IGN's Silent Hunter 5 Review

[Méo]

Originally Posted by IanC

In other words; put out a quality product, and people will buy.

That was my point.

However, (although I have no experience in game design) It seems like a U-boat simulation is a very complex project compared to other type of games.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by IanC

But who's fault is it if the sales are low?
Don't invest more resources because the game might not/is not selling well? Well what about investing more resources to begin with, then the game would get 9 out of 10 review scores and guess what... high sales!
In other words; put out a quality product, and people will buy.

True, but that's limited to all the people who want a submarine game will buy. Like my summary pointed out, they have to make an educated guess on how many copies will sell, even at the highest quality. They cannot just pour money into a project without expecting a decent return. No one I know would do that with their money.

Originally Posted by Méo

However, (although I have no experience in game design) It seems like a U-boat simulation is a very complex project compared to other type of games.

Exactly, the submarine simulation is inherently a demanding title, and the core audience is very knowledgable and has high expectations, making it tough to achieve the level of sophistication needed.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

True, but that's limited to all the people who want a submarine game will buy. Like my summary pointed out, they have to make an educated guess on how many copies will sell, even at the highest quality. They cannot just pour money into a project without expecting a decent return. No one I know would do that with their money.

You're right, but Ubisoft is not pouring resources into the SH series without any idea of how the sales will perform. They have past data. They know how well SH 3 sold (and in terms of developing that game, they sure invested much more in it than in SH 5). And SH 3 made a profit, otherwise we would never have seen 2 sequels.
Do I have to remind you how the development of SH 3 was high jacked in mid course so they could add a dynamic campaign ? And at that time they didn't know how well the game would sell. You could say they did an act of faith. And they were rewarded for it. But it seems that lesson was lost on them, as both SH 4 and SH 5 clearly show.

[IanC]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

True, but that's limited to all the people who want a submarine game will buy. Like my summary pointed out, they have to make an educated guess on how many copies will sell, even at the highest quality. They cannot just pour money into a project without expecting a decent return. No one I know would do that with their money.

I'm pretty sure there's a profit to be made from a good submarine game. They don't need to pour all their resources into it. Anyways one thing's for sure, they'll never get the sales they want if they keep pushing them out unfinished.

[Cujo]

The review was a little tough, however lets face it, high quality, complex PC simulations are rapidly being replaced by consoles which offer simplistic and redundant run and shoot games that require no thinking or innovation. It will soon be like going to the library and only finding comics to read.

Enjoy now ladies and gentlemen. You are experiencing that last of this breed.

[Iron Budokan]

SH3 sold really well. Not everyone who bought that game was a hard core sub sim fan, either. Word of mouth sold that game and made it a monster hit.

People who had never played a sub sim before heard SH3 was fun and they went out and bought it.

It's not rocket science. Good games sell.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

People who had never played a sub sim before heard SH3 was fun and they went out and bought it.

That's exactly how I came to be here.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by goldorak

You're right, but Ubisoft is not pouring resources into the SH series without any idea of how the sales will perform. They have past data. They know how well SH 3 sold (and in terms of developing that game, they sure invested much more in it than in SH 5). And SH 3 made a profit, otherwise we would never have seen 2 sequels.
Do I have to remind you how the development of SH 3 was high jacked in mid course so they could add a dynamic campaign ? And at that time they didn't know how well the game would sell. You could say they did an act of faith. And they were rewarded for it. But it seems that lesson was lost on them, as both SH 4 and SH 5 clearly show.

Originally Posted by IanC

I'm pretty sure there's a profit to be made from a good submarine game. They don't need to pour all their resources into it. Anyways one thing's for sure, they'll never get the sales they want if they keep pushing them out unfinished.

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

SH3 sold really well. Not everyone who bought that game was a hard core sub sim fan, either. Word of mouth sold that game and made it a monster hit.

People who had never played a sub sim before heard SH3 was fun and they went out and bought it.

It's not rocket science. Good games sell.

Ah, well, I can't argue with that. I don't have access to the budgets for any of the three games, nor the market segments that actually bought the games. But as long as we are supposing and guessing, it sounds pretty convincing.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Exactly, the submarine simulation is inherently a demanding title, and the core audience is very knowledgable and has high expectations, making it tough to achieve the level of sophistication needed.

