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The Art of Downloadable Game Development
The Guardian's Games Blog looks at how the development of downloadable games has shifted over the past several years. As an example, they point to Capcom, its recent reinvention of the Mega Man franchise, and an upcoming game called Flock. Quoting:
"[CEO Paddy Sinclair said], 'The first thing we realised was, it wouldn't be as easy as we thought. Luckily we're funded privately so we had the luxury of getting it wrong. It was very... educational. We learned very quickly that, no, you can't write a game in three months. We also realized we'd need a bigger team than just two or three.' 'The XBLA market has really evolved,' continues business development head, Chris Wright. 'If you look at the very early games they were simple ports — single-player, retro emulation titles, and you can kick those out very quickly. That market is disappearing. If you're going to do retro remakes you have to extend it, you have to add multiplayer. If you're going to do something new, it has to be bigger. We've got a team of 10-12 people working on this title. If you look back, it's what we would have had on PS1, and the game is probably of the same sort of size. It's not the huge budgets of a retail title, but it's not a trivial undertaking, either.'"
Shame the wii retro console titles don't have any graphical filter work done on them. Depending on your loyalty to bad graphics, I found it difficult to commit to playing Donkey Kong Country with such awful pixelation (regular large lcd tv) when I could just as easily play the superior, smoothed (via emulator) and very functional version on my xbox 1.
I think that Nintendo sold us short on that (rather than the idea that they the left it that way for the purists). I'd rather play DKC on a nintendo but the difference is massive and stays in line with my impression of the Wii. Which is, that it is a console dominated by mediocre exploitation of the mainstream crowd it has sucked in. The amount of truly horrendous (and non functional) software out there for the Wii is staggering. Once upon a time, you couldn't put a game out if Nintendo didn't think it was up to scratch.
I record my sleeptalking
Most "retro" games have found a new home as flash games. It's pretty much logical that this technology would be used for it. Modern machines can easily handle that overhead (because what they have to "run" requires essentially the fraction of a percent of a current machine's power), downloading a game that had to fit into the very limited capacities of early consoles or early home computers takes only a few seconds, and for controls, well, many people are happy with keyboard input.
So I dunno, is there actually a market that you could sell real "retro" games to?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Really? My XBLA downloads mostly consist of turn based board game remakes and the like. I don't think I've even demo'd a shooter on XBLA, let alone bought one...
Telltale is running their whole business on adventure games and so far they seem to be doing quite fine.
Would a good game plot, overcome a lack of great graphics and features?
I'm not sure about a good storyline, but good gameplay can win out over limited graphics and features.
Probably the best example I can think of is The Kingdom of Loathing - http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ - This needs way to many clicks to play and has stick figure graphics but the complex interaction of the various features make gameplay addictive.
This, and the humor in the game, has attracted a large loyal following.
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.