Decline of Frictional Games

[asper]

In a recent blogpost Frictional Games talk about their sales figures and plans of for the future.

Amnesia did really well:

Jens did a recount of all income we have gotten so far and the figure ended on 391 102 units

While discounted sales indeed dwarfs our normal sales, the day-to-day sales are quite expectational as well. Right now we are selling around 6000 units per month at full price.

6000 units each month! It's almost unbelievable, there are so many horror PC gamers out there?

After this good news, look at what they write about the future (warning: decline)

Another big change for the future will be consoles. The main reason for choosing consoles is purely financial. Right now our main income comes from very few channels, and we need to spread out the risk somehow. The other reason is that we feel we are missing out on exposure by not being on a console and not reaching as many players as we should be able to. Unfortunately consoles are really old compared to the PC right now, so it will be far from straightforward to develop for two platforms. Our current thinking is to make the console get a lower end version and make sure console specs influence the PC version as little as possible.

"make sure the console specs influence the PC version as little as possible" -- when has that EVER worked?!

But the worst is yet to come.

We have mentioned before that the next game will not be as horror focused as our past ones, but still have a scary atmosphere. Our intention this time is to dig into deeper and more intellectually demanding subjects. Another goal for us is to get past having classical puzzles that break the flow, but without making the game into a spoon-fed type of experience.

NO HORROR?! "CLASSICAL PUZZLES THAT BREAK THE FLOW"?? Buch of %#$&*#... In other words, the next Frictional game will be like fucking Fahrenheit -- press left, press right when an arrow flashes.

Holy shit Frictional I put so much hope in you

It just shows that whenever someone is financially succesful, all his soul goes right down the toilet

 

[Admiral jimbob]

So time for pretentious pseudo-deep XBLA garbage like all those monochrome "IT'S ART" platformers they keep farting out? Great.

 

[Achilles]

Yeah, I am a bit worried at this time but their track record is good enough for me to give them the benefit of a doubt. I think they'll do a good job.

 

[Darth Roxor]

So time for pretentious pseudo-deep XBLA garbage like all those monochrome "IT'S ART" platformers they keep farting out? Great.

Pretty much

Good night, it's been a cool ride.

 

[deus101]

" Our intention this time is to dig into deeper and more intellectually demanding subjects."

If im feeling naive and positive, this might mean a direction to what Zoetrepe-interactive does with their games, Darkness Within 1/2.

And add more lovecraftian horror with puzzles focused on reading and underlining clues.

Then again, they might just overflow the entire game with voice actors and cinematic, and turning the narrative into a full blow pseudo literary wankfest that takes itself to seriously.

 

[Gragt]

I wonder how they'll deal into "more intellectually demanding subjects" because most of their blog posts dealt with their approach to the emotional side of things.

 

[deus101]

I wonder how they'll deal into "more intellectually demanding subjects" because of the blog posts dealt with their approach to the emotional side of things.

uhoh.

 

[Jaesun]

I honestly wish they would go back to the Penumbra setting. I fucking loved that series. :/

 

[Darth Roxor]

I honestly wish they would go back to the Penumbra setting. I fucking loved that series. :/

Only if they bring back Clarence

 

[DraQ]

We have mentioned before that the next game will not be as horror focused as our past ones, but still have a scary atmosphere. Our intention this time is to dig into deeper and more intellectually demanding subjects. Another goal for us is to get past having classical puzzles that break the flow, but without making the game into a spoon-fed type of experience.

NO HORROR?! "CLASSICAL PUZZLES THAT BREAK THE FLOW"?? Buch of %#$&*#... In other words, the next Frictional game will be like fucking Fahrenheit -- press left, press right when an arrow flashes.

I'm giving them the benefit of doubt and will read this as including more cosmic dread than "shit there is fugly monster chasing me" and better integration of the puzzles with the rest of the gameplay.

Lastly, I really liked Amnesia, but found several things about it severely dismaying:

-sanity mechanics was awesome, but character freaking out all the time detracted from atmosphere - simulating distorted perception and stuff is one thing (delicious thing, to be exact), but character acting up on their own has no place in a horror game, since it breaks the link between player and character instead of scaring the player. Player should be motor of character's actions, if you want to make character act insane or freaked out so hard, try to find a way to manipulate the player by messing with stuff he perceives. Sure it's hard as fuck, but if anyone can do this it's dudes at Frictional.

