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No Blockbuster Titles in 2005?
The NYT is reporting that, unlike last year with likes of Half-Life 2 and Halo 2, 2005 has been curiously devoid of gaming hits. "With the introduction of a brand-new console, the Xbox 360, millions of players are supposed to be raving about the new machine and buying tons of new games to play on it. None of those things are happening. Sales are down relative to the holiday season last year, and major publishers are getting hammered on Wall Street. And so there is a lot of angst out there in the video game industry."
I hear Nintendogs was a hit.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was supposed to come out this year.
But they moved it back because it was craptastic.
No original ideas... sequal after sequal, rehash of the same game ten different ways. How many ways can you fight WWII or demons on mars?
No matter how much EA spends on promoting it's latest FPS - it's just like the original with extra antialiasing. Woopittie doo. My money is spent much better elsewhere.
Though i'm not sure that there weren't ANY blockbuster games but it sure feels like it. This is what happens when large gaming companies discourage original ideas and only go with the bigger guns + more polygon count game design route.
Original ideas are risky but now it seems that lack of original ideas is riskier.
I picked this up the other week for £20 and I must say I'm really enjoying it. However, it is of course a sequal and does boast "nice graphics". Good game though, it'd be shame if people avoided it just because they thought it was another sequal that was just the same with a higher polygon count. It should be noted that ever since I saw Indiana Jones as a kid I do have an irrational love of killing Nazis, so that may have improved the game slightly in my eyes.
Ask yourself this question:
How many movies/games that were released in the past year were unique in either substance or presentation?
Then ask yourself:
How many movies/games that were released in the past year were copies/clones of another popular franchise?
The fact is that, although you can probably name quite a few for the first question (Nintendogs, Katamari for games) the majority of movies/games falls into the second category; in paticular the Big-Budget, expected to be Blockbuster, movies/games. Quake 4 offered absolutely nothing in the way of presentation or product that hadn't been done several times before, is it a surprise that it wasn't a 'must-have' title for anyone? On the other Hand Nintendo's Kirby's Canvas Curse, Nintendogs, and Brain Training (to mention a handful of the unique games on the DS) all became popular where they were released because people hadn't played anything like them before.
Is it a bias for outrageous hype, or for first person shooters?
Why would you mention two games that, when their total sales are added up don't reach the total sales of the biggest "blockbuster game" of last year (GTA: San Andreas) in a summary of a story about blockbuster games?
As for the article, well... I think an award should go the the Rockstar Games marketing department, who were obviously the ones behind the DMA Design buyout. Rockstar was well on their way to being notorious for the rock bottom low quality of their games after the PS2 launch, and having DMA Design become Rockstar North has associated an expectation of quality with the Rockstar name. Here's a hint for people reporting about Rockstar: If it says "Rockstar" but doesn't say "Rockstar North" you'd have better odds getting a hit/quality game if you just picked something randomly off the shelf. This is even more true if the game has a movie license associated with it.
...But Batlle for Wesnoth 1.0 was released!
IMO, too many publishers are waiting for next-gen, or are putting out "placeholder" games to keep the franchises alive until the next-gen is available. Look at "Jak X" or "Ratchet: Deadlocked" as excellent examples of placeholders.
Of course sales will be down, because there aren't any new & fresh games out there that garner any attention. Or at least, very few. "Nintendogs" is about the only breakaway hit for 2005.
Just not for BLOCKBUSTERS.
:-)
Great games I can think of offhand:
Guitar Hero
Darwinia
Civ 4
Space Rangers 2 (starforced, sadly)
We Love Katamari
Very good games:
The Movies
Warhammer 40k: Winter Assault (this is a sequel, so maybe it doesn't count, but I really like this game)
T2X (amateur mod for Thief 2, surprisingly good, although a bit uneven)
Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney (DS title)
I'm sure there are more, but my memory fails me right now. I was just thinking yesterday that there have been an awful lot of great games this year, but usually from unexpected directions... all of the big publisher games have been pretty mediocre. The EA method (Let's Ship Yet Another Sequel To Something That Sold Big Last Year) is failing... nobody is generating new game ideas.... new property, as it were. They're all focused on exploiting what they have instead of making things that are genuinely different or fun.
Because they haven't been investing in new gameplay ideas, they're running low, and people aren't buying as many games. This isn't really rocket science.
