Wasteland Sales, player stats and other business things

[Onholyservicebound]

Are we comparing games that have bigger advertising budgets than the entire development budgets of Kickstarted titles?

-snip-

Must have accidentally put a trigger word in there, sorry, here's a cleaned version for you:
"No, because if being a good game were the criteria for sales then W2 would have sold more. Not that I don't think D:OS is a good game, but the other reasons: Pretty graphics, bloom, co-op, combat-centric, light in tone, light in RPG mechanics, etc. Also keep it from being the kind of niche game that an "oldskool successor" like Wasteland 2 is. Although I will agree that the very strong beginning area contributed as well, it just isn't really something that I would consider the making of a good game, at least not to a "Hardcore" crowd, but yes, for the big percentage of people who play a game for a couple of hours then shelf it to move on to the next game in their bloated steam collection that's a great thing."

Correction, I think almost every game I've ever played has better combat than Wasteland 2.

What in the fuck?...
4/5 to 5/5 of the top RPGs in the codex top 70 have worse combat than W2, I don't know what the hell you experienced, but it must have been radically different from what I did..

 

[LESS T_T]

The Great Convergence of Steam Sales Rank:

Skyrim: "Nope. I'm getting out of here, suckers."

 

[Mareus]

Yet you don't see too many people complaining about Fallout combat.

Plenty of people criticize Fallout for its weak combat.

Fallout 2 (I can't find orignal Fallout page):
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/fallout-2
78 written reviews in total
2 negative and 4 mixed (1 of which mentions combat and that one is a Falluot 3 fanboy)
User score: 91

Wasteland 2
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/wasteland-2
205 reviews in total
40 negative and and 27 mixed (most of which criticize combat by original Fallout fans)
User score: 73

Are there people like me, who criticize original Fallout's combat? Yes, but I think we are in minority.

PS. Even if people did equally criticize Fallout combat and W2 combat, the problem is the nature of criticism games receive. I have never heard people argue that Fallout 1 and 2 suck because the combat is not on par with JA2. Again, ignoring total morons like sser who think Fallout actually had better combat then W2, most people are comparing W2 combat with JA2 and X-Com - games which come from a completely different genre. This speaks miles about double standards people have when evaluating W2. Imagine if you are Brian Fargo and have to deal with very limited resources. Now, you can focus majority of your limited resources on combat and end up with a game like JA2 - a game very different from Fallout. Or you might focus on things like choices and consequences, dialogues, skill application, writing, all things that make Fallout a legend that it is, while still feeling that you have actually improved the combat in comparison to Fallout 1&2. People who want JA2 combat in a Fallout game are just not being realistic as to how much you can do with the amount of money Brian Fargo and his team had.

Oh and one more thing that I want to add. I think that Kickstarter success of W2, Pillars of Eternity, etc should make every publisher take notice and make them wonder if they are not possibly missing out on a huge pile of money. I mean, when people throw millions of dollars into projects publishers reject, you have to wonder just how profitable games like these would be if the publishers gave it full support with decent budget and marketing. It seems to me that the publishers are sitting on a pile of money without even being aware of it and they have conditioned the audience to a certain type of games, therefore limiting game experience and driving a lot of people off, because not everyone wants to play Call of Duty and Skyrim just as not everyone wants to watch blockbuster movies all the time. In a sense they are shooting themselves in a foot, and I think this cannot last forever - especially with indy developers becoming stronger each year.

 

[Mareus]

What in the fuck?...
4/5 to 5/5 of the top RPGs in the codex top 70 have worse combat than W2, I don't know what the hell you experienced, but it must have been radically different from what I did..

Codex incline.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Wasn't Mareus driven off the Codex before for fanboying some other game and being a dumbfuck about it?

In general, I laugh at the people on the Codex who hate on Unity. If you're an RPG fan, that's called "shitting where you eat".

In general, I laugh at your far-out analogies.

"Shitting where you eat" would be maybe not buying the games. "Hating" Unity is simply not liking the packaging.

