http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-26-tomb-raider-has-sold-3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

3.4 million copies of Tomb Raider have been sold in four weeks, publisher Square Enix has revealed, which is not enough to hit the game's sales target.

Fellow Square Enix title Hitman Absolution sold 3.6 million units since its launch in November last year, while Sleeping Dogs sold 1.75 million since last August.

There's no mention of what the company's internal sales expectations were for the trio, just that all three missed their respective marks. 

When I was at Crytek I made a 3D physics puzzle level as a prototype for a new game. The game was rough but it started at the base of a tower and involved the player constantly climbing and looking up to solve puzzles. Spent ages coming up with rope gun puzzles and large world objects to interact with and various safely nets (check points) to prevent the player falling too far down. I then did a walk through video to be presented to the top management. First comment, too vertical, xbox users don't look up! It got scrapped.

As much as we all bitch and moan about players never looking up, I don't think it is an instinct of people to look up. If you asked someone to walk along a street and then asked them to describe the roof top detail, hardly anyone would be able to describe what was there. I don't think this is a game issue but a people issue. 

Or I swear I will just release it un-tested. 

For a shooter sure, but for a 3D puzzle game, is looking around really too much to ask of players?
Plenty of modern games require it, Portal 2, Mirror's Edge, Mario Galaxy...

I guess the problem is that shooters have to be nothing more than shooters nowadays, try to mix anything else into the genre and you alienate 50% of the playerbase. 

I agree. When I travel, I always make a point to take pictures of the ceilings in churches and various buildings because it's just not something I ever look at normally. Then if I have to build one for a game, I at least have some damned reference. Heh.

We have that same conversation a lot with Gears levels ...

"This area is too vertical"

Grr... 

 

I'll test it, I've played through Starkmon like 3 times since I downloaded it a few days ago! Click my name for my email! 

I just discovered triangular LEDs! 

Check your email :) 

I would love to test as well, and send you an RMQ demo. 

I have sent you a demo of my blind playthrough! 

Maybe some indie developer somewhere will eventually make a proper Quake-style fps and bring the universe back into balance, but I can tell you we sure as shit won't be getting one from the mainstream games industry.

I bloody hope so. I'd love to do something like that, but I worry I wouldn't be able to do it, or get enough people on board that know what they are doing to help. The 7DFPS (http://7dfps.org/) challenge from last year was quite interesting, but I don't know if they made and old-skool shooters with 3d level design.

I'd really like to play something like metroid prime but with coop and more action packed gameplay similar to Quake or Doom. Honey was close to that I guess, but I want more!

Actually, the Metroid Prime games were pretty fucking awesome. They had a totally different aiming mechanism to most FPS games though, which enabled very fast action scenes with enemies moving quickly in all directions. Creative ways of solving the won't look up problem do exist, and I think it's just a case of finding them. 

Good call on Metroid Prime - I'm an enormous fan of it (the first GC Metroid Prime at least).

There are tons of ingredients essential to making a game "Quake-style" imo, but two big things (that Metroid Prime also has in spades) that you rarely or never tend to see in action games these days are:

1) Exploration created by the existance of multiple alternate routes and optional areas.

2) Surreal environments that don't allow themselves to be compromised by "realism".

The reason for 1) is I think twofold - a) it confuses the modern gamer who doesn't like to have to make choices or become disoriented even for a second, and b) it's too expensive to develop content that might not even get seen by the player.

2) Is a bit harder to justify - I think people are more comfortable being fed the same shit that they already know (i.e. military-themed shooter in an urban environment), and are probably put off by a game setting that is too alien or wierd to them. I'd like to hear other people's theories on this, because I'm struggling to find a decent reason. 

I agree Kinn. I think one of the reasons I loved the heck out of Dark Souls was that it was totally surreal AND you go wherever the hell you want (seriously, my usual route through the game skips the both the taurus demon and the hellkite bridge, and for a bit more flavour I go straight to Quelagg).

I think the realism angle is just an easy sell, the problem is that the easy sell eventually gets stagnant and innovation tends to shine through. Remember the early 2000's when *every* game was a WW2 game? Yeah that didn't follow to this gen. Even the newest COD has futuristic elements and nazi zombies, eventually they have to do something different.
Also I think the Oculus Rift will really create whole new genres and gameplay innovations the likes we have not seen for decades. 

Are games made like this (dumbed down) because players want and like it, or do players want and like it because games are made like this?

