How did Atari produce so many innovative arcade games in the

[Rogue Trooper]

Resident Evil Racoon City:Capcom say was a big sucsess for them,  made it to top selling game in Japan at one point, shifting a quarter of a million units on PS3, 16, 285 on 360.

Total sales for game put at over 2 million units.

[guest4826]

Resident Evil Racoon City:Capcom say was a big sucsess for them,  made it to top selling game in Japan at one point, shifting a quarter of a million units on PS3, 16, 285 on 360.

Total sales for game put at over 2 million units.

That's all well and good man, not trying to argue, just curious. Not to say anything crazy or whatnot, but with the realization that Capcom, a once almost Billion Dollar Videogame Company only having 152 Million dollars in the bank, that's not very comforting for the investors.

[Rogue Trooper]

Capcom did what a lot of publishers did this generation, totally over-estimated sales figures/demmand.

With Resident Evil 6, they shipped 4.5 million copies, expecting demand to be so high, they'd sell around 7 million overall in time, game had very strong start, selling 53% more in 1st week sales than Res.Evil 5 did in it's 1st week, in some regions, the UK 1st week sales accounted for 27.1% of ALL revenue made from console games across multiple formats that week, but then sales tailed off.

Seem to recal Capcom saying industry was 'dead' in Japan few years back and they needed a more western approach, hence giving Res.evil franchise to poor choice of developer, but then Konami done same with Silent Hill since disbanding Team Silent, so they've only themselves to blame.

Personally hate idea that F2P games are answer to Capcom's woes, but guess if it gets them out the mire, it's where they'll invest.


Mentioned it in Mercs thread, but Commando 3, Wolf Of The Battlefield (Backbone Ent.) is another example of where Capcom went very wrong this generation.they just are'nt the developer i once knew, sadly.

:-) Oh and you'll have to get used to me, not arguing, i just try and back up my statements with facts if possible, hence quoting the sales figures.

[guest4826]

Capcom did what a lot of publishers did this generation, totally over-estimated sales figures/demmand.

With Resident Evil 6, they shipped 4.5 million copies, expecting demand to be so high, they'd sell around 7 million overall in time, game had very strong start, selling 53% more in 1st week sales than Res.Evil 5 did in it's 1st week, in some regions, the UK 1st week sales accounted for 27.1% of ALL revenue made from console games across multiple formats that week, but then sales tailed off.

Seem to recal Capcom saying industry was 'dead' in Japan few years back and they needed a more western approach, hence giving Res.evil franchise to poor choice of developer, but then Konami done same with Silent Hill since disbanding Team Silent, so they've only themselves to blame.

Personally hate idea that F2P games are answer to Capcom's woes, but guess if it gets them out the mire, it's where they'll invest.


Mentioned it in Mercs thread, but Commando 3, Wolf Of The Battlefield (Backbone Ent.) is another example of where Capcom went very wrong this generation.they just are'nt the developer i once knew, sadly.

:-) Oh and you'll have to get used to me, not arguing, i just try and back up my statements with facts if possible, hence quoting the sales figures.

Im got ya', I'm hard headed too. I like discussion over red faced anger, heart attack speak. I don't mind the conversation, really.

Yeah, Capcom isn't what it used to be and hasn't been for some time. Recent releases that really full on interested me were the Dungeons and Dragons games finally getting a US release, DLC or not, just nice to finally have them. Megaman 9 and 10 were nice too, but man, mostly everything else has been okay at best. I was really saddened by Resident Evil ORC and 6. They just weren't very good.

[Rogue Trooper]

Capcom did what a lot of publishers did this generation, totally over-estimated sales figures/demmand.

With Resident Evil 6, they shipped 4.5 million copies, expecting demand to be so high, they'd sell around 7 million overall in time, game had very strong start, selling 53% more in 1st week sales than Res.Evil 5 did in it's 1st week, in some regions, the UK 1st week sales accounted for 27.1% of ALL revenue made from console games across multiple formats that week, but then sales tailed off.

Seem to recal Capcom saying industry was 'dead' in Japan few years back and they needed a more western approach, hence giving Res.evil franchise to poor choice of developer, but then Konami done same with Silent Hill since disbanding Team Silent, so they've only themselves to blame.

