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You could not prove that with all the 688 fans there used to be on the internet playing multi-player submarine battles and co-ops against each other. I'd say Sonalyst disproved that myth.
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You want this to be true and so do I. I'd love to see a good naval game, but you don't know what you're talking about.
Sonalyst didn't disprove the myth; they affirmed it. The partnership between Sonalyst and Janes that produced
688 and
Dangerous Waters was terminated by Janes because, ta-dah, it wasn't profitable.
You may think you know a lot of folks who played 688, but do the math. A $25 million dollar game needs to sell 500,000 boxes before it's in the black. A $50 mil game, 1,000,000 boxes. SH4 sold 275,000 which was enough to barely break even in 2007-8 and wouldn't pass the so what test in today's markets.
Here are some stats for the big games of 2012-13.
Grand Theft Auto V - 34 million boxes
Call of Duty Black Ops II - 24.2 million
Battlefield 3 - 20 million
Call of Duty Ghosts-19 million
Diablo III-15 million
Starting to get the picture here? These are the kinds of return on investment numbers that the production companies are looking for. I couldn't even find sales stats on
688 or
Dangerous Waters because they have never even placed in the top forty in any year since production. These were not popular games.
688I though was cited in the Guiness Book of World Records in 2000 as "the hardest video game in existence."
Oh yeah, that's just a wonderful selling point for a production company marketing to Millennials with their short attention spans. Sega is going to absolutely juice in their jammies to give us a contract.
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These days there is a desire for realism.
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I don't know who told you that, but it wasn't a video game designer. The ones I've talked to personally tell me, "the folks who place realism above all, we have a name for them, grognards. We don't make games to satisfy grogs; there aren't enough of them to worry about." Now I'm with you; I place realism very high, but the industry doesn't.
They think the AI's job is to give the player a good scare and let him win.
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Lets see ... new russckie sub out now. Chinese and Iranians making diesel-electrics9which everyone knows is quieter than nukes), global instability, sea ice melting so now there is controversy over who owns what and a brand spanking new Russian naval base up there since the ice melted and opened up new water ways ... sounds like someone could make a mint with a new naval warfare strike package.
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"How many boxes did the last game of this genre sell?"
"275,000 but that was in 2007-8."
"Thanks for coming in; we'll be in touch."
Sure.