-nerfing of the AI and enemy behaviour really harmed the game by removing most of the tension. You don't fear the enemy that behaves in easily predictable manner you can easily exploit. It's just this simple. Apart from invisible water horrors and that large, dark section where you collected orb fragments, the only parts of the game where enemies induced any tension were those where you risked being cornered in plain sight in a dead end of some sort.

-whether the puzzles are going to be well integrated or not, they should be harder.

What I really did like compared to Penumbra was better "production values" and using alchemy rather than blatantly wrong chemistry for lab puzzles.

I honestly wish they would go back to the Penumbra setting. I fucking loved that series. :/

Only if they bring back Clarence

I never liked Clarence. Screwing with your perception was just fucking perfect and close to being the best thing ever, communicating with you wouldn't necessarily be bad either, but he, or rather it, was too human and to top that, tried to be lulzy about it, so in the end he detracted from atmosphere most of the time.

The setting and the game was great though.



What I'd really love to see is remake/spiritual successsor of Azrael's Tear made by Frictional Games, this time properly exploring all the themes, and not ending in a big wut, but going properly madness inducing lovecraftian in the end.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

They can do atmosphere very well, so I'll see what 'intellectually demanding' means.

They were bold enough to throw combat out of the window with Amnesia AND have greater focus on dwindling light sources so I don't think they'll be losing their shit just yet.

ps clarence wasn't as good as red but the ending for the second game did more than make up for that

 

[Darth Roxor]

-sanity mechanics was awesome, but character freaking out all the time detracted from atmosphere - simulating distorted perception and stuff is one thing (delicious thing, to be exact), but character acting up on their own has no place in a horror game, since it breaks the link between player and character instead of scaring the player. Player should be motor of character's actions, if you want to make character act insane or freaked out so hard, try to find a way to manipulate the player by messing with stuff he perceives. Sure it's hard as fuck, but if anyone can do this it's dudes at Frictional.

Bullshit, lies, r00fles! Take Dark Corners of the Earth. There was nothing more intense than running or trying to gun down an angry fast-moving deep one when Jack Walters, the field medic extraordinaire, was having megablurred and jumpy vision, kept stumbling like a retard and was on the brink of shooting himself in the head.

Fucking with the character fucks the player by proxy, taking away the his possibilities in face of almost certain doom (making it even more certain) and is just as important.

It's the same as the notion of dice rolls in prestigious RPG. 'I'm the player, what do you mean I can't hit the ork with my leet skillz', huh, you popamolist?

I never liked Clarence.

See, this is why nobody likes you

 

[DraQ]

Bullshit, lies, r00fles! Take Dark Corners of the Earth. There was nothing more intense than running or trying to gun down an angry fast-moving deep one when Jack Walters, the field medic extraordinaire, was having megablurred and jumpy vision, kept stumbling like a retard and was on the brink of shooting himself in the head.

So?

Admittedly I haven't played Dark Corners of the Earth, but I have just applauded Amnesia's sanity mechanics - modulating perception and performance isn't just okay, it's fucking awesome. So is character starting to do uncontrolable and undesirable shit (like dying, panicking or going insane) after running out of vital resource - no matter if the resource is sanity, composure or health. This is gameplay mechanics.

What isn't gameplay mechanics is character gasping, screaming or otherwise crapping his pants in response to random environmental scares. It breaks fucking immersion by creating disconnect between character and player and in a horror immersion is vital to actually getting scared. It draws attention away from the event causing the reaction.
It delays getting into game, because instead of being scared and frightened player is getting mightily pissed off at the pussified retard he is forced to control.
In essence it's canned fear and canned fear in horrors is infinitely worse than the abomination that is canned laughter in comedies, if only because amusement doesn't hinge on the suspension of disbelief, while fear does - entirely.

Fucking with the character fucks the player by proxy, taking away the his possibilities in face of almost certain doom (making it even more certain) and is just as important.

Not if all it amounts to is purely cosmetic gasp.

It's the same as the notion of dice rolls in prestigious RPG. 'I'm the player, what do you mean I can't hit the ork with my leet skillz', huh, you popamolist?

You retarded? Since when player dictating actions equals player dictating outcomes?

 

[Phelot]

Another big change for the future will be consoles. The main reason for choosing consoles is purely financial. Right now our main income comes from very few channels, and we need to spread out the risk somehow. The other reason is that we feel we are missing out on exposure by not being on a console and not reaching as many players as we should be able to. Unfortunately consoles are really old compared to the PC right now, so it will be far from straightforward to develop for two platforms. Our current thinking is to make the console get a lower end version and make sure console specs influence the PC version as little as possible.

