Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[Boleskine]

Because casual gamers don't care about adventure games, especially casual gamers that use phone and tablets.
There's this interesting adventure/experimental game on the smartphones called DEVICE 6, easily one of the best things you can get out of the platform. I never saw one person besides myself even trying it, let alone play it. And that's a game that fully utilizes the smartphone functions, unlike a typical adventure game where point and clicking and dragging might get tedious.
Casual gamers are rather preoccupied with Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Hold my Water, 2048, Flappy Bird and other assortment of small puzzle or arcade games or tower defense games. The smartphones are not a great platform for "serious" gaming, they consume a fuckload of battery for every simple thing, only have one single physical button, you need to hold the goddamn thing in your hands, smooch the already small screen to reach objectives and all the things that would rather make consumers play small games than that shit.

Right, and I agree with all of that, which begs the question: why do so many developers dumb their games down to the "casual" mobile market, when those people probably aren't interested anyway? Casual gamers want something they can pick up and play for 5 minutes, put down, and revisit later. That approach doesn't work well for games relying on narrative and more complex puzzle solving. All these developers do is cannibalize their own sales by alienating their core fans/supporters and trying to get the attention of people who don't give a shit and would rather play Candy Crush.

Personally, I don't think Tim's number 1 priority was selling the game to the Wii U and Candy Crush audiences. Broken Age is still at the end of the day an adventure game in most of its functionality. There is a big part of the game spent on Machinarium-type of puzzles, but afterwards it's all about adventurey puzzles like reaching unreachable objects, mixing objects, finding lost shit, riddles, the Space Weaver quest was clever enough on its own. The game is easy, yes, but I don't think one released kickstarter adventure game did the opposite. Not Broken Sword, not Moebius, not even Tex which most people liked. It's like everyone still has a trauma from the 90s when everyone complained about shitty and illogical puzzles, and they just don't want to dip into that territory any longer.

Machinarium is a good example - it was one of those games that attracted audiences from outside the typical adventure/puzzle markets. While I liked Broken Age, nothing stood out as particularly remarkable in terms of gameplay, and we barely scratched the surface of the story. I think it ultimately lacked a distinguishable, extremely well-done element that could grab a wider audience in the way something like Machinarium (quirky, challenging, charming) or Amnesia (scary, tense, physics-based puzzles) did. Broken Age isn't simply average, but it's not outstanding, and adventure games simply struggle big time to find wider audiences unless they're outstanding. People will spend $60 on CoD sequels without thinking twice, but getting them to play $20 for an adventure game is like pulling teeth. So, even a good adventure game can fall through the cracks.

Like I said, what really was missed in Broken Age was that humane touch and the attention to details. For me, the comments your characters make while observing everything around them is what made adventure games tick for me. BA sorely lacks that, too many things are just background and the art style doesn't help either. They've spent so much animating a bunch of bland, not-funny characters and it didn't impress anyone.
At the end of the day, it wasn't the mechanical depth or the puzzles that drew people to LucasArts adventure games in specific, it was everything else from the music (did Broken Age even had a soundtrack? lol) to the characters and that feeling that you're truly exploring something new and fun.

From what I remember BA did have unique responses for trying to combine inventory items or using items on people or hotspots on screen. But yes, I agree that some of the locations just didn't have enough content and felt empty.

 

[Redlands]

They put so little effort and creativity into this it's appalling.

I think the problem was that they directed way too much of their effort into the wrong places. The documentary in particular was a really terrible idea, particularly on their end as it highlighted all the horrible decisions they were making.

Well, when significantly more work goes into the animation of an adventure game than the story and puzzle design, it does not particularly deserve to do well.

I was going to complain, because I know how hard animation is to do well, but then I realised any positive number is significantly bigger than zero under the right scale.

More seriously, from what I understand the problems with their focus on art/graphics vs gameplay was creating working art assets before having a game in place. I watched the start of the LP of KQ6 with Jane Jensen; she talked about how she and Roberta had holed up for a couple of days to work out all the regions and major puzzles. You can tell that the equivalent wasn't done here until after the art had been made.

"We like to think that it is the logical evolution adventure games would have taken if they were still an active genre."
And they are not wrong. BA is an adventure game Ubisoft would make the same way Dragon Age is an RPG EA does, or latest Wolfenstein having even less meat than a '92 mode 7 release. Evolution. Streamlining. :incloosive:

They basically made a hand-drawn FMV game. Weren't those derided as generally bad back in the 90s?

