5 deadly sins of game developers
The gaming industry is on the rise. Tablets, smartphones, consoles, and the desktop game market show amazing sales figures. But it is worth remembering that in the history of the industry there were also amazing failures, there were games that did not see the light, in many cases having buried the companies that gave rise to them. Each of the examples below teaches a valuable lesson.
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Sony publisher, developer Factor 5. The game was supposed to show all the features of the PS3. After release, the game was taken hostile. Awful control and aiming system. The case completed a complete commercial failure, which, along with the cessation of funding from the publisher Brash Entertainment, led to the closure of the studio in May 2009.
During the development of Haze Free Radical, inspired by the success of Time Splitters 2, made a huge investment in its proprietary engine. Haze was originally planned to be released on several platforms in 2007. Then it was announced that the game would be exclusively on PS3 and the release dates were shifted until 2008. There were a lot of rumors about Haze, some already called the game the Halo killer, but closer to the release date the development got stuck and the game came out with a lot of glitches and a modest single player campaign. Soon the number of employees of the company was greatly reduced from 185 to 40, and then the company was sold to Crytek.
The game came out successfully and received public approval. Less than 4 months after the release, the key mechanism of the game was no longer a secret. This became the basis for the emergence of a special community, whose members worked hard to create their characters for the game. But, in 2005, the company releases the “New Game Enhancements” patch with supposedly improvements. "Improvements" lowered the complexity of the game and radically affected the pace of character development and balance.
This led to massive rejection by the players and with the advent of a competitor in the face of the new Star Wars The Old Republic led to the closure of the game in 2011.
Received a critical dose of criticism and sarcasm from users around the world. Due to the constant delays in the development, by the release date the game looked like a museum piece in comparison with competing products, inconvenient to manage and play the game with a negative makew of incomprehensible plot and incompetent game mechanics. In general, all this was worth forever the loss of the status of the gaming industry giant for John Romero.
Branded as one of the main causes of the Great Game Crisis of the 80s, the game was the most epic failure in the history of the industry. Expecting crazy sales, Atari prints a huge number of copies. 5,000,000 arrived at distribution points, sold about 1 million. From the unsold copies returned by stores, Atari had to get rid of on their own. Unable to cope with financial problems once a great gaming company was soon divided into parts, and then sold.
Lesson 1
It doesn't matter how cool the game is if you can't play it.
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Lair
Sony publisher, developer Factor 5. The game was supposed to show all the features of the PS3. After release, the game was taken hostile. Awful control and aiming system. The case completed a complete commercial failure, which, along with the cessation of funding from the publisher Brash Entertainment, led to the closure of the studio in May 2009.
Lesson 2
Investing all the funds in one game in case of release delays leads to a financial abyss
Haze
During the development of Haze Free Radical, inspired by the success of Time Splitters 2, made a huge investment in its proprietary engine. Haze was originally planned to be released on several platforms in 2007. Then it was announced that the game would be exclusively on PS3 and the release dates were shifted until 2008. There were a lot of rumors about Haze, some already called the game the Halo killer, but closer to the release date the development got stuck and the game came out with a lot of glitches and a modest single player campaign. Soon the number of employees of the company was greatly reduced from 185 to 40, and then the company was sold to Crytek.
Lesson 3
Frankly ignoring the main user base of the game in order to attract casual players leads to the risk of losing everything at all.
Star wars galaxies
The game came out successfully and received public approval. Less than 4 months after the release, the key mechanism of the game was no longer a secret. This became the basis for the emergence of a special community, whose members worked hard to create their characters for the game. But, in 2005, the company releases the “New Game Enhancements” patch with supposedly improvements. "Improvements" lowered the complexity of the game and radically affected the pace of character development and balance.
This led to massive rejection by the players and with the advent of a competitor in the face of the new Star Wars The Old Republic led to the closure of the game in 2011.
Lesson 4
Excessive marketing noise is very different from the actual situation in the game will lead to sales failure
Daikatana
Received a critical dose of criticism and sarcasm from users around the world. Due to the constant delays in the development, by the release date the game looked like a museum piece in comparison with competing products, inconvenient to manage and play the game with a negative makew of incomprehensible plot and incompetent game mechanics. In general, all this was worth forever the loss of the status of the gaming industry giant for John Romero.
Lesson 5
If the game sucks, the publisher’s financial strength will not solve anything.
ET: Atari
Branded as one of the main causes of the Great Game Crisis of the 80s, the game was the most epic failure in the history of the industry. Expecting crazy sales, Atari prints a huge number of copies. 5,000,000 arrived at distribution points, sold about 1 million. From the unsold copies returned by stores, Atari had to get rid of on their own. Unable to cope with financial problems once a great gaming company was soon divided into parts, and then sold.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/175219/
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