EA would have been far better off, instead of coughing up huge money for that exclusive NFL license, in investing that money in about fifty small game developers. 45 of them would have failed spectacularly, 4 would have done well, and 1 would have been a megahit for the next generation of sequel exploitation. Instead, they paid way too much for a license that will ensure that their football team sits around collecting paychecks without actually having to work very hard, since they have no competition.
It's interesting that of all the big players, only Nintendo seems genuinely committed to doing new stuff. I just recently picked up a DS and Phoenix Wright, and I've been very pleased with it... I didn't realize a touch screen would be fun, but in fact it's very natural and a great gaming idea. That's why, I suspect, they're professionals, and I'm not.
No blockbuster titles? Must all "blockbusters" by first person shooters?
In my opinion, Civilization 4 is quite a blockbuster release!
Hmph.
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Each *5 year for the past three decades of gaming has been known for being relatively slow and stale. Also, each *6 year has been big stuff; coincidentally, Nintendo has had a hand in the last two *6 years. It wasn't until '86 that Super Mario Brothers revitalized gaming in the USA; in '96, Super Mario 64 set the 3D gaming generation on fire. Both of those games changed the way people played games for the next decade--d-pad in the '80s, analog control in the '90s.
Interestingly enough, 2006 is the launch year for the Revolution...
I'd write a clever response, but I'm too busy playing Animal Crossing on my DS.
A 2005 title (early 2005, I suppose, but still) with high production values and more fun (IMHO) than Halo. I guess it wasn't a huge seller, however. Pity.
It seems like a lot of the huge game developers now take many years to make their games, and due to the decline in the market and the cost of making games a lot of the smaller companies are going for consoles or just not huge blockbuster games. It's sort of like the film market, where there can be quite a lull for a while before many different studios release their brand new biggest titles that have taken tons of development time.
Business Voyeur
It seems a little disingenuous to blame a new console for a lack of new hit games. Even in the best-supplied launches, there's never enough consoles on shelves to push through a million units of any game before Christmas (the PS2 sold a little over a million in its first month in Japan, but it was mostly coupled with DVD purchases, not games).
With a combination of bundling in stores and an unusually high concentration of hardcore purchasers (because, really, who else would stand outside all night for one?), I would bet that the attach rate on these things is extremely high. But the PS2 has 100 million units out there: even if the 360 sold through 2 million in the first month (or an unheard-of 3) it's still a months away from being a significant percentage of sales in the industry.
It's the best game this year that I can think of. It wasn't a major hit like Halo 2 and Half Life 2 but it was still really good. It's sad when the biggest hits have 2 at the end of their name.
I've noted to myself several times that 2005 has been a bad year for games. Everyone will have different tastes, but the only two that really held my attention were Super Mario Strikers and Guitar Hero. Regardless of tastes, though, there couldn't have been too many games that any one person could really fall in love with.
Reference Gamespot's platform picks and see how many you liked. Of course Strikers didn't even make a blip on their radar, which I'm disappointed in.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
There were plenty of excellent games this year. Maybe the profits are down because the sales are distributed throughout the large amount of fantastic games, rather than 2004's handful of great games in a sea of crap. 2005 was one of the best years for gaming I've ever seen. Take a look at all of these superb titles:
PS2:
Dragon Quest 8
God Of War
Guitar Hero
Mushihimesama
Shadow of the Colossus
We (Heart) Katamari
Xbox:
Forza Motorsport
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
GameCube:
Battalion Wars
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Multiplatform:
Indigo Prophecy
King Kong (I especially suggest the amazing-looking 360 version)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Psychonauts
Resident Evil 4
PSP:
Lumines
Wipeout Pure
DS:
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Kirby: Canvas Curse
Mario Kart DS
Meteos
Trauma Center
Gameboy:
Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Twisted
Dreamcast:
Trizeal
(there should have been a (insert generic fps here) after "as well as", but it got stripped, oops)
RESIDENT EVIL 4, Gran Turismo 4, God of War, FEAR, Battlefield 2, Quake 4, Guild Wars, San Andreas for PC/Xbox, Ninja Gaiden Black, Far Cry Instincts, Burnout Revenge, Shadow of the Colossus, We Love Katamari, Brothers in Arms, Civilization IV, Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil...
Maybe those aren't all BLOCKBUSTER hits but they're all at least excellent or highly anticipated games, and I'd say RE4 and GT4 at least are blockbuster. Just because the Xbox 360 doesn't have anything but CoD2 and PGR3 doesn't mean this wasn't an excellent year for gaming.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
The failure of the 360 has really left a bad taste in the gaming press right at the end of 2005.