In other words, who raised (or spoilt) whom.
Then, consoles are to blame because of the bottleneck controller; the publishers are to blame because they only care about maximum profit, not in the slightest about originality. It's an industry alright.

I agree there's nothing to be expected from the big players anymore. Unfotunately, in most cases indie devs don't have the budget/manpower/skills to pull off something of equal (visual/technical) quality as the AAA titles.
FPS were better off back then when they were developed for PC and only then (and only sometimes) ported to consoles with the corresponding neccessary simplifications - today it's the other way around, and obivously that cripples the games and everyone involved in longlasting terms. I applaud companies that decide to develop exclusively for PC and not follow in with the bullshit that made gaming/the industry go downhill (apparently without even realizing). Ok, admittedly, right now I can only think of the Stalker games. But still. 

First comment, too vertical, xbox users don't look up!

That's pretty circular.

1) Exploration created by the existence of multiple alternate routes and optional areas.

2) Surreal environments that don't allow themselves to be compromised by "realism".

Yeah I agree, I would add

3) Revisiting or backtracking areas through unlockable routes and/or new means of transportation. (eg, learning to crouch, jumping further, using a grapple hook, etc...)

I'dd put Zelda games in the same category.

Creative ways of solving the won't look up problem do exist, and I think it's just a case of finding them.

Half Life's Barnacles instantly come to mind :D
The Half Life games have some good vertical sections.
(not terribly 3D, per se, but certainly with a strong verticality). 

It's true that players "don't look up" but this is also due to games not requiring it.

If you make the player look up constantly, if you teach it as a basic skill early in the game, then they will look up.

Just don't expect them to look up for your ONE puzzle halfway through a 15 hour game, if the rest of the game never requires looking up. 

I just read through an entertaining, depressing and sometimes annoying essay which is very relevant I think (at least to negke's comment): http://www.learntocounter.com/the-history-of-why-im-tired-of-your-modern-shooters-part-one/

Takes an hour or two but imo it is worth it. It is 2-3 years old. Very grumpy but raises many good points and is a nice historic overview at least.

----

The old Zelda games (I only played the NES and GB ones, couldn't get into the others at all) have many mechanics that would work in Quake like FPS. I wrote about some monster designs somewhere once. 

I've been seriously thinking about how I'd go about making a modern Quake-like for the past year or so, and as you guys touch upon; Metroid Prime and Dark Souls are absolutely games to look for inspiration from.

One thing I think that would be a really good thing to borrow for consoles, is the Metroid lock-on mechanism. When you lock on to an enemy, you enter circlestrafe mode, where jumping allows you to do a quick dodge move. Coupling that with some spatial awareness to try to prevent unintended falls off edges, I think that would go a long way towards a more Quake-style combat feel.
For PC mouse and keyboard would of course be the preferred way.

The meat and bones of a modern Quake would be the monsters and the world though, so that's where most of the effort would have to be focused in my opinion. :)
I can't even count the number of different weird-ass monsters in Dark Souls, so it is always so disappointing when I see a game that only features Men With Hitscan Weapons. 

3) Revisiting or backtracking areas through unlockable routes and/or new means of transportation. (eg, learning to crouch, jumping further, using a grapple hook, etc...)

Yeah, that's also a good one. In Quake, this basically amounts to "u must have teh gold key", but Metroid Prime goes absolutely balls-deep with it. In fact, it's kinda the driving force of MP's entire world structure. 

in his if games are our movies, what are our films article? 

about it.

The metroid series sometimes makes the lock-and-key mechanic too obvious and gamey, and that's not always desirable.
I know I kinda failed on that myself with honey.

In MP2 I especially remember the multi-lock-on doors which made no sense besides being a progression blocker.
I never really enjoyed MP2 & 3... :-| 

but money talks as much as your modern day average 15-29 year old male with internet access and a smartphone. 

Quake's monsters were just bullet sponges, with one or two exceptions, and one thing I would change in Nu-Quake, would be to add a healthy dose of monsters with non-trivial defeat strategies. Zelda and (again!) the Metroid Prime series have plenty of good examples of this sort of monster. 

Heh, yeah I gave up playing Metroid Prime 2 very early in the game, but I can't for the life of me remember why (I think I got stuck during a section of incredibly obtuse gameplay, which bottomed out my give-a-shit-ometer for a while, and I never did get motivated enough to play it again.)

I think I played maybe half of Metroid Prime 3 before real-life monopolised my time, and I remember liking it a lot more than MP2 but still not as much as MP1.