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Azarkon vs the Cult of Hardcore RPG Fatalism - can hardcore RPGs sell better?

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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28,024
It is and it works well. However, there's no arguing that it would have looked better with proper art.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
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Messages
1,866,661
What's next? No demo because demos cost you sales?

Quite the opposite.
lolwut?

Dead State didn't have a demo, so everyone who wanted to try the game had to buy it. Had quite an effect on sales. What's that? People will pirate demo-less games? Sure, but they will do it regardless. We're talking about the only market that really counts - Steam's market, which accounts for 80-90% of sales and isn't really affected by piracy.

Why do you think demos went out of style? Because publishers are stupid?

What I meant was I personally like demos. Their affect on sales is beyond me. I think the disappearance has a lot to do with how games are developed and shoved out the door not even fully completed moreso than anything. I've seen a number of games run mass betas which is almost like a return to shareware. Not quite a demo, not quite full ownership. I think games restricting modding scenes is where the actual publisher cashgrab is to be found.



Biggest on Kickstarter don't mean shit in the wonderful world of games selling millions of copies. Bethesda's "wine and dine the media" budget was probably bigger than what WL2 took on KS.

It took the fourth iteration of EU for Paradox's grand strategy game to find footing. Why chalk that up to "strategy games often become popular" instead of really figuring out what's going on?
Because that's the truth. There is a number of very successful strategy games. The only way to make an RPG very successful is to streamline it to the point of it being an action game with stats.

I think our perspectives on success are very different because I don't buy this line of thought much at all. Maybe if the end goal is shitloads of sales, but if your development cost:revenue ratio is being looked at then there are all sorts of variables to success. NEO Scavenger springs to mind as a very atypical game which did very well for itself. Sure, it didn't sell 12gazillion copies, but it was made by one guy and budgeted accordingly. You don't need lavish parties as a measuring stick. The real measure of success is if the developers are allowed to press forward and do more.


You can hug your police-lights dance floor interface close and tell the non-true RPG players to go fuck themselves. I don't really care. Bottom line is... that shit needs to go. That's what this is really about. You can't color code your goddam grid like it's a fucking JRPG on a bricked 3DS. I'm trying to do you a favor here.
I'm not saying that AoD is an artistic masterpiece. It's not. There are plenty of things I didn't like, including that dance floor, but we were light on artists and our to-do list was endless. The dance floor was done first, 10 years ago, and we never had time to revisit it. Now we're working on 3 games at once, which is a bitch, so again we don't have the luxury of fucking with things that work.

I'm riffing ya man. If you made a dance floor ten years ago, ten years is a long time to boogie on it. Disco's out, baby.
 
Self-Ejected

Lurker King

Self-Ejected
The Real Fanboy
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Messages
1,865,419
honest marketing.

m6nz3Qg.jpg

You’re trying to sell a product that does X, for a target audience that wants a product that does X. If you have a good quality product, you don’t need to pretend that it is something that it isn’t to attract to your costumers. Many successful companies outside gaming are based on this premise. In fact, given that we are living in a kickstarter period of studios that promised the world but delivered shit, the importance of blunt honesty cannot be exaggerated.

Repeatedly I see people criticizing Vault Dweller for not doing something that most developers do, as if conventional wisdom were a solid truth, instead of just repeated practices that are basically folk psychology. You are ignoring that ITS has another type of mindset, sser. AoD don’t have the art of PoE, but has great combat system, writing, C&C and itemization. You know, they have all the ingredients for people who want to play proper cRPGs. They can focus on that, because that is what they want to do, and that is what their target audience care about.

They are trying to create a type of experience that is different from the traditional model. They're hardcore developers that want to make games for hardcore players. Instead of hiding behind a community manager, they post regularly on forums such as the Codex and answer the players directly, implementing feedback and working hard to create a worthy game. Christ, sometimes I think they spoiled me, because other developers, including indie developers, are not that considerate. AoD has a small fan base that was hard-won over a decade, but it is a loyal fan base, that knows what is they are getting into, understand the value of ITS, and will keep growing (slowly but surely) over the years. If ITS keep making quality games, players will keep buying them, because hardcore players can appreciate their games and them, as developers.
 
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Infinitron

I post news
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Joined
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Messages
97,225
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Somebody give Lurker King the title "Indie Jihadist".

Relax, sser isn't a developer.
 
