Why does everybody seem to think they need to make the next Call of Duty in order to achieve well commercially?
Why does everybody try to compare AAA title success backed with 100,000 man hours, a multi-million dollar budget in both developement
and advertising; to a one or two man indie development team with less than a one hundred dollar budget, limited resources and, in most cases, experience? A game engine simply cannot compensate for everything.
It shouldn't come as a suprise that, no; FPS Creator cannot make the next Modern Warefare 2 or Crysis, or whatever AAA franchise we have in our heads (in my opinion, there wasn't anything all that special about Modern Warefare 2 in the first place). And I agree with the others on that subject. It
most likely can't be done.
But,
and my point is, it
can't be said that FPS Creator just plain cannot make a commercial quality title, either (which is why I stepped in to share my 2 cents). Nor can it be said one can't do well on the market. Again, it's a simple matter of what
success really is to each developer, or the people here that try to explain it.
If a team of 2 developers with $200 to spend work three months on a game, and that game earns $50,000 the first month it goes on sale, would anyone here consider it to be a success?
If a single developer makes an FPS Creator game, and that game makes it to IGN, Gamersgate, Steam, etc, and becomes a common name in the industry, would anyone here consider their effort to be a success?
If a small team of developers throw together a mediochre game, but really glorify their product through advertising; and that game goes to sell 20,000+ copies, earns $150,000 in profits; but almost every review that comes in spits on the title, would anyone here say the game was a
commercial success?
We don't have any idea what game or game idea will or will not become the popular vote, and there's really no way to forsee it. There are plenty of commercial games out there right now that get a lot of recognition due to advertising, but are absolutely horrid. And a smaller number of free games out there completely blow those out of the water. So now, by someone's definition, we have a small delima. Because this would mean that games that are not commercial, are "commercial quality", while games that are commercial, are not "commercial quality". So, wouldn't this mean that those commercial games that are not 'commercial quality' but
are commerical, are to be considered the standard for 'commercial quality'?
Or, is it up to the individual to decide what quality really is?
Quote: "We also need to take into account that the majority of people (60-70%?) will not download the patch (unless there was an autopatch built in alerting customers of an update)."
@
Marc, I believe you're forgetting to account for piracy. Which, unfortunately, my guess would account for 70% of said downloads.
Kravenwolf
