Ouch Ninja X, two different people? I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. Nope just shaking off the rust. I used to love debating in forums but until recently I didn't have the passion to do so. Ian suggested that I use paragraphs and I took his advice. I usually just l go on a rant and type whatever comes to mind off the top of my head but with my last post I went back and organized the rant. Anyway back on topic.
"I assume you're talking about the GCN. Not many big projects exist that require a large development team for the Gamecube. RE and RE0 is all I can think for now(Not counting future titles). Some of the big third-party games on the Cube are ports, which don't require a big development team. As for ads, money cannot be just thrown away. Each step you make with each console must be well-thought out if you want to make the most profit possible, especially with the economy today. Some developers do not bother to advertise(I'm talking about ports) for the GCN, thinking then they will not gain much profit if they have to pay off the marketing costs. The other big third-party games for the GCN are multiplatform games, which can be advertised (for whatever systems that big multiplatform game appears on) in one campaign. Not to mention multiplatform games are aided commercially by word-of-mouth and greater press coverage (multiplatform games appear on two or three consoles, thus, more previews, reviews, screenshots, etc.)"
No I'm not talking about GCN in particular. I'm talking about the gaming industry in general. Yes not every project is big project, my point in general was that development cost are much higher than they used to be. I'm not suggesting anyone throw their money away. It takes money to make money. If you are going to invest the time and effort to produce a video game, you should also spend the time and money promoting to ensure that the game is successful. Yes multiplatform games can be advertised in one campaign but look at the recent Splinter Cell ad. Its a multiplatform ad in principle but in practice its a PS2 ad. The games availbility for PS2 is stressed and the GC isn't mention with the exception of the small GC logo at the end. Your argument about mult-platform games is quite valid but its more accurate when applied to multiplatform games with as similtaneous release. When there is a huge gap in between the release date on multiple platforms it doesn't apply. Why do you ask? Usually if a game hits say PS2 first, there is huge ad campaign but if its later ported to GC and/or X-box than game gets a much smaller ad campaign if it gets on at all. Plus if with a simultaneous release the game usually has better sales numbers on GC and X-box. Most gamers have a PS2 and if they prefer GC or X-box they will usually buy the PS2 version of the game because they don't feel like waiting on a version on their preferred platform. I'm in the minority if the game is gonna hit GC, I wait for the GC version. If the GC version is inferior....I just don't buy the game at all.
"35 to 40,000 copies? I don't think that's much profit. I know you applied royalty fees and other taxes, but don't forget staff salaries(especially if the game takes more than several months to develop) production costs, and marketing costs. All of a sudden, the cost of developing that game rises. You need more copies to break even. But of course, you also want to make profit, and a good amount to keep your investors happy."
I said you'll have to sell at least that amount. I wasn't implying that 35 to 40,000 copies was the goal 3rd parties are shooting for. Yes I did consider staff salaries, licensing fees, and the retailers cut. I purposely left out the cost of ads to illustrate a point. Most likely the company is not going to sell enough copies to break even without some sort of advertising campaign. The only way a developer could get away with no ad campaign, is if the game is just groundbreaking. Then word of mouth could possibly bail them out, but thats still not guaranteed. Sega made plenty of innovative games with groundbreaking groundplay that bombed and some of those games had a modest ad campaign. My point is how can a developer expect to even break even if they have to no ad campaign at all. And by ad campaign, I mean some sort of significant TV campaign. With the exception of Sega's Sports lineup, most 3rd parties that have complained of poor GC sales have no sort of TV ad campaign. They can't get away with this on X-box because MS is bending over backwards loosing billions to get the X-box exposure. Nintendo should do something similar as MickeyD suggested....although I don't think they can afford to match MS in scale because of monetary reasons.
"You MUST make good choices in business. Unfortunately, not many companies have money to throw around. They are not going to test new console waters by developing a superb game and giving it a great advertising campaign at the risk of it flopping. No...they want the best chance possible for this superb game to succeed, and the best chance for it succeeding is to make it geared towards adults, who generally work and earn a good amount of money to spend, and develop it for a popular system that has a good amount of adults(i.e. PS2). The GCN has the youngest user base, I assume. And I doubt children carry around much money. Most of them just ask their parents most of the time. Therefore, more companies develop more kid-oriented games when developing for the GCN. Right now, I see kid-oriented games on most of the store shelves for GCN. They are the handiworks of third parties who do not want to risk much on the Cube. Either that or ports."
Thats goes without saying Ninja X. You MUST make good business decisions. Producing a subpar game with minimal adverstising is not a good business decision. Giving GC owners an inferior version of a game six months after the original was released and not advertising its NOT a good business decision. If they aren't going to develop a superb game with a great advertising campaign, then they are going to lose money and they should lose money. You can't produce a half ass game with no ad campaign on console A, produce a superb game with a great ad campaign on console B, then state we can no longer support console A because of poor games sales. Thats flawed logic. You would setting yourself up to fail. Of course you would lose money if you are going to run your business this way. Thats like a parent giving one child $5000 to start a business and the one child $500 to do the same thing. Sure the child with the $500 could theoritically make the more successful business, but the likelyhood is that the child with $5000 will be more successful. If you are going to test the waters you are going to have to risk some money, because thats the only way to stand a chance of making any money. As far as the Gamecube user base, that's a myth pure an simple. Most kids have a Playstation, most Gamecube owners are adults that grew up on NES and SNES. Sony actually outsells Nintendo in the "kiddie" market 2 to 1.
I still can't believe that two different people on the same name comment.......I wasn't THAT rusty.
Darc Requiem
Topic: No wonder M titles aren't selling (Read 31357 times)
