Comments on: All Aspects: The Derek Smart AAW Interview

By: matias

matias — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:07:00 +0000

[matias - STOP posting this story, or links to it, on our site. If you have serious complaints against the man, then take care of them in private, with lawyers, and not on our server. Thank you - Ed]

By: Serondal

Serondal — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:27:27 +0000

The same things to be going on with music, CD’s aren’t selling so well and if you can get your music on I-tunes or something like that you don’t really need a record label.

I think this is a good thing, publishers are destroying creativity in the market and pumping out clone after clone. Things like Braid, Universal Combat, Evochron Legends, Sins of A Solar Empire ect are all so great because A) The Publishers let the devs do what they want or B)there was no publisher input at all.

If you spend less money and target a more focused market , say tricky puzzle games, and you only want to get those people to buy your game you know you can focus on game play making a tricky puzzle game and spend less money on the flash and make more profit over all.

At least that is how I think, obviously I could be wrong you don’t see me making any money lol.

By: dsmart

dsmart — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:13:25 +0000

Indeed. As one publisher friend of mine I was speaking to the other day said, the future is in the hands of developers, not publishers. Why? Because digital is making huge strides and eventually retail will be a thing of the past for even console games as it has dwindled for PC games.

By: Serondal

Serondal — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:56:51 +0000

I think there is still money to be made by private inde devs like the ones over at Evochron Legends in the genre. They realize the pickens are slim so they slim down their operation (to one or two people ? :P ) For example, one I keep using in several places, there is a very small market for Dwarf Fortress simulation ,hence there is only one game that offers such a thing but that game is very good at what it does and has dedicated followers. :P Dedicated enough that they donate money to Tarn so he doesn’t have to work on anything but his video game lol

By: dsmart

dsmart — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:44:05 +0000

The keys were sent to RPS today as the closed BETA has officially kicked off.

More info and shots on the game’s site

By: Cunk

Cunk — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:56:40 +0000

EVE Online subscriptions are stagnant? Everytime I hear it mentioned that number is consistently increasing. I know the logged-in player count is definitely increasing. I recently re-subbed after a hiatus of a couple of years and typically the number of people online is twice what it was back then.

I wouldn’t call EVE “stagnant”.

By: dsmart

dsmart — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:52:45 +0000

If you are going by Brad’s GDC presentation for Sins, he got the math wrong. That would be 1/5 and not 1/10

Nobody said the “space” genre was dead. The “space combat action/sim” genre is whats dead. Completely different from rts, adventure, shooters etc though set in space, aren’t remotely in the same genre as space combat action|sim games.

By: DK

DK — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:08:34 +0000

“How well have the last few games that covered the same subject matter of the last phase of spore done?”
Err – ridiculously well. GalCiv 2 has made millions – with something in the region of a 1/10 dev cost/revenue split. Sword of the Stars worked well enough for the developer to now develop 3 new titles at once. Sins of a Solar Empire – see GalCiv2.
That genre is far from dead.

By: BoltingTurtle

BoltingTurtle — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:45:40 +0000

Maybe this is why people were just pissed at spore, rather than excited that they got something billed as a game to show your girlfriend, but turned out to be a relatively hardcore space colonozation game. Not that that’s what you mean by space sim. It seems that it’s not just the genre, but the environment of anything in space that isn’t a marine exploring a planet. How well have the last few games that covered the same subject matter of the last phase of spore done? Some of them were alot of fun, but they were never going to be blockbuster hits. X-wings are out, and stormtroopers (Halo) are in.

I think this might even pertain to air combat in general, or RTSes, or anything that isn’t just an FPS or RPG. Glaring Exception? Total War.

By: TickledBlue

TickledBlue — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:15:01 +0000

I wont argue semantics and I understand and to a point agree with how you see the space sim genre. To my mind the key point you made was when you said:

…the genre is only attractive to those who grew up with it.

This is the central problem, only those who grew up with space sims have been making them too. As such they have been basically making the same game over and over again (generalisation of course), but unlike other genres where the remakes include interesting remixes or the addition of other genre tropes the same old tired WWII fighter mechanics or more complex ways to trade widgets between tin cans in space is trotted out. Usually this comes with some of the industries worst examples of “plot”.

I understand that the simulation arena aims for realism, but in reality space is mostly boring – vast empty areas with literally nothing in them but particles of gas and dust. To my mind the allure of space is the mystery, the amazing visual vistas, the idea of exploring where no one else has been of seeing up close what no one else has seen and encountering awe inspiring and terrifying events. So far there have only been 2 games that have even scratched the surface of this: Elite 2: Frontier (only in the most peripheral sense – as you could explore the galaxy at your whim, but where ever you went the pirates had got there first and all parts were boring not just those in space) and Noctis IV which had exploration and being the first to discover things along with attempts to make the vistas amazing but which is so old and the graphics so very outdated.

Hundreds of classic and new sci-fi novels, short stories and movies and the best that we can come up with is trading widgets and WWII fighter combat in space? Bah, the genre’s not dead its still in its black and white, silent film days! Once all the ‘old boys’ have died off or given up on recreating the perfect ‘elite’ then perhaps the genre will have the chance it deserves.

By: Jesucristo

Jesucristo — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:15:46 +0000

Why do you think they were not profitable?. Are those developers some kind of charity organization?. It’s supposed they are still developing those sims is because they get some kind of revenue. I don’t know how exactly because nobody reveals those numbers, but Laminar research continues developing X-Plane and Bohemia still continues developing ArmA.

And yes, you are talking about profit, If I understand correctly the meaning of the word profit (as you can see, english is not my language).

Well, you just hit it right there on the head. While adventure, war games etc are no longer mainstream – as far as retail publishing goes – there is grassroots support for it by gamers and developers alike. The way I see it, a publisher won’t bother with a game that won’t sell five copies. However, a developer (or web publisher/developer) who knows that he only needs to sell two copies for his break even, can still survive by going the alternate publishing route. More often than not, they often end up making more money than if they went with a publisher. Why? Because if you sell direct, the money goes to you directly.

I’m not using fallacy or misunderstanding arguments, simply I don’t agree with all of yours, something a bit different. You can say all you want, but I have read a lot of times the word “dead” after some others like RPG, Adventure, Flight Sims, PC… So, when I read somebody talking about dead of a genre, I’m very esceptic.

By: dsmart

dsmart — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:58:13 +0000

Those were examples about a “dead” market and still profitable with top quality products.

Oh, and you know they were profitable how exactly?

Plus, this has NOTHING to do with profitability. Please don’t confuse the issue with strawman arguments.

Everything else you said, I already discussed in the interview and in subsequent commentary in this thread. Again, I think you’re clearly missing the point.

Tomorrow War is just another cookie cutter space combat game IMO. It didn’t (and still doesn’t) look or sound remotely interesting enough for me to even consider playing, let alone buying it.