From reading the recent threads in this area I have something to ask you all. Do you think that there is a difference between a good game and a marketable game? What makes a game good quality? What makes it marketable? What''s better: to sacrifice quality in order to make enough money to produce marketable quality, or to stick to quality games even if they never sell. If the things that make a game good aren''t popular then why do they make the game good? Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Please remember that we''re just expressing opinions here, not starting a war. Some people get a little angry sometimes. Anyways, Please respond! chaos1111@hotmail.com

One area is that of market segmentation. If you as a user are part of a small market segment (such as "hardcore RPG player") then a game in your eyes will not be good when made for a much broader market segment ("casual Diablo-style player").

To make a game marketable it must hit a large segment, but to be good it must be good in the eyes of your own segment. These two often conflict, for instance, in my opinion a game is "better" if it is easier put puts a limit of saved games. This is not the opinion of the broad market. Here people want to save whenever they want to.

Jacob Marner

quote: Original post by Gregor_Samsa
From reading the recent threads in this area I have something to ask you all. Do you think that there is a difference between a good game and a marketable game?

Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a gulf between the two. Marketable games don''t need to be particularly good, they just need to make people believe they''re good. Multiplayer games aside, a lot of the larger companies seem to think that all they need to do is convince the player to buy the box. Once they''ve done that, the company has made its money, short-sighted as that may be.

quote: Original post by Gregor_Samsa
What''s better: to sacrifice quality in order to make enough money to produce marketable quality, or to stick to quality games even if they never sell. If the things that make a game good aren''t popular then why do they make the game good?

A happy medium is to work on the quality of your game, so that the quality itself becomes a selling point.

By definition, the the features that make the game good, tend to be the ones that make it sell.

I, personally, would never reduce the quality of one of my games to make it ''more marketable'', since I believe to do so is to actually make it less marketable. If the player doesn''t like my product, then s/he doesn''t have to buy it.

With a little thought, and perseverence, you''ll always find an audience for your game.

On the off chance I ever complete anything... I would probably try to sell it, but if it wasn''t popular I wouldn''t really care. I don''t program games to make money. That''s what my 9 to 5 job is for. I program because it is there. Random bytes on a memory chip waiting for me to organize them into... well something.

The 9 to 5 job already takes the joy out of programming trying to write stuff up to other peoples standards. If I create something that is up to my standards then that''s enough for me.

Well take a look at anything sold by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and so on. The main selling point for many of these games is graphics. When was the last time you saw a great many 2D games on any of these platforms? (Expected answer: a LONG time ago.) They make games for the sole purpose of selling them... it''s a business, not an art.

So if you''re interested in making a ''good'' game (an artistically advanced, thougt-provoking, nail-you-to-your-seat just for the experience game) it can be done, you need to go into one niche or genre and raise the bar higher in terms of what has already been done.

That''s the way I see it; that''s what I''m attempting with my game. It might be shocking, it might be completely unexpected, and it might be a little offensive to some (mostly to the religious), but it''s MY game, and there will be the necessary explanations available beforehand.


MatrixCubed
http://www.MatrixCubed.org

BIP ! ERROR !

I'm sorry but my Dreamcast have good games, like shen mue, Grandia2, Skies of Arcadia and a few others titles, in which Gameplay is as important if not more than Gfx.

Good gfx are by no mean a replacement for gameplay.
You can do both, or only one, unfortunaltely most of the time it's only Gfx

In My Opinion good games sell wells, even if bad games sells as much...

Games from Peter Molyneux, or Shigeru Miyamoto are good games, I do think that both Designer are looking for the perfect game, and each time they make a new one, they come further to this goal.
Of course their 'perfect game' can be less than that for you.

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

Edited by - Ingenu on November 13, 2000 8:28:37 AM

There is a difference.

and Warcraft adventures was canceled due to this
as blizzard noted there is no marked for adventure games.
(or atleast its very small)

there was other problems as well - however this was a major reason.

A few games are so good that they break or alter the norm. EG The original diablo made rpg-games popular - and tetris is just fun by design.

Marketability all comes down to how much money you have to push your game out once the Development is done.

Game Quality usually comes down to the stupidity or intelligence of the game companies directors/managment to employ the right people and make the correct decisions during production.

Apart from that it''s all just good ole fashion experience, skills and desire. Endo.

Definition of Progress: Durability control (see Financial interests of stockholders)

felonius is right, it''s definitely a problem of market segmentation. For the same reason you have to slow down in traffic because of rubberneckers, or for the same reason you get crowds watching somebody''s house burn down, you''ve got flash over substance games. IMO, there are more people who respond to big explosions and dazzling visuals than folks who want depth.

So you have to understand why you''re making a game: To get rich, or to express something you feel is important (or any combination of the two).

Most folks you meet here I think would like the latter, and though the odds are against us, I think that''s how awesome games get made. (Who knows, maybe someone here is working on the Blair Witch of computer games right now!)

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Just waiting for the mothership...

Marketability all comes down to how much money you have to push your game out once the Development is done.
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Agree - another thing to note as that the strong buying segment on the PC is the 25-40 year old male buyer.

Deer hunter is newest prime exsample (7th guest one of the oldest) - myst/riven - the sims series - lara croft for that matter too (for primite reasons i guess - even my old dad is lara fan).

Playstation even attracted this segment (no kindergarden commercials like nintendo).