Editorial RPGDot talks Action CRPGs

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Atari

<A href="Http://www.rpgdot.com">RPGDot</a> has posted <a href="http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=1007">an editorial about action CRPGs</a> dealing with the current trend of things publishers are churning out. Here's a snippet:
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<blockquote>As development costs rise and risk-adverse publishers increasingly embrace the console market, trying to reach that magical mainstream audience, it's no surprise that complex CRPGs have lost favour. Atari's recent SEC 10-K filing describes the market as "increasingly hit driven" and undoubtedly many publishers dream of the success of Blizzard's Diablo series.</blockquote>
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It's also rather funny considering <A href="Http://www.greyhawkgame.com">Temple of Elemental Evil</a> was their best selling CRPG class title according to that 10-K, despite the short development time and <A href="http://www.atari.com">Atari</a> trying silly things like a KaZaa distribution. Yet, still not as funny as the <A href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=ret&aid=3680">media circus of their recent "hit driven" release</a>.
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Thanks, <b>Dhruin</b>!
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[Nightjed]

nice article, i specially liked the question in the end : "Will bad experiences with hugely hyped games damage their interest in gaming as a hobby, and hurt our industry in the long run?"

I still have nightmares about some of those games :mrgreen:

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Atari is 2 for 2 on over hyped games that suck. Enter the Matrix and apparently Driv3r are two really awful titles that Atari's dumped lots of money pimping.

 

[monkey]

Contrast with UbiSoft which probably doesn't have Atari's resources, and yet has produced more hits of late; frex, BGaE and PoP were good games (that sold poorly; strange... ). If they had Atari money and a decent RPG developer, maybe Ubi could come out with an action CRPG that would do well...

(Hell, give them the Thief franchise...they've got the sneak game, down pat. )

 

[Sol Invictus]

Apparently, Atari needs at least 2.5 million sales of Driv3r to recoup their spending on its promotion. They are not going to see it, because nobody wants to buy Driv3n. Word of mouth says it's pretty bad, and the online gaming websites that weren't as susceptible to bribes as the print magazines back up that understanding. Good riddance, Atari.

 

[Whipporowill]

Driv3l

Huh. I made a funny!

 

[Dhruin]

I think you underestimate the effectiveness of a huge marketing campaign on Joe Schmo:

DRIV3R Launches as Best-Selling Game in The UK
NEW YORK - June 30, 2004 - Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) announced today that DRIV3R has topped the charts in the UK, ranking #1 in its first full week on sale. (Source: Chart Track)

Released in the UK on June 22, 2004 for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system and the XboxTM video game system from Microsoft, according to Chart Track, this week DRIV3R is ranked #1 on PlayStation2 and #1 on Xbox.

 

[Psilon]

Yeah, but what else is out? Remember what happened to Fallout Tactics.

 

[Jed]

Is it some kinda l33t game since it's "DRIV3R" rather that "Driver"?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Driver 3.

It's like Se7en, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and 5ive Days Till Midnight.

 

[Jed]

Gotcha.

Speaking of 2 Fast 2 Furious, Devon Aoki is the sister of an old acquaintance of mine, Steve.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH CELEBRITY!

 

[Volourn]

SP: Don't you mean 3 for 3? Aren't you forgetting RPGCodex's favorite game?

As for Driven (I refuse to spell it 'correctly'); I simply have no interest in it and I've also seen very little hype about it. In fact, the most hype about it is this little DRAMATIC 'scandal'.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

SP: Don't you mean 3 for 3? Aren't you forgetting RPGCodex's favorite game?

If you're refering to ToEE, I don't think it was ever given a $30M+ budget, lots of marketting and hands on previews, nor do I see any evidence of buying reviews.

 

[Volourn]

Actually, iIwas referring to NWN; but oh well..

However, TOEE did have lots of marketing, and quite a bit of previews. Most of the main sites had the previews, and the amrketting was there like any other game. I can't talk about the budget as I don't have the numbers but considering it took almost 2 years to make it's budget just for TOEE's employees (as well as Atari's) musta been up there. Maybe not 30 mil; but I didn't know that was the magical cut off.

 

[Dhruin]

Driver has prime-time TV ads here, which is almost unheard of except for a small handful of huge hits like GTA: Vice City etc, so the hype looks pretty huge from this angle.

ToEE would have been in the $3M-$5M range (development only, excluding marketing etc); not even in the same hemisphere as $30M.