There’s been a lot of debate in our industry in the past year about the so-called “middle market”. This is the class of games between say Call of Duty and Angry Birds. Not quite AAA (i.e. not $25 million to produce) but also not $250,000 to make the game. The middle market is the world that Stardock and Paradox thrive in. And both of us have done very well in this market.
The argument against the middle market basically boils down to market size. That the middle market just misses the “sweet spot”. Retailers don’t want to carry middle market products because they don’t sell as well AAA or the casual market. The thing is, digital distribution changes all this.
I contend that a game like say Baldur’s Gate (with updated graphics but no where near Dragon Age) would likely sell very well at a fraction of the cost of Dragon Age. The same is true on a whole host of games. The challenge, of course, is for developers to carefully budget their title based on their best guess on the market size. A game like War in the East may not sell a million copies but they also didn’t cost that much to make.
What’s your take?
The console industry is more at risk. PC, if the AAA guys die off, Stardock/Paradox effectively become the new AAA. PC gaming would survive. also I don't think Valve and Blizzard are going anywhere.
You're right about the budgets really hurting the industry though, due to a combination of forcing rises in game prices (via DLC/online passes, not just price hikes)- which makes consumers more risk-averse, and discouraging risk-taking in general- and you can only preach to the choir so long before they get bored with it. (why I think we get a AAA crash next gen).
Welcome to the club! I have played Crusader Kings consistently since its release. I'm wrapping up a game where I've united Ireland and conquered Jerusalem - what other game on the planet will let you do that (well, Knights of Honor, & Medieval TW to an extent, but really...) That game is amazing! Keep your eyes open for II!
I grew up on console games (SNES mostly), which, surprisingly, got me into PC gaming by way of a Civ I port to the SNES that simply blew my mind - Germany started a pan-continental war in my first game!
As a rule, it seems, PC games simply offer more depth. There's no way around it. The combination of keyboard and mouse simply permits more control. Consoles tend to have heftier hardware (at least compared to my PCs) at a lower price point; why buy a $200 graphics card, have to upgrade your power supply and cooling system (and then pray it doesn't melt down), when you can dish out the same amount and have a ready-to-go game box? The limiting factor (aside from the virtual three-way monopoly on hardware) is that (bleep) controller. Great for FPS. Great for arcade titles. Not so great for anything else.
I had hoped with the Wii's pointing capability that Nintendo would start to open the console market to more PC-esque titles (Romance of Three Kingdoms is great, but KOEI needs some company). Still waiting for that. For this reason, I'm pretty certain the middle market will endure; it's the only place where gamers who want a good game can go to get one.
I think it comes down to inovation and or re-inovation. I see a game like The Witcher that was really done by a small team and then grew now into a huge AAA title after word of mouth went big. Sure, the graphics where pretty , but they took another engine to make it etc.. The devs there where very open on how it all went down etc. Now with their new releasing definitly in the AAA club, they kept to their roots of what made the first game great and in the end they will see that pay off yet again. Too many larger companies loose direction and push faster development. As a coder myself, I can say that is partly probably due to the same team getting lazy and sucking the dollar and slowing their own work down. I see this mostly in static companies that don't hire/fire teams. (when u got a good team why split it up?) Sadly this is also it's downfall. I think at that point it comes down to the leadership to keep the pace, give legit numbers to the publisher etc and do "their best" everytime.
When companies like this can succeed anything is possible, personally if I was in the industry I know of 4 games I would re-produce in an instant that where great in the day or missed the mark but now have such a following you could make a good value at it. Alas I am not, but new version of these with some graphic updates would be fun fun fun! Only isssue would be rights, I know 2 of them are not owned by anyone anymore (well at least not listed as protected at this point) and the other 2 not sure. Eh , I think anything is possible in this industry and for others to say the middle or any part of the industry is fail is just showing how short minded they are to begain with and won't last long in the business.
