Editorial: Big-Budget Hardcore Games Could Be Obsolete In 2010

vortis | December 25, 2008 | Industry News | PC Playstation 2

An editorial about the decline of big-budget hardcore games within the coming years. Examples of companies folding under due to poor sales of big budget games is used to illustrate how the industry will have to adopt new methods for hardcore gaming.

When you see long-standing publishers take a hit and respond by laying people off, canceling projects and delaying triple-A games, you know something is very wrong. And even though 2009 has a nice line-up of hardcore games that are easily classifiable as big-budget, they could be the last for a long time to come.

News Story attached to:

Far Cry 2 [PC, PS3, XBOX360]
Gears of War 2 [XBOX360]
Haze [PS3, XBOX360, PC]
James Bond: Quantum of Solace [DS, PS2, PC, Wii, XBOX360, PS3]
Legendary [PS3, PC, XBOX360]
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe [XBOX360, PS3]
Resistance 2 [PS3]
Valkyria Chronicles [PS3]

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Comments

1 thumbs!
chautemoc | December 25, 2008

Totally agree, and personally, I welcome it. Production budgets these days seem absurd to me. I play new and old stuff and love both so it's not like I'm demanding tens of millions be spent on every new game. And a lot of those games satisfy or interest me much less than the stuff that's 5-20 years old.
1 thumbs!
Duality_18 | December 25, 2008

This saddens me, I like to see work and polish in my games... pretty soon every company will be handing out sequels and sequels of sequels as fast as the madden series.
- 0 thumbs!
  Seeker X | December 25, 2008
  
  Couldn't be said any better.
- 0 thumbs!
  chautemoc | December 26, 2008
  
  On the contrary, the company that makes the Madden series has been supporting (publishing) new and fresh titles -- Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, etc.
  - 0 thumbs!
    Linkin Park Fan | December 26, 2008
    
    Yeah only because of years and years of releasing sequal before they relised that.
    - 0 thumbs!
      chautemoc | December 26, 2008
      
      Well they made a good profit until recently, I assume. I'm just saying it's easy to slam companies forever, but what's the point if we never praise them when they do good (even if it is for capitalist reasons )?
0 thumbs!
Final Blade | December 26, 2008

_{OH DEAR GOD, PLEASE PLEASE DON'T LET THIS HIT GOD OF WAR 3, PLEASE!!}
0 thumbs!
Sonic Wave | December 26, 2008

It all depends on how much they are willing to do that.
0 thumbs!
HawkMan | December 26, 2008

first of all this guy is just fear mongering. secondly he is full of s**t, he's choosing games that weren't popular anyway for example;"Just recently Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe met with unyielding mediocrity in sales" was anyone expecting this to be a huge seller?! The next killer app?! I also doubt this game even had a huge "hardcore" budget, and as a result of this games failure... "Midway is starting to collapse", midway has been doing bad for awhile now...this isn't new.

here are more examples of this guys idiocy;

"........ there were a bunch of other games that didn't fare quite as well. Valkyria Chronicles, Quantum of Solace, and Legendary: The Box weren't able to shift a million units within a week. Legendary, especially, is a prime example of a big-budget shooter that resulted in Gamecock's demotion into a lapdog for Southpeak Interactive."

Wow a licensed game not selling so well what are the *bleep*ing odds of that?! and again I doubt the studio/publisher spent a huge budget on it.

Legendary: the box wasn't expected to be a killer app I believe once more that this game didn't have quit the budget of Gears,Resistance and other popular triple A titles.

There are still going to be big budget titles, just in the proven studios, Insominiac,Naughty,EPIC, Sucker Punch,Team Ico-Although I don't believe their games cost much.etc.

Lesser known studios would have to take a budget cut.
I can go on about this article its just Full of BS.
0 thumbs!
Revenger of Wastelan | December 26, 2008

I hope this doesn't happen, we need to see the future in future games, not the present and past!