Unwanted

Irenaeus II

Unwanted
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual The Real Fanboy
Joined
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You can hug your police-lights dance floor interface close and tell the non-true RPG players to go fuck themselves.

Do you know what you can do in a dance floor? Dance with your motherfucking legs!

:dance:

Battle Bro Legs will be sold in a seperate DLC, expertly marketed as "extra arms" to fool the audience reach broader audience.
 
Self-Ejected

Lurker King

Self-Ejected
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1,865,419

Azarkon

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
2,989
You’re trying to sell a product that does X, for a target audience that wants a product that does X. If you have a good quality product, you don’t need to pretend that it is something that it isn’t to attract to your costumers. Many successful companies outside gaming are based on this premise. In fact, given that we are living in a kickstarter period of studios that promised the world but delivered shit, the importance of blunt honesty cannot be exaggerated.

Repeatedly I see people criticizing Vault Dweller for not doing something that most developers do, as if conventional wisdom were a solid truth, instead of just repeated practices that are basically folk psychology. You are ignoring that ITS has another type of mindset, sser. AoD don’t have the art of PoE, but has great combat system, writing, C&C and itemization. You know, they have all the ingredients for people who want to play proper cRPGs. They can focus on that, because that is what they want to do, and that is what their target audience care about.

They are trying to create a type of experience that is different from the traditional model. They're hardcore developers that want to make games for hardcore players. Instead of hiding behind a community manager, they post regularly on forums such as the Codex and answer the players directly, implementing feedback and working hard to create a worthy game. Christ, sometimes I think they spoiled me, because other developers, including indie developers, are not that considerate. AoD has a small fan base that was hard-won over a decade, but it is a loyal fan base, that knows what is they are getting into, understand the value of ITS, and will keep growing (slowly but surely) over the years. If ITS keep making quality games, players will keep buying them, because hardcore players can appreciate their games and them, as developers.

Vince certainly has his own goals, standards, and priorities, which is fine, fits his profile back when he was a poster, and is nice to see from a developer. I'm also in agreement with the idea that he doesn't need to change anything as long as he's happy with what he's doing and is able to continue doing it.

But what I don't get is this attitude that "hardcore games" have literally no appeal outside of a small group of "hardcore gamers" and therefore, when they do poorly on the sales front, excuses aren't even necessary.

First, to make this argument, you need to define what "hardcore games" are - and as much as everyone is throwing around "real RPG" and "hardcore RPG" as though it is well-understood what they are, years on the Codex have taught me that no one actually agrees on what it is, and for that matter, what its representative titles are. Age of Decadence, Legends of Eisenwald, Lords of Xulima, Serpent in the Staglands, and Underrail are *not* united in their design goals, priorities, and achievements. But they *are* united in their failure to reach the mass market. This is the only similarity between all of these games other than the fact that they are low-budget Western CRPGs, and it is disingenuous to equate "hardcore games" with "low-budget Western CRPGs that sell poorly."

Second, in order to get into "no excuses necessary" territory, you have to prove that there is nothing any of these developers could have done to reach a wider audience without fundamentally violating their vision. I'd agree that Western CRPG is a less lucrative market than genres such as Action RPG and FPS, but it is also ridiculous to only blame the genre. There *are* successful low-budget Western CRPGs - Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Legend of Grimrock, even Pillars of Eternity though that's stretching it. And of course, games such as Undertale, To the Moon, and Skyborn show that low-budget =/= low sales, though here we could argue that JRPG fans are forgiving of low-budget graphics while Western CRPG fans are not, even though I don't think that's the case.

My personal opinion on games such as Age of Decadence, Legends of Eisenwald, etc. is not that they are "too hardcore" to succeed, but that they made specific decisions during the development/design process that cost them wider appeal. The bulk of these decisions are not core to the design, but are excusable mistakes, which their developers even admit to; but just because it is excusable, does not make it less of a mistake.

To this end, I think we need to straighten out a few facts, here:

1. Choices and consequences do not make your game niche. There are many mainstream games with choices and consequences, and which advertise their games through it. Latest example: Until Dawn, the sales of which "vastly exceeded expectations." The idea of promoting player agency, and giving players choices through the course of the game, is very much mainstream today.

2. Hard/unforgiving combat does not make your game niche. Not in the era of Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. Many people want "hard," and even those who don't, can be satisfied with a difficulty setting.

