I usully don''t buy a game right when it''s released. Used to be because I''d forget to, but now it''s to see if I have compatible hardware first. The one thing I''m most often dissapointed wih is the story/acting in a game. It always feel like the writers and talent were rushed in the production of these games, and that usually turns out to be true.
____I can wait for a whole year [sometimes two, like in the Babylon 5 space fighter case. Too, bad it got axed.] I gladly would have waited an extra month for the PC port of Final Fantasy 7 [gee, has anyone noticed I''m fixated] if they had cleaned up the translation. But, nope! Couldn''t do that. [Heck, they could''ve done it in the time it took to port.] But companies always feel rushed. I mean, look at Daikatana or Diablo II. How many years have players been waiting for these games [and why did the stores keep trying to sell them before the KNEW they were going to be released?
____It does seem like the overseas market [except possibly Japan] are more lax about release dates and development time. I think it was 3, maybe 4 years for the sequel to Twinsen''s Adventure [LBA] to come out, and I know it was worth the wait.

One phrase:

Public companies on Wall Street must produce quarterly earnings.

As americans, our business lives and dies by this mantra. Forget the rest of the world because it would take a wholesale rewrite of the financial institutions in the US for the market to be relieved of quarterly earnings. This quarterly requirement drives deadlines and productions schedules at every publisher and game developer.

Its all really simple when you think about it from that perspective. Couple this idea with money in hand now is better than in hand in the future (because of the interest earnings money in hand now brings) and it easily becomes visible that in most companies it is about money at some point and not about the game. Even the small developer who swears its only about the game is eventually faced with the money centered view of some publisher out there. Inevitably this corrupts all.

Kressilac
ps On the flip side of this holy argument, it is this same money centric focus that makes the United States the land of opportunity. It is what makes this country the greatest country in the world to live in.



Edited by - kressilac on 3/22/00 1:37:21 PM

quote: Original post by Chrono999

Since virtually every game(besides console RPGs) is made in the US what are you comparing them to

Hardly. Numerous games are made on the European continent and also a very large amount come from the UK. Tomb Raider, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper and Theme Park are some of the more well-known ones.

I guess that''d explain lora''s british accent.

E:cb woof!

Don''t forget Gran Tourismo 2 when it was released for North America. The game was innundated with bugs, and wasn''t 100% complete (for shame, for shame!). Was the game botched in Europe too? (Has it been released in Europe)

quote: Original post by Arch@on

And again, this is for all trusts and monopoly companies like TSR(if there is something that could be played as rpg, tsr will licence it, remember Starcraft or Diablo, and still some stupid maniacs play them)Microsoft, Intell, 3dFX(Haahaa, Nvidia rocked them up and down because they became too greedy and they wanted to make their Voodoo chip as standard), Shell, Sony, Nintendo, Sega and others:

Time comes, time goes and I only am.

You do realize that Hasbro owns TSR as well as Wizards of the Coast. Blame them :p



www.bworks.com