Come to think of it, so do Telltale. Between those two and Ron Gilbert, it's really made me wonder how LucasArts actually made anything most people think were good.

It'd be interesting to know whether they'd have bothered putting puzzles in at all if the expectations at the time hadn't included them.

I think Broken Age is still a good game, even if it's an easy one. It may not be what some hoped for in design and challenge, but it doesn't have many technical or design flaws.

First, the game has severe design flaws if it's designed post-art asset creation.

Second, it says a lot when a short adventure game's biggest compliment seems to be "it works", when programming adventure games is usually one of the easiest to do.

Here's what I'm trying to figure out: their ~90,000 backers were a mix of long-time adventure game fans and indie hipsters. I'm not sure how many hardcore point and clickers were left over as potential customers after the kickstarter campaign. The game was designed to have broader appeal and reach outside of the adventure niche, and part of that was making it casual/tablet friendly, as well as keeping difficulty low.
If the game hadn't been crowdfunded, the total estimated sales (kickstarter + actual release) would maybe be considered a moderate success, at least in the adventure market.
However, since those kickstarter backers don't count as customers or actual purchases at release, the net sales become disappointing. So, where are the missing sales from their projections/expectations? Is the game failing more in the adventure community, or is it more failing to reach a broader audience? In the backer video from today Tim and the developers didn't seem too enthusiastic about the iPad/mobile sales, either.
My guess would be both - adventure gamers didn't find the game to be "classic" enough in the design or challenge, and many felt the budget focused too much on art and animation. I can't really explain or understand why Broken Age didn't do better in the "casual" or wider PC markets, though.

There'd be a lot of people who are/weren't sold on the idea of crowdfunding. This was, after all, the game that really started Kickstarter as a platform in the public and developer consciousness.

But even if that weren't the case, that broader appeal is what's probably killed this game's future sales more than anything. There's a right way, and a wrong way, to casualize.

Telltale, for as terrible as their games are as games, did casualization well. Double Fine didn't take their route to success by leeching capitalizing on an already-popular franchises.

Minecraft, again, is a popular casual game; but the game mechanics allow you to mess around it for more than 6-8 hours or however long the first part of Broken Age ended up taking. Minecraft also shares something in common with a lot of very successful, casual games have: multiplayer, which is key because people like messing around in games together.

The only market for this game as pitched was the long-time adventure game fans and indie hipsters; they then decided to casualise it after the fact, which is going to drive away interest in it from both groups who won't bother recommending it to anyone they know with similar interest who hasn't picked up the game.

I think I'd classify as a long-time adventure game fan. I didn't Kickstart this game because I'm not a huge fan of LucasArts games in general, but I was willing to wait and see how this one turned out and pick it up if it was good. I'm really glad I did, as it means not having to pay any money for it myself.

The game generally had pretty good reviews in "mainstream" press. So what really stopped it from selling more copies? It certainly had an anticlimactic release with the early backer access, broken review embargo, and subsequent loss of interest or lack of generating buzz. If DF wants to improve sales with Act 2, what do they need to focus on - more challenge, which could scare away those casual gamers, or something else?

Press opinion doesn't correlate with public opinion, particularly on games. Especially for this one, since mainstream reviewers tend to be more favourable to easier games.

What stopped this game from selling was the bad word of mouth from the hardcore crowd. The only way games like this stick around is if you manage to turn hardcore people into evangelicals. That's how a lot of smaller releases end up being profitable: if your friends/people you follow say something is good, you're more likely to want to try it yourself if your interests align; if they're telling you it's crap you'll usually avoid it.

I imagine that having the complete game would help in case people are skeptical of buying an unfinished game which ends just as the story gets interesting. Did Broken Sword 5 get a boost when they released Part 2?

They may do; a lot of people wait for season passes and collector's editions for stuff now.

Either way I think the huge gap between Act 1 and 2 (which is looking to be about a year or possibly more) could hurt them, as the industry moves really quickly and people may lose interest or otherwise forget about Broken Age. It's going to need a ton of positive reviews, especially from the dedicated adventure gamers, to gain momentum.

Again, this is why they fucked themselves over by catering to the casual crowd.

Because they designed their puzzles not to be too much of a hindrance, casual gamers will have played, finished and forgotten about this game by the time the second one comes out.

The only mentions they get will be from the hardcore market, who won't really be all that interested by then. This left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, and unlike in most situations where it's ambiguous, this time it's completely the developer's fault.

