its a good one.
They sure as hell do if they want my money.
Charles, who is Thief: Deadly Shadows being aimed at? If the game is “dumbed down” to where it won’t appeal to people familiar with the first two games, where is the value in using the Thief name at all? It would only seem to be a negative at that point.
I suspect that most people who enjoyed Thief and Thief II are not clamoring for an already simple game to be simplified even more. But maybe I am wrong.
It’s fucking amazing, isn’t it? I’ve never, ever seen someone sell out so completely so fast. Just a few interviews ago he was talking about how DX2 demanded extra attention, and now he’s talking about needing to be an MIT grad to play Thief (an unnecessary jab at LGS, fuck you Spector)? Does he actually think about what he says?
What’s so ridiculous about this whole thing was that the game didn’t need to be dumbed down, nor was it even a good simple game. Prince of Persia is a pretty simple game. Damn good, but simple. DX2 is just crap, and I fear Thief 3 is going the same direction.
Well, I guess since FO:BOS came out, there needs to be a new target for venting…
They sure as hell do if they want my money.[/quote]
Exactly. I see alot of jaded industry insiders posting this shit about how they owe us consumers nothing and it really makes me not want to buy the fucking games that they make. I’ve been keeping tabs on this and have already blacklisted certain developers because of comments here.
Do they care? Probably not. But that’s the goddamned problem, y’see?
If you want my $50 you owe me something. There’s really no argument to counter this. None.
Wow, I didn’t realize that I owed you a game. I thought you chose to purchase it.
You guys are arguing silly semantics now. Obviously, developers aren’t obligated to make the games the market wants or even make games at all, just as consumers aren’t obligated to buy any games even if the games are exactly what they want.
It would be silly for developers to ignore the marketplace though, just as it would be silly for the marketplace to blindly buy products. If Warren Spector and Larry Holland are more interested in the console market than the PC market, more power to them. They shouldn’t be surprised when they take a PC brand and turn it into a console product and run into some flak from disappointed PC fans, though. (And I don’t know if that’s what is happening with Thief 3, but it happened with Deus Ex and Secret Weapons.)
It’s good to see a meme spread.
About the “MIT grads” quip that everyone seems to get so upset about… as I recall that actually originated with the Looking Glass employees years ago, some (most? all?) of whom are real MIT graduates. They used the term to ironically describe their own games’ design and target audience. Spector didn’t invent it, he just picked it up, likely without any of those evil intentions that are now attributed to him.
The consumers owe the Thief franchise nothing. Go ahead and run it into the ground…we will find some other, better games to play. I will ‘demo’ Thief:Deadly Shadows, and if it sucks I won’t buy it. You can’t get me to pay for your lemons anymore. Free information 4 teh win! Daikatana!!! etc…
Actually bago, I would prefer that all those oh so clever memes stayed over at PlanetCrap where they belong. The world doesn’t need another message board full of jaded gaming insiders desperately trying to outzing each other.
Chris is right, but I don’t think there were saying that the games were too hard, more like they were complex and wouldn’t bore an MIT grad…at least that is how I always understood it.
I did sort of become a derogitory statement at times…which is unfortunate. I want smart games, I went back and played thief I/II last night, it is still a damn good game.There are still missions that i hold up there as some of the best game levels ever made. The MIT parts are not the issue.
Why was Thief not a hit? Well there was this little game called Half Life, and Quake III and Unreal Tourny around Thief II. Thief is not exactly pretty and was quite different at the time for a classic FPS player to ‘get’.
Seriously to the mainstream they ‘get’ space marine, Aliens, Starship Troopers, Doom…there are prolly 100 people in the world that even know what steampunk is. Maybe if thief was just a triadtional earth setting it would have flown better. Hammerites were the Inquisitors, Constantine the devil…I donno.
In the past, Spector was always quick to point out that the team made the game and he shouldn’t be given all the credit. Until recently, I thought that was just a bit of humble pie, but in light of whatever the heck Deus Ex has become, I wonder if Spector was indeed a right-place, right-time kind of guy. Maybe he just happen to pair up with smart dudes like Doug Church who managed to quash any nonsense Spector came up with.
