than the profits it earns. Someday...Of course the last games will suck, but they will make nice profit just because they created a strong brand. It seems that the whole gaming industry is based on strong franchises nowadays. You rarely get some new and original ideas and these come from indie games. Creativity is getting choked by Profit. Nothing new here
Half the failures in the gaming industry, whether strong franchises, potential epic franchises, indie games, ANGRY f*****g BIRDS... Everything that sucked about video games in the past few years had more to do with @$$holes like EA, Rockstar and Activision (and similar publishers) rather than (just) the developers.
The arrogance of Rockstar made GTA4 the absolute worst console-to-PC port ever (for such a popular franchise), and they just credited such actions to PC software piracy (if you ever asked for help on their forums, you'd realize this very soon). The game was no fun so buggy and graphically bland. On the other hand... Anyone played Saints Row 2? The driving was worse than the good old Mafia: The City of Lost Haven, the graphics sucked really bad for the system requirements it demanded (but they were still better than GTA4), the whole port was just so bad, but it's still a lot more fun to play than Rockstar's Frankenstein (or any other, as a matter of fact). Red Dead Redemption? No PC version; read a statement somewhere saying they basically don't give damn about the PC because of the power of pirating. Also, I keep thinking that Rockstar was the one who forced Team Bondi, who made LA Noir, to shut down just to postpone the PC version... or perhaps they weren't satisfied with the sales; powerful "people" can be like that, nothing surprises me anymore.
Let's get one very simple thing (fact!) straight: EA was the one who made Dragon Age 2 so disgusting and bad, we all know it. One year to make a sequel to such a vast game that is Origins was just impossible. I don't want to get into discussion about it, because it has been chewed over and over, but I still stick to facts and my personal HO that it just doesn't compare to the first EPIC installment in the least! I'm not saying that Bioware didn't screw up, but their bad ideas were pushed into a nightmare-ish result by EA, who created a mindset that it's crucial to buy yet another football manager each year *sarcasm on* for the improvements, better graphics, realistic animations etc.* Yeah, right...
EA is the most powerful out there; half the games you own was released by EA, and half the studios that developed it have disappeared/made "fancy" bullsh*t console friendly games and tons of cash in the process. Pandemic Studios was shut down after the release of The Saboteur because of the whole ATI-logo-thing-but-doesn't-work-with-ATI-GPUs.
Activision=Black Ops, do I need to say anything else? I always did despise Treyarch, too, ever since I found out COD 3 was never going to be published for the PC platform (which, you know, was the one that allowed the idiots to make the crappy game in the first place) and still to this day remains the only (major) COD release I never played (including that one expansion pack for COD1, Finesh Hour, that was released only on consoles).
My point is that developers today rarely get more than once chance to make money (not develop a good game, mind you) by publishers before they're kicked out of a job, because, you know, who lives off of reputation these days? *sarcasm*
Nice rant, Marko.
But seriously, I agree.
First of all, I hated the fact that Red Dead Redemption wasn't released on PC. I'd seen all of the trailers and was waiting for it to come out and then..... it went straight to console and skipped us old PC gamers. And though I've never played any of the Dragon Age series I heard Origins was great and the sequel was rubbish. I sincerely hope AC doesn't turn out that way.
The problem with Assassin's Creed is that it's completely unplayable, and the worst thing is that it's not the developers' fault. Ubisoft's DRM is so goddamn frustrating and idiotic, I didn't even try more than a few times to play AS2 without a NoCD crack. It ruined the experience for me, especially because the game was friggin' awesome and fun! For Brotherhood, honest to god, I didn't try at all, just waited for a crack and played my rearend off without the DRM hitch, not even one (the fact that there may not have been any, like in AS2, was completely unimportant to me).
As for the game itself, so far, the storyline has been nothing but awesome; now that the grand conclusion is closer, it's going to be a lot harder to keep the tension and excitement going; that's exactly why I don't see the franchise going beyond Desmond, even if many people seem to think otherwise.
The franchise won't go anywhere beyond Desmond, but it still has potential. It seems that with the upcoming game the story starts going in a straight line but a twist (which would fuel 2 more games for example) could be inserted any time.
Another important aspect is the multiplayer. If it will behave well (sell more copies) Ubisoft will have an extra incentive to continue with the franchise.
An yeah, the publishers are sticking it to the developers with DRMs and idiotic deadlines. The resources invested in DRMs are enormous and generally game-breaking. They will never understand that PC piracy can't be avoided and that the people who play pirated games would never buy a game because usually they can't or don't afford it, so the profit doesn't exist. On the other hand, the people who want to buy the game will buy it anyway, even some buy a game after testing the pirated version to see if they like it.
This is why I love CD Projekt and The Witcher franchise. They understood this fine but obvious aspect of piracy.
+1
My thoughts exactly.
Also, AS MP? I lol at Brotherhood. Haven't tried it, and I applaud the attempt, but actually taking multiplayer seriously is a bad idea. You'd just know they'd have to cut something loose from SP in order to get MP up and running efficiently too. If not for any features and any other stuff, then for the aforementioned deadlines. No thanks, do not want MP.
I hated multiplayer. Played one match in Brotherhood and got bored. Sure, it might work on Call of Duty but unfortunately for Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed isn't an FPS.
Though I'm against piracy, I often download cracked apps for iPods. I never keep them for more than a few days though; as you've said above, they're to test the quality of the game.
I hated buying apps that turned out to be crap so I just jailbreaked and trialed the full version before buying. As for PC games, I only ever buy them if I've heard it's good. Even then, I read reviews from IGN, Gamespot etc. It's tight, I know. But I do save money from doing it.
And here I just got AC: Brotherhood, Sep. 5th on sale for $16 from Onlive.
I'm slow keeping up with these games.
And yay that their is no DRM BS with Onlive...aside from your cannot touch it physical...
Ah, that screenshot brings back memories... Not really, but anyway. How're you liking it so far?
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