Activision drops games

[Gamereviewgod]

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/trinity/news_6079589.html

[YoshiM]

Oh great. "The video game market is increasingly dominated by high-quality products based on recognizable franchises supported with big marketing programs. We have decided to take steps to align our business with the continuing evolution of the video game market." they say. Be prepared to see any possible "risky" (but probably fun) games to get canned so they can go for the big hype.

[lendelin]

Oh great. "The video game market is increasingly dominated by high-quality products based on recognizable franchises supported with big marketing programs. We have decided to take steps to align our business with the continuing evolution of the video game market." they say. Be prepared to see any possible "risky" (but probably fun) games to get canned so they can go for the big hype.

...or they go for fewer games, but with more quality which makes them competitive. But we went through all this already...:)

It's interesting news, though. It's another indicator that the market is overheated which I say for two years now. There are too many games, too many good ones, too, and gamers have only a limited amount of money to spend. The market is saturated, the US market follows the trend in Japan.

Nintendo reporting losses, Sony reporting losses, now Activision; there will be fewer games until the new gen systems come out, smaller third party developers will go out of business, and prices for games won't drop so fast in the next two years.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I almost hope there's a crash, just for the sake of me wanting to pick some stuff up cheap. :P

Seriously though...I just don't see the present ultra-development-budget, franchise/sequel-centric, ultra-marketing-budget, stay-with-the-proven-genres-and-take-no-risks mindset of the video game industry as being a tenable business situation.

[ManekiNeko]

Oh great. "The video game market is increasingly dominated by high-quality products based on recognizable franchises supported with big marketing programs. We have decided to take steps to align our business with the continuing evolution of the video game market." they say. Be prepared to see any possible "risky" (but probably fun) games to get canned so they can go for the big hype.

I couldn't agree more. Today's video game industry is more far concerned with making money than making art. Why release something inventive and new when you can practically guarantee profit with a Spongebob Squarepants game?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We NEED an industry crash, now more than ever. It's the only to remove companies like T*HQ and Acclaim which are only in it for the money.

JR

[Ed Oscuro]

From the article:

The titles affected are Trinity, Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder 2, and Street Hoops 2.

Doesn't look bad to me, though I don't have the faintest idea what this Trinity might have been about.

[Gamereviewgod]

Trinity was looking to be a really nifty FPS. Has some unique ideas, but I'll guess we'll never get to experience them now.

[Captain Wrong]

I almost hope there's a crash, just for the sake of me wanting to pick some stuff up cheap. :P

Seriously though...I just don't see the present ultra-development-budget, franchise/sequel-centric, ultra-marketing-budget, stay-with-the-proven-genres-and-take-no-risks mindset of the video game industry as being a tenable business situation.

As usual, I agree with Earl (on both points, heh.) It seems like bad in the day, franchises just happened. They weren't created. They were happy accidents that occured due to inventive game play. Now everyone is looking for the formula and it's almost a given that every game unless it really stiffs at retail will have at least one, more of the same, sequel.

Until the companies return to taking risks that distinguish their games from all the others glutting the market, expect the hard sales to continue.

[calthaer]

Here is what I think.

Chris Crawford is the gaming industry's great prophet. He is bigger than Yoda.

EA is the Great Satan who keeps sucking in good companies. Sony is like the Kingpin. Microsoft / Xbox is like the evil traitorous second-in-command like Starscream / Destro. All those shovelware companies are grovelling / stupid sinister sycophants like the Dreadnoks and Gollum.

Warren Spector is the protagonist superhero who will save the day. Peter Molyneux is his sidekick. Richard Garriott is a protagonist on the sidelines watching strategically while sitting on a throne / command chair with furrowed eyebrows and with his fingertips put together.

Nintendo and Miyamoto are good guys too like that force of arabic warrior folk in *The Mummy* and *The Mummy Returns.* Capcom is a lone gunman and a maverick who does good work and will join up with the good guys.

Blizzard Entertainment is like Casey Jones from the TMNT. Quality stuff, but their big budgets drive the industry in a bad direction. Square's quality varies and their budgets are always huge so they're like Boba Fett - a guy who's hired by the evil guys but he's so cool and has so much panache everybody likes him.

Rockstar Games is like Lono from that comic book 100 Bullets - dirty and foul but good at what he does.