Did any of you read the recent European interview with Spector (a couple weeks back) when he was questioned about the Unified Ammo in IW? (Sorry, no link). He said during IW’s development, he encouraged Harvey to make decisions that would “make him scream;” the ammo was one of those decisions. Talk about daring your employees to be stupid… That is clearly a case of corporate logic outsmarting itself.
I used to admire Spector, too. But I feel now that I’ve woken up from a pleasant dream and he’s become the George W. Bush of computer gaming.
I didn’t “get” Thief, but I would now after numerous other stealth games.
That’s why I think you could do a graphically updated Thief and have it be successful. Thief innovated and Splinter Cell was a huge success with a similar formula, so it’s not up to the Thief franchise to introduce stealth gameplay to those same masses.
You are losing faith in Warren because of games he is not the designer of? You liked Deus Ex(?), which was “his” game, and dislike Deus Ex 2, which is “Harvey’s” game, and your conclusion is that Warren has been lucky because he is pairing up with smart guys? I don’t think your post is makin much sense.
They sure as hell do if they want my money.[/quote]
Exactly. I see alot of jaded industry insiders posting this shit about how they owe us consumers nothing and it really makes me not want to buy the fucking games that they make. I’ve been keeping tabs on this and have already blacklisted certain developers because of comments here.
Do they care? Probably not. But that’s the goddamned problem, y’see?
If you want my $50 you owe me something. There’s really no argument to counter this. None.[/quote]
If developers listened to consumers, every game would be GTA3 and counter strike. Be thankful some developers are willing to ignore the consumers in order to make new games.
That’s not the problem here. What Ion is instead doing is ignoring their pre-existing fanbase and hoping their new design, one possibly no longer faithful to the original (certainly the case with DX2, and remains to be seen for T: DS) will have broader market appeal. They aren’t laying new ground, they’re backing away from game designs that were fairly unique for their times but that failed to have mass market appeal. And it’s funny you’d mention GTA3 since we now know T: DS has a similar “roam the city” feature.
Wow, I didn’t realize that I owed you a game. I thought you chose to purchase it.[/quote]
Kool, I think you’re ignoring his qualifier at the beginning of his statement. IF you want his cash (and you do, at least from someone and the more someones the better), then you owe those someones a game
As consumers, we do choose to purchase entertainment, and as providers, you have to fight for those limited entertainment dollars. Very obvious, I know… not brain surgery. So since those dollars are limited, you have to fight for them, design products to make the customers feel they receive the most benefits from your product. If you succeed at that, you’re rewarded for your effort. If not, then you go out of business.
And that’s the thing I find most interesting. You actually don’t owe the consumer anything, because the consumer will get along just fine with one of your competitors for this type of purchase. We’ll be fine. You only owe it to yourselfs if you have an interest in being successful. So when a developer, or someone defending a developer, gets smug (not saying anyone did, I’m just speaking in general terms) I kind of laugh. It’s true, you don’t owe Joe Consumer, you owe your families, and the bank who holds your mortgage, and the credit card company, and whatever else you want to throw in there. I can’t see getting smug about shooting yourself in the foot (again, proverbial you).
Nice rhetoric, but what you’ve described is true if and only if they listen to the statistical majority of gamers. Instead, I think some developers should stop trying to make shitty, watered-down elevator music type games in the attempt to please everyone and actually grow some balls and cater to the market segment for which they have the best skills and experience. But I guess it all boils down to the fact that these are businesses trying to make the most money they can by making shitty products designed for the masses. Yes, I know it’s their right and they owe me jack shit, but it is my right to bitch and moan about it, so there! :P
Also remember that Counterstrike and GTA3 were so well-received because they sort of broke new ground and really set the bar. Nothing has replaced them because a lot people feel that nothing has met that bar these games established.
So in essence, these games, along with Myst and the Sims, were all rewarded for doing the exact opposite of making me too games.