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Post by GamerL on Jan 14, 2018 7:57:04 GMT -5
Funny you mention Resistance though, is that the only Sony franchise started in the PS3 era to be left behind? Motorstorm and LittleBigPlanet maybe? Might be a little to early to judge tho.. Wouldn't be surprised to see another LittleBigPlanet, wasn't aware Motorstorm was Sony.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Jan 14, 2018 8:10:19 GMT -5
Speaking of Sony though I wonder if Twisted Metal will ever get another revival or if that 2012 one is the last for good. No idea, seems like there's been a few downloadable titles released and whatnot similar to it, but nothing too exciting. Gas Guzzlers Extreme might be the best of the bunch
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Post by dsparil on Jan 14, 2018 8:39:52 GMT -5
..how many series made it to three entries without ever really being a huge thing? There are dozens that don't show signs of life despite being "big", a few examples: Resistance 3, F.E.A.R. 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Army of Two trilogy, Dead Space 3, Lost Planet 3, Crysis 3. Would like to know, what's the secret behind all this. The first is a hit which leads to a sequel. The sequel doesn't do as well, but not poorly enough to kill the series. The third is a relative flop. All those series fit that pattern more or less. I looked at numbers from VGChartz which is a poor source for exactness, but I do find it okay for general trends. Shadow Hearts fits the least well, but sales are roughly flat between the first two then drop at 3. FEAR is relatively flat across all three, but that's just as bad with increasing budgets.
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Post by kaoru on Jan 14, 2018 9:37:26 GMT -5
Project Zero was pretty much the same as Shadow Hearts actually. The first two had decent but not amazing sales, but good enough for the PS2 era. With the end of that one, and the third game having a noticable drop, the series would have been over if Nintendo hadn't financed the later ones.
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Post by nerdybat on Jan 14, 2018 11:08:51 GMT -5
..how many series made it to three entries without ever really being a huge thing? There are dozens that don't show signs of life despite being "big", a few examples: Resistance 3, F.E.A.R. 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Army of Two trilogy, Dead Space 3, Lost Planet 3, Crysis 3. Would like to know, what's the secret behind all this. I wouldn't call F.E.A.R a dead franchise - more like "finished" one. Developers completed the trilogy and decided to do other things, which is probably a good thing to do, as sequels weren't remotely as good as original F.E.A.R. was (the main appeal of first F.E.A.R. is in chaotic gunfights and brilliant AI; sequels significantly dumbed enemies down and scaled back on all the destruction, which turned them into generic first person shooters with some horror elements).
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Post by Bumpyroad on Jan 14, 2018 13:57:28 GMT -5
There are dozens that don't show signs of life despite being "big", a few examples: Resistance 3, F.E.A.R. 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Army of Two trilogy, Dead Space 3, Lost Planet 3, Crysis 3. Would like to know, what's the secret behind all this. The first is a hit which leads to a sequel. The sequel doesn't do as well, but not poorly enough to kill the series. The third is a relative flop. You're damn right about that. I wonder who's gonna save these poor souls who have unwillingly fallen under the "Trilogy" curse: Grid, Risen, Dungeon Siege, Dragon Age, Max Payne, Disciples, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, Borderlands, Untold Legends, Parasite Eve, someone stop me please...
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Post by GamerL on Jan 14, 2018 17:13:07 GMT -5
There are dozens that don't show signs of life despite being "big", a few examples: Resistance 3, F.E.A.R. 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Army of Two trilogy, Dead Space 3, Lost Planet 3, Crysis 3. Would like to know, what's the secret behind all this. The first is a hit which leads to a sequel. The sequel doesn't do as well, but not poorly enough to kill the series. The third is a relative flop. All those series fit that pattern more or less. I looked at numbers from VGChartz which is a poor source for exactness, but I do find it okay for general trends. Shadow Hearts fits the least well, but sales are roughly flat between the first two then drop at 3. FEAR is relatively flat across all three, but that's just as bad with increasing budgets. That's a cycle that makes a lot of sense, especially in the case of F.E.A.R., I barely remember hearing anything about the third game when it came out, so it must have not done well. Project Zero was pretty much the same as Shadow Hearts actually. The first two had decent but not amazing sales, but good enough for the PS2 era. With the end of that one, and the third game having a noticable drop, the series would have been over if Nintendo hadn't financed the later ones. And it's a real shame because it's a bloody brilliant series, there's just no good reason why it wasn't a bigger thing, I mean J horror was pretty big in the US at the time with remakes like The Ring and The Grudge, in fact you can tell Tecmo had high hopes for the series with Crimson Butterfly with how much higher it's production values were compared to the first. But it just didn't work, I'm starting to realize that survival horror, despite being one of my favorite genres, was only ever something with a cult following than a big big thing, Resident Evil was big during the PS1 era before most people got sick it, then RE4 was probably the biggest hit under that banner despite it notably watering down all the elements that made up "survival horror" to that point, Silent Hill 2 obviously had a big cult following when it was released in 2001 but how much better did Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3 sell that year? Probably to the tune of millions more, which says it all. So it was something popular enough to sustain with the relatively low development cost of the PS2 hardware, but as soon as the cost went up it died, obviously horror has since come back around in popularity with western games like Amnesia The Dark Descent kick starting the trend of "first person horror" which has now gone full circle and influenced Resident Evil itself.