You know, not loving everything about a game or defending every last flaw it has doesn't make one a "hater".

 

[Mareus]

Wasn't Mareus driven off the Codex before for fanboying some other game and being a dumbfuck about it?

You must be delusional, son. I left by my own accord, because the amount of dumbfucks like sser was becoming too much to bare. At a certain point codex turned into a bunch of whining faggots that whined about every single game in existence and quite frankly I wanted to play games instead of constantly arguing about it.

PS. I am not a fanboy of any game. I present valid, objective facts which a lot of people just cannot seem to grasp with their tiny, inferior brains.

 

[Morkar Left]

No doubt fantasy has always been a cornerstone of the genre. 100% agree with you. (Though I think there's way more elements in play concerning those games' sales than just a setting choice.) But the top-selling RPGs of the past whatever years have been games like Borderlands, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, and Dark Souls. That's a pretty diverse marketplace. If Fallout can sell just as many copies as Bethesda's fantasy games, there's no reason Wasteland can't capitalize on the same aspect. But this entire discussion is fucking pointless because if the game was selling the last thing anybody would fucking say was "Oh, it's because the genre was good" or because it had nice "graphics" or hit the "market just right" or fucking whatever. They'd say it was a good game because it was a good game. Laundry list after laundry list of trying to pick and figure out why a game sells the way it does and it's really not that complicated.

Yes, there was a period when other settings were more viable than fantasy. It's called trends. A while ago zombies were all the hype and every fucking genre had its zombie games (besides rpgs...), no matter if it made sense to have them in. Nowadays people are sick of zombies because there were to much of it. (I feel a bit pity for Dead State which will suffer from releasing the game too late).
The trend for non-fantasy rpgs is long over for several years and people want back to fantasy.

Besides that, your examples aren't really viable. Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and Borderlands are rpgs with shooter mechanics luring in action gamers and more mainstream console players. I haven't played Dark Souls but it's an action game as well as far as I know (but more for a hardcore audience). You should compare "traditional" rpgs with each other in a timeframe when the different settings / games were in competition to each other. It's not about "good" genres as you call it, it's about the settings that have the most mass appeal in a genre.

And diminishing the influence of marketing and good graphics... come on, we should know better by now.

Again, I'm not denying that D:OS is a good game (I don't know) and that the setting is the only thing that was influencing its sales but I say that fantasy has more mass appeal than other settings.

Other influences I'm pretty sure is that it is simply a good game for what it does, has a nice WoW-like presentation (which I can't stand), that it was released in a time when there was a gap of rpg releases and Larian doesn't suffer from whiny grognard fans who complain about everything. Larians fanbase is mostly people who like fantasy rpgs and there was not really a heritage of prior games to deal with. Please correct me someone if I'm wrong or he has a different opinion here.

Wasteland 2 fanbase is a conglomerate of oldschool Wasteland 1 sentimentals, classic Fallout believers, JA2 grognards and BG lovers. And probably some Ultima huggers and Bard's Tale oldfarts as well. The upside is, that there was more money in the pot and more press coverage. The downside is that taste and gameplay expectations differed widely. Which lead to a lot of butthurt on the forums and in beta testing which even I recognized besides not taking part of it.

The endresult is, that W2 has very mixed reviews from FANS while Larians fanbase is more homogenous and had less expectations to begin with leading to a better acceptence of the end product.

 

[Infinitron]

Re: Fantasy vs sci-fi, everything can sell well, but do note that Skyrim absolutely buries everything else, including Bethesda's own Fallout games. So yeah.

Wasn't Mareus driven off the Codex before for fanboying some other game and being a dumbfuck about it?

I see some posts by him from late 2009-early 2010 arguing with some people who thought Dragon Age was better than Baldur's Gate.

He is rather shrill and Daedalos-like, however.

 

[Mareus]

Re: Fantasy vs sci-fi, everything can sell well, but Skyrim absolutely buries everything else, including Bethesda's own Fallout games. So yeah.