2005 has been a fantastic year for games, and Sony and Nintendo are just a few weeks away from showing amazing next gen stuff.
It's only gonna get worse.
Think we're seeing a lot of talent wasted on making the same old, same old FPSes right now?
Just wait. The depths of boredom and repetition will be explored.
ZZZZzzzz..
I think Need for Speed: Most Wanted will be popular.
I didn't see any mentions of these reasonably high quality games:
F.E.A.R. (better AI than Half-Life 2 for sure)
NFS:MW
Now they may not be blockbusters, and they might not be revolutionary, but in terms of evolution they are extremely good examples of their respective breeds. Both games push my system very hard, and not because of poor coding but because of brilliant graphics capabilities.
Guild Wars did constitute a blockbuster game and was released this year I believe.
Also, as people have mentioned, we had the revolutionary new Civ IV this year, also a definate cult blockbuster.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Most games offer really little in the way of long term staying power - and for the price they ask, and for the graphics they get - you're all much better off going to rent a DVD movie.
If games were priced as much as DVDs, things would be different, but as it stands - most of the games coming out are sequels, can be finished very quickly HENCE most people would rather either rent the games or pirate them - JUST LIKE DVD or movie rentals. As long as a game is very linear, and offers ZERO is the way of replayability - it may as well be an interactive movie.
Given the hollywoodization of games these days, this is where the market is heading, yet games companies are still living and pricing like its the 1980s - except new games are double the price now than they were before.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2005_compute r_and_video_games
There is a lack of blockbusters on the HL2 level, partly down to the fact that there are more consoles around at the moment, the audience is fragmented. But partly just no mega releases.
It doesn't worry me though - unusally, this year I have a serious backlog of games I want to play:
RE4 (waiting for a price drop)
Warioware Twisted
Warioware Touched
Mariokart DS
Advance Wars DS
Fire Emblem (a GBA and a GC release!)
F.E.A.R.
Geist
Pac-pix
There would be more here if I owned a PS2/PSP/Xbox.
Great games I've played recently:
Kirby's Canvas Curse
Meteos
Earth 2160
Killer 7
Gunstar Super Heroes
Battlefield 2 nearly deserves a place here - maybe the expansion?
Plus I'm *STILL* playing UT2004 on a regular basis. They just released another bonus pack.
Guild Wars, Shadow of the Colossus, RE4, etc. all get ignored because they're not mainstream enough?
Wake up, gaming press!
I'm not sure of your definition of blockbuster, but Battlefield 2 was a huge hit this year.
i think everyone is still too busy playing world of warcraft
Could it be that The Warriors game isn't selling well because it's based on one of the cheesiest movies ever created? I know that the movie is a cult hit, but it really freaking sucks. I like to watch it now and then to get a good laugh in, but other than that it bores the crap out of me. I love GTA, I had a great time with San Andreas, but I can't bring myself close to buying The Warriors game because that "franchise" feels like bane to me. Big mistake, Rockstar. It doesn't matter how good a game is, people won't buy it if it's based on something that conjures negative associations. Though I get the feeling that The Warriors is probably a decent game based on a horrible movie. You know, as in the opposite of Star Wars Galaxies ;)
Who cares about blockbuster games anyway? Take blockbuster movies - how many of those are worth watching (hint: the day after (or whatever it was called -- that uh-oh, here come the ice-movie), Independence Day, War of the worlds (damn sappy ending ruined the whole movie), etc.). It's not the size of the budget that matters - it's the quality.
This is the first time I've bought a Nintendo console in any shape or form, but it has brought a smile to my face with the feeling of frontier games - trying out the waters with new ideas (though some of the best games also are quite 'traditional'). My fave though is a Japanese import.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Or, alternatively, "screw Nintendo fans at all costs."
I have no sympathy for any publisher that has snubbed Nintendo (and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft) the last couple generations. We're _not_ a microscopic market! We're crushing _everyone_ in handhelds and I'd wager at least 20% of consoles (though I have seen as high at 40%).
And, yet, a disproportionately large amount of titles, big and small, are for the PS2. Watch the advertising, it's always "AWESOME GAME NOW AVAILABLE FOR PS2!" with _maybe_ a tiny icon for the other systems by the legal print. Sometimes the XBox gets lucky enough to share (GTA), but have you EVER seen a game released on just PS2 and GameCube? Ultimately, we end up with either Nintendo exclusives, which are always excellent, and the most generic of the generic multiplatform movie licenses (in which case, everybody and their brother gets a port from Nintendo to PC to Jaguar to Wonderswan) that have sucked from the dawn of console gaming's 3rd age in 1985.