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Post by nerdybat on Jan 14, 2018 20:51:14 GMT -5
The first is a hit which leads to a sequel. The sequel doesn't do as well, but not poorly enough to kill the series. The third is a relative flop. You're damn right about that. I wonder who's gonna save these poor souls who have unwillingly fallen under the "Trilogy" curse: Grid, Risen, Dungeon Siege, Dragon Age, Max Payne, Disciples, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, Borderlands, Untold Legends, Parasite Eve, someone stop me please... Wasn't Max Payne 3 a huge succes though? And again, it was initially planned as a final chapter to complete the story (hence the very definitive and cliffhangerless ending), there's just not much for Rockstar to tell anymore. Sometimes trilogy is just a trilogy .u.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Jan 15, 2018 2:06:29 GMT -5
You're damn right about that. I wonder who's gonna save these poor souls who have unwillingly fallen under the "Trilogy" curse: Grid, Risen, Dungeon Siege, Dragon Age, Max Payne, Disciples, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, Borderlands, Untold Legends, Parasite Eve, someone stop me please... Wasn't Max Payne 3 a huge succes though? Not saying it wasn't. It just that devs usually have no problems making a fourth one by omitting the number from the title, if they really want to squeeze out more bucks. Think of Gears of War: Judgment, Onimusha: Dawn Of Dreams or even Mass Effect: Andromeda.
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Post by nerdybat on Jan 15, 2018 2:35:24 GMT -5
Wasn't Max Payne 3 a huge succes though? Not saying it wasn't. It just that devs usually have no problems making a fourth one by omitting the number from the title, if they really want to squeeze out more bucks. Think of Gears of War: Judgment, Onimusha: Dawn Of Dreams or even Mass Effect: Andromeda. Oh, I get your point then. Though I won't exactly call franchises like Max Payne "dead", but I guess in depends on definition of the term ("ended gracefully" vs "declined and abandoned"). Rockstar is the kind of company that has a reputation to keep, therefore they don't release sequels without a good reason to do so - even with GTA, they take quite a while to make a new one, though they experimented with portable spin-offs for a bit. I think that's a good thing - an AAA company that still has some dignity to actually finish their stories.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Jan 15, 2018 2:53:59 GMT -5
Not saying it wasn't. It just that devs usually have no problems making a fourth one by omitting the number from the title, if they really want to squeeze out more bucks. Think of Gears of War: Judgment, Onimusha: Dawn Of Dreams or even Mass Effect: Andromeda. I think that's a good thing - an AAA company that still has some dignity to actually finish their stories. Yep, but we have to keep quiet - Metal Gear Survive might get cancalled , not that MGS V ended up with lots of self-respect .
