Swen Vincke: Marketing departments 'don't get it'

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Swen Vincke from Larian Software (the guys behind the Divine Divinity series) posted on his blog a follow up to "Why many developers close their doors" titled "How Larian ended up self-publishing". It's an interesting tale of struggling with the 'green-light committees' of publishers. Here's a quote (emphasis added):

"We actually did make it to several green-light committees of top 10 publishers, I even sat in on a few of them to present my games, but we never managed to sign with any of them, so obviously something went wrong. Other than occasionally having to deal with idiots, the biggest common hurdle I found has always been the marketing department. I’ve learnt that in general these people don’t like RPGs. They just don’t get it.

In general marketeers want a simple USP (unique selling proposition) that differentiates your game from the competition. That’s not rocket science, but it’s obviously something that’s very hard to define in a game where it’s all about the whole being larger than the sum of the individual features. That a lot of these individual smaller features are different doesn’t matter to them, they want something big, preferably something not done before. They also want stunning visuals & animation, which is again very hard, if only for the freedom and wealth of options you need to offer players in a RPG. One of the consequences of that is that is that you can’t use a whole bunch of the tricks available to FPS developers, and obviously the RPG suffers in visual comparison."

Thanks, Haba!

How is jetpack dragons not a marketable feature? Also choices and consequences, there haven't been consequences in games for a century now.
I guess Dragon Commander is an aRTS though.

I find this so amusing considering I can count the number of the last decade's games that qualify on one hand yet so many more are published.

Okay, that sounds quite reasonable, I guess. But as long as Larian continues to make shit games nobody's gonna listen to them.

Fixed.

And that's accounting for pure gimmicks.

Also, obligatory to Lar.

testing if forum merges double posts too...

Brofist to larian, indeed.

Also, I find it quite amusing that Divinity 2 was using the same engine Bethesda is using and yet managed to look 10 times better than crapout 3. I'd really love to see Bethesda as an unknown company trying to sell their game.

DKS, sure, but Ego Draconis didn't look good at all, especially on Xbox.

They look about the same (on PC, at least, don't care about x-pox). DKS has somewhat more vivid special effects and derpy quest item/activator sparkle, plus some minor retextures, including Lovis' textures being messed up.

Divinity simply looks better because of art direction, better shadows and because it uses shaders more thoughtfully which results in objects not looking as if made out of plastic, same kind of plastic.

Larian is a cool developer. Hope dragon commanders turns out to be a good game so I can support them.

But as long as you continue to love shitty popamole new shit, nobody's gonna listen to you either.

+1 respect for Swen. Though Dragon Knight Saga better be rated as comparably low as DD.

Make better RPG systems and I won't. This is one aspect where budget isn't that much of a significant factor when it comes to quality.

This. Not because it was bad - it definitely had *the* spark - but because it could have been so much better.

This is the key to understanding self improvement.

Funny, I was the first one around here getting Divinity 2 (German release, unpatched) and actually quite enjoyed it back in 2009. But that's because there was nothing better around at that time. But compared to Obsidian or BioWare, their quality is still....underwhelming, to put it in a more polite way.

That Dragon Commnader game doesn't look too promising either, but I'll give them the benefit of doubt and maybe try the demo.

Still, Larian can't expect demo-ing something like Divinity 2 for top 10 publishers and expect them to greenlight it. They're a small developer, and thus will never get the attention nor the support from the likes of Beth, Obsidian and BioWare. You can take that as a positive or as a negative.

That's because it's a different kind of quality. Divinity 2 reminded me of games like Wizardry 8 and Anachronox. Not because of any element of the gameplay, obviously, but because of similar kind of humour and self-depreciating use of derpy conventions. If I pick up Wizardry, I expect neither Morrowind, nor PS:T. I expect garish, eccentric collection of off-the-wall, clorful, often garish stuff like hammy villains, spellcasting crusaders in medieval plate wielding enchanted swords and blasters and dragons piloting spaceships (because why the fuck not?), while also distancing itself from all this stuff and not taking any of it dead seriously.