Wasn't Mareus driven off the Codex before for fanboying some other game and being a dumbfuck about it?

I see some posts by him from late 2009-early 2010 arguing with some people who thought Dragon Age was better than Baldur's Gate.

He is rather shrill and Daedalos-like, however.

Its was not about which game was better, but the reasons they presented for thinking so. The same can be said here about W2 vs Fallout. If people like Fallout more than W2 or vice versa, I really don't give a shit. But you can't tell me with a straight face that W2 combat sucks in comparison to Fallout. Thats just being a dumbfuck right there. And damn right I will be loud about it.

 

[Roguey]

(In general, I laugh at the people on the Codex who hate on Unity. If you're an RPG fan, that's called "shitting where you eat". But do feel free to email inXile and Obsidian and everybody else and ask them to license D:OS's engine for their next game if you feel strongly about it.)

I think Unity is awful, but at the same time recognize that it's not like they're spoiled for choices.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

PS. Even if people did equally criticize Fallout combat and W2 combat, the problem is the nature of criticism games receive. I have never heard people argue that Fallout 1 and 2 suck because the combat is not on par with JA2. Again, ignoring total morons like sser who think Fallout actually had better combat then W2, most people are comparing W2 combat with JA2 and X-Com - games which come from a completely different genre. This speaks miles about double standards people have when evaluating W2. Imagine if you are Brian Fargo and have to deal with very limited resources. Now, you can focus majority of your limited resources on combat and end up with a game like JA2 - a game very different from Fallout. Or you might focus on things like choices and consequences, dialogues, skill application, writing, all things that make Fallout a legend that it is, while still feeling that you have actually improved the combat in comparison to Fallout 1&2. People who want JA2 combat in a Fallout game are just not being realistic as to how much you can do with the amount of money Brian Fargo and his team had.

You seem to think that RPG = shit combat.

Limited resources aren't any justification as combat mechanics of X-Com are probably less complex than in WL2. It's just that X-Com mechanics are vaguely simulationist which gives it a massive edge of being able to observe movies or reality for cool and simple mechanics instead of developers having to pull gamist mechanics out of their asses which usually turn out to be abominations.
In reality, it's inventing and balancing gamist mechanics that takes more time and effort and brings much more risk.

As for Fallout and JA2. It's funny that you mention it because Fallout originally had GURPS advanced combat which in some aspect even more realistic than JA2, though more abstracted and with less arcane calculation stuff like precise tracing of projectile path and ricochets. Fallout's combat system is a result of having to cut out the whole game game mechanics and invent and implement new ones 9 months before the release.

And with loss of GURPS not only combat has declined but also locations.

 

[Athelas]

You seem to think that RPG = shit combat.

Limited resources aren't any justification as combat mechanics of X-Com are probably less complex than in WL2. It's just that X-Com mechanics are vaguely simulationist which gives it a massive edge of being able to observe movies or reality for cool and simple mechanics instead of developers having to pull gamist mechanics out of their asses which usually turn out to be abominations.
In reality, it's inventing and balancing gamist mechanics that takes more time and effort and brings much more risk.

As for Fallout and JA2. It's funny that you mention it because Fallout originally had GURPS advanced combat which in some aspect even more realistic than JA2, though more abstracted and with less arcane calculation stuff like precise tracing of projectile path and ricochets. Fallout's combat system is a result of having to cut out the whole game game mechanics and invent and implement new ones 9 months before the release.

Is there any source that actually states they designed a functioining GURPS-based combat system that they were then forced to scrap? We are talking about a game where they forgot to put in an AP cost for using items in combat and where they saddled you with AI-controlled companions rather than simply let you control them in combat. The designers of Fallout had different priorities than those of JA2, to put it mildly.

 

[sser]

Are we comparing games that have bigger advertising budgets than the entire development budgets of Kickstarted titles?

