Killing Ifrit - a Final Fantasy community: What? - Viewing Profile - Killing Ifrit - a Final Fantasy community

Sorry. Usually when someone states what their conclusion to an issue is without elaborating on how they came to it, instead of taking the time to try and figure out what lead them to that conclusion and discuss how it might be possible for it to be different, because it would take too long and have too many questions, I usually resort to that behaviour in a ridiculous attempt to shorten whatever I'm saying and try to make the other person want to expand upon their own point instead of me having to pick it apart. In other words don't jump from A to D, I want to see A, B, C and D so I know how someone came to their conclusion and try to discuss it. If I feel someone's making broad statements and saying nothing to back up what they think, I'm not going to want to dedicate even more time trying to figure out information I should have been given already so I know how they came to their own conclusion. But of course I act like a despicable cunt from losing my patience and should have said nothing at all, we can agree on that.

That kid won the lottery more or less, why big developers making Call of Duty would want to give up guaranteed, safe money to roll dices and hope they win isn't evidently clear to me. Businesses will blindly approve developing something that has a chance to be slightly more lucrative at the cost of stability? App store isn't sustainable, if it was really that easy to make money everyone would jump on it (which they have of course). With everyone on board at some point there will be a cut off point for new developers, it won't be financially feasible to become an iPhone developer, especially when it relies so much on luck to make money. Traditional games are far less risky to create and profit on.

Even if what you say does happen, when everyone jumps into making casual games eventually the casual game market will stop expanding (or maybe it doesn't amirite). When it's completely full of developers and you can't make a living anymore, they're just going to ignore the other side of the industry that survived for 40+ years and currently makes more money than the music industry? Oh wait, why is that still alive, they should be making casual games not music! Why is every business that makes less money than casual games not making casual games? Come on...

If someone's perfectly content fiddling around with a physics puzzler and wants nothing more, that's a bit of a shame, but I'm not willing to condemn what they look for in a video game and want it to fail because I view it as overly simplistic or think it will take over the world. And it's definitely not a loss if one new person is spending money inside the industry, rather than spending none at all. That money could be used to fund new projects. Will those be casual games? If that market is overcrowded, it might be a hardcore one for increased stability. The only way casual games will somehow completely dominate over hardcore games, despite there being a massive market demanding for those hardcore games, is if there's a fundamental problem with how hardcore games are being sold or made making them unfeasible to create. Then casual games aren't the problem, the hardcore game business model is. Fixing that doesn't require hoping a section of gaming should die due to paranoia.
Having new people brought in with casual games crossing over into more in depth games is unthinkable, despite there being numbers to back that up, but the opposite where casual games take over the world and the hardcore market completely dies is rational and expected? If a market is there it will be catered for. If not by third parties then by console manufacturers, they're not interested in seeing an entire section of the gaming business die because one other side might be more lucrative. Having more than one way to make money is kind of important. Their business model is to expand the market in both sections, they want people to buy casual crap and traditional games, increasing revenue on both sides. Having people buy just casual crap with no plans in place to try and make them buy your other software is lazy business.

The DS touch pad and 3DS screen are where they've innovated in hardware outside of the Wii most recently. There's other smaller things like GBA linking up to the Gamecube for a variety of things and the wireless adapter that came with Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green. I can name things like analog sticks, rumble and the SNES pad design (and Wiimote design) which were subsequently stolen directly by Sony and still being used, but yeah, I generally think Nintendo's pretty good when it comes to innovating.
In terms of software, I guess going by the highest selling ones that I think innovated entirely I'd point out Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Nintendogs and Brain Age. Whether you want to count titles like Cooking Guide, Style Savvy, or Art Academy is up to you. I could mention some games they've made such as Donkey Kong Jungle Beat that came with a bongo drum, or mention regular games that have innovated in the tradtional gameplay sense without becoming a ridiculous phenomenon or requiring extra hardware, but that's not really important. AR games from the 3DS are going to be big but considering Sony's NGP has it covered can't really credit Nintendo for that.

