I work at an EB, and we've sold a tremendous amount of copies of Ikaruga. Why? Because we've had it in the GC demo unit since the day it was released (minus the days we were out of stock). People play it, and love it. Just this weekend a five year old sat there and played it for no less than 20 minutes; his parents finally just bought it for him so they could take it home.
Nor is Ikaruga following traditional sales charts by selling immediately and then slowly declining. Sure, we had our presells and the people who knew about it picked it up within a few days of release. But otherwise, most of our sales (and we sell about one a day - good for a game like that!) are from people discovering it in the demo unit. Moreover, it's been a very constant sales rate.
I say all that to indicate that there is not only the obvious "hardcore" market that browses the fanboards and what have you, but also a large portion of people who either didn't know they loved shooters or forgot that they did. The success of Ikaruga, at least in our store, is a testament to the bullish nature of the industry to arrogantly assume that they lead the market. In so doing, they're neglecting very potential customers and have largely all but deserted what could be quite profitable.
For example, an older guy in the store a couple of days saw Ikaruga and wanted something similar for his kid's PSX (no gamecube). I sold him Mobile Light Force.
I think the most interesting thing about this story is that it shows a fundamentally different approach to gaming within Lucasarts. Pre-3D, they built up non-Star Wars/Indy characters (Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, Maniac Mansion, Secret Weapons, etc) but did so completely internally.
Shortly after the advent of 3d and the PSX, they focused solely on Star Wars (Dark Forces, Rebel Assault, etc). Still internal though.
Now, they seem to be outsourcing their intellectual properties as well as attempting to create new ones (RTX, this one), but doing so with external devs. Interesting, to say the least. Hsa LucasArts changed, or the market? Have dev studios essentially filled the same role as directors in film, able to switch from publishing company to company?
Because if you have, you've certainly heard of the multiplayer FPS gaming joy that is Battlefield 1942, which bears little resemblence at all to CS. In fact, I'd suggest that CS - is not quite God's gift to FPS. I think that award goes to Team Fortress, which introduced the concept of goal based team combat (and classes) into the MP-FPS genre. BF1942 extends upon that and creates near perfect gaming MP-FPS marred only by the occasional TKer.
And if we're talking general FPS and not merely multiplayer FPS, lest we not forget Deus Ex.
I think the biggest reason for the proliferation of CS was that it could probably run on a graphing calculator if one were so inclined. In terms of evolution, Natural Selection is a pretty amazing step up in the evolution of the FPS, and it looks like Savage is following its lead on a mainstream level. As far as tenporal peers, Tribes was far more creative than CS but both its and its successor's extremely steep learning curve kept anyone but the extremely dedicated from playing Tribes at all.
I personally think it's a mistake to label CS as an evolutionary benchmark in terms of gameplay. In terms of mere quantity of people playing? Yes, it is vitally important in the history of both multiplayer games, mods, and FPS's. But not in technical game design. That belongs to Tribes and Team Fortress.
Slashdot Mirror
I work at an EB, and we've sold a tremendous amount of copies of Ikaruga. Why? Because we've had it in the GC demo unit since the day it was released (minus the days we were out of stock). People play it, and love it. Just this weekend a five year old sat there and played it for no less than 20 minutes; his parents finally just bought it for him so they could take it home.
Nor is Ikaruga following traditional sales charts by selling immediately and then slowly declining. Sure, we had our presells and the people who knew about it picked it up within a few days of release. But otherwise, most of our sales (and we sell about one a day - good for a game like that!) are from people discovering it in the demo unit. Moreover, it's been a very constant sales rate.
I say all that to indicate that there is not only the obvious "hardcore" market that browses the fanboards and what have you, but also a large portion of people who either didn't know they loved shooters or forgot that they did. The success of Ikaruga, at least in our store, is a testament to the bullish nature of the industry to arrogantly assume that they lead the market. In so doing, they're neglecting very potential customers and have largely all but deserted what could be quite profitable.
For example, an older guy in the store a couple of days saw Ikaruga and wanted something similar for his kid's PSX (no gamecube). I sold him Mobile Light Force.
So, um, by "regular", do you mean "Game the Year"?
And by "better and better" do you instead mean, "Game of the Year" twice?
And by "lack of multiplayer" do you mean, "5 multiplayer levels for us in its two main multiplayer modes."?
And by "movies" do you mean "movie"?
Ok, I'll stop if you will.
I think the most interesting thing about this story is that it shows a fundamentally different approach to gaming within Lucasarts. Pre-3D, they built up non-Star Wars/Indy characters (Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, Maniac Mansion, Secret Weapons, etc) but did so completely internally.
Shortly after the advent of 3d and the PSX, they focused solely on Star Wars (Dark Forces, Rebel Assault, etc). Still internal though.
Now, they seem to be outsourcing their intellectual properties as well as attempting to create new ones (RTX, this one), but doing so with external devs. Interesting, to say the least. Hsa LucasArts changed, or the market? Have dev studios essentially filled the same role as directors in film, able to switch from publishing company to company?
Because if you have, you've certainly heard of the multiplayer FPS gaming joy that is Battlefield 1942, which bears little resemblence at all to CS. In fact, I'd suggest that CS - is not quite God's gift to FPS. I think that award goes to Team Fortress, which introduced the concept of goal based team combat (and classes) into the MP-FPS genre. BF1942 extends upon that and creates near perfect gaming MP-FPS marred only by the occasional TKer.
And if we're talking general FPS and not merely multiplayer FPS, lest we not forget Deus Ex.
I think the biggest reason for the proliferation of CS was that it could probably run on a graphing calculator if one were so inclined. In terms of evolution, Natural Selection is a pretty amazing step up in the evolution of the FPS, and it looks like Savage is following its lead on a mainstream level. As far as tenporal peers, Tribes was far more creative than CS but both its and its successor's extremely steep learning curve kept anyone but the extremely dedicated from playing Tribes at all.
I personally think it's a mistake to label CS as an evolutionary benchmark in terms of gameplay. In terms of mere quantity of people playing? Yes, it is vitally important in the history of both multiplayer games, mods, and FPS's. But not in technical game design. That belongs to Tribes and Team Fortress.