Well, at least the reviewers went through the bother of talking about every facet of the game.

That has to count for something.... doesn''t it?

Hmm...

"Ok class, this is how NOT to make a game."

quote:
I wonder if the offshoring to Russia has anything to do with the quality of the game... Just a thought..

Clearly the publishers are crooks - no self-respecting company would publish such a game - so I''d assume the fault lies with them rather than the developers.

quote: Original post by Diodor
Clearly the publishers are crooks - no self-respecting company would publish such a game - so I''d assume the fault lies with them rather than the developers.

Give me a break, the fault lies with both...the developers have to take pride in what they''re producing and the publishers have to take pride in what they''re publishing.

Well, it''d be helpful if retail kept a closer eye on what they pick up, too. The big-name chains like GAME or Electronics Boutique can afford to really just buy up whatever comes out, and assume that *someone* will buy it; while the indies tend to have much more limited resources and thus need to pick up games that people will want to buy. That''s why my local indie tends to have a smaller but overall better quality selection than my local branch of GAME.

This is why I rip open CGW and PCGamer when I go to buy a game and check the latest, or I''ll but a game that looks interesting off the shelf usually only if it has a pcgamer editors choice.

And what the hell is Over the road? Did they mean Off road?

quote: Original post by rypyr
Give me a break, the fault lies with both...the developers have to take pride in what they're producing and the publishers have to take pride in what they're publishing.

The publisher obviously has the means to trash a project by itself. This one has also shown the lack of honesty to do so (if they don't respect their customers , they doesn't respect their partners either). I don't know whether the developers are guilty too or not, but until I learn more about it, I'm placing the fault on the publisher.

quote:
Original post by superpig
while the indies tend to have much more limited resources and thus need to pick up games that people will want to buy

Also, the indies are not tied to this unhealthy retail model that only gives a game a few months of good sales before throwing it to the garbage bin. Shareware games will sell over many years and will be improved over that time, not abandoned as soon as the holidays season is over.

[edited by - Diodor on January 26, 2004 2:32:07 AM]

I worked at a game developer for 5 years that mostly worked on value priced games. The reason games like this get on the shelf is because they aren''t about being fun games there about making the publisher a small profit fast. They give the developer about 6 monthes to finish the game. As long as it is in a playable state at the end of the six monthes they release it. It would cost them more if they had to pay the developer to work on it longer and it probably won''t help sales any. They don''t care if it''s fun because if you put it on a store shelf for only $20 enough people will buy it for them to make a small profit. They release about 20-30 games like this a year and all those small profits add up.

quote: Original post by Diodor
Also, the indies are not tied to this unhealthy retail model that only gives a game a few months of good sales before throwing it to the garbage bin. Shareware games will sell over many years and will be improved over that time, not abandoned as soon as the holidays season is over.

I think the reason why shareware games still sell over a long period of time is because there is not much advertisement of that game. Consider this scenario:

You created a shareware game. Let's make it a puzzle game. Out of millions of people who play games, there are 500,000 of them who might buy your game. But since your game lacks of advertisement, only 25 people know about your game on the day it is released.
Day 1:
100 people visit your website and download your game. 50% of them are having fun playing it. 50% of those who are having fun, buy your game (so there are 25 people buying your game on day 1).
Day 2:
25 people visit your website. The same scenario happen, 50% interested, 50% of those who are interested buy your game. so there are 6 people buying your game on day 2.

This will continue on and on for years until the number reaches 500,000. However, games on store shelf have different scenario.

Let's say out of millions of gamers, 1 million of them are interested in buying game X. Publisher advertises the game X. 800,000 of them heard the advertisement and decided to buy the game right on the day it is out. So initially, there is a huge amount of sales when the game is released. But it will slow down (1/n kind of graph) over time since the number of customer almost reaches 1 million. Then after 5 months, less people will buy game X because everybody have already had it.

[edited by - alnite on January 26, 2004 4:37:20 PM]

Three words:

Oh
The
Humanity

To me this game really seems uncompleted than anything else. They did get a basic graphics engine in place, although it was somewhat ugly it could have been improved upon. No real collision system was implemented, no AI, no game logic, no sound, no realistic physics system other than the quick hack-job there already. There''s more truth in the saying: "After you complete the first 90% of your game, you have to complete the other 90%." In this particular case it rather seems that 30% was completed or so.

I wouldn''t put too much blaim onto the devlopers for that reason (except they are clearly very unprofessional in their attitude as shown on their web site). My thought is that the publisher stopped financing the game as it reached a contract dead-line, and then because of money hunger published it anyway, even though it was clearly unfinished. The point here is that I think the developers had a lot more to give than they ever were allowed to show. Whether I should blaim this time/money issue on the developers with high overestimations of their capabilities or the greedy publisher remains unclear.