-snip-

Must have accidentally put a trigger word in there, sorry, here's a cleaned version for you:
"No, because if being a good game were the criteria for sales then W2 would have sold more. Not that I don't think D:OS is a good game, but the other reasons: Pretty graphics, bloom, co-op, combat-centric, light in tone, light in RPG mechanics, etc. Also keep it from being the kind of niche game that an "oldskool successor" like Wasteland 2 is. Although I will agree that the very strong beginning area contributed as well, it just isn't really something that I would consider the making of a good game, at least not to a "Hardcore" crowd, but yes, for the big percentage of people who play a game for a couple of hours then shelf it to move on to the next game in their bloated steam collection that's a great thing."

Good gameplay sells smaller titles. If you think the sales strategy of all games are the same you are being very ignorant.

And big fucking lulz at Wasteland 2 being a "niche" title when it had a $3m Kickstarter, one of the highest on that site for games and 3x D:OS's, and the other biggest titles are two space simulators and a second crack at Torment. And on release Wasteland 2 gets a big fat fucking banner across Steam (twice) and front page press. Expeditions: Conquistador with $70,000 Kickstarted and sans-Fargo's wallet is a niche title. Keep making excuses, though.

Correction, I think almost every game I've ever played has better combat than Wasteland 2.

What in the fuck?...
4/5 to 5/5 of the top RPGs in the codex top 70 have worse combat than W2, I don't know what the hell you experienced, but it must have been radically different from what I did..

Torment, Fallout 1/2, BG2, and Arcanum all have better combat than Wasteland 2.

I'm going to repeat something here:

W2 implements cover, but that's about as far as it goes [when it comes to mechanics]. It's like you designed a hunting game and thought putting a scope on the rifle covered the rest of the mechanics just fine. Fallout's combat is simple, and it's also better. Because it fits the design of the game. Just like Doom has good combat, even though it lacks cover, iron-sights, leaning, jumping, or crouching. Because how 'good' a feature's implementation can be is not based solely on what that feature is, but by what is designed around it.

Some of y'all are arguing the equivalent of "Because Call of Duty has jump, crouch and lean, it clearly has better combat than Doom." Good combat is not based on feature implementation.

 

[Cazzeris]

Are we comparing games that have bigger advertising budgets than the entire development budgets of Kickstarted titles?

-snip-

Must have accidentally put a trigger word in there, sorry, here's a cleaned version for you:
"No, because if being a good game were the criteria for sales then W2 would have sold more. Not that I don't think D:OS is a good game, but the other reasons: Pretty graphics, bloom, co-op, combat-centric, light in tone, light in RPG mechanics, etc. Also keep it from being the kind of niche game that an "oldskool successor" like Wasteland 2 is. Although I will agree that the very strong beginning area contributed as well, it just isn't really something that I would consider the making of a good game, at least not to a "Hardcore" crowd, but yes, for the big percentage of people who play a game for a couple of hours then shelf it to move on to the next game in their bloated steam collection that's a great thing."

Good gameplay sells smaller titles. If you think the sales strategy of all games are the same you are being very ignorant.

And big fucking lulz at Wasteland 2 being a "niche" title when it had a $3m Kickstarter, one of the highest on that site for games and 3x D:OS's, and the other biggest titles are two space simulators and a second crack at Torment. And on release Wasteland 2 gets a big fat fucking banner across Steam (twice) and front page press. Expeditions: Conquistador with $70,000 Kickstarted and sans-Fargo's wallet is a niche title. Keep making excuses, though.

Do you realise that the $3m Kickstarter campaign does nothing but limit the sales?

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Good gameplay sells smaller titles. If you think the sales strategy of all games are the same you are being very ignorant.

And big fucking lulz at Wasteland 2 being a "niche" title when it had a $3m Kickstarter, one of the highest on that site for games and 3x D:OS's, and the other biggest titles are two space simulators and a second crack at Torment. And on release Wasteland 2 gets a big fat fucking banner across Steam (twice) and front page press. Expeditions: Conquistador with $70,000 Kickstarted and sans-Fargo's wallet is a niche title. Keep making excuses, though.

