Researching: the death of the CRPG industry

[baronjohn]

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (this was when the series was still worth a damn)
Soldier of Fortune
Diablo II
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Hitman: Codename 47

These were shit btw

 

[Turisas]

You are shit.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

You missed the point here.

I didn't miss the point because I don't claim that there wasn't less money in the business then - that's obviously true. I call bs on the perpetuating myth that crpgs were a niche genre and I stand by that. How many players who were active in late nineties do you know that never played the above mentioned titles?

These numbers ale laughable now.

And where did you get that idea? Most games are shipped in the amount of 10000 or less in potatoland, nevermind sold. 30-40k is reserved for really huge titles and still you will sell most of that only when price drops, budget series etc.

Back then mostly nerds played video games

Define "back then". In the late nineties, when PCs became really popular that's just not true.

There weren't that many good PC games when Baldur's Gate was released

Oh, come on...[/img]

 

[DwarvenFood]

Wait what, Soldier of Fortune ?hahaha ` a oh wow.

Entertaining game, played it a lot. But what "good" ? it was just another shooter. Yes you could sever limbs with the shotgun but hardly innovative.

Back on topic, I think what made the companies go down was the changing market, and with that, changing demands from publishers and owners.

Those that could not "streamline" into the new age, would not be able to hack it. These days, even further streamlining seems to be necessary (see DA1->DA2) but the question is, will the market accept that, or will it become more critical again.

 

[Turisas]

Entertaining game, played it a lot. But what "good" ? it was just another shooter. Yes you could sever limbs with the shotgun but hardly innovative.

Guts spilling out and head getting half-blown off was very innovative tho. :D

 

[bratislav90]

it is quite simple, there is a rise in the muslim,niger,housewife gamers etc population, and since the Devs waht to please everyone this is what happens.. I am sure that some fat sad housewife dosent want to play Gothic 2, no she wants a hiking simualtor with "radiant awesome", not to think about anything etc

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

nerds (...) good PC games (...) Baldur's Gate

You have successfully added MicoSelva to your ignore list.

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I think this is the main problem. Video game have become as main stream as movies, and the lamer/consoletard to nerd ratio is now probably 1000 to 1.

You mean "non-nerds" who want to live in a fictional world (immershun, LARPing, romances, obsessive exploration, etc.), who grind in MMORPGs, who spend many hours a day playing games like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, World of Warcraft, spend tons of money on their hardware even if they are poor, etc?

Seriously, if just liking to play an isometric/turn-based cRPG is "nerdy", then what the fuck is pathologic shit like this?

Also, when I started playing Fallout, I was an ADHD kid and a hooligan. Another guy that played it was ADHD kid too. We were just browsing demos from a cover CD and got immediately hooked on it after seeing the great death animations.
Another childhood friend that I know that liked Fallout had ADHD too and was involved in car-stealing gangs. Next Fallout fan that I met was a popular guy in high school - we would talk a lot about Planescape Torment too.
But no, according to you, aspie nerds, all the fans of isometric/turn-based/text-rich cRPGs are just like you.

It's funny how most of these modern popular cRPGs appeal to the lowest no-life nerd instincts, but still normal people get blamed for them.

Which reminds me: another problem is due to distribution. Nowadays the shops in my neck of the woods (Norway) only sell games from the big publishers ( EA and Eidos), so I never even got the chance to buy games like Wizardry 8, Temple of Elemental Evil and The Witcher (yes, I know I can buy them online), whereas before any game that was reviewed in gaming mags could be purchased in local shops.

That's the main problem. Publishers and distributors. No one is going to buy a game that wasn't made and that isn't distributed.

 

[Tel Velothi]

games like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, World of Warcraft

Excuse me, sir, but what Morrowind doing in this respectable company?

 

[octavius]

You mean "non-nerds" who want to live in a fictional world (immershun, LARPing, romances, obsessive exploration, etc.), who grind in MMORPGs, who spend many hours a day playing games like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, World of Warcraft, spend tons of money on their hardware even if they are poor, etc?

Seriously, if just liking to play an isometric/turn-based cRPG is "nerdy", then what the fuck is pathologic shit like this?