The excuses I hear are the same excuses people give when asked why they don't sell Macintosh software. "But Apple just takes our idea and pushes us out of the market!" Well, genius, if Nintendo wasn't the only company making games for the system, we never would've had Mario Baseball, Mario Strikers, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, etc. Those games, while good pick up and play fun, are a _direct_ result of there being so little support for real sports titles...and sports is a bright spot in the GC library. Don't be surprised if Nintendo does a whole lot of other genres (Duck Hunt 2 starring Mario, Mario Swordfighting Championship, Mario Monopoly, Mario and the 104th Airborne, etc) themselves on the Revolution because you assholes couldn't be bothered and hid behind your "the controller's weird" or "Nintendo steals our ideas" excuses.
Damnit, if 3rd parties would just SELL ME GAMES! That's all they have to do! I'm not going to buy a Playstation or an XBox and, guess what, I'm not the only one! So either make software available to us or shut up about your sales statistics.
Could it be the sound of a crash? This is not meant to be inflamatory or anything, just my humble opinion. I know a few of us journalists have been predicting the next videogame crash, and I have been one of them that has been pretty vocal about it. I see the PS3 and the 360 completely failing over the lifespan of the product. A number of factors contribute to it, such as low number of releases over the system's life due to costs and timeframes, very limited spectrum of titles across genre's, long dry periods between releases, and a few more issues that are a bit too length to discuss here.
/. crowd would want in a console. Innovation, value, openness, backwards compatability, low levels of DRM/restrictions, and solid technology.
The Nintendo Revolution is a console that I am embracing, and not out of any devotion to Nintendo, but instead out of my true love of games and gaming. I honestly feel that EVERY real gamer should be pouring out support of the Revolution, ESPECIALLY the Slashdot crowd. Sony and MS stand for everything we don't. Nintendo not only has already stated they will be working to gain small/indie developers but they have basically done every single thing that the
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Heck, I haven't been able to play Civ4/AoE3/FEAR/BF2 at all. World of warcraft satisfies my need for games, and continues to do so. Why buy another one?
Do you really think a gamer has the patience to wait in a line that goes around the block?
Of course not, they'll go somewhere else to buy the game they want. A blockbuster by the generic definition is a line up that goes all the way around the block that a given store sits upon.
With all the big box stores that a person might purchase a game at... Those are big blocks.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
Y'know, there IS life outside the consoles. Doom 3 wasn't terribly impressive, but if you're into turn-based action (which, sadly, fewer are these days) Civ 4 was outstanding. There's a little known series called UFO: Aftermath and Aftershock - Aftermath was an unfinished product, but I'm still loving Aftershock; it's the new sequel. The content seems to go on forever. After two weeks of casually playing it, a new opponent race/hurdle just now appeared. I was shocked - my usual run-of-the-mill enemy clearance mission turned into a bloodbath. The problem is that consoles inherently DO NOT ENCOURAGE RISK. I own an X-Box, but you will never see a risky title from a small-fry publisher there. Here's why: Console games can't be purchased via the web and downloaded. (Stardock anyone?) Console games can't be patched, so you're going to see a lot less innovative risk out the door. Console games tend to be played by more casual gamers as a whole; casual gamers want to buy exactly what they expect, and want to be able to sit down and play a quick game. Extended material? Games that require strategic thought and planning beyond button mashing? Games with online communities? Never happen for your *average* console game. Want to see high quality games? Put down your joystick, brother. Pick up your keyboard.
The ability to communicate well does not directly correspond to the ability to communicate intelligently.
Not that it was a particularly magic period in music history by any strecth (even though i'm quite fond of grunge), but atleast composing and playing your own tunes was still marketeable. People took risks. Nowadays, i listen to radio, and in a same genre i have a hard time telling one band from another.
It could be just you getting old. You might be jaded or burnt-out, or in a nicer turn of speech your tastes have become more refined.
You could be lazy about finding new music, you expect music you like to be delivered to you over the airwaves (You could try KEXP). You say musicians aren't taking risks, but maybe you aren't either.
I'd guess the popular bands of right now compose and play their own music- I think you're referring to the state of things from the late 90's to a couple of years ago.