Here comes, yes...another gaming mag - Stuff Gamer

[MVS]

And if they didn't make money off GT and other games, they would not even make a AE2.

[James]

Er... what? They made Ape Escape 2 because Ape Escape 1 sold well enough (elsewhere) to warrant a sequel, not because Gran Turismo sold a billion copies. Happy little platformers aren't the biggest profit-makers any more, but they do pull in enough cash to ensure that there will always be one more to play. Ape Escape and its sequel weren't risky, they made money. Just because they wanted bigger profit in the US market doesn't mean that profit isn't there at all. Obviously Sony didn't think the lower projected profit was worth their time, but Ubisoft apparently thinks differently. Judging by my limited market exposure, I'm sure they're ok with its performance.

Now if you replace Ape Escape with Ico or Rez, then maybe you'd have an argument, but Ico at least had sales good enough to warrant a sequel. Unless you think that Sony is doing it out of the goodness of its kind and loving heart, of course.

James

[Lhadatt]

This debate is asinine.

Furious, MVS is right. Sorry.

Given current development budgets and other costs associated with producing systems and titles, if the mainstream gamers didn't buy Madden every year, the market would collapse.

For things to get to this state though, the entire industry would have to revert to the no-quality attitude of the Atari days. That would probably result in gaming dying off for at least one gen. I don't see this happening though, since most companies have enough sense to continue delivering quality titles.

The reality of the situation is game developers have to create games that sell in order to make profit and continue to grow. Companies that choose to do their own thing and cater to "hardcore" gamers (i.e. From Software, Atlus, Crave, etc.) don't make a whole lot of money -- just enough to survive, because they know their audience and are doing what they like. This doesn't promote profit growth, so not very many companies go this route. Even Treasure occasionally does projects that will generate more revenue than their normal niche stuff.

You're just going to have to live with the fact that gaming is funded by Teh Normals.

[frostwolf ex]

i wont be buying it, but what will seperate this from incite? it had the requisite scantily clad women, and halfhearted videogame journalism,and it went away rather quickly. yeah,it will probably sell to the madden set, but i would rather a Good video game mag actually came out again, rather than a bunch of half mags like this.

[James]

I was so, so happy that Incite died. The problem with it wasn't that it was a mainstream magazine, the problem was that it was pure pain to read.

I admit, I'm totally confused as to why anyone would care what a celebrity plays for games. Seeing as the magazine died a quick death, apparently I'm not the only one.

James

[bahn]

James. looks like you just experienced being proven wrong.

[voltz]

Originally posted by OmniGear
The people who play Madden don't really care enough about video games to spend money on a mag, and people who do care about video games aren't going to take this seriously.

That's got me thinking, if people only play madden or any other sports games and has a taste for hot women, likely they'll go after this mag on sight.

On the other hand, these people don't care about videogames IN GENERAL (read VIDEOGAMES = titles we play but they couldn't give 2 shits about which is the whole industry outside the sports titles). Very likely, that's the same type to be writing for it.

I'd rather wait for the next gamefan to come along... which may never happen.

[§eraphim]

Companies could make mags like this till the cows come home for all I care IF there were one or two mags that would cater to the bigger more passionate fan of gaming.
I’m agreeing with Mr.Furious, not to say that all mainstream should go, but there should be a balance. At the moment that balance is tipped way off to the point that mainstream games affect the quality of all games, mainstream or not.
There's been a what, 5x increase in the amount of games being released from a time not long ago? Now for every one good game that gets released (where the team actually made the game first and not the marketing scheme for it), we get 9 others. What are the chances of joeshmo picking up that one when he has the names/price/500 screen shots/Demos of those 9 games shoved down his/her through for the past 2 years. I know they don’t necessarily make bad games, but I love how Nintendo shows previews for their games sometimes 3 years before Japanese street date.

And yeah, another GameFan would be a godsend...

[Mr_Furious]

Originally posted by Lhadatt
This debate is asinine.

Then why join in?

Furious, MVS is right. Sorry.

Your opinion and nothing more.

Given current development budgets and other costs associated with producing systems and titles, if the mainstream gamers didn't buy Madden every year, the market would collapse.

Madden has never been that important to the "market" or the "industry". EA has found many other ways to be profitable you know. If people stopped buying Madden, the only people that would be SOL would be the Madden team.

For things to get to this state though, the entire industry would have to revert to the no-quality attitude of the Atari days. That would probably result in gaming dying off for at least one gen. I don't see this happening though, since most companies have enough sense to continue delivering quality titles.

Agreed.

The reality of the situation is game developers have to create games that sell in order to make profit and continue to grow. Companies that choose to do their own thing and cater to "hardcore" gamers (i.e. From Software, Atlus, Crave, etc.) don't make a whole lot of money -- just enough to survive, because they know their audience and are doing what they like. This doesn't promote profit growth, so not very many companies go this route. Even Treasure occasionally does projects that will generate more revenue than their normal niche stuff.

And I never stated otherwise. MVS stated that industry would die if mainstream moved on and I stated that it wouldn't. Companies would find a way to survive and the market would change. Not disolve.

You're just going to have to live with the fact that gaming is funded by Teh Normals.

Just because that's the way it is now doesn't mean it's a necessity. Again, I revert back to the gaming days of old (pre-32bit). Where was mainstream then and how did companies fund their games without the mega-million sellers?

[Jeremy]

Games didn't cost as much to develop during the pre-32 bit days. Companies have to sell more copies of games to break even, and to do this, they probably need the mainstream gamers to push the sales above the brink of breaking even.