I'm seeing tons of innovation on the App Store and most of those games look like someone made them in their spare time. Of course in most cases the innovation falls flat because it wasn't thought through very well but they are working on changing up the foundations of their "genres" (which they often don't even fit into anymore) while in a blockbuster core game innovation usually means some new take on bullet time.
No, that's just Assassin's Creed being a fairly bad game (they spent all their money and effort on making a believable city with tons of climbing opportunities and whatnot and forgot about putting a fun game into all that).
The problem is that the minority must also be protected from abuse by the majority. If you vote whether to gas all Jews it doesn't matter whether the Jews get a vote too as long as they're outnumbered by far. Oh and don't give me the "sheep with a gun" analogy, that sheep would've been shot dead by the wolves the moment it tries to threaten anyone.
Five years ago I upgraded my PC for half that money and it's still running new games. Though I disagree on the extra prices, while console games are indeed more expensive than PC games (especially when you're bargain bin hunting, console games drop MUCH slower in price) stuff like an HDTV (you can get a monitor for that purpose, much cheaper) or Live* are unnecessary costs. Yes, MS's usability requirements seem to miss "text must be readable in SD" but most games are still playable even on an SDTV. A second controller is only if you want local MP and the chatpads? Seriously?
*= I simply consider 360 games to have no online multiplayer at all which is why I prefer Wii and PC games if I need online.
Note that casual does not exclude hard, casual games are like arcade games except without quarters and people played arcade games casually too. In fact many "hardcore" games are easier than casual games because they aren't about increasing your skills but experiencing the story, in a casual game you often play until you lose (Tetris) or try to score as efficiently as possible within the level (Peggle), it's about getting better to beat your previous score, getting better to survive more levels. Hardcore games even dabble with dynamic difficulties so noone will ever have to get better again, if the game becomes too hard it'll make itself easier (and this isn't limited to the Super Guide which has to be invoked deliberately, games with dynamic difficulties have existed much longer than that and often didn't even tell you that they're making themselves easier).
Those biggest games sell at 50-70€ a copy, they need significantly fewer customers to reach the same revenue number. Compared to the customer numbers movies have games are still a tiny niche.
It is kinda strange how many similarities Tyranids and Zergs share (similar design in physique and architecture, both following a hivemind), same for Protoss and Eldar (similar designs again, energy blades, psionic abilities, warp gates). I think the human space marines in SC are too different from the ones in WH40k to qualify as clones in any way, exaggerated proportions are just to look better with the way the game is viewed. The term space marines is just a result of the "space is an ocean" trope combined with the US Marines.
IMO the defining feature of the WH40k universe is really the Warp (a dimension where thoughts become reality, populated with all life's worst nightmares and capable of corrupting any mind that allows doubt, hence the strong themes of religion in the setting as that is the only defense against that corruption and also has the perk of being able to summon those gods you believe in), I don't think SC has anything similar.
OT: I just noticed Gessert died in November. Why didn't the gaming news sites post that? Too busy with the Babe of the Day and Top Halo Kills of the Week features?
I don't think the Unreal Engine is so popular because of its core engine but because of the toolset it comes with. That toolset is extremely powerful and thus cost efficient for creating a game.
A person starts a game to be entertained by it. Encountering massive skill differences right away and being required to put a lot of work into the game before it becomes fun tells them to go elsewhere and play something fun instead. You can make your extremely skill-based games but they must be fun from the moment the player starts the game up or he will not stay. No arcade game bludgeoned you with its super-hard parts right at the start, they knew people wouldn't throw another coin in there if they get the first impression that the game is more than they can handle. The first level of Contra games is easy, you can usually beat it without running out of lives on your first run (except in 4 and Hard Corps) so you feel like the game is designed for you and the hurdles it places in front of you are surmountable.
The bad graphics in Spring are mostly caused by not being a clone of TA but a rip-off. The common mods like BA are straight up ripped material from an ancient commercial release.
What do you mean with installation troubles though? At least in Windows it's just doubleclicking the installer and hitting next a few times.
It's almost impossible to get people to work on a single vision without paying them. Everybody has ideas and wants to contribute but for a proper original work you need something consistent. The reason so many FOSS games are clones of popular games is because the vision of "let's make an opensource clone of game X" is easily understood and everyone knows the result.
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It's exponential growth. For the costs, at least, doesn't look like the sales are growing exponentially.
I'm seeing tons of innovation on the App Store and most of those games look like someone made them in their spare time. Of course in most cases the innovation falls flat because it wasn't thought through very well but they are working on changing up the foundations of their "genres" (which they often don't even fit into anymore) while in a blockbuster core game innovation usually means some new take on bullet time.
No, that's just Assassin's Creed being a fairly bad game (they spent all their money and effort on making a believable city with tons of climbing opportunities and whatnot and forgot about putting a fun game into all that).
