I just read this article over at Slashdot. It seems that EA is trying to make money off of tutorials that use to come standard in games.
To me small projects like this, and games that fail, are only increasing the amount of money that it cost to make games. Let me explain before you guys start flaming. This project seems that is will make very little money, since those who are use to a series of games would not purchase these tutorials. Let's use the Passing tutorial that is spoken of in the article. Other then the people that were Sega 2K series fans, most people who have played Madden do so on a regular basis. The die hard fans purchase the game each year, since the game play is changed very little, they already know how to play the game. This will cut down on the amount of tutorials that EA sales, but something has to pay for the software, and the paycheck of the people that made the tutorial. If the tutorials do not sell enough to cover these charges, EA is going to have to make a profit somewhere else, most of the time this causes the prices of all games to increase.
There are other companies, that produce one good game a year, and a lot of crappy games that know one plays. For example, Ubisoft created games such as the CSI series, the Dukes of Hazard games, Dogz, and others that have not done so great. With each time a game does not meet expectations then the company has to somehow make up the lost revenue. So the good games cost more because of these failures.
Am I the only one who think that if game publishers, and developers quit making games that do not look promising, and other small stupid projects, that the gaming industry will do better? I know that there is no way to know if a game is going to fail, but there are some games that I have played that I am surprise that they even let it ship, for example The Dukes of Hazard: Return of the General Lee (thank God I only played the demo).
To me small projects like this, and games that fail, are only increasing the amount of money that it cost to make games. Let me explain before you guys start flaming. This project seems that is will make very little money, since those who are use to a series of games would not purchase these tutorials. Let's use the Passing tutorial that is spoken of in the article. Other then the people that were Sega 2K series fans, most people who have played Madden do so on a regular basis. The die hard fans purchase the game each year, since the game play is changed very little, they already know how to play the game. This will cut down on the amount of tutorials that EA sales, but something has to pay for the software, and the paycheck of the people that made the tutorial. If the tutorials do not sell enough to cover these charges, EA is going to have to make a profit somewhere else, most of the time this causes the prices of all games to increase.
There are other companies, that produce one good game a year, and a lot of crappy games that know one plays. For example, Ubisoft created games such as the CSI series, the Dukes of Hazard games, Dogz, and others that have not done so great. With each time a game does not meet expectations then the company has to somehow make up the lost revenue. So the good games cost more because of these failures.
Am I the only one who think that if game publishers, and developers quit making games that do not look promising, and other small stupid projects, that the gaming industry will do better? I know that there is no way to know if a game is going to fail, but there are some games that I have played that I am surprise that they even let it ship, for example The Dukes of Hazard: Return of the General Lee (thank God I only played the demo).