3. Stat sheets & character creation do not make your game niche. Virtually all JRPGs have them, the aforementioned successful Western CRPGs have them, and even Bethesda's games have them. People aren't afraid of stat sheets. They might be afraid of stat sheets that are overly complicated, but then why shouldn't they be?

4. Turn-based tactical combat is more niche than real-time, but still not that niche. XCOM, Transistor, all the aforementioned successful Western CRPGs, JRPGs, most tactical strategy games such as Endless Space, Age of Wonders, etc. all have turn-based combat. It's not a dead sell just because your game has turn-based combat; it is a dead sell, however, when your game only advertises turn-based combat.

5. Attribute checks deciding dialogue choices, etc. do not make your game niche. In actuality, outside of the Codex and a few other communities, few people care about whether the game has attribute checks.

With the above in mind, I'll list the main issues with Age of Decadence, Legends of Eisenwald, Lords of Xulima, etc. that DID, in my opinion, negatively affect their sales:

1. Choice of ruleset. There are a handful of popular RPG rulesets out there that practically every RPG gamer uses. A few of them are even free for commercial use. There is, as such, no compelling cause to brew your own unless you have absolute confidence in your systemfag credentials, and in the vast majority of cases, you are wrong. The RPG community patronizes developers who use existing popular rulesets, even developers who use popular rulesets found only in computer games. By making your own ruleset, you lose sales, especially when your own home made ruleset is worse, as is the case 90% of the times. At the minimum, in case you're going to make your own ruleset, *name drop* how it's similar to X,Y,Z in your marketing campaign, so people get a sense of what they're in for.

2. Choice of setting. There are, again, plenty of popular settings around, though these are usually licensed and do require a licensing fee. The choice of setting is obviously very important when trying to target old school gamers. But even in case you're not going to use an existing setting, you should, at the minimum, make the effort to create a setting that isn't just a pale imitation of an existing setting. Nobody cares about generic-medieval-European-fantasy-setting-195251 and generic-post-apocalyptic-grimdark-setting-99582, because face it, the shots of you being able to create a compelling setting different from the countless people who've worked on Forgotten Realms, Fallout, etc. is pretty damn low. In case you actually did it, then you need to market it, and *make* people believe that your setting is worthwhile, because most gamers who're older than 20 have seen enough poorly done fantasy/sci-fi settings to last a hundred years.

3. Not involving industry celebrities. Humans have idols; RPG gamers are no exception. Put Chris Avellone's name on a product and you'll instantly gain the attention of the press & the community. That's just how it works. Whether they actually do anything is not that important, although of course it is best that they contribute a few pieces of writing & design. But it's money well-spent regardless, because people worship celebrities, which is why Sawyer, Avellone, Fargo, Cain, Gaider, etc. get so much press on all the forums.

4. Lack of excellent story & characters. This is a more personal opinion, but as games such as To the Moon and Undertale have shown, you could go a long way with a compelling story & characters. The trick here is what constitutes a compelling story & characters, and that's not the same for everyone. But certainly, few of the above games advertised anything of the sort and none of them, to my knowledge, have received awards for their storytelling. That could just be a SJW/Tumblr effect, I don't know, but I do know that nobody wants to experience generic-fantasy-story-3351 alongside generic-medieval-European-fantasy-setting-195251. It's just a stale set up, as Jasede said, and you'd need to work extra hard to stand out just by virtue of having a typical fantasy/post-apocalyptic story set in a typical fantasy/post-apocalyptic world.

5. Not enough innovation. One of the differences between people who buy indie games and people who buy Call of Duty, FIFA, etc. is that the former group actually cares about innovation and new experiences. Here, I agree fully with Jasede that too many developers who consider themselves "hardcore" are actually just remaking the same old games - with a few twists here and there. The problem with that strategy is two-fold. First, nostalgia works best when it's actually nostalgic - ie when it's actually based on an old franchise, such as Shadowrun, Wastelands, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, etc. It doesn't work so well when you're only "inspired" by the old games to create an imitation.

Second, as much as we talk about how these games are no longer being made, *they are being made*. Take Jeff Vogel, for example - he's been making these "old school" games for the past 20 years! Just the fact that I'm able to call up 5-6 games in *two years* ought to tell you that this market is saturated. It's similar to 4X games, in this respect - nostalgia for the old games is just not going to cut it when there are over a dozen 4X games on the market from the last five years. It's not the dead RTS genre where people just want to see a new quality RTS game because so few have been made in the last decade. We live in an age where there are a lot of turn-based games and a lot of old school CRPGs, from both big-time developers such as Obsidian, and small-time developers such as Jeff Vogel. In this sort of industry, you need to *innovate* to set yourself from the crowd. Just making another Wizardry, Fallout, etc. isn't going to cut it, because as much as we want to make it look otherwise, the industry has had plenty of "old school" RPGs in recent years.
 
