New Sam and Max game cancelled mere months before release! (http://lucasarts.com/press/releases/85.html)

Never heard of it. Altohugh i have heard of lucasarts. ;)

DAMN

Translated to English,

After careful evaluation

By our masters, the profits division.

current market place realities

This **** won't sell guys.

not the appropriate time

Not enough profit.

There is currently no plan to reduce staff

Because they're all being realocated to the consoles division.

"Not enough profit" my left foot! This game had so much hype, IGN, GameSpy, and GameSpot all had Sam & Max: Freelance Police in their Top Ten Games list. The reason for cancelling this is so that they can focus on more Star Wars tripe.

And no, there will not be a Monkey Island 5. ;)

Originally posted by CivCube
"Not enough profit" my left foot! This game had so much hype

Hype does not generate profit and PC games don't shift enough units anymore. The PC gaming scene is seeing some serious decline. Gabriel Knight 3 was a great adventure game but sold nothing and thus killed the entire series in the process. Bad example but you get the point.

If game makers stopped chasing trends and profits TO THE EXCLUSION of making good games, the games would sell more. PC games aren't selling because they release crap and expect marketing to trick us into buying it anyway.

The irony is, it's now cheaper than ever to acquire the PC hardware to render PC games playable. Game makers and publishers are to blame. The arms race on graphics and eye popping cinematics and other fluff has pushed up the costs of making the games in the first place. A couple of good games hit it big, and then everybody tries to copycat, rather than continue to be creative. If even one project fails, it can sink a whole company these days. That's a real shame. It is reducing our options.

I don't have much sympathy for an industry that has lost touch with what made it prominent in the first place. All I can do is vote with my wallet and HOPE they get the message. I'm not going to buy crap that plays poorly. I don't CARE how good it looks. Any company who rips me off won't get any more of my dollars.

Then there's piracy. Greedy gamers unwilling to pay for their games have also helped kill the process. I've reached a point where I'm ready to stick with classic games I loved, that I can play over and over, to retreat to those knowing I can have a good time, when nothing new on the market appeals to me.

The profit hawks have an appropriate role in the business. It IS business, and nobody reasonable expects companies to be around long if they can't turn a profit. Yet there is also such a thing as living up to promises. Companies who promise certain things need to deliver on them if they want to develop a loyal customer base. Slashing and burning games, cutting them off at the knees, cutting and running, leaving players with a lemon... all of these "cost saving" moves are saving costs at the expense of good will. Companies who believe customers will keep buying even if they've been lied to, duped, and let down, are smoking some seriously nasty drugs, because they don't have a clue.


As long as there is demand, somebody will try to supply it. I believe there is enough demand for good games to make the venture profitable, if a designer can provide a good product. Don't believe the doom-and-gloomers. These are the same herd mentality folks that follow every trend and consider themselves clever for doing so. Problem for them is, just because the wind is blowing one way today doesn't mean it always will.

What I expect to see is what we see with board games. The big companies will stick with blockbusters and franchises, riding the marketing wave that reaches the wider audience of the mainstream, casual gamer, and the little companies will make niche games on lower budgets to satisfy the more demanding needs of diehards and hobbyists. I can live with that.


- Sirian

Originally posted by CivCube
And no, there will not be a Monkey Island 5. ;)

:cry:

Why not? I love those games!

You fight like a cow!

Maybe we can have some more cool Star Wars games! :rolleyes: