Quote:
Originally Posted by P_Funk
Someone probably said the same thing about the quality of SH4 in the discussion of the pending release of SH5.
I want to know where the faith we're supposed to be putting into this forthcoming product is supposed to meterialize from? The experience we've had over the last 3 Silent Hunter products has been a pattern of declining quality. The faith of the sim community has been steadily abused and taken for granted. Publishers have taken talented developers and quashed their creative potential by placing unrealistic development timelines on them, steadily reducing the overall quality of the released product. Past that they've also through this policy of rapid development turnover left us with steadily less and less polished final products becuase of more and more limited patching. The product we buy isn't getting better, and when they make a new one its not getting better either. They sell us a more bitter lemon with every new release.
If you bought apples from a grocer and every time the apples got mushier and tasted more bland and got more bruised, why should you have any faith that the next batch is going to be worth your money?
Now, we're not only seeing yet another hurried develoment title but we're seeing it gutted of its inherent credibility as a sim because of this MMO F2P nonsense. These games are rarely in any sense of the term "Realistic" nor are they particularly cerebral. They also afford the end user absolutely ZERO ability to modify the game whatsoever. On top of that the pricing scale is designed to force us to pay even more money than a flat purchase gives us.
Where in this entire scheme of the ongoing development of the Silent Hunter brand are we supposed to see the light at the end of the tunnel? The only shred of optimism one can pray before in this bitter recounting of my favourite sim's recent history is one of pure delusion and wishful thinking.
This is all about simple deductive reasoning. The entire business strategy of Ubisoft of late has shown itself to be against the better interests of this kind of community. Their strategy is all about money. Myself, as a consumer, my strategy is all about getting for my money the value I seek. I see a diametrically opposed set of intersts at play here. Why do we have to give the people trying to find the fastest way to the bottom our pocket the benefit of the doubt?
Given their recent track record if anything THEY have to prove to us that its worth anything, that is if they still care about us which I don't think they do. They went MMO because they want the cash from mainstream buyers. If thats the case, which it very likely is, then basically the product is now outside the parameters that attracts most of us to the brand in the first place.
There are so many reasons to be skeptical of SHO that I don't know which one to even put on the top of the list.
|
This is a great piece, but there are some realities that need to be considered. As an only occasional gamer, and rarely online. My wife & kids play Runescape and Minecraft etc, I have been into the Homeworld-based and Descent: Freespace-based games (where modders were given access to the original game codes and so could "skin" it to a Babylon 5-based experience), I want to explore one strong commercial reality that gets buried under the easy and obvious accusation that UBI and others are only interested in 'money'.
Partly due to the Ubiquitous uptake of personal technology (see what I did there? Wasn't that good? Nah, your right. Sorry. Won't do it again.), the MARKET has shifted to one of smorgasbord grazing and nanno-second attention spans Angry Birds today, Virus Boy tomorrow (OMG. I just made that up, relax. You haven't missed the Next Big Thing.)
So, here is what I know about modern media - movies, music and gaming. ALL of these 'industries' have moved to a model where the profitability and return on investment is essentially calculated to be made WITHIN 2 WEEKS OF RELEASE!
The market now buys music one song at a time, and there is a 3 second loyalty factor. Have a look at free-to-air TV. Sport, News and reality shows (cheap and quick to produce). And check the demise of Newspapers and Magazines. Maybe what I am suggesting is a bit of a black-armband view of 'culture', but can I suggest that maybe the reason that quality games are a dying breed is because WE are a dying breed.
Companies everywhere are casting around desperately looking for a way to 'Monetise' us (how I LOATHE that term!). We got used to free stuff on line, including news, but now they discover they can't pay for decent journalists to report or uncover it, so now we live in the world of press-release and propaganda.
So, if you look at the squillions of on-line Apps that are churned out by pimple-faced kids in their mom's basement, some of which become mega-hits and make a bomb for them, no wonder that looks tempting. The problem for the Boards and Committees making decisions on what to fund and how much to invest, no-one can ever tell you exactly WHY one app or movie or game will have that X-factor that takes it on to be massively profitable.
In such a market, especially if you have a short-term view and no longer care about building and protecting a brand, churn something (anything) out and cross your fingers that enough gullible types will pay for a download before the word gets out and, who knows, maybe we will have a hit on our hands for no apparent rational reason?
But, so as not to seem totally negative and cynical, have you noticed that LP records are making a come-back? Sales are growing (whereas CD sales are crashing). In 10 years there will be NO Video stores it will all be online. So, how does a company manage this transition and retain quality and interactivity? What role for the modder in the MMO universe?
Gryff