When they lose those millions because they keep investing into clones of a successful game, yes, they are. This happens all over EA, and in most of the flopped MMO's. People who have millions generally did not earn them through being terribly educated, unfortunately. Most professions which require a lot of education do not earn that much money excluding possibly doctors, and doctors work a lot harder than any investor.
Maybe because I didn't get a huge inheritance from my parents or something? To invest money, you should have it first, and you need much more of it than a normal person can earn.
I'm also talking about the existing investors. I.E., video game publishers. I can't take their place, and they're the problem.
Besides, I'm not a lazy investor who just wants to earn a quick buck. Once I get my education, I'll just MAKE such a game.
EA didn't 'get a big inheritance from their parents'. They made their money with games. That's how most of the big game publishers got their money. Through games. Magic didn't just magically appear in their pockets one day and they went 'Oh hey derp, I'm going to fund a clone of WoW'.
People with big inheritances aren't the major investment market for MMOs. Where you got this idea... I don't even know. Little game companies become big game companies through business savvy and releasing games that people end up wanting, not through being a bunch of idiots who can't put their pants on without crapping them.
Also, can you point to the WoW-clone MMO that lost millions of dollars?
I can point to lots of different games that lost millions of dollars. Tabula Rasa, Earth and Beyond, Auto Assault, APB...
Funny. It's the games that aren't like WoW that seem to be a lot more likely to lose so much money.
Maybe the investors know a little more than you do.
The costs and budget for video game development has sky rocketed in the past decade across the board, not just in the MMORPG market.
This creates a situation where the studios that have the resources (money AND time) have a natural edge over their competitors who don't have the same luxaries.
Companies like Blizzard and Bioware can release their games whenever they want. A proven track record of quality, popular, critically acclaimed titles will do that for ya.
There is probably not a single game development studio that doesn't wish they had more time and more money to do this, that, or the other thing before releasing their project.
So it's really not a question of whether or not AAA companies CAN do these things that some Indie developers are doing, it's a question of if they WANT to and why or why not?
I think it's been answered a half dozen or more times already in this thread, but the vast majority of the gaming world cares about the gameplay features and whether or not a product is fun, and consider this kind of fringe stuff added fluff or a nice little bonus that likely won't effect their decision to purchase.
You could tell me Mass Effect 3 is going to have a dynamic weather system and that the planets/star systems orbit logically around their respective stars/galactic center... but does that really effect the game play enough for me to care? No. I will buy ME3 with or without rotating star systems.
I don't consider most of the things the OP listed as actual "features" and thus would not effect my decision to purchase.
So to summarize this thread it appears to be the majority consensus that it is not that the AAA games cannot do these features but that they will not because these type of features are unwanted by the majority of paying customers.
Do you guys agree?
I happen to disagree with that assessment. How do AAA titles know when they don't do them?
No, not even close. It would be more accurate to say that these type of features are unwanted buy those who invest millions of dollars in MMOs. If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it. If a major developer went to their investors with a list of features like this they wouldn't even get through the presentation before the investors would walk out. Until these features have been proven in a AAA MMO you'll never see them in a AAA MMO. It's kinda a 'Catch 22' situation.
Bren
The investors that you know are weirdos.
No, this is standard practice at all of the AAA MMO companies. Investors want a guaranteed return on their investments... Who wouldn't when we're talking 10's of millions of dollars. They can't get that guarantee with a totally untried product so they back whats been proven to make money. The MMO world isn't the only place this happens... It's just big business in general that operates in this way. You don't invest millions unless you have some kind of idea what you can expect for a return on that investment. These investors are far from being weirdos... they are just smart businessmen. Why do you think they have millions of dollars to invest in the first place? By making smart investment choices.
Bren
Yeah, the investors you know are definite weirdos. You're also taling about 'untried product' which means you seem to not want to believe that any of this cutting edge indie stuff has been tried before or that there were any polls or studies to indicate whether it is even worth the effort or not.
"If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it"
You are either speaking from some point of authority (are an investor or know investors) or you're relaying opinion as if it were fact in order to try to give it credence. If the former, then , yes, the investors you know are oddballs because it doesn't seem like they are very risk averse which makes one wonder why they would invest in computer games when the chance of success is probably about that of a rock band.
To bring fact and reality to the table here, Games Invest 2010 is one way the investors get involved in and back these indie game projects. Indie Fund was set up by existing independent game makers to get investment money to indie developers. As for projects that went live, Riot Games had secured six million in investments about two and a half years ago. Who would have thought there'd be decent money in a commercial DOTA, huh?
Your contention is that triple AAA dvelopers/publishers will not try anything new, but they have been the first ones to venture out into unknown ares down the line of features and business models. In many of the cases where there's some kewl rad feature that an indie game has, it's more than likely the triple AAA developer chose to go with a slightly smarter AI or a much better visual experience or something else that would have offered more return to the consumer that bought the product than maybe spotting a deer eating a flower and later noticing that the flower grew back.
"If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it"
The investors that you know are odd and their criteria for what features they will consider is even more odd.