8 million dollars for bugtesting on a second platform when the whole project for one platform would be 10 million?
The figures I've seen was that the marketing budget was another 250 million dollars.
a rouge movement like the Nazi's
Nazis are brown, red is for Commies!
I tried training my weighted companion cube to make me a sandwich but it couldn't do that either... Does that mean it has betrayed me???
And yet I'd rather have people fuck all the robot kids they want than have them rape real children.
The problem is that the minority must also be protected from abuse by the majority. If you vote whether to gas all Jews it doesn't matter whether the Jews get a vote too as long as they're outnumbered by far. Oh and don't give me the "sheep with a gun" analogy, that sheep would've been shot dead by the wolves the moment it tries to threaten anyone.
Not since the accident...
Religion can increase one's willingness to subordinate oneself and, in the worst case (evolution-wise) remain celibate.
That's a very narrow definition of new. What would it take for you to declare their product new, a flying car?
They took an 11% hit though, maybe there are more people participating than just that group?
Five years ago I upgraded my PC for half that money and it's still running new games. Though I disagree on the extra prices, while console games are indeed more expensive than PC games (especially when you're bargain bin hunting, console games drop MUCH slower in price) stuff like an HDTV (you can get a monitor for that purpose, much cheaper) or Live* are unnecessary costs. Yes, MS's usability requirements seem to miss "text must be readable in SD" but most games are still playable even on an SDTV. A second controller is only if you want local MP and the chatpads? Seriously?
*= I simply consider 360 games to have no online multiplayer at all which is why I prefer Wii and PC games if I need online.
Note that casual does not exclude hard, casual games are like arcade games except without quarters and people played arcade games casually too. In fact many "hardcore" games are easier than casual games because they aren't about increasing your skills but experiencing the story, in a casual game you often play until you lose (Tetris) or try to score as efficiently as possible within the level (Peggle), it's about getting better to beat your previous score, getting better to survive more levels. Hardcore games even dabble with dynamic difficulties so noone will ever have to get better again, if the game becomes too hard it'll make itself easier (and this isn't limited to the Super Guide which has to be invoked deliberately, games with dynamic difficulties have existed much longer than that and often didn't even tell you that they're making themselves easier).
Those biggest games sell at 50-70€ a copy, they need significantly fewer customers to reach the same revenue number. Compared to the customer numbers movies have games are still a tiny niche.
It is kinda strange how many similarities Tyranids and Zergs share (similar design in physique and architecture, both following a hivemind), same for Protoss and Eldar (similar designs again, energy blades, psionic abilities, warp gates). I think the human space marines in SC are too different from the ones in WH40k to qualify as clones in any way, exaggerated proportions are just to look better with the way the game is viewed. The term space marines is just a result of the "space is an ocean" trope combined with the US Marines.
IMO the defining feature of the WH40k universe is really the Warp (a dimension where thoughts become reality, populated with all life's worst nightmares and capable of corrupting any mind that allows doubt, hence the strong themes of religion in the setting as that is the only defense against that corruption and also has the perk of being able to summon those gods you believe in), I don't think SC has anything similar.
Nobody should be forbid to make a side-scrolling platformer that plays like Super Mario Brothers
I'm sure Armin Gessert thought the same thing.
OT: I just noticed Gessert died in November. Why didn't the gaming news sites post that? Too busy with the Babe of the Day and Top Halo Kills of the Week features?
Wait, many people went from an Atari to nothing instead of from an Atari to the C64, how can the advance in technology explain that?
If the effort to find something worthwhile greatly exceeds 99 cents?
I don't think the Unreal Engine is so popular because of its core engine but because of the toolset it comes with. That toolset is extremely powerful and thus cost efficient for creating a game.
A person starts a game to be entertained by it. Encountering massive skill differences right away and being required to put a lot of work into the game before it becomes fun tells them to go elsewhere and play something fun instead. You can make your extremely skill-based games but they must be fun from the moment the player starts the game up or he will not stay. No arcade game bludgeoned you with its super-hard parts right at the start, they knew people wouldn't throw another coin in there if they get the first impression that the game is more than they can handle. The first level of Contra games is easy, you can usually beat it without running out of lives on your first run (except in 4 and Hard Corps) so you feel like the game is designed for you and the hurdles it places in front of you are surmountable.
Some people compare Section 8 to Tribes. I have no idea how accurate that is since I've never really played Tribes so take it with a grain of salt.
The bad graphics in Spring are mostly caused by not being a clone of TA but a rip-off. The common mods like BA are straight up ripped material from an ancient commercial release.
What do you mean with installation troubles though? At least in Windows it's just doubleclicking the installer and hitting next a few times.
It's almost impossible to get people to work on a single vision without paying them. Everybody has ideas and wants to contribute but for a proper original work you need something consistent. The reason so many FOSS games are clones of popular games is because the vision of "let's make an opensource clone of game X" is easily understood and everyone knows the result.