"In general we’re
thinking about how we make this a more broadly appealing franchise, because
ultimately you need to get to audience sizes of around five million to really
continue to invest in an IP like Dead Space. Anything less
than that and it becomes quite difficult financially given how expensive it is
to make games and market them."
The above is a quote from
EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. He is talking about the next instalment in
the Dead Space series, Dead Space 3
and the quote is in answer to the response that the game received from the
gaming world during and after E3. At E3 Electronic Arts focussed very heavily on
the action side of the game with new features such as unified ammo, an
emphasis on action with the introduction of a cover system and two player co-op very much to the fore. There was less shown of the horror side of the game,
something that fans associate with the Dead Space series. Consequently fans got a bit
upset and questioned whether Dead Space 3
was heading in a direction they didn’t want the series to take. The cover
system in particular had people claiming that the game was going to be action
focused and that the horror elements were going to take a back seat.
Visceral Games, developers
of the game, have quickly moved to quash any fears series fans might have by
saying that the original horror element is still present. Senior producer on
the game, Dave Altman, told Eurogamer,
"A traditional fan
wants to have that alone in the dark on the couch moment. That game's there for
you...Tight corridors, atmosphere, tension, horror, everything you've come to
know and expect. No AI followers, not anyone chatting in your ear the whole
time. It's the game that you know when you see Dead Space."
We won’t know if this is
really the case; or whether Visceral are trying to keep fans onside, until the
game is released in February 2013. But whoever is right, it is the comments by
Gibeau that highlight a problem that I see developing in the game industry, and
it’s something EA are becoming more and more guilty of.
It seems that EA and others think that all you need to do in order to make a good game sell better is to
bung in a load of features - such as multiplayer and if it is a third person
game a cover system - that apparently appeal to a broader audience. Do this and
you are guaranteed to instantly boost sales. However, I question the wisdom of
spending more money on a game series in order to try and open it up to a wider
audience in the hope that it achieves more sales. I just feel that this doesn’t
achieve anything.
I have no problem with
developers and publishers making games that specifically try to appeal to the broadest
market possible. After all they need to make money and just look how successful
Call of Duty has been by following this strategy.
However, I fail to see the sense in trying to take an existing series that is
well liked and has a large, if not huge following, and trying to turn it into a
mass market game; all the while trying to keep the series fans on board. I just
don’t think it works and EA more than anyone should know this. They tried to do
this with Dragon Age 2 and ended up
with an inferior product that didn’t attract many new players and seriously
alienated those who liked the original. Dragon
Age 2 sold around 150,000 units in its first ten weeks which compares with the
250,000 units sold by the original game, Dragon
Age: Origins. In total DA2 sold
around 1.45m units while DA:O sold
over double that at 3.79m. These figures demonstrate that all EA succeeded in
doing by making the game more appealing to the mass market was to seriously
impact sales, probably by driving away series fans with the precise changes
that were meant to result in more sales. Now they look like making the same
mistake with Dead Space 3.
Certain companies seem to
have it ass-backwards when it comes to making games. They want to hit the magic
sales mark, in the case of Dead Space 3
five million, because of the cost of making the game, but the game has only
become more expensive because you want to appeal to more people, so you have to
put extra resources into it in the hope of broadening the audience. The game then
fails to hit the necessary sales mark because the publisher/developer changed the game so much that they ended up not pleasing anyone.
Just introducing certain features
like co-op or multiplayer into a game in order to make it appeal to a wider audience
isn’t going to work. It’s not ‘back of the box’ features that sell games, but
the quality of the product in the box. The reason why the Call of
Duty series is so successful is because Call
of Duty: Modern Warfare was an excellent game and the series built off that.
Make an excellent game, market it correctly and the sales will come. Trying to
take a pretty successful franchise and boost it into the top-tier sales wise by
messing with the formula and alienating the fans doesn’t work. The fans lose
out because the game changes and becomes something they no longer want to play,
the publisher loses out because sales aren’t high enough and they either don’t
make enough money or no money at all, and the developer loses out as they end
up being closed down because the game didn’t sell enough.
I hope Dead Space 3 turns out well and doesn’t
end up alienating fans - whilst failing to find that broader audience it strives
for - as no one wants to see a good game fail, but if publishers continue to mess
around with popular franchises in this way, then we are all on a 'hiding to
nothing.'