This is just the way big business works. You don't pour millions into something that sounds like a good idea... you put that money into something that you know will give you some kind of return on your investment. You keep bringing indie investors into this and they are a different breed of investors all together. They are the risk takers. Sometimes it pays off for them(EVE) but most of the time it doesn't (DF, MO, Horizons, D&L, Etc...).
You also seem to think I'm OK with this where MMO's are conserned. I'm not... I hate it. I'm so sick of seeing the same old Themepark clones that AAA MMO developers keep pulling out of their asses over and over again that I could just scream. I've played EQ... I've played WoW... I don't need to play them again and again with a shiney new wrapper which is all the AAA MMO companies has been able to produce for the last 8 or so years.
I for one have been watching Archage with a lot of interest as that is the game that may finally change this genre. That is a AAA MMO that is implementing a lot of the features talked about in this thread. If it does well we may see more AAA developers follow suit. It is however a long way off (2012 most probably) so we'll have to wait and see.
Investor lag. They're responsible for lack of innovation most of the time, that's why electric cars are taking forever.
Since there is currently no high-profit sandbox, but is a high-profit themepark, investors do not want to invest into an AAA sandbox. And since they don't invest in an AAA sandbox, we don't get a high-profit sandbox. It's a vicious circle.
Eventually, some team of old developers may end up making a sandbox that will blow everything out of the water, but until then, you won't see investors putting money in sandboxes because they're too stupid to think beyond what's already there.
Its not a matter of stupid. It may well be short sighted, but one of the clallenges involved in investing is what is known as risk management. Its no where near a science(more like a Black Art ^^), but if it is applied consistently and rationally(good luck ^^), it tends to protect ones capital. Which of course is one of the first rules. Thou Shall Not Lose Capital. ^^ Couple the lack of any really successful sand box game, with the move of the player demographics towards theme parks, and one has the current situation.
Comments
EA didn't 'get a big inheritance from their parents'. They made their money with games. That's how most of the big game publishers got their money. Through games. Magic didn't just magically appear in their pockets one day and they went 'Oh hey derp, I'm going to fund a clone of WoW'.
People with big inheritances aren't the major investment market for MMOs. Where you got this idea... I don't even know. Little game companies become big game companies through business savvy and releasing games that people end up wanting, not through being a bunch of idiots who can't put their pants on without crapping them.
Also, can you point to the WoW-clone MMO that lost millions of dollars?
I can point to lots of different games that lost millions of dollars. Tabula Rasa, Earth and Beyond, Auto Assault, APB...
Funny. It's the games that aren't like WoW that seem to be a lot more likely to lose so much money.
Maybe the investors know a little more than you do.
The costs and budget for video game development has sky rocketed in the past decade across the board, not just in the MMORPG market.
This creates a situation where the studios that have the resources (money AND time) have a natural edge over their competitors who don't have the same luxaries.
Companies like Blizzard and Bioware can release their games whenever they want. A proven track record of quality, popular, critically acclaimed titles will do that for ya.
There is probably not a single game development studio that doesn't wish they had more time and more money to do this, that, or the other thing before releasing their project.
So it's really not a question of whether or not AAA companies CAN do these things that some Indie developers are doing, it's a question of if they WANT to and why or why not?
I think it's been answered a half dozen or more times already in this thread, but the vast majority of the gaming world cares about the gameplay features and whether or not a product is fun, and consider this kind of fringe stuff added fluff or a nice little bonus that likely won't effect their decision to purchase.
You could tell me Mass Effect 3 is going to have a dynamic weather system and that the planets/star systems orbit logically around their respective stars/galactic center... but does that really effect the game play enough for me to care? No. I will buy ME3 with or without rotating star systems.
I don't consider most of the things the OP listed as actual "features" and thus would not effect my decision to purchase.
This is just the way big business works. You don't pour millions into something that sounds like a good idea... you put that money into something that you know will give you some kind of return on your investment. You keep bringing indie investors into this and they are a different breed of investors all together. They are the risk takers. Sometimes it pays off for them(EVE) but most of the time it doesn't (DF, MO, Horizons, D&L, Etc...).
You also seem to think I'm OK with this where MMO's are conserned. I'm not... I hate it. I'm so sick of seeing the same old Themepark clones that AAA MMO developers keep pulling out of their asses over and over again that I could just scream. I've played EQ... I've played WoW... I don't need to play them again and again with a shiney new wrapper which is all the AAA MMO companies has been able to produce for the last 8 or so years.
I for one have been watching Archage with a lot of interest as that is the game that may finally change this genre. That is a AAA MMO that is implementing a lot of the features talked about in this thread. If it does well we may see more AAA developers follow suit. It is however a long way off (2012 most probably) so we'll have to wait and see.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
Its not a matter of stupid. It may well be short sighted, but one of the clallenges involved in investing is what is known as risk management. Its no where near a science(more like a Black Art ^^), but if it is applied consistently and rationally(good luck ^^), it tends to protect ones capital. Which of course is one of the first rules. Thou Shall Not Lose Capital. ^^ Couple the lack of any really successful sand box game, with the move of the player demographics towards theme parks, and one has the current situation.