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Eyestabber

Arcane
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1. Choices and consequences do not make your game niche. There are many mainstream games with choices and consequences, and which advertise their games through it. Latest example: Until Dawn, the sales of which "vastly exceeded expectations." The idea of promoting player agency, and giving players choices through the course of the game, is very much mainstream today.

Wrong. "Choices that matter, bruh" are just a buzzword nowadays. Here is how "many mainstream games" treat C&C:

Option A
/ \
Choice Both reach the same place.
\ /
Option B

Have you played Age of Decadence? Your choices in that game have meaningful and irreversible consequences leading to entirely different quests and places. You would need a HUUUGE flowchart to illustrate the many paths you can take in that game.

2. Hard/unforgiving combat does not make your game niche. Not in the era of Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. Many people want "hard," and even those who don't, can be satisfied with a difficulty setting.

Wrong again. Souls games aren't RPGs in the sense that VD and ITS understand them, just for starters. And even if you consider them to be, what Dark Souls made is pocket change compared to the much easier Witcher 3. Dark Souls simply happens to have a larger budget, which allow for better graphics and animations which in turn result in greater mainstream appeal. Also, most people quit DaS2 after getting REKT by the Pursuer one too many times. :smug:

3. Stat sheets & character creation do not make your game niche. Virtually all JRPGs have them, the aforementioned successful Western CRPGs have them, and even Bethesda's games have them. People aren't afraid of stat sheets. They might be afraid of stat sheets that are overly complicated, but then why shouldn't they be?

:notsureifserious:

You're basically saying that stats are OK, as long as they don't really matter. Bethesda and Bioware heard you a long time ago.

4. Turn-based tactical combat is more niche than real-time, but still not that niche. XCOM, Transistor, all the aforementioned successful Western CRPGs, JRPGs, most tactical strategy games such as Endless Space, Age of Wonders, etc. all have turn-based combat. It's not a dead sell just because your game has turn-based combat; it is a dead sell, however, when your game only advertises turn-based combat.

Really? And what else should be advertised? You want a small studio to make a trailer like this:



Let's watch the trailer of one of those "games with turn based combat that sold well" and play "spot the turn based combat". Oh that's right, there is none! I wonder why...

5. Attribute checks deciding dialogue choices, etc. do not make your game niche. In actuality, outside of the Codex and a few other communities, few people care about whether the game has attribute checks.

Yes, it does. It's a designer choice that gets manboons butthurt because they can't dump charisma AND pass all those social checks. Not catering to idiots = less mainstream appeal = niche game.

With the above in mind, I'll list the main issues with Age of Decadence, Legends of Eisenwald, Lords of Xulima, etc. that DID, in my opinion, negatively affect their sales:

1. Choice of ruleset. There are a handful of popular RPG rulesets out there that practically every RPG gamer uses. A few of them are even free for commercial use. There is, as such, no compelling cause to brew your own unless you have absolute confidence in your systemfag credentials, and in the vast majority of cases, you are wrong. The RPG community patronizes developers who use existing popular rulesets, even developers who use popular rulesets found only in computer games. By making your own ruleset, you lose sales, especially when your own home made ruleset is worse, as is the case 90% of the times. At the minimum, in case you're going to make your own ruleset, *name drop* how it's similar to X,Y,Z in your marketing campaign, so people get a sense of what they're in for.

2. Choice of setting. There are, again, plenty of popular settings around, though these are usually licensed and do require a licensing fee. The choice of setting is obviously very important when trying to target old school gamers. But even in case you're not going to use an existing setting, you should, at the minimum, make the effort to create a setting that isn't just a pale imitation of an existing setting. Nobody cares about generic-medieval-European-fantasy-setting-195251 and generic-post-apocalyptic-grimdark-setting-99582, because face it, the shots of you being able to create a compelling setting different from the countless people who've worked on Forgotten Realms, Fallout, etc. is pretty damn low. In case you actually did it, then you need to market it, and *make* people believe that your setting is worthwhile, because most gamers who're older than 20 have seen enough poorly done fantasy/sci-fi settings to last a hundred years.