 

[Boleskine]

I think Broken Age is still a good game, even if it's an easy one. It may not be what some hoped for in design and challenge, but it doesn't have many technical or design flaws.

First, the game has severe design flaws if it's designed post-art asset creation.

Second, it says a lot when a short adventure game's biggest compliment seems to be "it works", when programming adventure games is usually one of the easiest to do.

Just to clarify my point of those comments wasn't to say, "It works." I meant that BA is an enjoyable game that also doesn't have major gameplay or design flaws. That's separate from discussing the difficulty or degree of challenge - an "easy" game is not necessarily a poorly designed one. I think they made just the game they intended to make in terms of puzzle difficulty, but we'd all agree that they focused too much on the artwork and not enough on puzzles.

There'd be a lot of people who are/weren't sold on the idea of crowdfunding. This was, after all, the game that really started Kickstarter as a platform in the public and developer consciousness.

But even if that weren't the case, that broader appeal is what's probably killed this game's future sales more than anything. There's a right way, and a wrong way, to casualize.

The only market for this game as pitched was the long-time adventure game fans and indie hipsters; they then decided to casualise it after the fact, which is going to drive away interest in it from both groups who won't bother recommending it to anyone they know with similar interest who hasn't picked up the game.

Yea, that's what I was getting at - the kickstarter campaign started all about making a classic, old-school adventure game. Then it became a huge phenomenon that overshadowed that initial goal, and once the budget and scope of the project change they had to rethink their approach. Being such a large success on kickstarter probably had DF thinking that there was a HUGE audience out there for the game they were going to make.

I think I'd classify as a long-time adventure game fan. I didn't Kickstart this game because I'm not a huge fan of LucasArts games in general, but I was willing to wait and see how this one turned out and pick it up if it was good. I'm really glad I did, as it means not having to pay any money for it myself.

There are definitely others who did the same, but it'd be interesting to know how that compares to the total number of backers or sales (no way to know). Still, I have a feeling that most of the adventure community has been tapped out - most of the major adventure kickstarters seem to have not sold very well. I think the huge wave from the Double Fine kickstarter, plus Telltale's burgeoning success with TWD (not a point and click adventure) at that time, made people think point and click adventure games were more popular/profitable than they actually are. Now everyone's getting a dose of reality.

Press opinion doesn't correlate with public opinion, particularly on games. Especially for this one, since mainstream reviewers tend to be more favourable to easier games.

What stopped this game from selling was the bad word of mouth from the hardcore crowd. The only way games like this stick around is if you manage to turn hardcore people into evangelicals. That's how a lot of smaller releases end up being profitable: if your friends/people you follow say something is good, you're more likely to want to try it yourself if your interests align; if they're telling you it's crap you'll usually avoid it.

I don't think press opinion correlates with public opinion, but the former can influence the latter in certain cases. I agree with your point about needing hardcore crowds to vouch for a game, and that goes back to what I posted previously about Broken Age lacking that key outstanding element. People couldn't stop talking about the story and "choices" (LOL) in TWD, for example. Here it seems that the negative hardcore word of mouth outweighed the positive press word of mouth, and that's not unsurprising. It just goes to show that developers are better off pleasing their hardcore supporters, then having those people stump for the game around the internet, rather than hoping the hardcore crowd won't hate it while trying to think of ways to reach the "casual" or "mobile" market.

Again, this is why they fucked themselves over by catering to the casual crowd.

Because they designed their puzzles not to be too much of a hindrance, casual gamers will have played, finished and forgotten about this game by the time the second one comes out.

The only mentions they get will be from the hardcore market, who won't really be all that interested by then. This left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, and unlike in most situations where it's ambiguous, this time it's completely the developer's fault.

Yea, agreed again. It's basically cannibalism - developers burn their sales at both ends, and it's kind of sad to see so many of them do this.

Despite the feeling some people have toward BA or DF at this point, I still would like to see Act 2 improve on the points of criticism and boost sales/reception. My gut tells me that DF might just want to finish the damn thing without wasting more time/cash than necessary. I wouldn't blame them - they look incredibly tired and burned out in this new documentary episode, and Tim probably wants to focus on other projects.

 

[Redlands]

Just to clarify my point of those comments wasn't to say, "It works." I meant that BA is an enjoyable game that also doesn't have major gameplay or design flaws. That's separate from discussing the difficulty or degree of challenge - an "easy" game is not necessarily a poorly designed one. I think they made just the game they intended to make in terms of puzzle difficulty, but we'd all agree that they focused too much on the artwork and not enough on puzzles.