Yet they had around the same budget in the end no? Because investors bought into what they knew would sell in D:OS, and because Wasteland 2's niche market was so starved that it shelled out big bucks just to have the game get into their hands. The kickstarter argument is so ass backwards, the whole reason this game got such a reaction on kickstarter was because it's so underrepresented, ffs. Kickstarter is used to make the games that likely wouldn't have the market viability to be get funding otherwise.

I don't need to make excuses, I'm not the one arguing the hilarious and fallacious argument that popularity = quality. I've already stated the reasons I believe D:OS sold more, these aren't excuses, they're based off of common sense, observation, and personal experience(My ,or moreso my woman's reason for buying the game.). At the end of the day I don't really care what people's reasons for purchasing was, or if my beliefs were correct, D:OS not being the better RPG is reason enough for me to disagree with your argument.

Even if W2 sold more, I still wouldn't be delusional enough to attribute it to quality alone. To be fair I'm rarely in an argument where what I like is much more popular, maybe NV vs F1/2, but I'm sure all the exceptions you've created to fit your narrative would make that a bad argument anyway.

Torment, Fallout 1/2, BG2, and Arcanum all have better combat than Wasteland 2.

I'm going to repeat something here:

W2 implements cover, but that's about as far as it goes [when it comes to mechanics]. It's like you designed a hunting game and thought putting a scope on the rifle covered the rest of the mechanics just fine. Fallout's combat is simple, and it's also better. Because it fits the design of the game. Just like Doom has good combat, even though it lacks cover, iron-sights, leaning, jumping, or crouching. Because how 'good' a feature's implementation can be is not based solely on what that feature is, but by what is designed around it.

Some of y'all are arguing the equivalent of "Because Call of Duty has jump, crouch and lean, it clearly has better combat than Doom." Good combat is not based on feature implementation.

No they don't.
Maybe BG2 does, idk, I didn't really put much into that game to find out.
Oh wow, thnx4bolding, you definitely showed me, except I never argued that W2's combat was better because it has more features. The cover is nice, but it's more so that those games have awful combat as opposed to W2's being great. Fallout's combat, even with years of patching and fixes, is still clunky, often boring, very unbalanced, exploitative and very repetitive. Play the mission where you defend the cows, clear a dungeon in a random encounter(Scorpions), or look at a deathclaw as it stands in the encounter exit with a melee character. I can't think of a single thing besides death animations that Fallout's combat does better than W2s. Arcanum and Torment are just as bad to me. (Oddly enough, F1/2, and Arcanum are in my top 5.).

Fighting through the mannerites and rushing the uber laser cannons in W2 was extremely fun, I had as much fun in some of W2's encounters as I did even in D:OS's Cyseal. That on top of it being an actually good RPG?

 

[Morkar Left]

Sure, Arcanum has better combat than W2!



I'm out here.

 

[Mareus]

You seem to think that RPG = shit combat.

Admitting that tactical simulations such as JA2 have better combat then RPGs which tried to simulate it does not equal to RPGs having shit combat. If you actually learned to read when you went to elementary school you would notice that I have been constantly arguing that W2 combat is pretty good, but not as good as JA2 or X-Com. Do you notice the difference between what you wrote and what I am actually arguing?

Limited resources aren't any justification as combat mechanics of X-Com are probably less complex than in WL2.

Resources are everything if you are running a company. This may surprise you, but people expect to get payed for work they are doing. It affects how many people you can hire, how much testing you are willing to put into it, how many game-play elements you want to have, etc. When you are making a game that is 90% combat like JA2 or X-Com, it is obvious where the majority of your resources should go, and it shows.

As for Fallout and JA2. It's funny that you mention it because Fallout originally had GURPS advanced combat which in some aspect even more realistic than JA2, though more abstracted and with less arcane calculation stuff like precise tracing of projectile path and ricochets. Fallout's combat system is a result of having to cut out the whole game game mechanics and invent and implement new ones 9 months before the release.