Same with Divinity 2. It wasn't a masterpiece. I didn't even *try* to be a masterpiece, because it wasn't *meant* to be a masterpiece. It didn't try to tell a deep and involving story or portray a deep and involved world. It simply promised that its devs had a lot of fun playing with the cliches and conventions, and that you, as a player will have at least as much fun playing the result. It's one of the last games built around the old philosophy pre-dating suits and shareholders and CEOs, that making games should be fun and that by selling or otherwise making the game accessible you share this fun with the others. And fun I had - Larian certainly delivered on their promise.
Which cannot e said of Bioware, which tries to be first and foremost a storyteller, but ends up regurgitating the same shit story, lately sprinkled with awfully written romances over and over again.


And I honestly find it hard to imagine picking a bioware game over Div2.

Plus Sven seems to be a honest and sensible fellow with a lot of distance to himself.
I can't imagine him getting as butthurt over the Codex as, say Gaider and Co., or lying through his teeth like Todd and Hines, or going full retard like Molyneux.
He deserves our brofists and I'm certainly going to buy DC as long as it isn't a fucking disaster.


Also, does anyone have the link to the follow up?

Actually that's pretty much what Bio did with DA2. They went for self-irony. The many quoted "I want to be a dragon" was actually one such case.
Whether the irony was simply too subtle for the average codexer, or was never experienced in context, or was taken seriously because it was easy to use against Bio, or was taken seriously because one expects such bad dialogue in seriousness from Bio, I can't tell.
Fact is: Such self-irony permeates DA2.
Which might be one of the reasons the Bio-fans were not amused.
Bio also tried to break their own mold in other places:
No more "visit 3-4 hubs and collect stuff to open up the final hub".
The relationships to your companions evolve over a far longer time-span (but this didn't work for me at all).

There were also some small improvements in character development, tactics management and UI, all of which were nothing to write home about. BTW, gay romance options could be pretty much squashed before awkward moments arose. I don't really get what everyone's issue with Anders was. They probably gave him a carrot and then whined about him wanting more... *shrug*

To me DA2 was the most enjoyable Bio-game since HotU and the most enjoyable "choose your own adventure" ever. But I'm probably pretty much the only one on the co'x to think so (I don't know if what Konjad does, counts as "thinking".)
I was just too lazy to write a real review and never found a thread where a comment like this fit but I wanted to express this opinion at least once.

Disclaimer: DA2 is by no means a "good" game and I don't consider it an RPG at all, it's a pure "choose your own adventure". It also has massive flaws.
Re-use of areas.
Encounter wave mechanic.
Melee-classes were unplayable to me due to shitty gameplay.
The self-irony didn't really come into the main-quest leading to an at times jarring experience and a shitty main quest.
Re-use of areas.
Switching between mass murdering "enemies" and suddenly caring about one life or another was also jarring. As were the quiet(, serious) conversations while being splattered in blood.
Encounter wave mechanic.
Level scaling.
Re-use of areas.
Few unique items that stay useful for quite a while = good. One dimensional item progression with the choice of best item always being obvious = shit. Level scaled generic loot to complement the unique loot = shit.
Encounter wave mechanic.
Re-use of areas.
Shitty graphics that looked worse than DAO even after the graphix patch.


/derail (? Only time will tell.)

I enjoy these developer blogs, but then I remember the ridiculous game Larian is making. FFS... no more dragons!

Yup, games where player can be a dragon have been done to death.

I of course meant no offense to your chosen passion, but Dragon Dragon Dragon in every title IS getting a little tedious.

Dragondragondragon has been tedious since fantasy became popular.

Now being a dragon has barely been touched by game industry (or fantasy literature, for that matter), so shut up.

What a surprise that publishers and marketing people don't understand games. What a surprise that these people want a product (something that can be produced, marketed and sold easily) instead of a game.

Just play a flight simulator and choose a green paint job for the plane. Everyone is tired of dragons. EVERYONE.

Proof or GTFO.

And I mean in mathematical sense.

I'm not. Especially if I actually get to play as the dragon in a game that doesn't suck.

Ever heard of this one?