Obviously I haven't played the game myself. I don't think I'd be able to be impartial enough at the moment to give it a fair chance, either. Besides, there's already plenty of recently released and soon-to-be released games that I've got better hopes for, or will probably end up liking anyway (when I get to Moebius, I'll probably like it as I've liked all of Jane Jensen's games, though POS is involved so ugh).

I agree that an easy game is not necessarily a poorly designed one. The Portal games are very easy (at least in figuring out what you need to do), but they've clearly been designed well to do that. However, it's pretty clear Broken Age was poorly designed based on what I know about game development and on what I've seen and heard from the developers themselves throughout the development of this game.

Yea, that's what I was getting at - the kickstarter campaign started all about making a classic, old-school adventure game. Then it became a huge phenomenon that overshadowed that initial goal, and once the budget and scope of the project change they had to rethink their approach. Being such a large success on kickstarter probably had DF thinking that there was a HUGE audience out there for the game they were going to make.

There was a "relatively" huge audience. That's how they got so many backers in the first place. But it was for the classic, old school adventure game; not the thing that got released.

I still don't see why they needed to change their approach to the project simply because they got more money. Spend the money on enhancing the game, by all means, but do the major changes/expansions AFTER you've got a good game in place.

There are definitely others who did the same, but it'd be interesting to know how that compares to the total number of backers or sales (no way to know). Still, I have a feeling that most of the adventure community has been tapped out - most of the major adventure kickstarters seem to have not sold very well. I think the huge wave from the Double Fine kickstarter, plus Telltale's burgeoning success with TWD (not a point and click adventure) at that time, made people think point and click adventure games were more popular/profitable than they actually are. Now everyone's getting a dose of reality.

I kind of agree; it's probably the only way the games would get made, but I don't think you'll end up a lot of additional profit after the fact. Unless the game is really good. Unfortunately, I think that any of the game designers with enough "name" have possibly gotten used to games being what they are now to make anything like their old work, or simply don't have the same people behind them to help them in other areas.

I don't think press opinion correlates with public opinion, but the former can influence the latter in certain cases. I agree with your point about needing hardcore crowds to vouch for a game, and that goes back to what I posted previously about Broken Age lacking that key outstanding element. People couldn't stop talking about the story and "choices" (LOL) in TWD, for example. Here it seems that the negative hardcore word of mouth outweighed the positive press word of mouth, and that's not unsurprising. It just goes to show that developers are better off pleasing their hardcore supporters, then having those people stump for the game around the internet, rather than hoping the hardcore crowd won't hate it while trying to think of ways to reach the "casual" or "mobile" market.

This is definitely true for adventure games and other niche games. Having the press on your side means nothing, as anyone in the niches has already been ignored/fucked over by them, even beyond the usual tired game "journalist" bullshittery we get. For adventure games, this goes double.

Yea, agreed again. It's basically cannibalism - developers burn their sales at both ends, and it's kind of sad to see so many of them do this.

Despite the feeling some people have toward BA or DF at this point, I still would like to see Act 2 improve on the points of criticism and boost sales/reception. My gut tells me that DF might just want to finish the damn thing without wasting more time/cash than necessary. I wouldn't blame them - they look incredibly tired and burned out in this new documentary episode, and Tim probably wants to focus on other projects.

You're probably right. They brought it on themselves, though, so I'm not too sorry for them (or at least Schafer, who should know damn well what he's doing by now).

 

[J_C]

Double Fine just fell victim to being Double Fine! If someone knows all of their games, s/he can see that all of their games are very different. Different in artstyle (from Psyconauts through Costum Quest to Broken Age, there is a huge difference in visuals), different in gameplay, different in visuals. Double Fine is one of the most creative company in the industry, they are not doing sequels, always working on something new. and they didn't make sequels until Costum Quest 2. And that's a fact, nobody can deny that. Tim Schafer probably felt obliged to continue that tradition. Meanwhile there was a pressure from the kickstarter backer, to make an oldschool adventure game. Tim wanted to succeed in both areas, thus we got Broken Age, which is another unique game, nothing like Double Fine's other games, and even on the market is fairly unique. Meanwhile it keept the basic cornerstones of point and click adventure game. And I don't blame them for not doing another Full Throttle or Grim Fandange. The ONLY thing I blame them for, is making the puzzles easy. Don't kid ourselves, the Codex would be all over this game if it had great puzzles, they wouldn't care about the artstyle, or the episodic release or the story. Some would still hate it, sure, but those peopel hate everything new. But I repeat, most people would like the game if it had more complex puzzles.

