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I consulted for a couple weeks at EA about 10 years ago. On one of those days, I got 2 VPs and a director into a half-hour talk in a break area about how much
by varelse 11y ago
I consulted for a couple weeks at EA about 10 years ago. On one of those days, I got 2 VPs and a director into a half-hour talk in a break area about how much they loved the game Starflight:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight
Starflight's a great game. And we were all having a great time reminiscing over it when I made the mistake of saying "Why not do an update? You all seem to love this game."
Their response was that space games and RPGs are both dead genres. We all parted a few minutes later as I had apparently killed the mood.
- anon3_ 11y ago> Their response was that space games and RPGs are both dead genres. We all parted a few minutes later as I had apparently killed the mood. Do you mean you were fired / you quit? Or was that the conversation?
- seanflyon 11y agoThe conversation ended.
- anon3_ 11y ago> Their response was that space games and RPGs are both dead genres. We all parted a few minutes later as I had apparently killed the mood. Do you mean you were fired / you quit? Or was that the conversation?
- TillE 11y agoIt's really funny how many "dead" genres have been revived thanks mainly to Steam and Kickstarter. Or how Minecraft would have certainly been laughed out of the room by any major publisher. Most of these games will not make obscene profits. But it should be really clear by now that it makes sense to invest in and sell a variety of games, not just mass-appeal action games.
- socceroos 11y agoIt's the bent to 'now profits' that ends up killing them. They can't see the forest for the trees.
- twiceaday 11y agoJust because some genres were revived doesn't mean you can predict which genres to dump money into. Also, what some consider revived others consider still dead.
- rtpg 11y agoI think this is a scale thing as well. Bigger structures like EA have a lot of overhead, making small projects not as worth it (even if its just opportunity cost) Steam and Kickstarter (combined with everyone having good computers now and of course the internet) have made small games super viable now, luckily
- untog 11y agoI never played Starflight, but I believe it influenced a game I loved as a kid, Star Control 2. It was given a sequel (...Star Control 3) but without any of the original makers being involved - IIRC they wanted more money than the publisher was prepared to pay. And what do you know, the bad sequel killed the franchise. People have ported the original to modern platforms, but if anything was due a Kickstarted sequel...
- speeder 11y agoThe original studio is now doping the wildly profitable skylanders franchise, falso the studio is owned 100% by Actvision, i doubt they will be doping anything that is nota skylanders unless they pull a Infinity Ward
- untog 11y agoOh, I know. But a fan-made one would be possible - some people already tried SBC failed, but with Kickstarter backing.. well, you never know.