Personally hate idea that F2P games are answer to Capcom's woes, but guess if it gets them out the mire, it's where they'll invest.


Mentioned it in Mercs thread, but Commando 3, Wolf Of The Battlefield (Backbone Ent.) is another example of where Capcom went very wrong this generation.they just are'nt the developer i once knew, sadly.

:-) Oh and you'll have to get used to me, not arguing, i just try and back up my statements with facts if possible, hence quoting the sales figures.

Im got ya', I'm hard headed too. I like discussion over red faced anger, heart attack speak. I don't mind the conversation, really.

Yeah, Capcom isn't what it used to be and hasn't been for some time. Recent releases that really full on interested me were the Dungeons and Dragons games finally getting a US release, DLC or not, just nice to finally have them. Megaman 9 and 10 were nice too, but man, mostly everything else has been okay at best. I was really saddened by Resident Evil ORC and 6. They just weren't very good.

For my 'sins' i've tried to reason with:PS2 fanboys (sorry, but the PS2's limited Ram really was a factor that crippled games, cannot blame it on poor coding) when i'm on my 2nd PS2 myself now, point out just what the Saturn was capable of, ditto for the Jaguar, i lived through the NES era when it launched in UK etc etc, so i guess i fell into the habbit of backing up claims with interview quotes etc-never did me any good mind.....

 

On a far more serious note (clears throat):Capcom......

Completed Res.Evil 5 twice now, bought all the DLC and it was just a pale shadow of Res.4, but Capcom seem so unsure what to do with the franchise, as i've mentioned elsewhere, todays gamer seems to turn their noses up at anything that is'nt familar to them (Fifa/COD/MW/Gears Of War/Halo etc etc) so doubt if a true survival horror would sell in numbers capcom needed to make serious money.

No idea of sales figures for the HD re-releases or reboots: i bought Final Fight/Magic Sword, 1942, SPF2T, Res.Evil 5 as mentioned, was given SSF4 (hated), Lost Planet (meh) this generation, but Capcom just have'nt been delivering the goods way they once were...


Going back a few years i adored 1st Powerstone (think they screwed up the 2nd, made it too chaotic) but belive sales were poor, so i honestly don't know what the answer is..the giant seems to be stumbling somewhat.I'd personally welcome a good few more HD remakes of classic Capcom arcade games, but not if they insist on giving them to developers who fail to understand what made the originals so special in the 1st place.

[DreamcastRIP]

...the NES era

 

[DZ-Jay]

Well, here's a fresh perspective on the topic of why games were so unique and innovative "back in the day," and so repetitive now.

There were no video games.

That's it.  Nobody grew up playing video games, nobody spent their teen years at the video arcade, nobody invested countless hours on lazy week-ends playing with their home video game consoles.  There was no video game culture, no video game mindshare.

In essence, these people were pioneering a new discipline, they were making up game play styles and rules from whole cloth.  There was nothing like it before.

Today, it is hard to comprehend or imagine, but consider this:  when you have spent your entire life playing video games, and when you have seen myriad different styles of game-play, and experienced the evolution of at least four generations--maybe five--of technological constraints on gaming--how do you invent the one thing that hasn't been done before?

I look back upon all the video games I played as a child, and for all the innovative and creative use of graphics and motion, I see plenty of sports-based games.  For every distinct, genre-defining brand new game, there are a bazillion games based on capture the flag or hide-and-seek.  They were new in a video game genre, but they were tried and true forms of play.

As a game designer and home-brew programmer for the Intellivision, I will tell you that it feels like it's almost impossible to come up with a new idea that is absolutely brand new, that nobody has seen before.

So, although I agree with the sentiment that the industry has stagnated, and that some new spark is much needed to bring back some creativity, it may not ever be as absolutely original as things seemed back when there were no classic games to inspire you, and you had to come up with your own ideas from thin air.

     dZ.

[Rogue Trooper]

Very interesting to hear from a coders viewpoint.

In terms of arcades though, which were used as a 'test bed' for newer technology, what's really come along to replace it?

I mean back then you'd see games using sprites, 3D wireframe graphics, then digitised sprites, polygons, texture-mapping, motion-capture etc etc.

Nowadays it's just more:more cores, more ram, more powerful graphics cards, all rendering more particles, more polygons, more textures, more lighting effects.There's just not the leap in technology any more, so we see hardware designers digging out old ideas, 1st motion control and now Home VR.

