I dont think many companies are batting any higher. A Few companies are 1-1 (Blizzard, ArenaNet, CCCP, Trion(so far)) but I dont think any companies with multiple titles have had accross the board success.
Victims of their own success.
Companies build an MMO, it makes some money, the Suits take notice...and what happens next is the Corporatization of the game. Management starts to meddle with their Devs, the "A" level Devs get irritated and quit, the "B" level Devs move up into positions of design authority...
Management says "Let's make a new game! More cash!" The "B" level Devs get pulled to work on New Game, "C" level devs (in greatly reduced numbers) move into positions of design authority and struggle to keep the original game running, content releases slow down, poor design decisions drive players away, some other company releases a Cool New Thing and the original game is declared dead.
How many times have we seen the story repeated?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
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Victims of their own success.
Companies build an MMO, it makes some money, the Suits take notice...and what happens next is the Corporatization of the game. Management starts to meddle with their Devs, the "A" level Devs get irritated and quit, the "B" level Devs move up into positions of design authority...
Management says "Let's make a new game! More cash!" The "B" level Devs get pulled to work on New Game, "C" level devs (in greatly reduced numbers) move into positions of design authority and struggle to keep the original game running, content releases slow down, poor design decisions drive players away, some other company releases a Cool New Thing and the original game is declared dead.
How many times have we seen the story repeated?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.