I find it funny that anyone that ever makes such open ended remarks or think they have the ulitmate answer are always wrong, there is of course a reason for that, but alas it just happens over and over and people will beleive it. As a game of 20 years now (eh probably longer, 43 now) I can say that I have seen the industry in all it's glory and all it's fumblings and I have to see one thing that says "This is the way it is". All it takes is a great idea and the strive to make it, the old saying is "if you make it , they will come" is so true even to this day. The issue with so many companies (in my personal opinion) is inovation or again re-inovation has lost it's flavor.
Take WoW, everyone has copied that over and over so much so people jump into a new version of an MMO and say, "whooope, new skins!, ok so umm what's so great about this game again?" and constantly bash the repeditive remakes of WoW 2.0. The industry is just to scared to invest into something "unkown" or "unproven" that it will , in the end be the "Middle Guys" that make the games people actually want. Will that happen all the time? No, I personally loved the concept of Elemental when it was first announced, my thoughts about it then where "wow, a new take on the old game of Fantasy Empires!" which for those that remember was a concept of sending your heroes below ground to adventure and gather resources and items to enhance your troops on top for large battles. This to me was the ultimate in fun and innovation in it's day. Elemental came close, but graphically for me it didn't even surpass that old title.
That brings me to the subject of graphics, while graphics don't need to be revolutionary that have to do well to represent the world you are partaking in. In almost ever instances of an interaction type of game , a descent graphic set is expected at this point. While elemental had it's own "take" on how things looked, the way it played out was most dissapointing. I got into the depthness of the elements in the game, but the looks lost flavor for me very quickly. I look at games like Ghost Masters for instance , the graphics while very old at this point still hold up well today. In that instance of a remake, I would be about upgrading said graphics, making new levels, adding new items and maybe a new innovation or two, but beyond that nothing much, the base game was sound, the concept was brilliant it was just a head of it's time. If you look at it now say on Steam, it's very popular indeed even today. So to me, graphics hold a place and while squar icons can represent things like our old strat board game would, it's nothing I would look for today as we are tecnically beyond such and I would expect more from any company.
In the end, it's really up to the company be it small,med or big to come up with a good concept they think will sell. It just takes the right leaders to make it happen and we see new titles still being produced with innovation and improvments, it has been slower as of late, but I think that will change. The market is learning that flooding one type of product is also bad for business. (see all the music games)... So as people come and go, I say the ones that will stay are the ones that understand quality and innovation. Bioware had this, they merged with EA, now we see that coming threw on their recent Dragon Age 2 title, I loved 1, 2 was horribly done and definitly rushed. If that is the "new" bioware, I can say I won't be a loyal subscriber as I was before, they lost the meaning of great gameplay. Startdock to me still holds this concept of being innovative and trying to be unique, which keeps me coming back. I might have not liked Elemental as much as I should have, but I still love all their other titles, this game came more down to preference. Sure when it launched it was buggy etc, but it was still a good game in concept and they kept up on fixing and updating it. After that, I just lost the want to play it out of my reasons above, but I still watch for new releases from them, they have a good team and they are trying to be "out of the box " in their way of thinking, which is good as well. Thou, re-inovations never hurt
PS. Sorry for the long writing, good topic, had allot to say
In my opinion, the two most overused "cost multiplying features are ultra-high quality graphics and multiplayer. Nice graphics is nice but not essential. In some genres, multiplayer is actually harms rather than helps a game while simultaneously driving up the price to produce. I applauded the decision to keep GalCiv as a single player game.
Why exactly did elemental sell for 50$ when its made by a middle developer?plz dont try to make a baldurs gate clone
They say that the new AAA game price is 60$
Why shouldn't they try to make an RPG like Baldurs Gate?
I would love a new AAA Baldurs gate-like RPG. Hells yes.
I would buy a new improved Baldar's gate-life RPG.
The features I would added to it are;
In my opinion, the best thing about the middle market (from a gamer's perspective) is that it is THE place for niche games. The simple, unfortunate truth is that you simply cannot make a AAA game with "Niche appeal." They cost too much to make. Thus, any game that only caters to a (relatively) small demographic (for example, 4x Turn based strategy games IN SPAAAAAAAACE!) cannot be profitable, and therefore, cannot be made.