I certainly understand. Reading through their blog posts about Amnesia coming out, you could see the desperation they were going through. If Amnesia didn't sell exceptionally well then they were going under. Plain and simple. I look at this as the same as what happened to all those devs that we loved in the 90's. It's tempting to "sell out" and unfortunately fans will feel betrayed.

NO HORROR?! "CLASSICAL PUZZLES THAT BREAK THE FLOW"?? Buch of %#$&*#... In other words, the next Frictional game will be like fucking Fahrenheit -- press left, press right when an arrow flashes.

Holy shit Frictional I put so much hope in you

The puzzles is troubling... but I don't mind so much the horror deal. I'm sure it gets old after awhile. Hell, doing the same thing over and over again is a sure way to become creatively bankrupt in that field.

I don't know, I can't help but give them the benefit of the doubt.

It just shows that whenever someone is financially succesful, all his soul goes right down the toilet

Like I said, I know that Amnesia was reasonably successful, but I can understand the anxiety that comes with needing every single one of your releases being a big hit in order to survive. I think so long as they stay true to the idea that their games are PC ported to console, they should be fine.

And besides, Amnesia and Penumbra would have been fine on consoles, it's not like the controls are that advanced.

-sanity mechanics was awesome, but character freaking out all the time detracted from atmosphere - simulating distorted perception and stuff is one thing (delicious thing, to be exact), but character acting up on their own has no place in a horror game, since it breaks the link between player and character instead of scaring the player. Player should be motor of character's actions, if you want to make character act insane or freaked out so hard, try to find a way to manipulate the player by messing with stuff he perceives. Sure it's hard as fuck, but if anyone can do this it's dudes at Frictional.

I thought this was done reasonably. Realistically, a person may very well jump up or panic when confronted with a horror.

In some ways, I thought the darkness was a little much. Maybe should have had it begin to effect the player a little later than when it did.

EDIT: I was really hoping they'd try their hand at an RPG, but now I'm sure they'll stick to what they know. Maybe further into the future...

 

[DraQ]

I thought this was done reasonably. Realistically, a person may very well jump up or panic when confronted with a horror.

Not if the character is oblivious due to amnesia, player hasn't even got himself into the game, and the horror is squeaky window.

 

[Gragt]

Right from the beginning of Amnesia, it's clear that Daniel is in an extremely weakened mental state, so it'd make sense if the character gets scared by a squeaky window or just reacts on an irrational impulse. At the very least it makes sense within the game's own reality.

Anyway I really want to replay Amnesia because I loved it, with its strong points and flaws alike, but I still remember my reaction when I was in the cellar.

 

[DraQ]

Right from the beginning of Amnesia, it's clear that Daniel is in an extremely weakened mental state, so it'd make sense if the character gets scared by a squeaky window or just reacts on an irrational impulse. At the very least it makes sense within the game's own reality.

It may make sense within game's own reality, but the game isn't composed just of it's own reality, but also of player's actions and reactions, and player just happens to not be fully immersed into the game, character and atmosphere mere minutes into, so the reaction comes off as completely unconvincing and breaking the synchronization between *I* player and *I* character - player and his character diverge in terms of reaction, which pulls the player out of the game and makes him ask undesirable questions like "why the fuck am I playing a sissyfied faggot?".

Unconvincing fear on part of the PC is just as shit as unconvincing emotional attachment - if we bash unconvincing and superficial characters that are introduced only to get killed off hastily with expectation that the player will care, why shouldn't we bash character that shits himself and goes catatonic at the mere squeaking of a window while the player still hasn't entirely cleared his mind of recently seen setup screen?


Shit is especially egregious in Amnesia, since the game does offer a natural (and thus liked by the developers far more than it is healthy) excuse for partial obliviousness in the form of titular amnesia. Not only are the overreactions on part of the character bad from the player-character sync PoV, but also there is a perfectly valid in-world reason for omitting or reducing them during early gameplay that remains unutilized.

On an unrelated note Amnesia would also benefit from actual adverse consequences of going fucking insane - the mechanics itself is nice but the impact diminishes greatly after you learn that there is actually little reason to fear your mind falling apart.

If you give character something he can run out of you should also introduce consequences for that. Failure to do so is way too next-gen for my liking.

Anyway I really want to replay Amnesia because I loved it, with its strong points and flaws alike, but I still remember my reaction when I was in the cellar.

Do remind me of the moment you have in mind.