With all that said, Tim and DF should learn from this lesson. If they make another KS game after Massive Chalice (which I doubt), they should give up their ambition and stick to what they promised. Yeah, I know you want to make an unique game, and be creative. But if you promise an oldschool adventure game, just make a retro styled game with retro interface and good puzzles. You can fullfill your ambition in your other games.

 

[buzz]

Double Fine is one of the most creative company in the industry, they are not doing sequels, always working on something new. And that's a fact, nobody can deny that.

Costume Quest 2 was announced in March 2014, with a planned release by Halloween of that year. Wren and Reynold will return in the sequel, which will also introduce more costumes and feature a "deeper and juicier" battle system according to Schafer.

 

[J_C]

Double Fine is one of the most creative company in the industry, they are not doing sequels, always working on something new. And that's a fact, nobody can deny that.

Costume Quest 2 was announced in March 2014, with a planned release by Halloween of that year. Wren and Reynold will return in the sequel, which will also introduce more costumes and feature a "deeper and juicier" battle system according to Schafer.

Ok, I stand corrected. But it was a long way from the beginning until they made their first sequel.

 

[buzz]

Yeah but at the same time, most of their products were commercially disappointing. Psychonauts for example sold like shit, but one can argue that the ending was a sequel hook and Tim had showed interest before in doing a sequel. It's just a matter of circumstances that Psychonauts 2 was never made.
I mean, he's stooping so low that he's doing a REMAKE, not a sequel even, to one of his older, pre-DF games. I'm certain he would have even made a Psychonauts MOBA if someone gave him the chance and money.

 

[J_C]

Yeah but at the same time, most of their products were commercially disappointing. Psychonauts for example sold like shit, but one can argue that the ending was a sequel hook and Tim had showed interest before in doing a sequel. It's just a matter of circumstances that Psychonauts 2 was never made.
I mean, he's stooping so low that he's doing a REMAKE, not a sequel even, to one of his older, pre-DF games. I'm certain he would have even made a Psychonauts MOBA if someone gave him the chance and money.

Sure, Psychonauts and Brutal Legend were set up to have a sequel, and would probably had one if they were more successfull. Still, the games they made are very unique, and different, not similar to eachother at all. And they wanted to keep that up in the Kickstarter. That said, I agree that they should have made just a regular oldschool adventure game, similar to the old ones.

As for the GF remake, that is a business decision. The company is not swimming in money they would be stupid to pass up the opportunity to make this game.

 

[BGMD]

Stumbled upon this image, is it from latest episode?

 

[Irenaeus]

Different in artstyle

Really? They all look like contemporary bad-quality hipster artsy shit to me. Including Psychonauts and Brütal Legend.

 

[J_C]

Different in artstyle

they look contemporary bad-quality hipster artsy shit to me

Only if you think that every non-realistic looking game is a contemporary bad-quality hipster artsy shit. In this case, please die!

 

[Irenaeus]

Day of the Tentacle had good quality artstyle.

 

[J_C]

Day of the Tentacle had good quality artstyle.

Oh really? It looked contemporary bad-quality hipster artsy shit to me.

 

[Irenaeus]

In this case, please die!

 

[SuicideBunny]

Day of the Tentacle had good quality artstyle.

Oh really? It looked contemporary bad-quality hipster artsy shit to me.

no, you!

and on a less kindergarten flavored note, broken age does intentionally go for hipster artstyle because it tries to imitate the look/feel of cutout animation, much like south park... and just like with sp, it makes it look like cheapass flash animation.

 

[J_C]

Day of the Tentacle had good quality artstyle.

Oh really? It looked contemporary bad-quality hipster artsy shit to me.

no, you!

and on a less kindergarten flavored note, broken age does intentionally go for hipster artstyle because it tries to imitate the look/feel of cutout animation, much like south park... and just like with sp, it makes it look like cheapass flash animation.

Yes, and no. There is no such thing as hipster artstyle. This stupid hipster thing is just made up by the retards in society, and used for all shit which just tries to be different from the norm. And yes, BA tries to imitate cutout animation, but it is neither cheap, nor it looks like South Park. If someone looks at the background and the character animation, s/he can see that it was made with great care and a lot of work went into it.

But somehow people how don't like its more lighthearted style equal it with cheap quality.

