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Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

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Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#51

Post by pnw_hazor »

grogenaut wrote: post #43
pnw_hazor wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though from what I read, EA allegedly had zero input into Apex. That might be why it is becoming popular. I just tried Apex a few days ago, it was pretty fun.

How much input did they have into Titanfall 1&2? Those weren't exactly gangbusters.

EA gets a lot of the blame for TF 2's failure.

"Of course, Titanfall 2’s disappointing sales aren’t as much to do with the nature of its content as much as it is about timing, and that’s entirely on EA. Sandwiching Titanfall 2 between Battlefield 1 and COD: Infinite Warfare hasn’t helped the game at all. Seriously, what were they thinking? Apparently, even the game’s producers were left in the dark behind the decision-making process."

https://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/poor-titanfall-2-sales-e...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/01/31/eas-anthem-...

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#52

Post by qmarchi »

grogenaut wrote: post #43
pnw_hazor wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though from what I read, EA allegedly had zero input into Apex. That might be why it is becoming popular. I just tried Apex a few days ago, it was pretty fun.

How much input did they have into Titanfall 1&2? Those weren't exactly gangbusters.

Titanfall 1 was still a decent game, and it garnered a lot of support from fans. I played it, but not the sequel.

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#53

Post by usrusr »

learc83 wrote: post #31
debacle wrote: post #12

There is intense competition between these battle royale games. Possibly more intense competition than we've ever seen. Being the 2nd WoW or top MOBA pales in comparison. Of the dozen BRs I've played (including mods for existing games), all but 3 already seem somewhat dead. PUBG, which was the leader for what seems like the longest duration, now seems like a distant third, and will likely never recover.

I think it might have something to do with a combination of free to play and no matchmaking. Once a BR has saturated the market, the percentage of new to experienced players starts to drop. I think most players will reach a skill peak and the game starts to get harder faster than they are improving. This can be frustrating, and since newer BRs have a higher percentage of less skill players they feel easier. With no m…

That makes a lot of sense. And even matchmaking, if implemented badly, won't help much: when matchmaking is based on monotonic point accumulation, players with sub-average skill growth will be pushed out. Likewise, if the matchmaking rank decays slower (or not at all) than actual skill, players who took a break will leave when they try to return.

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#54

Post by falcolas »

cwyers wrote: post #49
falcolas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet online I see complaint after complaint about how big AAA games aren't delivering value for the money because of all the DLC available that they feel "should" be part of the base game. I don't get it. My complaint: If I, something of a story completionist, want to ensure I get to play all the story content which was built for, say, Asassain's Creed Odessey, I have to not only pay that up front $100+ (to get…

I'm pretty sure the game plus season pass was $80 at launch. Where are you getting $200 from? And what is someone _doing_ if they can burn through a game like Odyssey in a week? According to How Long To Beat, even if you skip the side quests and blow through the main campaign, that's 30 hours. https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=57503

Gold was $100 (game plus season pass, plus an additional launch-time storyline), ultimate was $120 (additional skins and gear).

https://vulkk.com/2018/06/12/assassins-creed-odyssey-pre-ord...

30 hours over a week is only 4-5 hours per day. For someone without children, that's hardly outlandish.

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#55

Post by llukas »

verisimilidude wrote: post #47
CydeWeys wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dream is a modern Star Wars/TIE Fighter space shooter. Those were some of my very favorite games back in the late Win 3.1/early Win 95 era. I suspect it wouldn't have the same widespread appeal as an adventure/shooter/RPG like Jedi Knight, but it could be also be made at a pretty low cost, and it's not like the license restricts how many Star Wars games they can release. May as well go make a space shooter with a…

My dream is a modern Star Wars TIE Fighter space shooter...in VR. But I doubt the VR market is big enough to justify the investment that’s demanded by the Star Wars license. Like you say, AAA is sometimes a straight-jacket.

VR or non VR, refresh of X-Wing vs TIE Fighter with modern graphics would be epic...