Do you make a distinction between Wii casuals and people who play on iPhone or Facebook? I don't. Let's imagine that anyone playing games on those platforms will never try other types of traditional games no matter what, how would that be bad for the industry? People will be employed to create those specific games to cater for that audience. Having more people being employed making games, more businesses making money and more people overall playing games, no matter what type of games, sounds like it'd be a benefit for the industry rather than a detriment. And yeah in terms of who's benefitting the industry the most right now you can look at those 3 names listed above, followed by Microsoft. More people spending money inside an industry is never a detriment. HD console games costing 50+ million have hurt the industry, if you need any proof ask the dozens of studios that have shut down.

But of course pretending that people who started playing games waggling remotes, jumping in front of screens or farming crops won't move onto other types of games is ridiculous. You can look at sales figures, surveys and attach rates to figure out if these casuals are buying other games, and they are. No one's claiming all of them do, but a significant portion do if there are games being released at a steady pace.
And that's why Nintendo is shifting their focus from creating motion control games to 2D platformers, which they said at E3, citing Mario Kart Wii as a "bridge title" that's an example of casual users moving onto more core oriented games. Mario Kart Wii and DS didn't sell 25+ million copies on other systems. Mario Bros. Wii and DS didn't sell 25+ million on other systems. Who bought the extra 20 million copies that Double Dash didn't sell? The anomaly in gaming is why people think those extra 20 million copies came from thin air. And if you look at the sale charts, those games are always selling. That's the greatest thing about the Wii and DS, because those are core games selling to brand new people. People can do a lot worse than starting with 2D Mario and Mario Kart, I'll tell you that. Nintendo is specifically determined to make casual Wii and DS owners move onto more core titles, and why wouldn't they, it's good business sense.

Motion controls are simply an easier interface. Once the interface is conquered, which was the main barrier to entry, people who were previously against playing any type of games will naturally become more open to other types of games simply by owning the machine. It's not rocket science. People bought Wiis for motion controls, no doubt about it, but who bought Mario Kart? Mario Kart Wii should have sold 5 million like Double Dash, but it's sold 25+ million and still going. An anomaly is right~

Yeah you're right, I keep forgetting it's a Japanese company so it's not like any of this is unusual with how businesses operate there. Still, it's so infuriating for me to watch people in control of multi million revenue streams mess up this badly.

You're mad putting Nintendo and stagnant in the same sentence, though, they've been anything but stagnant this generation and it's paying off. They're like the one and only Japanese game company that isn't fucking up. Activision taking so much money out of the system every year with CoD is hurting the industry I think when every other game has to get out of the way or be crushed. They just let off a couple more hundred people a few weeks ago too. Overall I think we're on the same page though, Japan needs to start getting their ass in gear to try and catch up with the rest of the world, but I don't even know if that's possible sadly.

There was no plan all this time for XI, it was always to keep it running with as little effort as humanly possible. What's happening now is a reactionary plan due to the mass exodus of players. Abyssea came about because servers were needing to be merged due to the loss, this improved communication stuff is because the bleeding is still ongoing.

Basically people are finding out now what happens when SE is pressured and put in a corner, had XI's population more or less stayed the same none of this would be happening. It's all a giant badange to help stop the bleeding for both games. Luckily for them stuff like the forums can be applied to both games, but SE would have been content being as minimalist and cheap as possible if XIV had debuted well enough and XI stayed healthy.

Before anyone says SE being as cheap as they were is the norm and that's how all businesses work or should work, Blizzard wants to have a word with you. You'd think copying the MMO leader in terms of consistent effort and high quality would be a smart plan, but nah, fuck up by being overly cheap bastards for years and then run around like a headless chicken when things turn sour. Anyone wondering why this stuff wasn't put in place years ago to prepare for this outcome and to offset it, you're already far more intelligent than whatever monkey is running the show at SE. Stupidity and greed; no decent planning for the future and reduced investment to gain more and more money short term.