Where are the vampire-themed and modern fantasy crpgs that aren’t Paradox licensed?

[RaggleFraggle]

Something stuck out to me in a recent thread:

That's one crap prepared statement!
But the worst offender especially in current year is
"Vampires, especially as playable characters, are underrepresented."
Yikes
Like the project didn't already had big problems!

They’re not wrong. Devs have been weirdly unwilling to make vampire-themed games unless they’re licensing from Paradox. But the result: Paradox flooding the #vampires tag with crappy licensed games that constantly flop, isn’t convincing devs to make more games with vampires as PCs. Is it? Surely devs have realized the license is worthless, right?

Warhammer’s Vampire Counts receive no licensed games outside of Total War, even though there’s clearly a market and the brand name isn’t too sullied at the moment. Yet I’ve seen several vampire-themed medieval fantasy games, although they’re probably banking more on the medieval fantasy part than the vampire part. (I’m jaded and sick of medieval fantasy btw.)

Aside from Vampyr, Nighthawks and MoonFall, I can’t think of any original vampire-themed crpgs from the last five years. Why are vampires so underrepresented when the success of Bloodlines showed there is a market for it (outside of teenage girls)? The same goes for modern fantasy in general.

 

[Egosphere]

Bloodlines is 20 years old. And as you've pointed out there have been games in the past 5 years. Not sure it's underrepresented, perhaps only relative to tabletop where masquerade is a big presence, but vampires are hardly a thing in modern culture outside of cringe YA books.

 

[lukaszek]

what about oblivion? skyrim even!

 

[Egosphere]

what about oblivion? skyrim even!

modern

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Bloodlines is 20 years old. And as you've pointed out there have been games in the past 5 years. Not sure it's underrepresented, perhaps only relative to tabletop where masquerade is a big presence, but vampires are hardly a thing in modern culture outside of cringe YA books.

It’s not a big presence in tabletop either. They’ve undergone a huge crunch compared to their 90s heyday and never recovered. The original publisher got bought out and dissolved a decade ago. They sold 7 million books over the first 13 years, then stopped releasing sales figures. (For comparison, Vampire Hunter D has sold over 17 million and is considered obscure.) They’re on life support at present, despite what the fans will tell you. Paradox is trying desperately to milk a dying IP and failing. It’s the nostalgia for Bloodlines that kept the IP around for this long.

what about oblivion? skyrim even!

As I said, I’m jaded and sick of medieval fantasy.

 

[lukaszek]

what about oblivion? skyrim even!

modern

skyrim ultimatesomething edition got released 1y ago or something

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Well, it's 2023 so we need black vampires. There was a guy in Hollywood who played black vampires, but he pissed off some Jews, so now they won't bankroll black vampire stories because they don't want you to bring him up in conversation.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Well, it's 2023 so we need black vampires. There was a guy in Hollywood who played black vampires, but he pissed off some Jews, so now they won't bankroll black vampire stories because they don't want you to bring him up in conversation.

Africa and the Caribbean have plenty of scary vampire folklore to draw upon. Adze, Asanbonsam, Obayifo, Soucouyant, Loogaroo…

 

[Tyranicon]

the success of Bloodlines showed there is a market for it

Was Bloodlines financially successful though? I'm not familiar on the topic but I'm sure someone here is.

The thing to note about cult classics is that while they may have longtail sales, they don't make a good initial return on investment, which is what devs really care about.

A cursory google search says that Bloodlines only sold 72k copies at launch, under even Arcanum and TOEE, which are comparably more niche even back in 2004. Seeing how Troika shuttered soon afterwards, it has given a (maybe false) impression that Bloodlines was the game that staked the company.

From what I hear from other devs, RPGs or otherwise, generic fantasy land is always a good bet. Scifi is a far second, and modern settings might as well not exist (outside of normie stuff like GTA of course).

 

[negator2vc]

Releasing crap vampire themed games certainly didn't help the genre!
Bloodlines 2 with all its troubled history and the "fixes for modern audience" made to the tabletop RPG on which the game is based and will certainly inherit wont help either.

 

[just]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/among-vampires-isometric-medieval-vampire-rpg.148340/

 

[Zlaja]

Vampyr is ok. Just don't expect deep character customization. Very storyfag focused with tons of dialogue. I kind of enjoyed it, except for some minor feminist crap that was out of place.

 

[scytheavatar]

Bloodlines did worse than Arcanum and TOEE....... the market for Vampire and urban fantasy CRPGs simply isn't that big.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

the success of Bloodlines showed there is a market for it

Was Bloodlines financially successful though? I'm not familiar on the topic but I'm sure someone here is.

The thing to note about cult classics is that while they may have longtail sales, they don't make a good initial return on investment, which is what devs really care about.

