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Why Majesco Fell
CNN Money's Game Over column today takes a look at some of the reasons Majesco has bowed out of the majors of game publishing. From the article: "Majesco was hardly blameless for its failings. 'Advent Rising' didn't come close to living up to expectations - earning middling reviews at best ... 'Psychonauts,' though, was a critical darling - earning a spot on many critics' holiday buying guides. Despite this, the game never found an audience. Sales were awful, coming in at under 100,000. As for the movie licenses? 'Aeon Flux,' based on last year's Charlize Theron film flopped. 'Taxi Driver' was cancelled as part of last week's decision. 'Ghost Rider,' (based on an upcoming Nicholas Cage film) was sold. And, inexplicably, Majesco has decided to move forward with the release of a game based on 'Jaws' itself - perhaps as a last hurrah, perhaps because it couldn't find a buyer and the game was essentially complete. (I saw an early build of 'Jaws'. It is not - in any way - a game that would have reversed Majesco's slump.)" We discussed their decision last week.
"'Advent Rising' didn't come close to living up to expectations - earning middling reviews at best ..."
Now here's a question. If Advent Rising had been a moddable game, would that have helped boost sales? Does moddability help a mediocre game?
From TFA:
On paper, the formula seems pretty solid. Blend original, critically acclaimed games
Okay, with you so far...
with the reliable franchises based on well-known film licenses.
BZZZZT!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
And now Majesco is off creating some of the worst Plug and Play TV Games on the market. Instead of creating hardware for the actual arcade games (which would have made the systems 100% authentic), they delivered the Nintendo versions of Frogger and Konami Classics as if they were the same as the arcade versions! In addition, the Frogger stick only has a single game, making it one of the worst values in a very crowded market.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It is a fact that gamers are to blame for good game companies going under. As a group, we simply don't award creativity or innovation in gaming. 'Cult' hits are a sign of the disease, intelligent, thought provoking gaming like Planescape: Torment simply do not get the sales they deserve, and soon appear in the bargain bin.
I really have no idea why this happens. Fantastically good games available for about £5 in some cases is simply unbelievable in any other industry like film or music. Classics of the genre in those industries retain their value beyond a year - you don't find classics like On the Waterfront or 12 Angry Men in the bargain bin, as they seem to hold their value.
It's a sad thing, because in response, the game industry is going to chase the brainless blockbuster format, which EA has pretty much sewn up. And its hard to blame anyone other than ourselves. I don't really know why this happens, but I'd guess that too many of us are unwilling to try something new. It seems OK to be a FPS guy, or a sports sim guy - but if you only went to movies that were about sports, you'd be regarded as a total whacko.
Gamers will get the industry they support, and what they support is a million EA clones released with incremental changes year after year. It's so depressing.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
"In the end, people didn't really buy HL2 or Doom 3 for the mods, regardless of what the ever vocal and obnoxious minority claimed prior to their release."
Actually the reason I bought Farcry* and Doom3 (along with Mafia, and some other games) is because I could mod them. The fact that I could play other people's mod's was a bonus. I'm thinking of picking up HL even though it's dated because it has a big mod community.
*Suppose to be one of the friendler games to mod.
...Majesco has jumped the shark?
BaddaBing!
Sad news though...Psychonauts was one of the very best games I have ever played. Hopefully the folks responsible for it will find a way to continue producing games.
That they bring Guilty Gear XX #Slash to the states before they realize selling value titles isn't a good idea either...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
The people responsible for Riddick, Nanostray, Psychonauts and Phantom Dust demonstrated that they are capable of quality making quality games. If Majesco had focused on properly promoting and advertising these games it could have been a different story.
".. 12 Angry Men in the bargain bin"
I bought that movie for 12$ CDN. The fact is that the industry is awash in games, and the ones that sell are the promoted ones. If you want your game to sell well, you have to either promote it yourself, or hope it gets a buzz. But a buzz takes time, and retail game sales are very quarter oriented.
I think gamers are more interested in new things. Also, since money is tight, people are less likely to buy whole boats of games. I'm only buying DS games because I find them more rewarding. Pyschonauts is in no way as original as any DS game I can pull out of the ones I've played and enjoyed.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I thought Aeon Flux had the potential to be an incredibly cool game.
Then I read that it was based on the crappy movie, rather than the original series, and lost all interest.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
"I'm serious - the game indsutry crashing again can't come soon enough. Finally knock some goddamn sense into everyone, and weed out the useless people buying Madden Roster Upgrade 200X every year."
We feel the same way about you. You arrogant prick!
I believe that the reason Psychonauts didn't do well is because Majesco didn't bother to advertise before it came out. Afterwards, yeah, but did you see any before? Of course not...it was all spent hyping Bloodrayne 2.
Have you ever wondered how they managed to fund so many titles? It was those 'tv episode on a gb cart' things that the article alluded to. When they first came out, and for a couple years, parents were spending huge amounts of money on the worthless things so that they wouldn't have to buy DVD players for their car, etc. Any time they needed to distract a kid, hand them the gameboy with an episode of Spongebob and they are good for 20 minutes. A good business idea, but surely not creative...
From the experience of friends who dealt with Majesco, some of the people they would send out to meet with developers were... less than competant and/or less than friendly. Even for titles and developers who were considered 'rising stars', they seemed to treat them like they were incompetant, screaming at developers over the phone and in person because the build didn't have feature X, which was removed a few months before as per Majesco's request. I've heard it described as working with a spoiled child; they know what they want now, but have no idea what they wanted a week ago, or what will actually be good for them.
Add to all of that overpaid, prepaid, incompetant hollywood writers (who can't write a linear fiction script, let alone an interactive fiction script), people who are not creative believing themselves to be, and a president who wouldn't know a good idea if it bit him on the ass, and Majesco was bound to fail.
I'm suprised no one said it yet, the reason Majesco really left major games is simple
Second hand/Used game sales!
seriously though, I'm honestly suprised they aren't using that excusse right now cause it could be a very easy scapegoat.
It's important to admit that very few of us do. Perhaps it's time to start adding IANAME (I Am Not A Marketing Expert) to a lot of these discussions about the dynamics of the gaming industry, or any industry, for that matter. We don't talk about sales numbers. We don't talk about studies on demographics and purchasing habits. Most of us don't really know what we're talking about.
When a company that consistently produces sub-par titles goes under, I view this as the industry working.