Realism seems to have replaced escapism and down right fun.....


A.I seems to be a much ignored area of game design, hardware got more powerful, but games seem just as dumb...


Designers don't seem to want to really push conventional wisdom:If someone had told you as a coder back then you could'nt 'do' games like: 3D Defender or 3D Monster Maze on a ZX81 as hardware was too primitive, would you have tried anyway?

Nowadays game design seems to amount to a checklist of what game must have:online play, co-op, QTE, gamer rewards (trophies etc) and then what middleware engine it'll use and just how many formats can be developed at same time or should platform X version be given to coding team C and if it turns out poorly, just patch it afterwards.

Do mainstream designers still work out what they want a game to be, then work out how best to achive that and ask for time to build custom eng.to achive those goals? or is it more a case of:we need it out by end of XXX and DLC ready to roll 4 weeks after?

The industry has changed, it's all about the mainstream baby and after sales purchases, people woken up, seen games taking more money than movies, everyone wants a slice of that pie.

Your game underperforms? ohh bad luck, oh and by the way, we're closing the studio......


Stop working on that innovaitive game, we've a stack of Kinect stuff we need you guys+girls working on.....


Sound familar?.

[Rogue Trooper]

@Darques_

Meant to bring up Dead Space in my chat last night, now i loved the original game (and think the early footage on original xbox looked pretty smart), but it sold well below what developer had hoped for, so what changes did they make? dumb down game into little more than a room clearing exercise and up the gore, to absurd levels (it looked like your foes and the fallen boodies of humans) had been pumped full of strawberry jam, there were so many gibblets flying around and throw in some mutated kids (pus filled babies etc) and bingo, you've a far better selling game, but a far less atmospheric one.

But who's to 'blame'? developer for chance of stance or Joe Public for indicating that this is what they want, buy purchasing it in far greater numbers than the original.

[TrekMD]

You bring up a doing point DZ.  Everything was new back then, so coming up with new ideas was easier.  Yet it is still possible to be creative with existing ideas.  You proved that well with Christmas Carol.  The game may have been inspired by Pac-Man but it is very different in its gameplay. 

[DZ-Jay]

You bring up a doing point DZ.  Everything was new back then, so coming up with new ideas was easier.  Yet it is still possible to be creative with existing ideas.  You proved that well with Christmas Carol.  The game may have been inspired by Pac-Man but it is very different in its gameplay.

And that is part of my point.  Yes, it is still possible to make original and innovative games; it's just harder to make something so unique that nobody has seen it before, which seems like what others were lamenting here.  Not impossible, just very hard.

Especially when you've been exposed to so much for so long--it really taints you.  I love classic games, and I wasted perhaps what amounted to a college tuition in quarters playing Pac-Man--so how could I possibly make a game that does not feel even tangentially similar?

For classic home-brews, that's not a problem, since more often than not your intention is to offer an homage to a specific game or genre.

However, I agree that most modern games are just "safe" concepts with little creativity, and designers are just following the money.  I gave up on arcades when they turned all into Street Fighter, and on PC games when they were all variants of Doom.  And now the iPad is full of pay-as-you-go, "social" games.  Bleh.

But once in a while you get something like Shadow of the Colossus, or Bejeweled, or whatever game that either defines a new genre, or breaks the mold on all of them.  It does happens, however rarely.

    -dZ.

[Rogue Trooper]

Interesting to see you mention:Shadow Of The Colossus.

I own the PS3 version, which i gather fixed the technical short-comings of the PS2 version, in terms of frame-rate issues, but whilst i love the art direction, i personally find the game flawed, frustrating and not really worthy of so much of the praise it gets.

It's basically a series of boss-battles, cleverly done i grant you, it takes a degree of skill to work out each giant creatures weak-points etc, but at it's heart, it's just an evolution of what many genres have done before.

From a pure game mechanic point of view, i found it had a bloody frustrating camera are really awful controls, yet people seem willing to 'over-look' these, it's almost like it's not 'cool' to moan about the game.

Trust me, i'm just making discussion here as i find Limbo, Ico, LBP (a platformer who's controls are far too floaty, a good platformer doth not make, no matter how much freedom to create the player is given), ICO-it's just a escort mission once you really get down to it.