And with loss of GURPS not only combat has declined but also locations.

Are you seriously suggesting that Brian Fargo would dump this "advanced" combat if it actually worked as intended and if he actually had the resources to make it happen?

 

[toro]

sea Brother None Any concrete number for sales?

 

[Mareus]

Good gameplay sells smaller titles. If you think the sales strategy of all games are the same you are being very ignorant.

First of all you are strawmaning other people's arguments (again, might I add). Nobody is saying that sales strategy is for all games the same. This is your own concoction which you then so powerfully knock down, but unfortunately for you it does not resemble anything similar to what people have been saying.

And let us remind the audience what you consider to be gameplay quote: "Unique engine, strong combat, very strong beginning area, lots of mod-support"

Ignoring the obviously stupid notion that engine and mod support have anything to do with game-play (directly anyway), strong combat and strong beginning area might have helped game getting positive reviews which then affected the sales, but you cannot ignore the fact that timing, good PR, graphics and setting plays a role too and that more often than not sales are not a good way to measure the quality of the game. Planescape Torment, which many consider to be the best RPG ever made didn't sell very well. It managed to make only small profit and this is a recurring problem not only in the gaming industry but in all arts.

And big fucking lulz at Wasteland 2 being a "niche" title when it had a $3m Kickstarter

Yes, but that also means that less copies will be sold, because a lot of people already bought the game through Kickstarter. You also ignore the fact that Divinity series has been alive and kicking into modern era since Divine Divinty. That means that the game also probably had a fanbase made up of gamers that are not solely old-school, which perhaps also helped sales.

Torment, Fallout 1/2, BG2, and Arcanum all have better combat than Wasteland 2.

Arcanum and Fallout certainly do not have better combat then W2 and I don't know what you must be smoking to think otherwise. Not only is the combat in W2 more dynamic and made up of many more different gameplay elements, such as using cover mechanic or interrupt mechanic, but it is also much more tactical and realistic. Torment and BG had a completely different combat mechanic and cannot be compared to W2 combat. Its like comparing apples and oranges and saying that apples are better then oranges.

Some of y'all are arguing the equivalent of "Because Call of Duty has jump, crouch and lean, it clearly has better combat than Doom." Good combat is not based on feature implementation.

Again you are misrepresenting what people are saying. Stop using strawmen arguments to prove a point. As I said before, having more features alone is of course not enough to make a game better. Mechanics have to be accompanied with changes in game-play. For example adding crouch to Doom without adding some rooms which can be accessed only with crouch, would make the crouch mechanic obsolete. Adding lean to Doom, without it actually having an effect on cover received would make lean useless. You seem to be arguing from a position that the cover mechanic, ambush mechanic, etc in W2 are just features which have no effect on combat. But this is demonstrably false. You can actually measure how much damage you take by using cover and how useful it is to be able to interrupt enemies. Therefore your argument fails hard.

 

[Roguey]

For all its foibles, Wasteland 2 ended up having better combat than Jagged Alliance: Flashback. Great job inXile, you made a better game than European shovelware dedicated to turn-based tactics.

 

[sser]

Do you realise that the $3m Kickstarter campaign does nothing but limit the sales?

If you're talking about strict product movement, sure. If you're talking money, no. Kickstarter cash is just a pre-preorder and frequently gets pocketed as profit, I guaran-fucking-tee it.

Those $3m are part of the cash sales. Yes, I'm aware some of you are naive to think otherwise and are completely oblivious to one of the largest flaws Kickstarter has, which is that you roll the income in first, and then make the product.

Tell me something. How does a game like Expedition: Conquistador gets made with the very same tools as Wasteland 2, yet arguably looks even better? It has two large segments of gameplay - the Caribbean and Mexico - just like Wasteland 2. It has an overland map. It has resource management and tons of C&C. The writing is very strong and the combat is turn-based with tactical elements. How the fuck, does that game take $70,000 in Kickstarter cash and come out looking that good? And Wasteland 2 comes in with $3m + Fargo's wallet + Obsidian's help and come out looking like it did? Apparently you don't need millions of dollars to make a game like that. In fact, you would only need a whopping 2% of that $3m to make a game of Expedition's quality. Where does the rest of that money go?

