Re: Epic's September Freebie Cancelled

On Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:13:04 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Feb 2025 10:36:25 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Although... canceling a game just because it sucks? Sega, no wonder
you're no longer up there with the other triple-A studios, if that's
your attitude!

I find this novel, refreshing, and I hope Sega makes a ton of money by
reintroducing the concept of fewer, better releases to their product
line.
I think BG III in no small part alerted the industry to this tack. You
make a better game? You make bank.

Except, sadly... it doesn't work that way. "Baldurs Gate" sold maybe
15 million copies. The Call of Duty games, which are cranked out
almost annually and are fairly rote and mundane in their gameplay,
routinely sell three or four times that number. The Assassins Creed
games regularly match or exceed "Baldurs Gate 3". So too the FIFA
games (or whatever EA is calling them now that its lost its license),
which are more or less the same game year after year yet still sell
ten to twenty million copies. And let's not forget games like
"Fortnite", which has over 650 registered users and still exceeds 50
million active users per day.

The money is not in making curated, quality titles. The most reliable
way of making bank is to crap out pabulum and market the hell out of
it.

Yes, you /can/ have some success making a game like "Baldurs Gate
3"... but it is an extremely expensive and risky process. "True
Gamers" (TM) will reward you for that effort. But they're a minority
in the overall gaming market (not to mention very fussy about what
they like and don't like; see "Civilization VII") and it's easier to
just make a sequel and call it a day.

In the long term, that method is, of course, incredibly unhealthy for
the industry (and the hobby in general) but it's understandable why
its so alluring to publishers... especially the Triple-As which are
more concerned with their fluctating stock prices than actual sales
(or reviews of games). But sadly, and provably, quality doesn't equal
success in the market.