In terms of being 'tainted' for me it's the gushing praise media pours into things like Ico, SOTC, RDR, GTA4, 5 etc, they make out Rockstar and Bungie to be these fantastic story tellers (they are'nt-they just steal ideas from classic film/TV shows etc).It's why i no longer pre-order games anymore....

[guest4826]

Interesting to see you mention:Shadow Of The Colossus.

I own the PS3 version, which i gather fixed the technical short-comings of the PS2 version, in terms of frame-rate issues, but whilst i love the art direction, i personally find the game flawed, frustrating and not really worthy of so much of the praise it gets.

It's basically a series of boss-battles, cleverly done i grant you, it takes a degree of skill to work out each giant creatures weak-points etc, but at it's heart, it's just an evolution of what many genres have done before.

From a pure game mechanic point of view, i found it had a bloody frustrating camera are really awful controls, yet people seem willing to 'over-look' these, it's almost like it's not 'cool' to moan about the game.

Trust me, i'm just making discussion here as i find Limbo, Ico, LBP (a platformer who's controls are far too floaty, a good platformer doth not make, no matter how much freedom to create the player is given), ICO-it's just a escort mission once you really get down to it.


In terms of being 'tainted' for me it's the gushing praise media pours into things like Ico, SOTC, RDR, GTA4, 5 etc, they make out Rockstar and Bungie to be these fantastic story tellers (they are'nt-they just steal ideas from classic film/TV shows etc).It's why i no longer pre-order games anymore....

I didn't find Ico to be that bad. I agree that it wasn't as good as the press was making it out to be, but it is still a very competent game and a blast to play.

As for how to return to former glory on older franchises? Check out the Wii's A Boy and His Blob. That was so well done and barely got a blink from the general gaming public. Sadly, because it was on the Wii. I see the same thing with Cursed mountain for the Wii. VERY cool Survival Horror game, and unique too. Guess what else? No Zombies! 

[DZ-Jay]

Interesting to see you mention:Shadow Of The Colossus.

I own the PS3 version, which i gather fixed the technical short-comings of the PS2 version, in terms of frame-rate issues, but whilst i love the art direction, i personally find the game flawed, frustrating and not really worthy of so much of the praise it gets.

It's basically a series of boss-battles, cleverly done i grant you, it takes a degree of skill to work out each giant creatures weak-points etc, but at it's heart, it's just an evolution of what many genres have done before.

From a pure game mechanic point of view, i found it had a bloody frustrating camera are really awful controls, yet people seem willing to 'over-look' these, it's almost like it's not 'cool' to moan about the game.

Trust me, i'm just making discussion here as i find Limbo, Ico, LBP (a platformer who's controls are far too floaty, a good platformer doth not make, no matter how much freedom to create the player is given), ICO-it's just a escort mission once you really get down to it.


In terms of being 'tainted' for me it's the gushing praise media pours into things like Ico, SOTC, RDR, GTA4, 5 etc, they make out Rockstar and Bungie to be these fantastic story tellers (they are'nt-they just steal ideas from classic film/TV shows etc).It's why i no longer pre-order games anymore....

Well, I found Shadow of the Colossus hauntingly beautiful, with a very deep, poetic story.  It struck a chord on me, and apparently I wasn't alone.

It's not so much the mechanics, or the fact the they are a series of "boss battles."  It's what they represent and the impact they have on the story:  here are these fantastically great monsters, each unique and with their own mark on the world, and your job is to hunt them down and destroy them.  Why?  What did they ever do to you? They just roam the land minding their own business, with no apparent threat to you or anybody.

I remember feeling elated when I figured out how to kill the first colossus; and striking it down was exhilarating.  However, my excitement turned to horror when I saw what looked like its soul leak out of it, and burst into me.  Suddenly I felt as if I had just raped some peaceful world and stolen something precious to which I had no legitimate claim.  Yes, I won... But what? And at what cost?

These complex and contrasting feelings continued throughout the game. That experience, to me, defines gaming, and is worth a lot.

That said, just like with everything else, it's not for everybody.  Horses for courses, as they say.

    dZ.

[onthinice]

Pinball must be the exception. It is the same game but tables have to be creative to be played. People love something to be different, even cosmetic changes can make the same game fun.

The point I get is, we are all tired of the same games year after year.