I have to laugh when a Kickstarter's target range is overshot by hundreds if not thousands of percents and people think that money is gonna go into the project. Many times, like the Sarkeesian videos, it physically just can't. People are just handing over money by that point. Sometimes a game has hilariously benign 'Kickstarter goals'. Alright, at $500,000, we'll implement shadows. And then at $600,000 we'll offer translations into Spanish. Right, it takes $100,000 to translate a game. Great. It's profit. You're looking at the profit margin, literally a margin, just not called that. Many people would just take off. I have a strong suspicion a lot of the money has been channeled into future projects because Fargo isn't an idiot. It's also why I had and still have no problem plopping $40 on this game even if I don't like it. I trust him to keep developing, and somewhat-hopefully-maybe trust them to make Wasteland 2 the game it should be, which would be easy to do.

Yet they had around the same budget in the end no? Because investors bought into what they knew would sell in D:OS, and because Wasteland 2's niche market was so starved that it shelled out big bucks just to have the game get into their hands. The kickstarter argument is so ass backwards, the whole reason this game got such a reaction on kickstarter was because it's so underrepresented, ffs. Kickstarter is used to make the games that likely wouldn't have the market viability to be get funding otherwise.

It's not a niche game. Neither D:OS or Wasteland 2 are niche. Niche games do not get front page news, Steam banners, and other shit going on. Flat out. Stop calling it that. Like it's fucking ridiculous. Remove the name from your brain for a second and just imagine:

This title gets: front page news, it gets into magazines the world over as multi-page previews and reviews, it has a banner on sales sites, it has turn-based action which is in the midst of a renaissance, it's post-apoc, a setting shared by two mega-popular hits (BLands, Fallout 3D), and it landed $3m in Kickstarter money + the help of a major studio which, by the way, helped create one of those other megahits.

This title gets: absolutely none of that shit, is also turn-based, shares a familiarity with games popular in the 90s.

Wasteland 2? Not niche.

Lords of Xulima. Yeah, pretty niche I'd say.



Combat arguments have been done to death. I don't think anyone can really explain their viewpoints all that much more, to be honest. I'm more interested in suggesting how to improve W2's combat than bicker over our tastes of it.

 

[tuluse]

sser InXile said the final budget of WL2 was about 5 million dollars.

 

[Infinitron]

Tell me something. How does a game like Expedition: Conquistador gets made with the very same tools as Wasteland 2, yet arguably looks even better? It has two large segments of gameplay - the Caribbean and Mexico - just like Wasteland 2. It has an overland map. It has resource management and tons of C&C. The writing is very strong and the combat is turn-based with tactical elements. How the fuck, does that game take $70,000 in Kickstarter cash and come out looking that good?

Yeah, and Age of Decadence took in $0. How does it have such great combat and C&C? HOW CAN THIS BE???

Dude, you're so funny.

 

[Cazzeris]

Do you realise that the $3m Kickstarter campaign does nothing but limit the sales?

If you're talking about strict product movement, sure. If you're talking money, no. Kickstarter cash is just a pre-preorder and frequently gets pocketed as profit, I guaran-fucking-tee it.

Those $3m are part of the cash sales. Yes, I'm aware some of you are naive to think otherwise and are completely oblivious to one of the largest flaws Kickstarter has, which is that you roll the income in first, and then make the product.