A cursory google search says that Bloodlines only sold 72k copies at launch, under even Arcanum and TOEE, which are comparably more niche even back in 2004. Seeing how Troika shuttered soon afterwards, it has given a (maybe false) impression that Bloodlines was the game that staked the company.

From what I hear from other devs, RPGs or otherwise, generic fantasy land is always a good bet. Scifi is a far second, and modern settings might as well not exist (outside of normie stuff like GTA of course).

Not on release, no. The many gamebreaking bugs seemed to be the primary reason. Bloodlines’ failure was squarely on Activision’s poor QA.

As I understand, Bloodlines only really got successful after the combination of a Steam release and an unofficial patch. I don’t know the exact figure, but I heard it sold ~500,000 copies on Steam. What’s especially odd is that it has so many glowing reviews despite the patch not being bundled with the Steam release.

Troika’s writing is apparently really engaging with audiences.

It’s disappointing that scifi and modern are so ignored in favor of bland cookie cutter Tolkien ripoffs, but I wonder if that’s for lack of trying more than anything else.

Bloodlines did worse than Arcanum and TOEE....... the market for Vampire and urban fantasy CRPGs simply isn't that big.

Again, Bloodlines had tons of bugs that killed it. I suspect the market is huge but corpos are too conservative and risk-averse to try tapping it.

Releasing crap vampire themed games certainly didn't help the genre!
Bloodlines 2 with all its troubled history and the "fixes for modern audience" made to the tabletop RPG on which the game is based and will certainly inherit wont help either.

Yeah, Paradox flooding the genre with shovelware isn’t helping. But I would say any success was down to Troika’s writing rather than any particular IP.

 

[Shaki]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

It's dumb but I suspect this is pretty much right. Cool vampire shit is cool and ghey vampire shit is ghey but public perception is usually blind to such...nuance

 

[RaggleFraggle]

That doesn’t explain why indie games are so sparse tho. If you check out Itch.io (I know, sorry!) then you’ll only find no budget game jam entries sponsored by Paradox.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

You mean millions of women will buy it but there's no market for it?

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Didn't William Fisher make some vampire RPGs? Or do those not count because they're more on the action side and indie?

It seems to me the problem is the same one plaguing RPGs every time the subject is brought up. Any big devs are going to either follow their own fancies or follow the money, and right now neither of those things lead to vampires much. Indie devs can pick up the slack, but RPGs are a big project for a small team to undertake. Speaking from personal experience as the latter, making a proper CRPG is a long and arduous process. Unless you're lazy and just make a JRPG.

 

[Egosphere]

Bloodlines did worse than Arcanum and TOEE....... the market for Vampire and urban fantasy CRPGs simply isn't that big.

They released on the same day as Half Life 2. They had no chance.

 

[ghostdog]

Bloodline's release was fucked. It was rushed out of the door with game breaking bugs, the publisher only paid troika for 2 patches, and they prohibited them from releasing any more patches, even if they wanted to make them for free. (as Tim said on his YT channel)

Also, it was released alongside with HL2 which used a newer version of the same engine, and it blew Bloodlines out of the water in the graphical department. (in the art department BL kicks HL2's ass till kingdom come though)

 

[S.torch]

I'm making a vampire themed (J)RPG. Is not medieval but not contemporary neither. I'll post the Demo on the Codex when I have it ready.
Everything in the game is of my own making, including the story and the setting, which I've working on for a while. So I think that counts for a completely new vampire game coming up.

 

[MerchantKing]

Well, it's 2023 so we need black vampires. There was a guy in Hollywood who played black vampires, but he pissed off some Jews, so now they won't bankroll black vampire stories because they don't want you to bring him up in conversation.

Cool it with the antisemitic remarks. He got in trouble because of income tax evasion.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Didn't William Fisher make some vampire RPGs? Or do those not count because they're more on the action side and indie?

I tried those. They’re not to my taste because they’re dungeon crawlers with barely any plot. The tech would be great for a crpg like Bloodlines, but WRF never let anyone else mod the code.

n I have it ready.
Everything in the game is of my own making, including the story and the setting, which I'v

Good luck!

 

[Shaki]

Market for vampire fiction shit overall isn't that big anymore, thanks to dozens of movies and series like Twilight, making every sane person feel sick whenever he hears the word "vampire". I liked vampires 20 years ago, but now they're
synonymous with cringe, it's impossible to not see them through the lens of retarded teenage girl romance fantasies anymore, catering to foids permanently destroyed the genre.

You mean millions of women will buy it but there's no market for it?

Millions of niggers might like KFC, but they're not going to suddenly start buying classic RPG games, just because you put KFC in it.

Vampire fiction is selling great to teenage girls, but no one else anymore + RPGs are selling great to many niches, but teenage girls aren't one of them = there is no big market for Vampire fiction RPG.