IGN's Silent Hunter 5 Review

[Méo]

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

" STOP encouraging Ubi, and other similar firms with similar attitudes, by posting comments like, 'Oh, the modders'll make this thing playable in a year,' or, 'that stuff can be fixed by modders,'

Ok how many times have we see comments like this???

A lot of people here seems to think that we're encouraging Ubi to produce crap and blablabla...

It's not the few subsimers like us who bought SH5 (and hope it will become a great sim once heavily modded) that will make a damn difference.

Ubisoft has nothing to gain from making an unfinished game, they just have a lot of new potential customers to lose. (i.e. it's really bad for business in the long term) (Just think about how the game was received by IGN, Gamspot, etc.)

[tater]

Originally Posted by Méo

Ubisoft has nothing to gain from making an unfinished game, they just have a lot of new potential customers to lose. (i.e. it's really bad for business in the long term) (Just think about how the game was received by IGN, Gamspot, etc.)

Then why do they keep doing it?

[Méo]

Originally Posted by tater

Then why do they keep doing it?

1) Bad project planification.

2) It's maybe intentional like a lot of people seems to think.


In any case, sales had always decreased since SH1. (Neal could give the numbers).

[janh]

Originally Posted by tater

Then why do they keep doing it?

That is a question that has remained unanswered by Ubisoft officials since SHIV. And was the thing that everyone was aware of, but hoped it would have been a one time mishap. But well, just look through the pdf and information you can get on the Ubisoft corporate homepage. If you read their latest (business) strategy paper, you maybe get a clearer idea.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by tater

Then why do they keep doing it?

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.

[Iron Budokan]

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.

Speaking for myself, I didn't know this information and I found it very informative. Thank you for posting it.

[Méo]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

Speaking for myself, I didn't know this information and I found it very informative. Thank you for posting it.

Agreed, thanks Neal.

But seems like there's no bright future for submarine simulations.

[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.

[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.

[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.....

[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.