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#56

Post by DerDangDerDang »

falcolas wrote: post #35
CydeWeys wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dream is a modern Star Wars/TIE Fighter space shooter. Those were some of my very favorite games back in the late Win 3.1/early Win 95 era. I suspect it wouldn't have the same widespread appeal as an adventure/shooter/RPG like Jedi Knight, but it could be also be made at a pretty low cost, and it's not like the license restricts how many Star Wars games they can release. May as well go make a space shooter with a…

> Why does everything have to get the AAA treatment these days? The same thing that causes companies who are making record profits to be considered underperforming: growth at any cost. For EA and Activision/Blizzard (and their big name kin), if a game doesn't have the potential to make significantly more money than its peers, it's not worth making.

Which has the knock on effect that championing a smaller project through internal green light is not as good for your career as waiting for the chance to lead a AAA title- I’m guessing

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#57

Post by msvbvm60 »

1123581321 wrote: post #34
maxsilver wrote: post #3

This seems like a inaccurate take from folks who are not following the gaming industry closely. Activision just had a record-setting year of high revenue (presumably they are not feeling the impact of peaking attention), in part because the quality of their products is still high-ish. They laid people off because they could, not because of any downturn in business. EA's quarterly results are down, because their produ…

The best reporting on Activision I’ve seen has been from outside the games industry and games journalism (I’ve preferred writing from this link, Variety, Bloomberg, etc.) Activision is not concerned about whether they are making money now. They are concerned about whether they can continue to make money. They have profitable, mature lines but nothing in the battle royale genre that is quickly growing and a threat to…

>but nothing in the battle royale genre that is quickly growing and a threat to both Call of Duty and Overwatch

The past year's Call of Duty had a battle royale mode, which was decently popular. Its problem was that the purchase of the game was a barrier to entry compared to free competitors like Fortnite and Apex.

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#58

Post by dleslie »

falcolas wrote: post #39
1123581321 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best reporting on Activision I’ve seen has been from outside the games industry and games journalism (I’ve preferred writing from this link, Variety, Bloomberg, etc.) Activision is not concerned about whether they are making money now. They are concerned about whether they can continue to make money. They have profitable, mature lines but nothing in the battle royale genre that is quickly growing and a threat to…

> but nothing in the battle royale genre that is quickly growing and a threat to both Call of Duty and Overwatch This makes the assumption that if they make it, the market will obviously move to their product. The genre has a fairly fixed market, and taking away players from their previous investments (time and money) will take an exceptionally good game. Ironically, making good, interesting games is the one thing th…

> I want to take the fun out of making video games

Which is just insane. Part of the compensation for game developers is the love of their trade; without that, or undermining that, then it's just a low paying, high stress, and life wrecking tech job.

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#59

Post by dleslie »

verisimilidude wrote: post #47
CydeWeys wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dream is a modern Star Wars/TIE Fighter space shooter. Those were some of my very favorite games back in the late Win 3.1/early Win 95 era. I suspect it wouldn't have the same widespread appeal as an adventure/shooter/RPG like Jedi Knight, but it could be also be made at a pretty low cost, and it's not like the license restricts how many Star Wars games they can release. May as well go make a space shooter with a…

My dream is a modern Star Wars TIE Fighter space shooter...in VR. But I doubt the VR market is big enough to justify the investment that’s demanded by the Star Wars license. Like you say, AAA is sometimes a straight-jacket.

Elite Dangerous is as close as you'll get.

Re: Major Games Publishers Are Feeling the Impact of Peaking Attention

#60

Post by escapecharacter »

Blatant self-promotion:

For us who grew up playing lots of video games but are now adults, we now have: 1. Way less time 2. A higher expectation of quality 3. More money

Creating "Quality Time" entertainment is why I founded Escape Character. We're a platform for online experiences with a live actor. Since a paid actor is involved, and we pay them a suitable rate, events are ticketed even though they're online, just like an escape room or theatre show.

I have a background in improv theatre (but also a PhD in Comp Sci), and my initial crazy idea was "what if every NPC in a game you were playing was played by a good improvisor who could adjust to you." Economically this is feasible as long as the player:actor ratio is 4:1.

Our first online experience released last week - a 45 minute "live action digital adventure" called The Aluminum Cat. Tickets here: https://escape-character.com/

This content is made in-house, but our goal for Escape Character is to enable actors to work from wherever, to audiences based anywhere. Currently these kind of high-touch responsive experiences are exclusively in-person, e.g. escape rooms, immersive theatre, Disneyland.

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