3. Involve industry celebrities. Humans have idols; RPG gamers are no exception. Put Chris Avellone's name on a product and you'll instantly gain the attention of the press & the community. That's just how it works. Whether they actually do anything is not that important, although of course it is best that they contribute a few pieces of writing & design. But it's money well-spent regardless, because people worship celebrities, which is why Sawyer, Avellone, Fargo, Cain, Gaider, etc. get so much press on all the forums.

4. Story & characters. This is a more personal opinion, but as games such as To the Moon and Undertale have shown, you could go a long way with a compelling story & characters. The trick here is what constitutes a compelling story & characters, and that's not the same for everyone. But certainly, few of the above games advertised anything of the sort and none of them, to my knowledge, have received awards for their storytelling. That could just be a SJW/Tumblr effect, I don't know, but I do know that nobody wants to experience generic-fantasy-story-3351 alongside generic-medieval-European-fantasy-setting-195251. It's just a stale set up, as Jasede said, and you'd need to work extra hard to stand out just by virtue of having a typical fantasy/post-apocalyptic story set in a typical fantasy/post-apocalyptic world.

5. Innovation is underrated. One of the key differences between people who buy indie games and people who buy Call of Duty, FIFA, etc. is that the former group actually cares about innovation and new experiences. Here, I agree fully with Jasede that too many developers who consider themselves "hardcore" are actually just remaking the same old games - with a few twists here and there. The problem with that strategy is two-fold. First, nostalgia works best when it's actually nostalgic - ie when it's actually based on an old franchise, such as Shadowrun, Wastelands, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, etc. It doesn't work so well when you're only "inspired" by the old games to create an imitation.

Second, as much as we talk about how these games are no longer being made, *they are being made*. Take Jeff Vogel, for example - he's been making these "old school" games for the past 20 years! Just the fact that I'm able to call up 5-6 games in *two years* ought to tell you that this market is saturated. It's similar to 4X games, in this respect - nostalgia for the old games is just not going to cut it when there are over a dozen 4X games on the market from the last five years. It's not the dead RTS genre where people just want to see a new quality RTS game because so few have been made in the last decade. We live in an age where there are a lot of turn-based games, and a lot of turn-based RPGs specifically, from both big-time developers such as Obsidian, and small-time developers such as Jeff Vogel. In this sort of industry, you need to *innovate* to set yourself from the crowd. Just making another Wizardry, Fallout, etc. isn't going to cut it, because as much as we want to make it look otherwise, the industry has had plenty of turn-based RPGs in recent years.

1. AoD's ruleset is one of the best I ever saw in any cRPG and an integral part of the "vision" behind the game, IMO. Using a more famous ruleset is simply catering to idiots. Again.

2. Yes, because using an unique setting instead of same old same old really SHOULD be held against developers. HOW DARE they refuse to make another LotR/Forgotten realms game. :argh::argh::argh:

3. :nocountryforshitposters:

4. REALLY? Do tell me about the virtues of weaboo storytelling.

5. Contradiction much? You're basically saying "use known ruleset, use known setting, invite celetrities because why the fuck not" and then you ask for innovation!? What the flying fuck?
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't understand what Eyestabber and co are so mad at. Nothing Azarkon said is bad. He's not arguing for things that would ruin these games if they were implemented.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
No? You're throwing a childish temper tantrum here. "H-he's saying the developers of these perfect games could do better marketing, which means he's saying they're not perfect people, which means he's a hater!"
 
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Self-Ejected

Excidium II

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No? You people are throwing a childish temper tantrum. "H-he's saying the developers of these perfect games could do better marketing, which means he's saying they're not perfect people, which means he's a hater!"
It's p. funny considering a propa CRPG that flees from the typical mold would probably sell like shit anyway. I'd risk waging that all CRPGs released since 2012 only sold enough to break even because of the (marketed or perceived) similarity with popular classics
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I think Azarkon's point is that you need more than just "similarity". You can cash in if you're a credible successor, spiritual or otherwise, to one of the popular classics. Credibility is earned via ownership of the original brand name, veteran developers, budget and reputation, etc
 
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Excidium II

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The most sure way is to alienate the core CRPG playerbase as much as possible. I mean you know a CRPG is selling well when the people buying also don't own every other CRPG recently released.
 