Tell me something. How does a game like Expedition: Conquistador gets made with the very same tools as Wasteland 2, yet arguably looks even better? It has two large segments of gameplay - the Caribbean and Mexico - just like Wasteland 2. It has an overland map. It has resource management and tons of C&C. The writing is very strong and the combat is turn-based with tactical elements. How the fuck, does that game take $70,000 in Kickstarter cash and come out looking that good? And Wasteland 2 comes in with $3m + Fargo's wallet + Obsidian's help and come out looking like it did? Apparently you don't need millions of dollars to make a game like that. In fact, you would only need a whopping 2% of that $3m to make a game of Expedition's quality. Where does the rest of that money go?

I have to laugh when a Kickstarter's target range is overshot by hundreds if not thousands of percents and people think that money is gonna go into the project. Many times, like the Sarkeesian videos, it physically just can't. People are just handing over money by that point. Sometimes a game has hilariously benign 'Kickstarter goals'. Alright, at $500,000, we'll implement shadows. And then at $600,000 we'll offer translations into Spanish. Right, it takes $100,000 to translate a game. Great. It's profit. You're looking at the profit margin, literally a margin, just not called that. Many people would just take off. I have a strong suspicion a lot of the money has been channeled into future projects because Fargo isn't an idiot. It's also why I had and still have no problem plopping $40 on this game even if I don't like it. I trust him to keep developing, and somewhat-hopefully-maybe trust them to make Wasteland 2 the game it should be, which would be easy to do.

Lots of people had the game before it actually came out since they were backers, so the Kickstarter campaign lowered the sale numbers. That's what I was talking about.

And I can't say where did the money go, but probably inXile spent it on making the game's lenght bigger (it's much longer than I expected as a backer), improving the game's general presentation since it looked soulless, paying the Kickstarter's rewards, writing, remaking the UI's art over and over, animations, voice-acting...

And how would you improve WL2? Maybe you should tell your ideas to Fargo directly.

 

[sser]

sser InXile said the final budget of WL2 was about 5 million dollars.

Sounds about right. D:OS's was in the ballpark as well (most of D:OS's development happened prior to Kickstarter, I believe.) I doubt either game's expenditures came close to either budget. D:OS maybe because they developed a whole new engine. Swen stated they already just about started making profit at 160,000 units which is a pretty strong indication of where they were sitting, money-wise. I can't even think of a way to spend $5m on Unity and developing W2 other than to make a 200hr game that never ends. It doesn't even have the Adam Sandler-effect like DoubleFine does where they blow money on completely unnecessary voice actors or other garbage. Unless Fargo cut Obsidian a fat fucking check, but I doubt that. I firmly believe a lot of the budget was rolled into future projects.

Tell me something. How does a game like Expedition: Conquistador gets made with the very same tools as Wasteland 2, yet arguably looks even better? It has two large segments of gameplay - the Caribbean and Mexico - just like Wasteland 2. It has an overland map. It has resource management and tons of C&C. The writing is very strong and the combat is turn-based with tactical elements. How the fuck, does that game take $70,000 in Kickstarter cash and come out looking that good?

Yeah, and Age of Decadence took in $0. How does it have such great combat and C&C? HOW CAN THIS BE???

Dude, you're so funny.

Theatrics aside, Age of Decadence is what I would call a...


niche title.

Lots of people had the game before it actually came out since they were backers, so the Kickstarter campaign lowered the sale numbers. That's what I was talking about.

And I can't say where did the money go, but probably inXile spent it on making the game longer (it's much longer than I expected as a backer), improving the game's general presentation since it looked soulless, paying the Kickstarter's rewards, writing, remaking the UI's art over and over, animations, voice-acting...

And how would you improve WL2? Maybe you should tell your ideas to Fargo directly.

Right. If it's sales #'s then yeah. Really can't count those outta Kickstarter. Maybe by tiers but that's not going to be accurate. They definitely used the money to extend the game, I'd imagine, since that's what they said they would do and I don't really have any reason to disbelieve that. But from what I can tell they A) Used a cheap engine with purchasable resources (instead of needing in-house development) and B) Didn't appear to blow money on anything stupid. No way $5m of budget gets eaten there. So I think it just got rolled into future projects. (Which again, no issue there.)

I'd love to talk to Fargo.