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Post by GamerL on Jan 15, 2018 4:43:37 GMT -5
Wasn't Max Payne 3 a huge succes though? Not saying it wasn't. It just that devs usually have no problems making a fourth one by omitting the number from the title, if they really want to squeeze out more bucks. Think of Gears of War: Judgment, Onimusha: Dawn Of Dreams or even Mass Effect: Andromeda. God of War has also avoided using 4 even though "God of War 4" sounds catchy.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 15, 2018 9:28:45 GMT -5
Not saying it wasn't. It just that devs usually have no problems making a fourth one by omitting the number from the title, if they really want to squeeze out more bucks. Think of Gears of War: Judgment, Onimusha: Dawn Of Dreams or even Mass Effect: Andromeda. Oh, I get your point then. Though I won't exactly call franchises like Max Payne "dead", but I guess in depends on definition of the term ("ended gracefully" vs "declined and abandoned"). Rockstar is the kind of company that has a reputation to keep, therefore they don't release sequels without a good reason to do so - even with GTA, they take quite a while to make a new one, though they experimented with portable spin-offs for a bit. I think that's a good thing - an AAA company that still has some dignity to actually finish their stories. Max Payne seems pretty dead to me. Max Payne isn't Rockstar's series in the first place although they were involved in the publishing. It was originally Remedy's with the first 2 coming out in '01 and '03. Rockstar only developed 3 and that came out nine years after 2. The series was basically scrapped after 2 with Take 2 going so far as to single it out for poor sales. They knocked off $30m of their projected earnings that quarter which sets a floor of about 600k fewer copies if they had already broken even. It's definitely above 600k since that number is using the retail price and not the wholesale price which can vary wildly. Rockstar claims that they always intended to do a sequel. So, if you take that at face value there's also the fact that sales of 3 are roughly equivalent to sales of the original. That is not a good result since the original's budget would have been a pittance compared to 3. 4m in sales is nothing to sneeze at, but the extent of the marketing campaign leads me to believe that they were hoping for a GTA level hit and not something that rises to the level of the original. I haven't played 3, but is seems like a soft reboot rather than a real sequel also leads me to believe that they would have done more with better sales. It was also delayed a full three years which isn't a great sign in terms of required sales. I'm probably totally wrong, but I wouldn't expect a fourth. It fits the general pattern of hit, poor selling sequel then relative flop.
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Post by nerdybat on Jan 15, 2018 13:41:07 GMT -5
Oh, I get your point then. Though I won't exactly call franchises like Max Payne "dead", but I guess in depends on definition of the term ("ended gracefully" vs "declined and abandoned"). Rockstar is the kind of company that has a reputation to keep, therefore they don't release sequels without a good reason to do so - even with GTA, they take quite a while to make a new one, though they experimented with portable spin-offs for a bit. I think that's a good thing - an AAA company that still has some dignity to actually finish their stories. Max Payne seems pretty dead to me. Max Payne isn't Rockstar's series in the first place although they were involved in the publishing. It was originally Remedy's with the first 2 coming out in '01 and '03. Rockstar only developed 3 and that came out nine years after 2. The series was basically scrapped after 2 with Take 2 going so far as to single it out for poor sales. They knocked off $30m of their projected earnings that quarter which sets a floor of about 600k fewer copies if they had already broken even. It's definitely above 600k since that number is using the retail price and not the wholesale price which can vary wildly. Rockstar claims that they always intended to do a sequel. So, if you take that at face value there's also the fact that sales of 3 are roughly equivalent to sales of the original. That is not a good result since the original's budget would have been a pittance compared to 3. 4m in sales is nothing to sneeze at, but the extent of the marketing campaign leads me to believe that they were hoping for a GTA level hit and not something that rises to the level of the original. I haven't played 3, but is seems like a soft reboot rather than a real sequel also leads me to believe that they would have done more with better sales. It was also delayed a full three years which isn't a great sign in terms of required sales. I'm probably totally wrong, but I wouldn't expect a fourth. It fits the general pattern of hit, poor selling sequel then relative flop. I can't disagree more about the sales, really - original Max Payne sold somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million copies during five years, while Max Payne 3 sold somewhere around 4 million copies during one year, which not only makes for a pretty impressive number even for an AAA game (it's more than original Mass Effect, and not that far from Assassins Creed range of sales), but technically makes Max Payne 3 the most commercially successful entry in the series. Though again, I'm not talking about the sales as much as about the intent of developers - the thing about Max Payne 3 is that it was designed as a final installment, tying all the loose ends together, and while endings to the first two games were somewhat ambiguous in terms of "what will Payne do next after all that stuff", the closer to MP3 is written in such a way that it would be very problematic to come up with a good sequel. The question is, can you consider it a "dead franchise" if developers didn't want to keep it running in the first place? Creators of the game did what they wanted with the story, all the questions were answered, reputation of the series wasn't tarnished in any way, and everybody was satisfied with how things concluded. To me, "dead franchise" is the franchise that was abandoned without reaching its full potential or fulfilling its purpose; Max Payne, on the other hand, is a franchise that did everything developers (both from Remedy and Rockstar) wanted it to do, so it's more like "completed franchise" to me.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Jan 15, 2018 14:23:35 GMT -5
I think Cyan is done with Myst after calling the last one 'End of Ages' and releasing Obduction now.
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