 

[Irenaeus]

 

[SuicideBunny]

Yes, and no. There is no such thing as hipster artstyle. This stupid hipster thing is just made up by the retards in society, and used for all shit which just tries to be different from the norm.

hipster artstyles are artstyles that try to look vintage/oldschool for the sole sake of looking vintage/oldschool.

If someone looks at the background and the character animation, s/he can see that it was made with great care and a lot of work went into it.

cool story, bro. i did look at the character animation when i played through the first half and that's precisely what made me think "holy hell, this looks like cheapass flash", and it did so after buying the game without having no expectations other than it being a good adventure (which it wasn't). the backgrounds are ok, but pretty lame when compared to the concepts.

 

[J_C]

Yes, and no. There is no such thing as hipster artstyle. This stupid hipster thing is just made up by the retards in society, and used for all shit which just tries to be different from the norm.

hipster artstyles are artstyles that try to look vintage/oldschool for the sole sake of looking vintage/oldschool.

BA looks neither vintage, nor oldschool, it uses a hand painted style which is nothing like oldschool games, so this definition is wrong.

Stumbled upon this image, is it from latest episode?

Yep, that is from the documentary. I watched it just now. Some sidenotes:
- game sold decently, wasn't a runaway hit, but surpassed the basic expectations
- Tim and crew and talking about how to make the game harder. Russian bitch wants to fuck up and says that oldschool adventure games were only hard because they had a lot of useable items and verbs. Fuck that bitch!
- Tim is mocking a guy, who criticised the game. It was disappointing to see. Oh Tim, what if instead going passive-agressive you actually take the criticism at heart.
- Ipad version is released, it did OK in the first 4 days, they forecast a steady cashflow
- It seems Act 1 was hard. Random noob is stuck in the tutorial area.
- Tim wants to release Act 2 this year

Overall another great episode.

 

[Crooked Bee]

~160,000 copies sold in about half a year sounds p. bad to me, especially given the game's inflated budget. I honestly didn't expect the numbers to be so low, despite being disappointed with the game myself.

 

[SuicideBunny]

definitely weird, considering all those positive reviews out there. it's like psychonauts, 'cept for the obvious difference that psychonauts was a fucking excellent game.

 

[J_C]

~160,000 copies sold in about half a year sounds p. bad to me, especially given the game's inflated budget. I honestly didn't expect the numbers to be so low, despite being disappointed with the game myself.

Adventure games tend to sell small ammounts nowadays. Just checked the steam charts for the Monkey Island and Deponia games, and their chart is very similar to BA, I assume the sales were similar as well.

 

[markec]

~160,000 copies sold in about half a year sounds p. bad to me, especially given the game's inflated budget. I honestly didn't expect the numbers to be so low, despite being disappointed with the game myself.

Adventure games tend to sell small ammounts nowadays. Just checked the steam charts for the Monkey Island and Deponia games, and their chart is very similar to BA, I assume the sales were similar as well.

Problem is that Broken Age target audience (children and hipsters) is financially unreliable. If kids ask their parents to buy Broken Age for them, they would probably say its too expensive for a kids game and would rather buy something more complex to stimulate childrens young brains like some Barbie dress up. Hipsters on the other hand probably turn their backs on this game when it started to be praised all around and get lots of publicity and God forbid they actually like something mainstream, also the art was probably too hipster even for them.

By the way, you cant really compare Monkey Island and Deponia to BA, since they were made on lower budget and they are actual adventure games.

 

[J_C]

~160,000 copies sold in about half a year sounds p. bad to me, especially given the game's inflated budget. I honestly didn't expect the numbers to be so low, despite being disappointed with the game myself.

Adventure games tend to sell small ammounts nowadays. Just checked the steam charts for the Monkey Island and Deponia games, and their chart is very similar to BA, I assume the sales were similar as well.

Problem is that Broken Age target audience (children and hipsters) is financially unreliable. If kids ask their parents to buy Broken Age for them, they would probably say its too expensive for a kids game and would rather buy something more complex to stimulate childrens young brains like some Barbie dress up. Hipsters on the other hand probably turn their backs on this game when it started to be praised all around and get lots of publicity and God forbid they actually like something mainstream, also the art was probably too hipster even for them.

By the way, you cant really compare Monkey Island and Deponia to BA, since they were made on lower budget and they are actual adventure games.

BA is just as an adventure game as Deponia. Cut the shit about BA not being an adventure game. BA is more shallow, yes, but uses the same gameplay elements as Deponia, or Monkey Island.