Irate Gamers V Part 1: Publisher Angst
Sometimes I want to seriously hurt the people in charge of giving the go ahead to the games released today. The mind really boggles at some of the decisions made out there. I mean, seriously, what exactly is up with games like Mary Kate & ashleys Wonderful adventure, Barbies Fun Time in the Sand, or actual real-life released games like Spy Hunter, Tarzan Freeride, or Taz Wanted. Why arent there more original or innovative games out there? Why do there always have to be cash-ins and yearly updates?
I understand that some of these are designed to appeal to female gamers (Mary Kate and Barbie) but surely even female game players, forever to be generalized as not very interested in games, can smell these stinkers from a mile away.
Look at todays games. Lets start with Nintendo. F-Zero GX, "Links" Soul Calibur II, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Super Mario Sunshine, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Wave Race: Blue Storm, 1080: avalanche, Super Smash Bros Melee...the list goes on.
Theyre all good, great, or excellent games (or should be in 1080: avalanches case), none of them stink like rotten cheese and yet theyre all sequels. But all are great sellers; especially Nintendo staples Mario and The Legend of Zelda. Publishers love great sellers, and its this reason why these games were given the go ahead. Not only did they display the potential to provide enjoyment to Nintendo players, but also displayed the potential to generate profits for Nintendo.
I hate some publishers, but I hate their choices more. Theyll gladly say yes to Extreme Sports Game X, Platform Game Y, or adventure Game Z, but will have to think long and hard before giving the go ahead to the Innovative 3D Shooter a, Original Life-Management Game B, or Never-before-seen Puzzle Game C.
Think about it. For the successful Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, theres Shaun Murrays Wakeboarding, Dave Mirra BMX, Matt Hoffman BMX, aggressive Inline, and even Disneys Extreme Skateboarding for Petes sake. How many Tony Hawk clones do we need? are any of these even close to the quality of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? No! Unfortunately, these clones sell.
a Word to Publisher X
Moving on, theres another reason Im angry with publishers these days. Whats with all these recent headlines being made of Publisher X dropping some or all of their GameCube support, due to low sales? If you create and distribute a great game in a comparable and competitive timeframe on the GCN, then Cube owners may have something worth buying. Yet this is not the case for two publishers that claim GameCube is a declining business. The publishers, Eidos and acclaim, have no-one but themselves to blame for their lacklustre success on the GameCube.
In the case of Eidos, one begins to wonder if they ever really supported the GameCube in the first place. The company has only released five games for the GCN thus far, with the only notable release being Hitman 2: Silent assassin and the excellent TimeSplitters 2. While TimeSplitters 2 did relatively well on all three major platforms (including the Cube, obviously), Hitman 2: Silent assassin didnt sell too well on the GameCube. Released as a multi-platform title, it arrived first on Xbox and PlayStation 2. Six months later, (delayed several times and well past the critical holiday season) it arrived on the GameCube. Naturally by this time nearly everyone who wanted to play it already did so on competing systems. Why buy an old game you have already played for twice the price when there are newer games coming out all the time? Its no wonder the game hardly sold any copies. Eidos claims that the GameCube is a declining business. Hmmhad they released it earlier at the same time as other versions, perhaps things would have turned out differently?
Then theres acclaim. The problem with acclaim is that nearly all of the games that they have released for the GameCube, to be blunt, have been average pieces of shit. Need examples? Look no further than BMX XXX, Legends of Wrestling, Mary-Kate & ashley Tropical Trouble, Turok: Evolution, Extreme Downhill Racing, and Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance. Sure there have been a few good games like aggressive Inline and the Burnout games, but the majority of them have ranged from mediocre to poor.
acclaim has little excuse for poor sales of Turok: Evolution on the GameCube either. First off, it sold poorly on all three major consoles, just a little bit worse on GCN. More importantly though, is that the Turok series got its start on the Nintendo 64. Both Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil sold very well on the N64, with Turok 2 selling over 1.1 million copies in the United States alone and the original not far behind. Perhaps GameCube owners could see that the latest Turok instalment was lacklustre at best.
a little closer to my homeland, acclaim have really ticked off many an australian Cuber with their treatment of the aFL Live series. The australian Rules Football-based game was meant to make an appearance last year, but was delayed and then ultimately cancelled late in the year for no apparent reason. although somehow it managed to release on time or just following the end of the aFL Football season, of course on Xbox and PlayStation 2. at the time (December 2002) we were promised that the following year wed get a version of our own to be released around august during the time of the aFL final rounds and finals series. Fast forward to today and Xbox and PS2 both have aFL Live 2004 to play, while Cube owners are left to lament the non-appearance of the game for the second year running. To that I say, screw you acclaim. If you dont release the game, how can we buy it? and then you claim that not enough people want to buy the game. Talk about grrrr
While we, as Nintendo gamers at heart, might make such claims like we dont need those crappy third party games anyway, weve got the best games from the best developer out there, exclusive too, the fact of the matter is that if we want our favourite console manufacturer to reclaim its rightful position at the top of the tree in terms of market share, then quality third party games must be plentiful in supply.
Granted, Nintendo have done a good job convincing third parties to develop for GameCube, as opposed to the sorry state of affairs that was the Nintendo 64 third-party support. But its still not enough, if more and more publishers drop all or the majority of support for GameCube, then it doesnt bode well for the system, or its successor. Its never going to be adequate that Nintendo gets the hand-me-downs form Sony and Microsoft consoles, because at that rate therell eventually be no third party support for Nintendo consoles.
and when there's no third party support, then your console loses big-time. We only need to look at the massive disaster that was atari Jaguar to see the importance of third party development. The Dreamcast suffered a similar fate, though that was compounded by Sega's disastrous cash-flow situation. Then there's the Nintendo 64, highly profitable for Nintendo, but in the cold light of day it was a very weak system with a very weak overall software library, chiefly due to the lack of third party support and unhealthy over-reliance on first and second party software.
If youre going to claim that the GameCube is a declining business then youre going to have to give some concrete answers as to why, rather than passing the blame onto the machines userbase.
I hate some publishers, yet I must love them too. Its a vicious cycle.