However, give them a middle market budget rather than a AAA one, and they'll create substantial returns on investment. You won't get rich doing it , which is why most major companies prefer to chase the AAA tail, but if you're interested in making games first, and just want to make enough to keep doing so comfortably, the Middle market is where to go.
As for the cost to the consumer. Price is not indicative of a middle market game, budget is. So you're paying $40+ for these games because the market is smaller. You're paying close to AAA prices because that's us doing our part to ensure we keep getting the games we love.
EDIT: oops I missed the date, sorry for bringing it back to life.
--- edit delete.
This is an old thread.. Next time I'll check the OP date before replying.
The middle market suffers from a lack of a proper distribution model. Digital distribution helps, but it doesn’t solve the inherent issue: a good product is sometimes more valuable as part of a set.
This is partly an issue with video games basing too much of their production on the film industry. Developers seem to think movies are what they should aim for when it comes to narrative structure, scope, and release scheduling. That’s fine for the AAA games that can hit all of the key demographics, make a bunch of money, and then spend a huge portion of the revenue on the next iteration. For mid-market games, developers need to create a model similar to television.
We need something like a gaming channel distribution system. In this system, I can subscribe to a gaming channel, and every week they give me a mid-sized game. Ideally, these would be episodic games and I would receive more than one a week. I might not play all of the games, but by subscribing to a genre, I could be assured that the material coming in was at least pertinent to my interests.
It doesn’t just have to be genre-based, either. Imagine if a parent subscribes to a Disney channel gaming network. They know, in broad strokes, what they’re getting. It’s safe, easy, and the better of the games will resonate with their children. Those games have their qualities and innovations permeate through the network, and small-scale risks can be taken to see if a “diamond in the rough” big hit indie project can be created.
The real issue with this isn’t selling it to gamers. “Free games” go over very well on Xbox Live and PSN. The problem is selling it to game companies. The industry is shockingly insular. Technology isn’t shared. Assets aren’t shared. Convincing a bunch of developers to make a game, then have a third party “network” determine their profits, even if it is determined by downloads, is going to be very difficult.
I don't care if a game costs several million to make or if a game costs a few thousand to make. If i like the game i buy the game. However i will say that there are particular favorites, dragon age, xcom, civ, galCiv, FE are all my favorites and i'll gobble up anything that they produce.
I will say though that mod-ability is a HUGE thing for me. A game doesn't have to have it but if it does then it goes a long long way for me. To be honest i love FE for the simple fact that i can make the game do anything i want, i can make it "mine" by modding some files adding a new race here and adding several new items and if i think a monster is to weak or strong i can mod it so that next time i play that monster is more challenging and so fourth. I can't do that as easily with some of the others. So it's not about how much it costs to make the game or even how much i have to spend on the game. It comes down to how much i get out of the game that matters to me. Can i play it for 1k hours and still enjoy it? the only games i've been able to really do that with are games that allow me to mod the game and/or are totally random like FE, GalCiv and Civilization. XCOM and Dragon Age are awesome games but they are pretty scripted i know whats going to happen and when in those games. So the replay-ability isn't quite there. Still among my favs but they're the back burner games i go to after my 1k hours of FE for a break
It seems like my middle portion is what grows the fastest these days...
Seriously, I enjoy mostly middle market games. I think the only AAA game I play right now is Civ V. Other games are from Stardock, Matrix, Paradox and GOG. They are IMO some of the better games.
I play more Middle Market games than any other and love that I can get nice sales of these games on Steam. My favorite over all game of all times AOW:SM is middle market and it's predicessor AOW3 will be as well and looks like it will be my next most played game of all time.
Now I hope that my second new favorite game of all time will be GS3 but only time will tell. GS2 ties will Civ for the 3rd spot.
I'm all for a RPG remake of BG and am for Multiplayer in GS3.
Do you mean an actual direct remake of Baldur's Gate? Because that's been done recently. Both 1 and 2 and their expansion packs.
http://www.baldursgate.com/
That is just the same game as before with a few updates. It is not a remake
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