Death of Dead Space

[civvver]

I didn't know what to call this thread, or whether to post it here or in the games forum, but nobody reads that one much. I have some not so well organized thoughts on the topic of video game publishing and market conditions. After finishing Darkest Dungeon I started looking at some of the source material for it. It's a very tight riff on Lovecraft's universe of work, mostly C'thulu stuff. So I searched for other games influenced by Lovecraft and Dead Space came up. This was not surprising to me at all, having played the series and already have made that association myself.

If you aren't familiar with Dead Space, it's a video game series (with just a few stand alone cartoon movies and some books/comics) that started in 2008 and had the third and final release in 2013. The story is about these market objects, ancient alien relics, that drive whoever comes into contact with them mad and eventually turns them into these zombie like things called necromorphs. It basically spreads this infection throughout anything it touches. There's a lot more to it than that, a lot more story develops and so on but that's basically it, this chaotic, creative and destructive god like entity. In the games you play as Issac Clark, an engineer who gets stuck on a ship taken over by the necromorphs and you just had to escape without going mad. The first game is survival horror at its finest and the scariest game I've ever played.

The second game moves a little closer to an action game but still maintains the survival horror aspect well. By the third title the game is basically Mass Effect 3 with human enemies who shoot back at you and thus an introduction of a cover and roll system, and with custom weapons and TONS of ammo. It's more a 3rd person shooter than a survival horror game. But it's still good.

However I was searching around and discovered that EA close the studio that developed Dead Space, Visceral Games, and the franchise is essentially dead for now. I mean there's a Darksiders 3 coming out next year so nothing is eternally dead I suppose, but it's pretty done for now.

Apparently the first game was a bit of an unexpected hit, which lead to changing things and a bigger budget for the second game, including marketing. It sold over 4 million copies but reports are that to EA it was a financial failure. I don't know if that means lost money or just didn't make enough.

Then in the third one various reports say EA meddled in the production a ton, pushed for a co-op online mode as well as micro transactions. I played the game without buying anything but you could buy supplies and weapons in the game if you wanted to. In the end it didn't review as well as 2 or sell as well, probably as backlash to micro transactions. Remember this game came out in 2013, kind of at EA's height of pushing online play and micro transactions. Although I guess they still do that now.

It makes me sad the IP is essentially dead cus the story was somewhat unique and the first two games were a lot different than anything else out there. Sure you had mass effect but this was zombies in space! Not just another shooter. And of course it was far different from resident evil cus it was in space and sci fi still.

And then it always makes me think how ridiculous triple a titles budgets are if a game selling 4 million copies can't break even. Why not scale it back a bit, use a simpler engine or something with less cutscenes and expensive stuff and a smaller scale? Would that not sell as well?

Indie gaming seems to be taking off thanks to online delivery and kickstarter, and triple a gaming I think is safe for the most part, but lost in between are these lesser selling triple a game franchises that sell under 5 million copies and can't be profitable enough. There's no like mid size market it seems.

Anyway I just found all of this very interesting to muse on.

Here's a couple youtubes on most of the history of it. It might have a couple curse words, I don't remember, just pg-13 at worst.

Spoiler :

 

[Commodore]

Then in the third one various reports say EA meddled in the production a ton, pushed for a co-op online mode as well as micro transactions.

Visceral did make the most of that though and actually made a really cool coop experience. They had this mechanic in coop where each player would have random "hallucinations" which the other player couldn't see. And they didn't tell anyone this feature existed when the game launched. So when you would shout over your mic "Whoa! Did you see that?" your friend on the other end would think you were nuts and you would think he was nuts too for not seeing something that seemed so obvious to you.

 

[Bugfatty300]

ndie gaming seems to be taking off thanks to online delivery and kickstarter, and triple a gaming I think is safe for the most part, but lost in between are these lesser selling triple a game franchises that sell under 5 million copies and can't be profitable enough. There's no like mid size market it seems.

The indie games need online market place and unfortunately the big companies control them all. It's either the cesspool at steam, be enslaved by a publisher or beg for money on a crowd funding site. And it will get worse seeing as indie games are the only thing left for the big game companies to prey on for fresh meat. It's not just EA of course, pretty much all them are awful.

Personally, old CDs, abandonware and emulators have been my main source for "new" games for the past 8 years. I haven't bought a recently made game in years and I doubt I will ever again.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Personally, old CDs, abandonware and emulators have been my main source for "new" games for the past 8 years. I haven't bought a recently made game in years and I doubt I will ever again.

same. I play some big titles but they mostly suck.

 

[civvver]

Visceral did make the most of that though and actually made a really cool coop experience. They had this mechanic in coop where each player would have random "hallucinations" which the other player couldn't see. And they didn't tell anyone this feature existed when the game launched. So when you would shout over your mic "Whoa! Did you see that?" your friend on the other end would think you were nuts and you would think he was nuts too for not seeing something that seemed so obvious to you.

If you watch the video though they designed the game with coop in mind but they wanted one guy to play shadow Issac, essentially a split version of himself to make it even more psychological, but EA thought no one could handle it so they introduced Carver, kind of shoe horned him in. I'm not saying it's bad, and I liked the game, but it's markedly different from the first two and didn't sell as well and probably cost more to make.

The indie games need online market place and unfortunately the big companies control them all. It's either the cesspool at steam, be enslaved by a publisher or beg for money on a crowd funding site. And it will get worse seeing as indie games are the only thing left for the big game companies to prey on for fresh meat. It's not just EA of course, pretty much all them are awful.

Personally, old CDs, abandonware and emulators have been my main source for "new" games for the past 8 years. I haven't bought a recently made game in years and I doubt I will ever again.

Steam still takes less of a cut that traditional publishers + retail cut and they advertise the heck out of games. What indie games really existed pre-steam? A few here and there on the internet. And of course you can list at other places like gog too, though idk what their cut is, but 70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

I think the issue with EA and other publishers is just the game budgets get way out of control and thus can never be profitable. And deadlines, which attribute to some of the huge budgets.