Developers Who Didn't Know What Made Their Games Great

[Chippy]

Not sure if this has been covered, but was thinking about glaring examples of developers who made decisions that didn't ruin their games completely, but made another game, or a sequel, and had no idea what the main draw of the first game was. Or just made decisions that soured their next game.

Primary example of this is BG2. Imagine (minus the faggotry) RA Salvatore wrote the Drizzt books with his companions and then just killed them off or ignored them in a follow up book. That's what Bioware did. Then they missed the opportunity to make smaller DLC where they could have at least given them a send off.

Then they go and do the same thing with ME2 & ME3. I know they had Liara DLC in ME2, but her boobs were not in that game for long enough, and Miranda's ass just didn't compensate.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

almost all of them.

 

[None]

Josh Sawyer.

He is best when iterating on existing worlds and systems, such as with Van Buren and New Vegas. When he has to create something completely original (story or a gameplay system) it falls flat, like Pillars of Eternity.

 

[thesecret1]

Jeff Vogel, no doubt about it. Just look at Queen's Wish.

 

[Marat]

Piranha Bytes - made one good game, replicated it successfully by sheer momentum and since then... nothing.

 

[buffalo bill]

Blue Bottle Games: NEO Scavenger was great, and he kept nothing that was good from that game for Ostranauts
Thomas Biskup: ADOM rules, Ultimate ADOM sucks
Whalenought Studios: well both games are basically the same in being not-actually-fun but seeming to have a great deal of promise if they were developed differently, but at least SitS was playable from start to finish whereas Mechajammer is an unplayable mess

an exception is Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, who made Troika Games after Fallout (though obviously nothing tops Fallout 1)

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Seems like OP isn't asking about developers who turned to shit, but rather made a game that missed what made the original so great.

Ignoring the obviously bad titles, Fallout 2. Basically every Fallout title after the original sort of forgot what the setting was supposed to be, which was not the '50s, but scifi, but rather a '50s style take on the future, then the apocalypse. The humor and then modern pop culture references I can take or leave, but without that original take, feels considerably shallower.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

tim cain and leonard boyarsky

Outerworlds was exceptionally awful, I'm not sure if they understand what made Fallout great... or if they were even responsible for it themselves. Which is strange because they (mostly) hit the same magic again not too long after with Arcanum.

maybe someone was more influential than has been given credit

 

[Krivol]

After playing the Gothic series I must say Pirania is the one - I don't think Elex is bad, but G2NotR was better...

 

[Deadass]

tim cain and leonard boyarsky

Outerworlds was exceptionally awful, I'm not sure if they understand what made Fallout great... or if they were even responsible for it themselves. Which is strange because they (mostly) hit the same magic again not too long after with Arcanum.

maybe someone was more influential than has been given credit

Don't worry in 2 years Anderson's name will be added here too

 

[Chippy]

Another example is Peter Molyneux: Populous, Syndicate games, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper.

I remember trying to get into 'Black and White' which seemed like a fantastic idea by today's standards. And then I just lost track. Not even sure what games he headed after that.

It was like someone who made the most fantastic traditional oil pastel art all their career, and then changed styles into brutalist art, or contemporary.

 

[luj1]

Developers Who Didn't Know What Made Their Games Great

all of them

Developers Who Didn't Know What Made Their Games Shit

Soyer

 

[Tsubutai]

Another example is Peter Molyneux: Populous, Syndicate games, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper.

I remember trying to get into 'Black and White' which seemed like a fantastic idea by today's standards. And then I just lost track. Not even sure what games he headed after that.

Microsoft gave him inifnite money to make Fable and its sequels and I guess he got bored of doing experimental stuff and decided to just enjoy being rich.

 

[perfectslumbers]

From Soft with their zoomer action games after DS2.

 

[Fowyr]

Jeff Vogel, no doubt about it. Just look at Queen's Wish.

Just remember his diatribes about IDing items, arrows or complex spells from previous games. They should be streamlined and go away! Braindead morons want to play his games too!

Spoiler

They don't

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

tim cain and leonard boyarsky

Their names were added as bait for codexers. No $how jobs so the princesses could have their fun.

 

[JarlFrank]

Seems like OP isn't asking about developers who turned to shit, but rather made a game that missed what made the original so great.

Ignoring the obviously bad titles, Fallout 2. Basically every Fallout title after the original sort of forgot what the setting was supposed to be, which was not the '50s, but scifi, but rather a '50s style take on the future, then the apocalypse. The humor and then modern pop culture references I can take or leave, but without that original take, feels considerably shallower.

Fallout 2 was not made by the same people as Fallout 1.

The people who made Fallout 1 went off to found Troika and made Arcanum, which improves upon many of Fallout 1's aspects and has a similar overall tone.
They also made Temple of Elemental Evil and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, which were different games but also good in their own right.

Fallout 2 is a case of new people making a sequel to a game made by other people, and not grasping the essence of that game.

 

[anvi]

I had this battle lately on another forum over EverQuest. They never understood it and destroyed their own game. The management said that even successful games are all only short term flash in the pan things, so they should take all of EQs profits away and spend it on other projects. All the other projects failed hard, and none of them had any of the important ingredients EQ had, even EQ2 which the boss later said, "Never should have been called EQ2" but really it should have just never been made. Neither should the other bunch of failures. And they still don't know what made that game special and they have never even come close to showing they understand it. All they ever did was was stick it in maintenance mode and ride its profits into the ground. Meanwhile that flash in the pan is still their only good source of profit 23 years later, and their competition wiped the floor with them in the meantime. Shit company run by shit people. And none of the original creators get much credit, most left the company shortly after release and were more like contracted for that one game. Raph Koster and such types, badasses who should have inherited gaming instead of the corporate shitlords.

 

[luj1]

I had this battle lately on another forum over EverQuest. They never understood it and destroyed their own game.

speaking of mmos, Gw1 was also a game misunderstood by its devs, so Gw2 was a failure

 

[anvi]

I'm not sure any MMO developer ever understood MMOs, except for the UO guys and maybe a few of the original EQ guys who left early. Back then MUDs were the inspiration and it was the perfect blueprint. MMOs since then have thrown all that out the window and just started making gamey games with quest hubs and stuff.

To me that says they don't really understand. Because the two things are polar opposites. The EQ that became known worldwide was brutal like an RPG on ironman crossed with a survival game. You had to get levels and gear which took an insane amount of time. You had to put together a whole group of 6 people, then spend hours fighting through catacombs and stuff to reach where you wanted to be, and then wait for the thing you wanted to appear. And when you finally kill it, only one item drops even though there are six of you. It was brutal but it made everything feel like a huge accomplishment, the world was compelling as fuck and the players were hooked like I've never seen. People spent thousands of real dollars on items in the game because they were that interested in the game. It might just be virtual pixels in a virtual world, but if the game is made well enough, all of that can become very meaningful to people.

But every MMO since goes the opposite direction. They are casual and solo friendly now, so items you 'achieve' don't feel very special. Some semi afk noob can come along after you and press a few buttons and get the same item. And dungeons are instanced, essentially multiplying the items coming into the world, making them worth even less. Everyone is max level in a month, etc.. It's just so different. It's like KOTC vs Diablo. I guess the world is big enough for both, but to me MMO will always mean a MUD type experience, LOTR, Hobbit type world, explore like the old text based games, Go North/East/West/South, but with graphics! That gave the concept no limits really. But now MMO has come to just mean running around pressing 1234 and vacuuming up the shinies.

 

[Alienman]

Julian Gollop. After years of waiting, X-coms lord and savior finally returns to make a new X-com like game, and that product eventually turns out to be Phoenix Point. It's not 100% off, but design, and vision is still far from UFO Defense, and Apocalypse. It's a product made to make money, and not the initial dream game come true.

 

[Delterius]

RA Salvatore wrote the Drizzt books with his companions and then just killed them off or ignored them in a follow up book.

oh man i wish

 

[mondblut]

Not sure if this has been covered, but was thinking about glaring examples of developers who made decisions that didn't ruin their games completely, but made another game, or a sequel, and had no idea what the main draw of the first game was. Or just made decisions that soured their next game.

Primary example of this is BG2. Imagine (minus the faggotry) RA Salvatore wrote the Drizzt books with his companions and then just killed them off or ignored them in a follow up book. That's what Bioware did. Then they missed the opportunity to make smaller DLC where they could have at least given them a send off.

The main draw which made BG1 great (tip: it really wasn't) was... Khalid?

Thou art gay.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Jeff Vogel, no doubt about it. Just look at Queen's Wish.

He's been posting a lot about Elden Ring and it's funny to see him try to rationalize the success of FromSoftware. It sounds like he really thought that streamlining and watering down his games was the route to mainstream success.

 

[Agesilaus]

How about sequels produced by new people who clearly didn't understand the originals?

Everyone involved in the creation of Populous 3 should be thrown into a live volcano.