Valve is the good guy who's fighting well but then a sneaky shadow comes up from behind and stabs them in the back. They're bleeding heavily but maybe they'll come back dramatically and shoot some bad guys.

Atari / infogrames is a wildcard and nobody knows just whose side they're on right now.

Trip Hawkins is the mad scientist. Sid Meier is a scientist but he isn't mad, just a recluse. Will Wright signed up with the Dark Side and is now in league with the Great Satan. CliffyB is the punk kid who thinks he knows what he's doing but doesn't. John Romero is like a hero who tried and failed miserably but still thinks he can do stuff.

There are lots of other mediocre folks out there and probably smaller-time good people that I'm leaving out of the mix. Feel free to add to the dramatis personae.

EDIT: Sega? Sega just seems to me like Admiral Ackbar...they make decent stuff but with their failures in the console industry it's like they're just sitting there as a warning to any newcomers:

IT'S A TRAP!

I left out Konami, too. They also make some decent games (i.e. SotN but some of their stuff has just been mediocre to bad (Castlevania 64). Are they on anybody's side? He's like Matt Damon's guy in *Bourne Identity* - own their own side.

[Raccoon Lad]

*punches calthaer in the kidneys*

You left out SEGA!!! :angry: :angry: :angry:

[Ed Oscuro]

*punches calthaer in the kidneys*

You left out SEGA!!! :angry: :angry: :angry:

Still.... o_O

Best job comparing companies to individuals/comic heroes I've ever seen.

[hamburgler]

Whew :o , thought they might stop producing the Tony hawk series.

[zmweasel]

Whew :o , thought they might stop producing the Tony hawk series.

Oh heck no. Hawk is Activision's biggest franchise, although they've hurt it by cranking out a succession of Tomb Raider-ish semi-sequels. I'm curious if Underground will overcome the critical and consumer apathy that greeted Hawk 4.

-- Z.

[Kid Fenris]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We NEED an industry crash, now more than ever. It's the only to remove companies like T*HQ and Acclaim which are only in it for the money.

JR

It's also the best way to remove Atlus, Working Designs, SNKP, Natsume, Cave, Treasure, Takumi and other companies that specialize in niche games. After all, unique and cult-favorite titles aren't selling well right now. And they're the first games to get the chop when business turns sour, as Activision's cuts show.

And that's the problem: risks aren't rewarded. People are naturally hesitant to try anything new, and companies are equally hesitant to heavily promote something that they doubt will sell anyway. Heck, even some long-time gamers don't seem to want unique games like Ico, Rez, Everblue, Gunvalkyrie, Boktai, or Ikaruga. They'd rather have old-fashioned, score-centric shooters and classic remakes.

And if you need a superhero allegory for modern gaming, there’s no need to stray beyond the best superhero story ever written. Let’s see . . . Sony is Rorschach, having the most immediate success through grim and gritty pursuits, refusing to compromise even in the face of Metal Slug 3, and perhaps being a little too short-sighted to stay ahead in the future. Nintendo is Dr. Manhattan, a legendary staple of the business, but now concerned with studying offbeat paths instead of emulating the lucrative ways of others. Microsoft is Ozymandias, involved with almost everything, powerful enough to inspire slight distrust in even the most benign circumstances, and out to “save” our industry, even if that means ruining part of it. Sega is, to reach a bit, Nite Owl, having set aside aspirations of competing as a console superhero to instead do what they’ve always liked to do first and foremost; in Sega’s case, that’s to make games. Nokia, or the N-Gage at least, is Dollar Bill.

If you get that last paragraph in the slightest, I salute you.

[Flack]

I think part of the problem is so many games are similar these days that there just can't be a market for so many identical games. Not sure if that came out right but ... for example, I saw that they were dropping that Snowboarding game. Big deal. I mean, I haven't played it and don't know anything about it, but I have played:

SSX
SSX 2 (Tricky)
SSX 3
ESPN Winter X Games Snowboarding
ESPN Winter X Games Snowboarding 2002
Shaun Palmers Pro Snowboarding
Evolution Snowboarding
MTV Sports Snowboarding
Salt Lake 2002 (Skiing/Snowboarding)
Snowboard Heaven
The Snowboard
Coolboarders 2001

Not to mention Snowboarding, MTV Sports Snowboarding, Burton Snowboards, X Game Pro Boarder, Cool Boarders 1, Cool Boarders 2, Cool Boarders 3, Cool Boarders 4, Cool Boarders 2001, Snowboard Kids Plus, Trick N' Snowboarder, and several more for the original PSX.