Plus there are so many opinions, what one person likes, the other does not, you can't please everybody or be all things to all people.

Many here have criticized the RPG elements in 5, but you take a look at all of the current and past Das Boot Threads here and it is not difficult to see why.
You can't blame them for going in that direction or trying something different, heck many pushed them to go that way.

[scrapser]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

tater, with all due respect, this topic has been explored thoroughly. Is that a rhetorical question?

Game development (the detailed version)

The short version
Dev team submits a project proposal to game publisher. This pro forma includes the game design, scope, timeline, and resources needed.

Game publisher does market research, forecasts sales, and decides if the game is profitable. If not, they send back to the developer with suggested changes. If the developer and publisher agree to a work document, then the project is greenlit. The publisher will set guidelines and schedules for development before the work commences.

Developer works on the game, meeting milestones until the game is ready for release. If the developer is unable to meet the milestones, slippage occurs. At some point a commercial decision is made to release the game on schedule or invest more resources. A big factor in this decision is the projected amount of revenue the game can make if more resources are invested. If the publisher thinks the game will not make back the investment even with additional resources invested, they will release it and then retain two or three members of the dev team to work on patches.

It all comes down to sales. Always has. If submarine games sold like Naruto games or Madden football, they would get more resources and longer development cycles.

So...taking the above information into account, the really short answer is:

Complex simulation software is too expensive to produce. It's that simple.

In all honesty it makes complete sense to me and nobody should be surprised that the challenges developers face have only increased over the years. But what still doesn't make sense is why the choice is made to go forward when the decision makers know full well before any work begins they will not be able to meet the target...not even close. SH5 is the third release by Ubisoft and both 4 and 5 are built off of SH3. So why is it they don't leverage the code and improve what they already have to make more efficient use of resources?

I suppose I'm assuming each project has a similar sized budget which is probably wrong. Maybe the developers come and say, "We have this program that we could turn into something brand new. Give us X amount of money and time and we can give you something to market." The publisher checks it out and sees viability and gives the green light.

But with SH5, three times is the charm. I think it's clear no matter how the wheels turn at Ubisoft, they are incapable of producing a finished product in time and on budget. They are also the only game in town which is why a lot of people tolerate their product and modders continue to ply their skills. It would be so much better if there were at least three companies competing for the market share.

I read people's descriptions of their experiences with SH5 and quietly weep for the living. For myself, I'm sick of buying software that needs to be fixed before I can enjoy it and that plus the DRM are the main reasons I am not buying SH5. I agree with the poster who advocates we should stop being enablers for Ubisoft to pump out half-baked code but I seriously doubt boycotting would work. If the title cannot turn a profit for them they will simply stop producing it.

Enhancements is a different argument.

Editted to add:
I wrote this post without reading the posts that appeared after Neal's post. Some of what I am saying is being discussed to some extent in later posts. I think the main question a lot of people have in their mind is:

If it's so difficult and expensive to develop a working submarine simulation, why doesn't Ubisoft simply polish what they already have; especially since they are using the same core code with each release?

You would think we would see marked improvements with each release but instead it is getting worse. Problems with new features added in are to be expected and are not counted.

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by IanC

But who's fault is it if the sales are low?
Don't invest more resources because the game might not/is not selling well? Well what about investing more resources to begin with, then the game would get 9 out of 10 review scores and guess what... high sales!
In other words; put out a quality product, and people will buy.
I don't get it, admittedly I know nothing about the vid game business.

Agree 100%.

Following UBI's "business" logic:

Release SH3 at 80% complete... sales = $ X (not as high as we wished at UBI..)

Due to SH 3's sales not being as high, Release SH4 but cut budget 20% and dev time 20%. All the while expecting a more complex sim with better graphics.

SH 4 released at 70% complete..... result...sales = $ X - customers waiting to see if game is patched to complete before buying due to getting burned with SH 3. Base next projection on SH 4 sales in the first month (even though it took months to patch).

Due to SH 4's sales being even lower than SH3, Release SH 5 but cut budget another 20% and dev time 20%. Expect an even more complex sim with better graphics.

SH 5 release 50% complete, full of bugs, Net result Sales = $ X - customers burned by SH4 AND reading bad reviews. Base decision to build SH 6 off first 2 weeks of SH 5 dismal sales....