I'd say most players of Oblivion and Fallout 3 are not nerds. Most of them are lamers who play the unmodded games on the X-Box, I guess. And then there is a segment who is obsessed with playing scantiliy clad female elves in 3rd person POV, but I'm not sure how to classify them. But they certainly is a (too) large segment of the Oblivion mod community.
As for WOW I guess it appeals to all kinds of people, nerds and lamers alike.
But I doubt if many of those playing the games you mentioned would be very interested in an old school turn based game.

But no, according to you, aspie nerds, all the fans of isometric/turn-based/text-rich cRPGs are just like you.

Where did I say that, and what does "aspie nerds" mean?

It's funny how most of these modern popular cRPGs appeal to the lowest no-life nerd instincts, but still normal people get blamed for them.

Well, judging by the CRPG Addict thread it's difficult even to agree on the definition of "nerd", but for me it has more to do with computer savviness, and interest in all things fantasy and science fiction, than social skills. I know guys who still live with their mothers and who spend their time playing WOW, and single player games like Half Like and other PFS'es, but wouldn't know how to turn on hardware acceleration or install new levels/maps even if their lives depended on it. These are guys who haven't read a book since they finished high school. I consider them lamers, not nerds.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

RPGs then:

RPGs now:

I wish it was only cosmetic. I think I would prefer the gal on the bottom with a bath and an STD test.

It was the fail to integrate into consoles. If Fire Emblem can sell half a million on the Wii then whyTF couldnt ToEE do half that on the Xbox or PS 2? Why wasn't Bloodlines a 360 launch title? Consoles would have saved Troika. Bloodlines would have been the only RPG next to Oblivion. Bloodlines on the Xbox would have easly sold more than all of their games combined. Why did Ipply pioneer dumbing down with Brotherhood of Steel and Dark Alliance? They would have been better off with a multiplatform FO 3 especially since it was in 3D and Baldur's Gate 3 which would have been the real spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Well, judging by the CRPG Addict thread it's difficult even to agree on the definition of "nerd", but for me it has more to do with computer savviness, and interest in all things fantasy and science fiction, than social skills. I know guys who still live with their mothers and who spend their time playing WOW, and single player games like Half Like and other PFS'es, but wouldn't know how to turn on hardware acceleration or install new levels/maps even if their lives depended on it. These are guys who haven't read a book since they finished high school. I consider them lamers, not nerds.

Sorry, but you're implying - intentionally or not - that Arwor Szurkrarz is a lamer. Welcome to his ignore list.

 

[octavius]

Well, judging by the CRPG Addict thread it's difficult even to agree on the definition of "nerd", but for me it has more to do with computer savviness, and interest in all things fantasy and science fiction, than social skills. I know guys who still live with their mothers and who spend their time playing WOW, and single player games like Half Like and other PFS'es, but wouldn't know how to turn on hardware acceleration or install new levels/maps even if their lives depended on it. These are guys who haven't read a book since they finished high school. I consider them lamers, not nerds.

Sorry, but you're implying - intentionally or not - that Arwor Szurkrarz is a lamer. Welcome to his ignore list.

Are you implying that Arwor is living with his mother?

Anyway, one shouldn't take generalization personal.

 

[keithburgun]

Thanks for all the wonderful replies, guys!

One thing I'm hearing a lot from you all is "In the meantime games have become more expensive to make. You have to pay for voice acting, motion capture, etc. cRPGs probably still sell like they used to, but now it's not enough to cover the expenses. "

The thing is, none of that is actually true. You don't have to get voice acting or motion capture. You can do nice, awesome looking pixel art, or just do what they did for Fallout 1 or 2 and pre-render models.

It's true that that won't convince the idiot masses, but it certainly will convince the "nerds" are you put it; the people who really like RPGs.

Perhaps the cost of marketing a game overall has increased though, with such bigger money getting tossed around?


Also: Do you guys think we can have a return to the 90s RPG days ever? Can digital distribution help? Etc!


PS: I agree that it's not at all about "nerds / non-nerds". I was never a nerd, I just really like RPGs a lot. I mean, if you want to say that makes me a nerd, then fine, but I dropped out of high school, I play in rock bands, I've almost never NOT had a girlfriend, I'm not at all socially awkward, and I don't read books.