Maybe this isn't the sign of a crash, but rather a sign that people are getting fed up with being spoon fed the same games over and over instead of getting just a TAD bit of originality for their $50.

[calthaer]

If you get that last paragraph in the slightest, I salute you.

Who do you think is Sally Jupiter? I vote for Konami, for no good reason maybe.

CliffyB must be one of those "fagort" superheroes - I can't remember what their names were, Silk Spectre or something? Alan Moore put a whole ton of them in Top Ten.

[lendelin]

Guys, you put the present under a lot of scrutiny and idealize the past. Don't suffer from selective memory, and pick the creative gems of the past and take it as a representation of constructed golden eras.

Sequelitis always existed, copylitis always existed, bad-game-on movie-licensitis always existed, certain developers going for the fast and easy buck always existed...did you wish a crash during the SNES/Genesis times, too?

The problem isn't that there are only a few good games out there, the problem is that there are too many above-average games out there. A decent game like "Sphinx" won't sell well, other many decent games won't sell well becasue the competition is stiff, and the market is saturated. Look at the release lists of the last 12 months with first-rate games, and then tell me in all seriousness we were better off during the 16bit times.

Low-risk taking becasue a lot of money is at stake is only one aspect, the desperation of hardware manufactureres for a lot of good games becasue of the competition, and the need for top-sellers of third-party developers becasue of the competition is another aspect which results in risk-taking and originality.

The slowdown and the saturation of the market is a result of the competition, not of "greed" which always existed (I call it a legitimate profit-orientation). If developers wouldn't be profit-oriented, THEN we'd be in bad shape.

[nesuser2]

i honestly have a hard time getting into the newer scene of games, i like to play all the good games out there and with systems like nintendo and super nintendo it was easy for me to get to those, over the years........and now that i'm trying to hit hard on gamecube, i pick up a couple hit titles from GC's early days. start in on them and nobody even cares about them anymore. so i try to move along into newer stuff and it's impossible to catch up with it all. I really don't think it's a matter of how much I game and how much money i spent, there is just way too much to play. Too many good developers i suppose and they push out a lot of good material. But at the same time, i agree with.....ehhh.....somebody, the mention of all the snowboarding games. I think that's why so many people love Tony Hawk games. Have you ever played other skateboarding games? I know when i was trying some of them out, Tony Hawk blew them away, by quite a margin. I don't know if there is a good answer or any easy outcome to the video gaming market but something is going to change, it's inevitable....to say the least.

[YoshiM]

Lendy, you talk about some of us that have selected memories, you seem to remember a lot of average to bad steamers from back then. :D The 16 bit times also had their share of many "above average" games and there was just as much competition if not more.

[bargora]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We NEED an industry crash, now more than ever. It's the only to remove companies like T*HQ and Acclaim which are only in it for the money.

JR

It's also the best way to remove Atlus, Working Designs, SNKP, Natsume, Cave, Treasure, Takumi and other companies that specialize in niche games. After all, unique and cult-favorite titles aren't selling well right now. And they're the first games to get the chop when business turns sour, as Activision's cuts show.
Stop! You are going to make me cry. :(


And if you need a superhero allegory for modern gaming, there’s no need to stray beyond the best superhero story ever written. Let’s see . . . Sony is Rorschach, having the most immediate success through grim and gritty pursuits, refusing to compromise even in the face of Metal Slug 3, and perhaps being a little too short-sighted to stay ahead in the future. Nintendo is Dr. Manhattan, a legendary staple of the business, but now concerned with studying offbeat paths instead of emulating the lucrative ways of others. Microsoft is Ozymandias, involved with almost everything, powerful enough to inspire slight distrust in even the most benign circumstances, and out to “save” our industry, even if that means ruining part of it. Sega is, to reach a bit, Nite Owl, having set aside aspirations of competing as a console superhero to instead do what they’ve always liked to do first and foremost; in Sega’s case, that’s to make games. Nokia, or the N-Gage at least, is Dollar Bill.

If you get that last paragraph in the slightest, I salute you.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Kid Fenris, apparently. ;)