Damned Registrations

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Honestly I think there's a very large degree of plain random luck involved as well. There are a lot of factors that are simply beyond one's control, like what others games or announcements are released in the same timeframe, the general state of the economy, the whims of high profile people that may or may not give it a lot of free publicity. Sales revolving around merit or even marketing might be a comforting thought, but it's old father Random Shit that truly decides the course of fate.
 

BlackAdderBG

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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker
No? You people are throwing a childish temper tantrum. "H-he's saying the developers of these perfect games could do better marketing, which means he's saying they're not perfect people, which means he's a hater!"

He is retard for saying 5 guys studio can do better marketing than 200+ dev houses with multibillion publisher that make console action games(that are not even selling that much for the mainstream status they got,2mill max what a joke) ,duh no shit.And no he wrote that AoD need to have better characters,story,setting,combat and innovation then slurp a dick to get Chris "two wolves" Avellone to slap a quote about how hardcore the game is.He clearly didn't play it or is popamoler of higher degree for saying AoD charters and story is generic european/medieval fantasy.
 

Eyestabber

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No? You're throwing a childish temper tantrum here. "H-he's saying the developers of these perfect games could do better marketing, which means he's saying they're not perfect people, which means he's a hater!"

Reading is teh hard, huh? I was very clear in explaining WHY his suggestions are bad. You need MORE examples? Fine. Here is Age of Wonders trailer:



Again, spot the turn based combat.

Endless space?



Same shit.

Contrary to your beliefs, it's not hard at all to imagine your "brilliant suggestions" being applied to AoD. Watch:

Release the game in 2007, taking advantage of the Rome bandwagon. Hire one or two of the actors from that series to do voice acting*, replace VD's :obviously: ruleset with whatever D20 version you can still use for free, add a stronk womyn™ character who is super cool, talented and important but can't do much because Roman Empire was evul and womyn had no rights** and top the cake with an advertisement campaign that instead of focusing on the gameplay setting and story (you know, the things that MATTER?) releases CG videos with a cool Roman looking dude doing ninja flips while murdering several generic roman soldiers. The dude then goes on to meet a couple of roman chicks in sexy and revealing togas -> PG 13 sex -> camera focus on the womyn orgasming and cuts with "Age of Decadence" following by a shitty motto. Infinitron will be like:

:takemyjewgold::takemyjewgold::takemyjewgold:


What's the end result? Sword Coast Legends on steroids. That game did ALMOST everything you suggested. Gee, I wonder if there is a relation between doing deceptive marketing and releasing shitty games? Oh noes! VD should've lied for the Greater Good™. In the meantime, here is Underrail's trailer:



MY GOSH, the gameplay is exactly like in the trailer. Must be a fucking coincidence!*** :happytrollboy:

*: PROBABLY not possible with ITS budget, but let's pretend it is just for the sake of the argument
**: Instant compelling character by idiotic tumblerina standards
***: at 0:43 you can see a mutant from Depot A killing the player. Just like in the game :negative:


TL;DR: if a game's advertisement campaign caters to the lowest common denominator, then it's either being honest and advertising a game that ALSO caters to the lowest common denominator (AKA popamole shit) OR it's lying and advertising a game that isn't about what's shown in the trailer at all.
 
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Unwanted

Irenaeus II

Unwanted
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual The Real Fanboy
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Wow that Underrail trailer is awesome! Except for the really small font I can't read and waaaay too many items in the inventory. But anyway, now I want to play it. Loved the music.

The other trailers are not bad either and AoW3 is an incredible strategy game.

As for AoD, I really miss the old GFR trailer, but the current one is competent.



lol it does look amusing
 

Johannes

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Well, post-apocalyptic late Roman Empire decadency mixed with extra-dimensional future tech is a p. common setting. Gotta give it to him.
AoD marketing really misrepresents the setting a lot though, implying it's completely mundane. "In a land where ancient evil has never awakened, the job of destroying the world was left to mankind". Except half the storyline is discovering shit about ancient evil... Overall it's very vague what the storyline's actually about, no mention about any of the factions, places or characters you see in the game. Everything's very vague - visit new places, master the system, acquire loot, raise your skills. Is that really supposed to excite anyone? It's basically saying, this is a run-of-the-mill RPG with some nice kill animations.

Compare to the AoW 3 trailer above for example. I'm not saying it's great, but it at least has something kewl and visceral when displaying the different classes. AoD could've displayed the noble houses and guilds like that, and actually hinted at the GODZ somehow to pique the interest.
 

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