-K

 

[commie]

All the above reasons are valid but there's another area where MANY companies in the 90's fell foul of: a complete lack of understanding of the market. Many smaller devs were bought out by companies such as Hasbro and Mattel who had an anachronistic view of computing and paid too much for many of these developers, with the result that they expected products that would pay for themselves and not cater for niche markets as they had done until then. The result was predictable: eventual closure of the developers and/or bankruptcy of the publisher or at best a complete abandonment of the niche products they were making in favor of mass appeal titles. People forget that even in the 90's considering there was a shitload of silly money floating around for any half bit developer, relatively far higher amounts considering the size of the PC market back then compared to now.

Also as Robert Sirotech wrote back in 1998 after the demise of Sir-Tech as a publisher regarding the need to pay ever larger amounts for decreasing shelf time at retailers:

IGNPC: Did they raise the bar in terms of marketing budgets, production budgets?

RS: It isn't as simple as that. I think that a lot of things messed it up. I think that in '92, this is when you began to see real problems emerge.

I personally misgauged mass merchants, the ramifications of them getting into the marketplace. A number of the well-known mass merchants out there embarked on a policy of requiring publishers to pay huge, huge money to be granted shelf space. And that's fine, we played ball on that basis.

Because at first, in the early 90s, a number of them kept your products on the shelf for a good six months before they began complaining about a sales slowdown or whatever. And at least that six-month gap gave publishers a chance to coordinate their marketing initiatives, their advertising campaigns, their mailings--all of this stuff that can never be timed precisely.

And we found last Christmas that many of these same mass merchants, who were willing to give you six months back in 1992, now would only give you three weeks to a month at best. You had to coordinate all these initiatives, create demand, and see your product sell in exceptional quantities within that month before these people said either mark it down or take it back. It's very difficult to operate in that environment.

Some of them in fact refused, even after we paid for the buy-ins--the tens of thousands of dollars we paid in August for shelf space for products due in October--these retailers cut their orders in half and didn't go as deep as we had anticipated.

That's what I mean by disrespectful. They have no concept of relationships. They just do what they think is best in their own short-term interest and that's the end of it. I don't think that's a healthy way to proceed for this industry.

So it's for these and other reasons, that unless you have the huge energy mass of an Electronic Arts, to be able to dictate policy to these people, it's really a losing game.

It seems that had digital distribution been around in the 90's in the way it is today then many companies would have happily survived. The sheer cost of buying shelf space and trying to reach a limited player base in a few short weeks through advertising proved too much in the end for companies with such small margins.


One more thing Robert said:

I think what you need to see in this industry is consolidation. I think you're going to need to see a top three or a top six publishers, and I just hope that they're responsible enough to be able to provide proper funding to quality developers that have the vision and the background in the industry to be able to innovate in a way that makes people laugh or cry on the computer.

That's one of the reasons why we got into this, but it just stopped becoming fun, and we just don't think that the future, at least in the next three or five years, bodes very well for independents, and I honestly do believe that consolidation needs to occur in order to see less product coming on the market, but of that, more innovative product.

Poor fool....if only he knew....


:sniff:

 

[Serious_Business]

Back then mostly nerds played video games, and nerds have a knack for cRPGs. Now, when the potential audience is larger, nerds are only a small portion of it. In the meantime games have become more expensive to make. You have to pay for voice acting, motion capture, etc. cRPGs probably still sell like they used to, but now it's not enough to cover the expenses.

Here's a solution mang : stop being a nerd, or find another hobby

 

[commie]

Also: Do you guys think we can have a return to the 90s RPG days ever? Can digital distribution help? Etc!

I think we can but it will require a rebirth of the types of developers of RPG's we had back in the 90's. Indies are just too rough and lightweight at the moment even if they have the raw talent, they don't have that extra 'something' that SSI or NWC or Sir-Tech had after a long period of game development. I think it's a bit like the rebirth of civilization after the dark ages; there will be many failures and a slow rediscovery of just how to make games in the old style as that knowledge has been 'forgotten' in a way.