Blame "Niche Market" and Customer lack of support.

Cancel SH 6.....

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Exactly, the submarine simulation is inherently a demanding title, and the core audience is very knowledgable and has high expectations, making it tough to achieve the level of sophistication needed.

I disagree with your statement due to the fact that since SH3 there has been stuff that modders can correct in a few hours of work without the benefit of having the CODE that the devs have.

Obvious stuff that is screwed up should have never made it out the door (ships going in reverse, crashing into docks...), the lack of a LEGIBLE manual, totally broken morale system to name a few.

Gripes about Uniforms, cosmetic details, heck even the fact that there is only one sub and 3 or 4 cargo vessels in game, can certainly be blamed on budget/time/complexity and does not affect the overall playability, I will agree with you on.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

True, but that's limited to all the people who want a submarine game will buy. Like my summary pointed out, they have to make an educated guess on how many copies will sell, even at the highest quality. They cannot just pour money into a project without expecting a decent return. No one I know would do that with their money.

Exactly, the submarine simulation is inherently a demanding title, and the core audience is very knowledgable and has high expectations, making it tough to achieve the level of sophistication needed.

Exactly, simulations have a very small market share. They are more complex to produce than a FPS. Sim customers are a demanding crowd, since they rightly expect the game to simulate more or less the real events.

Because of that, most major publishers bailed out of the Sim market 10 years ago to concentrate on more profitable titles. Simulations these days are generally put out by smaller developpers who enjoy simulations themselves and are willing to live with a smaller return in exchange for putting out a quality product, companies like Battlefront, Third Wire, DCS, 1C.

Even within the Sim market, naval sims have a very small market share. The most popular sims are flight sims followed by land combat sims. The market for realistic subsims is very small.

Sure, a company could spend millions of dollars designing an ultra-realistic state of the art subsim, but they would just wind up losing money since the potential customers are not there. Anyone who thinks otherwise just does not understand the Sim market.

Right now and for the foreseeable future, SH5 is the only new subsim on the market, so the choice is simple: buy it and play it or dont buy it and do something else.

I already made my decision and have had no regrets.

[St. Cobra]

Originally Posted by Faamecanic

I disagree with your statement due to the fact that since SH3 there has been stuff that modders can correct in a few hours of work without the benefit of having the CODE that the devs have.

Obvious stuff that is screwed up should have never made it out the door (ships going in reverse, crashing into docks...), the lack of a LEGIBLE manual, totally broken morale system to name a few.

Gripes about Uniforms, cosmetic details, heck even the fact that there is only one sub and 3 or 4 cargo vessels in game, can certainly be blamed on budget/time/complexity and does not affect the overall playability, I will agree with you on.

Well duh. You are understating the difficulty in creating the game in the first place, for the modders to play with. Anyone can mod an existing game, the hard part is creating the game first. Give me a copy of Shakespear, I can add a few words here and there, easy!!!

[Capt. Teach]

Hey everyone,

I have been sort of following the SHV discussions ... and I hope I am not saying the same things everyone else is saying ... but there is something I don't understand. [Perhaps you all do, its obvious for you all, and therefore is not clearly stated?]

I don't understand how:

Ubisoft can have SH3 and SH4 +
Know about and visit Subsim.com [assuming they read as well] +
Build using the same core code +
Have access to all the wonderful mods put out [like the rest of us] +
See what the Subsim fans like and don't like [raves on mods etc.] +
seemingly completely ignore all of it.

I would think, that at the very least they would use that as a slice of market research and base decisions upon it. [They did green light SH5 so the decision as to make SH5 is moot.]

It just doesn't make any sense to me that they wouldn't use the core code, re-engineer the mods [or just bring the modders onboard as staff or buy the mod rights from them], and put all of it together into what would be a very stable beta. Sure, it's more of the same but it would be a solid baseline to start from. Then put on a new graphics team to update the look and then start development of all the new stuff like a storyline you can follow [or toss], crew interaction, sub to move through, etc.

It seems like on the money arguement aspect, that just makes perfect sense. It also makes sense on a time aspect [well to me it does anyway]. I would expect all of the stuff for my suggested baseline beta could be done at worst in a few months. That leaves lots of time for development of the new stuff.

Anyway, that is what I don't understand. I'm hoping you guys do and can clear it up for me. Thanks in advance!