Why Do Games Sell?

simoniker writes "Game designer Pierre-Alexandre Garneau has published a new article compiling a list of factors that make games popular, and although he notes: "The test assumes that the game is good — if it's bad, chances are it won't sell no matter how high it scores on this test," his comparison of GTA 3 and Psychonauts tries to apply common-sense reasoning to why one sold well and the other did not."

Comments

Why do games sell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing.

Fan base

[jaymzru]

I've been a casual player of GTA for years, and I imagine a well established fan base is a huge factor.

Newsflash

[Timesprout]

critically acclaimed games like Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil have sold far fewer sales than they deserved.

Critically acclaimed movies usually tank at the box office and critically acclaimed books and albums are usually the preserve of pretentious/elitest twats.
Who was the clever chap who said "Give the public what they want" ?

Re:Vague answers for overly-broad questions...

[Comfy1]

You mean, because they're either well marketed or well marketed.

Hindsight is 20/20

[remmelt]

Great! Speculation mixed with after-the-fact analysis.

This should all be nothing that a good marketing campaign can't handle. Notice how all the questions are very fuzzy, you can interpret them in any number of ways and answer them favourably for any game on the market.

Some examples
Sims: you can play.. people, leading... ordinary (quote, unquote) lives. Doesn't look especially nice, not based on anything well-known. Initial target market: Who knows? Girls? Kids? Yes, afterwards it turns out everyone and their dog plays Sims. Social uniqueness: it was funny that I could exchange Sims with other savegames.
Sims: Big hit.

Commandos: does not stand out at all, even at the time. Looked rather dull, with its faux 3D. Gameplay was nice but you had to use the keyboard for fast movement in the later levels, so not really for the inexperienced gamer. No social play. Communication of idea: "you blow up enemies in WW2", so much for standing out, right? But wait: this is in 2D! Game is based on a known idea only in so much as it is a WW2 game and view from the top 2D, so rather something to avoid. Target market: fuzzy question. You never really know who turns out to be a fan, right? So, anyone who likes Starcraft?
Commandos: Big hit.

'Game Designer' AKA Former EB Sales Clerk

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like getting a lecture from one of game development's leeches - 'game designers' aka level monkeys.

Wanna know why your game costs 60 bucks? Overhead.

Overhead is the number one issue in game development. Teams are filled with clowns like this guy and a million different types of talentless producers and other dead weight. Add up their salaries over a couple year project and you have a massive amount of cash you need to make back in game sales.

Re:'Game Designer' AKA Former EB Sales Clerk

[joystickgenie]

You have got to be kidding. You can't know anything about the game industry if you think that designer positions are useless. That's like saying that programmers are useless. Design is a very important step in making the game and ultimately determines if the game is any good or not. Tell me have you heard of the names Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Warren Spector, or Will Wright. If these names aren't familiar to you, you have absolutely no business in telling anyone about making video games and what is wrong with it. They are game designers. Are these the development's leeches you were talking about?

Btw designer and producer are different positions designers make decisions about the games, producers make decisions about the business. In fact each is just a category for positions. There is level designer, character designer, sound designer, game designer and others. Producers are used in every facet of the game high level producers are watching the budget of a game and making planning on the development timeframe, milestones and manage the mid producers. Mid level producers are enforcing the milestones communicated between departments and aid and manage the lower producers. Low level producers handle asset management, database entry, some bug fixes, and general gofer work around the office. All of these positions are absolutely necessary in big budget games.

If you are talking money wise the number one issue in game development is marketing distribution and licensing not staff.

Re:'Game Designer' AKA Former EB Sales Clerk

[Dutch Gun]

DOOM 3 is a great example of a game that, to its detriment, focused way too much on technological prowess and neglected solid game design. (i.e. can't use flashlight and gun at the same time, an entire game of enemies magically appearing behind you, etc)

Every game I've worked on (I'm a programmer, not a designer btw) had a critical need of a designer to shape the direction, design all the missions, tweak all the numbers (skills, weapons, spells, enemies, items, rewards, etc), and ensure the game is balanced and fun to play. Yes, some designers were better than others - just like any other profession.

Does it make more sense to have your more expensive programmers or artists doing this sort of work? That makes no sense to me, although I have heard of companies leaning in this direction. The problem with this approach is that not every artist or programmer really has the sensibilities or desire to design the game as well as working on their specific craft. I've known a number of both artists and programmers like this. They work very well when they have specific and well-defined task, but tend to stumble a bit when given more ambiguous tasks.

I'd suggest that games probably cost 60 bucks because the market has determined that this is the optimal price point for maximizing profits, given the content and development costs of a AAA title versus the standard market size, not because game makers pay for designers.

Re:Licensing, licensing, marketing

[LoudMusic]

1/3 are EA Sports titles. That's pretty sad. Sports are a proven entertainment industry. There is a fan base of tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions. A lot of them are cross sectioned with video game players. It just makes good business sense, really.

Personally I hate sports video games. The only ones I've really ever found myself enjoying (so far) are Techmo Bowl (NES) and Virtua Tennis (DC) and Gran Turismo 3 & 4 (PS2).

It's like Lego hooking up with the Star Wars franchise. Lego is cool. Star Wars is cool. Make Lego Star Wars sets and everybody wins. The three largest (if not more) Lego sets ever produced are all Star Wars - the newest of which is brand new (~5200 piece Millennium Falcon!!).

So if you want to dethrone EA Sports as the largest 'genre' of popular games you need to find something that is as popular with people who like video games as sports and start producing good games. I'd suggest Star Wars, but they've pretty much fucked up that industry with games that continually fall short.

Re:Vague answers for overly-broad questions...

[Psychofreak]

Well marketed crap is still crap.

Starcraft is still being sold, now over 8 years past it's release date because it is a great game. There are a lot of games that were marketed harder and not as profitable.
Sorry, I don't have numbers or names to back this up. I'm looking forward to seeing some replies with well marketed busts and less marketed winners.

Phil