Many game studios are being dropped following a bit of an economic downturn in the United States and globally. Activision has to deal with being agile enough to survive the economic times like anyone else and has dropped a few games that had great potential.
Gamers continue to ask the question, “why?” when some of their highest potential games were dropped to the floor. Ghostbusters and Brütal Legend are a couple examples of games with eager fans already salivating prior to its launch. Some of these fans are a bit ticked off that Activision named them as dropped franchise opportunities.
People ask why a company holds one “mediocre” title while getting rid of other potentially awesome ones. Don’t forget, this is a business and a good studio/publisher is going to make good business decisions without emotional attachments – those that bring emotions into play may end up with a highly valued product (to them) with no additional potential and lower revenue. This isn’t to say developers cannot be passionate about their games and their industry, they just have to build games gamers will buy and continue to fall in love with release after release.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is one of these business savvy individuals who knows where investors will find profits for the future, and he also know how to manage employees, with the use of software like this sample pay stub for payments and more.
“[Those games] don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we’ll be working on them 10 years from now.” (1up)
Ghostbusters is a great example of a title which could be well received and fun to play but probably wouldn’t be an exploitable franchise. The game, based on a popular movie, has limited potential for yearly releases and huge franchise success. Ghostbusters fans would probably disagree, but that’s when emotion comes into play. Think dollars and cents, not awesome fun gaming.
Oddly enough many of these business decisions from Activision, Electronic Arts and other big publishers arrive when the economy is in free fall and investors are eying your revenue potential. People make their most important and, usually, unfriendly business decisions when their company is at risk.
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It’s sad to think money comes first and entertainment value comes second but we’re not the ones trying to make a profitable living in the industry. Put yourself in Kotick’s shoes as he walks into a board meeting to discuss future plans, road maps and profitability – you’d do what you have to do to keep your job, right?
Reportedly we’re going to see smaller 45 nanometer cell processors in 2009 which leads to similar cost savings as we saw in the Xbox 360 hardware. Cost savings appear on the manufacturing side, of course, along with less power consumed by the processor leading to less heat generated by the console.
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@PSvita loosing weight
I am not sure this is necessary. Especially since I hear this is more of a step back for the Vita. PSP needed a slim version because the original was chunky and had loading time issues. Is there anything so wrong with the Vita that needs fixing? Especially in UK? For me it’s a problem because I wanted to buy a Vita as it’s gotten quite cheap here. The new version will play havoc with local prices. I am not sure how this will play out.
@First the manuals. Now this.
I agree with Paul. The industry is not ready for discless consoles. And not just because people like hard copies. Major concern is that it requires a system of digital game sales on consoles that will actually work. At the moment, a digital game release costs almost twice the price of a hard copy. £60 for a new PS3 title from their online store as opposed to £40 for a disc. I am not OK with that. If digital stores were along the lines of Steam, this would work well. Otherwise it would just kill the used games market and force us to buy games at extortionate prices. On the account of the disc less Xbox I say meh. It will be an alternative that no one will buy. It will be seen as lacking compared to the standard Xbox one.
@Rescuscitation of the walking dead
The heads of Nintendo took a pay cut because it’s their fault Nintendo tanked. No one else’s. In my opinion they should have stuck the whole management crew into a space cannon and shot them to Alpha Centauri. The stubborn old fools will only damage the company further of they stay in power. This restructuring move should have happened a year ago. Instead Nintendo carried on as usual and sunk itself even further. Now it’s in dire straits and needs extreme measures. I hope that Disney buys Nintendo and makes Satoru Iwata work in one of their parks in a Micky Mouse suit. He deserves it.
@QOTW
Has to be Crysis. The game took a nosedive once the aliens started shooting everyone but the ending was of the shelf action movie crap. “A gigantic alien mothership is attacking. I wish we had a super mega ultimate secret weapon to shoot it down. Oh wait, it’s right over here.” Worst part was that the ending suggested that everything you just did was pointless and you have to go back to the island to “roll credits”.
Great Episode guys.
@Kotor II: I am with Jordan and I didn’t notice that it was unfinished, only that I was an overpowered character destroying everything in my path. I also didn’t find Kria impressive, just seemed like another whiney character who didn’t get their way and is taking it out on everyone else.
@Miner49er: I loved that you guys mentioned this game, I played it as a child and I had forgotten it’s name! I also played Jumpman Junior along with that one.
@Chocobo Tamagotchi: There was in fact a companion App game for FF8 on the Pocketstation. You played sd the Chocobo who got to fight monsters and collect treasure so it wasn’t too bad. It never came to America though.
@Black Isle: Speaking of Baldur’s Gate what do you guys think the chances are of getting the Baldur’s Gate 3 Beamdog is supposed to be working on? Did the Enhanced Editions do well enough?
@Facebook games: I find the whole Pay to win game mechanic to be very weak. More a ploy to milk customers of as much money as possible and give poor gameplay in return. I used to play Backyard monsters and it would constantly have stopping moments while I had to wait hours or days for things to finish building. It really can take the wind out of your sails to want to play. All the while giving the message “Save on resources by spending real money!” When I keep getting THOSE messages that tells me they don’t have any real game here just bait for you to click the Pay to Win. There was no real consequence to losing you could always easily recover. There just isn’t any challenge for these casual games.
Another example of a terrible Pay to win game is StarTrexels which has giant pay walls preventing you from going forward until you either spend HOURS collecting enough Dilithium or pay $15 to go to the next area.
So to answer Paul’s possibly rhetorical question, Yes I would rather pay for a 50-60 dollar game then deal with the Pay to Win crap.
At least Paul’s game Pinsanity sounds nice if you can actually win physical Pins and you are supporting our Olympic team.
@QotW: Best unfinished game would have to be Minecraft since they are still working on it.