Editorial 2012: The Year in Review

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Diablo III; Interplay; InXile Entertainment; Kickstarter; Loot Drop; Mass Effect 3; The Year in Review

It was the year that gave rise to the KickStarter and we take a look back on it in our 2012: The Year in Review:

Brian Fargo, founder of Interplay Entertainment (before he bailed and sold it to that French cad Herve), saw the potential next. You see, after the failure (or huge finacial success, if you look at it from Brian's personal perspective) of Interplay, Brian established inXile Entertainment. That was in 2002. For 10 years he was stuck making remakes and cheesy iPhone games. It seems nobody in the publishing business wanted to fund those "RPG" things he so desperately wanted to make. And so, his idea for a Wasteland sequel sat on the shelf. Life in exile was hard, having bought the rights as far back as 2003, talked about it in 2007 and even threatening to get Bethesda involved in 2010.

... until 2012. The success of Double Fine saw the potential for an industry reborn. Old games (like the adventure game market Double Fine were aimed at) with their old fans and niche market couldn't get funding in the modern era. Fans clamoured for these games on forums but the true size and financial possibility of that market was not understood. Or at least, it was a lot smaller and harder to make games for than simply stuffing another Call of Duty remake out the door and cashing the profits. And perhaps the publishers themselves, being inbred dimwits, only really understood games where lots of stuff exploded.

KickStarter changed all of that. By bypassing the publishers and sourcing funds directly from the market, suddenly a whole new world of funding opened up.

And it was huge.​

Take a look back on Wasteland 2, Mass Effect 3, Diablo 3 and all that KickStarter stuff.

Read the full article: 2012: The Year in Review

 

[dnf]

I like how DU reviews years.

 

[Xi]

That was one shitfest of a video game year.

 

[himmy]

The first 6 or 7 paragraphs are basically a hand-holding tutorial to the website and RPGs themselves, even using FPSs as a more familiar and friendly example, clearly in a desperate attempt to make the Codex more appealing to a larger market.

 

[Metro]

Good thing you got this out -- another four months and it's 2014.

 

[dnf]

If there was true incline in 2012, the cause is Dark Souls port. The rest have yet to prove themselves.

 

[MetalCraze]

DU one thing is a crazy experiment where you handpick dumbest imbeciles on Codex and make them mods
But TotalBiscuit video? Just no. NO.

 

[Menckenstein]

Should've just had a link to a video review of the movie 2012.

 

[Murk]

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

Kickstarter will be the final nail in the coffin. cRPGs will die; finally. Then, hopefully, all gaming will collapse. All of it.

 

[LundB]

TotalBiscuit?

Why.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Because his opinion on this matter is similar to most users here?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The first 6 or 7 paragraphs are basically a hand-holding tutorial to the website and RPGs themselves, even using FPSs as a more familiar and friendly example, clearly in a desperate attempt to make the Codex more appealing to a larger market.

Actually, that was principally to show that the decline occurring within the RPG genre is not defined to that genre alone, and is actually something that's being experienced by gaming in general - and is now being picked up on by more popular media. I used that to lead into the perceived incline of KickStarter.

Although in general anything I write I usually do so from a point of view where I assume the audience is completely ignorant. Especially if it's a "review" of something.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Good read as always, better late than never

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

shir article

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Good writeup! And thanks for linking the DS review, somehow I've missed it.

 

[Darth Roxor]

As the Administrator of a website full of mentally insane morons, surviving long enough to celebrate 11 years of whining about shit is a pretty grand effort

 

[Diablo169]

Great read, you really should write more articles DU.

 

[A user named cat]

And it's success or failure all depends on whether any of those KickStarter games turn out to be any good or not...

... but before we get into all of that, let's keep with tradition and start our look back at 2012 with the Big Bouncy List of Games that were released - at least the ones that we some-what associate with the "RPG" genre.

You see, after the failure (or huge finacial success, if you look at it from Brian's personal perspective) of Interplay, Brian established inXile Entertainment.

As the average cost of a computer game reaches $28M (probably due to incompetence, mismanagement and a desire to focus on inane details like how well bump-mapped the grass is - as opposed to spending money on actual gameplay and content), it seems the KickStarter dream may just be that - a dream.

An auction house were you could sell your in-game items for real cash.

DarkUnderlord
its*
somewhat*
financial*
bump mapped*
where*

 

[Konjad]

Good for what it is.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Look at the list of the 25 most posted news topics on the Codex.

Apparently, the most exciting thing about 2012 was anticipation for the year 2014.

With our particular focus on Kickstarter projects, we are happy the most for games that don't even exist yet.

 

[Lagole Gon]

What the hell.

It misses the most important event of 2012.

Spoiler

 

[Murk]

Hey, if even totalbiscuit is coming around to the fact that modern FPS games are shit then it's pretty clear that the entire goddamn medium is fucking up.

 

[Jasede]

Good, Dark Souls was mentioned positively. This pleases me!

 

[felipepepe]

Cool review.

 

[Roguey]

Day-one DLC was something Bioware was wanting to do before they were bought by EA, it wasn't forced on them.

 

[RK47]

forgettable