Note the above quote about shelf space cost being a real killer. Digital distribution would have saved these developers had it been as robust back then as it is now, particularly since these companies were already well known and respected. Starting from scratch will be harder as even with DD it will be hard for a fledgling company to make money but so long as they persevere and with a bit of luck, these companies can find a good niche for themselves so long as they don't all of a sudden try to be something they are not, like competing with EA or Bethesda.

 

[Ovg]

I think that the decline we suffer is caused by the whole society being brought up differently, taught from early age to accept mediocrity and to consider activities requiring intelligence and a larger amount of thinking a waste of time. That dear, trannies, is caused by our societies obsession with efficiency in gathering wealth, an obsession which makes such things as books and history seem obsolete to a typical youngster these days.

Our beloved RPGs are also a victim, since fantasy was popularized among the general public by films like "Lord of The Rings", and Tolkien's fantasy is considered pretty generic among nerds. People watch movies with clearly defined good and bad and easy on the mind dialogues plus a generic setting, and they demand that their gaming experience will mirror those traits.

And that's my dear trannies, why we can't have nice things.


Also,

I dropped out of high school, I play in rock bands, I've almost never NOT had a girlfriend, I'm not at all socially awkward, and I don't read books.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

Also: Do you guys think we can have a return to the 90s RPG days ever? Can digital distribution help? Etc!

Also: Which is better and why? Discuss!

 

[Reptilian Shapeshifter]

I think that the decline we suffer is caused by the whole society being brought up differently, taught from early age to accept mediocrity and to consider activities requiring intelligence and a larger amount of thinking a waste of time.

And this is exactly what those at the top of the pyramid (who control the money supply) are after - a population incapable of critical thought, people who will swallow any piece of shit without question. The dumb-down/decline is intentional. Nothing went wrong. In fact, it's working perfectly.

 

[octavius]

And this is exactly what those at the top of the pyramid (who control the money supply) are after - a population incapable of critical thought, people who will swallow any piece of shit without question. The dumb-down/decline is intentional. Nothing went wrong. In fact, it's working perfectly.

A Brave New World, where we are no longer Citizens but Consumers.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Entertaining game, played it a lot. But what "good" ? it was just another shooter. Yes you could sever limbs with the shotgun but hardly innovative.

Guts spilling out and head getting half-blown off was very innovative tho. :D

I must have had some weird censored version then.

 

[odrzut]

Old games seems so much better than modern, because:
- you remember the good ones and forgot about all mediocre shit
- you were younger then, and had more time for games (especially if you were child then) - you were more patient with a game, because the alternative was doing your homework or playing football, and now the alternative is feeding your family, sex, going to vacation etc
- games were sth new for you so you've had lower expectations
- games were more innovative (innovative != good) - so you didn't know all little inconveniences could be done better


Everybody is complaining that back then everything was better, because people are most happy when they are young. Nothing to do with objective quality of games.

In reality the ratio of great to mediocre games is more or less constant. RPGs are not dying - they are evolving. Some in bad way, some in good.

BTW - people here seem to think RPG are elite games because of mechanics. In reality RPG mechanics isn't hard to code at all. Almost every game has some attributes for player and monsters, and level-up system is easy to do. Nowadays making game like BG would take much les time - we have great game engines and tools (BTW2 - see this http://www.mapeditor.org/).

It's content that is and will always be hard to do - quests, NPCs, dialogues, story. And to me this is the thing that makes RPG games special.

 

[Ovg]

4/10

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Old games seems so much better than modern, because:
- you remember the good ones and forgot about all mediocre shit
- you were younger then, and had more time for games (especially if you were child then) - you were more patient with a game, because the alternative was doing your homework or playing football, and now the alternative is feeding your family, sex, going to vacation etc
- games were sth new for you so you've had lower expectations
- games were more innovative (innovative != good) - so you didn't know all little inconveniences could be done better


Everybody is complaining that back then everything was better, because people are most happy when they are young. Nothing to do with objective quality of games.

In reality the ratio of great to mediocre games is more or less constant. RPGs are not dying - they are evolving. Some in bad way, some in good.

I only played Might and Magic, Dark Sun, Wizardry etc in the last year or so and find them better than anything released in the last ten years

how does that make you feel

 

[Jaesun]

RPGs are not dying - they are evolving. Some in bad way, some in good.

Give us a recent example of a cRPG evolving in a good way.

I cannot think of one.