Lucas: I can't do Telltale games mid-season. That goes for any episodic game series, really; from the few times I've tried it, I just don't jive with experiencing narrative arcs broken up into scheduled chunks of content. Like a Netflix binge-watcher, I'd rather wait until the entire story is available to play at my own pace, then down it all in as few sittings as possible. Being forced to wait between bits of story advancement puts the burden of remaining invested on the player - and I'm about to experience the episodic structure taken to its extreme with StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void. If all goes to plan and this third and final chapter launches later this year, it'll have taken over five real-world years for the complete saga of StarCraft 2 to play out.
Jason Hall, currently an indie developer and former Blizzard employee, has been sharing some really interesting stories from his long career in the industry for a while now. Some of them are truly insightful, while others may seem depressing.
I’m a little shocked that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty sold only around 6 million copies. The original StarCraft did over 11 million. Maybe Blizzard was too leisurely in releasing StarCraft 2? Starcraft 2 came out 12 years after it’s predecessor.
Im surprised too. Starcraft was still a huge name in 2010. It was kinda the only new RTS around and other genres like MOBAs hadn't really kicked off yet. I do remember at the time sentiment around the game was
pretty angry the game was being split into 3 but I doubt that would have impacted sales to that degree
For a long time I believed StarCraft II sold on par or better than its predecessor. There was so much hype for the game. Plus it had a pretty strong E-Sports scene for a few years.
Myself and half a dozen friends all bought StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and played it religiously for a full year. While I bought the expansions, most of my friends did not. RPGs seem to be a generally low selling genre.
I'm not shocked at all. This was an early example of Blizzard being greedy. Instead of releasing a complete experience, splitting Starcraft 2 in 3 parts so it could make us purchase it 3 times if we wanted to know the whole story and play story mode with the other races.
I originally had that stance. However, Wings of Liberty, was just as long, if not longer than StarCraft 1. The expansions were of decent length too and added a good amount of additional content.
and people wonder why we are having mtx in everything. i blame the people who actual buy them.
It's interesting he used Brazil as an example of the importance of regional pricing. Nowadays many companies on Steam are setting their prices in Brazil as high as, if not more than, their price in USA. I simply refused to buy a few games when I noticed that's the case.
Today Telltale Series has confirmed to TechRaptor that it has laid off a number of employees, while the games currently in development remain in the pipeline for the time being.
Sadly, this is Deja vu, with Telltale going through this type of thing before in 2018 - thoughts are with those affected. Games companies and all sectors always follow each other, with the bad press reducing as each new announcement is made - sad times we live in.
Supermassive Games has failed to innovate since its breakout hit Until Dawn and its games are getting more stale, something that sadly echoes Telltale Games' downfall.
Trash article. More jaded commentary from individuals that play so much of something, they get pulled out of the very thing they liked before. Or think everyone is as jaded as them with the genre. Thing is, the developer wouldn't be making these games if they didn't think there was an audience. And, they are not in financial trouble as Tell Tale was. Try again.
Critiquing is fine as we want developers like Super Massive to stay the course of making good games. Especially after rushing games out too quickly after their break out hit. But to go on and say they are on a decline when the very game they just released was received well by the gaming community is jumping the gun. Not only that, but Until Dawn: Rush of Blood was a hit on PSVR fool. Not everyone gets nausea from VR.
Not only that, but the ignorant opinion that Quantic Dreams has declined when Detroit: Become Human is a great game for its genre, was received well by gamers and sold well, speaks volumes about this person's opinion.
Tell Tale's biggest mistake was attaching their works to huge existing IP that requires big royalties. They didn't invest in bringing new ways to interreact with their games or even improvements to graphics/mo-cap.
Supermassive is the complete opposite. Their games are completely original works, they own their own titles, there is a level of exploration in their games and the graphics continue to be worth a look.
Agreed. This article is complete garbage. The games it compares The Quarry to are hardly competitors and nowhere in the league of the game.
These type of games are about the choices and the story. Some of the later releases may have faltered in those areas making them not as good as the original. But i don't see how this author wants them to innovate. It just seems like the author wants to play a different genre. What they need to do is come up with better stories and choices.
The reason that telltale fell into financial ruin was the amount of money they had to pay out for the big License fees. Batman, Borderlands, walking dead, they had to pay through the nose to get rights to use them. Supermassive don't have that problem, although I would love them to do a Nightmare on Elm street, Friday the 13th or Halloween game, the rights to those properties would likely be too much to warrant the cost.
Dumb, uninformed take.
Telltale went under due to, mainly, piss poor management. They grew the team way too big, and took on way too many projects at one time; stretching the key talent far too thin.
Then constant crunch pushed much of said key talent to move onto other studios.
Tied into the fact they kept utilizing antiquated tech instead of moving onto a new, modern engine.
None of this applies to Supermassive, thus a pointless and uninformed article we have here.
