The Reboot Principal – Gamers and Developers Unite!
The Reboot Principal – Gamers and Developers Unite!
Oct 04In gaming, one of the most sad things that can happen is for a great game not to sell well, or to sell decently, but fall short of what it deserves. An interesting phenomena has made itself more apparent during this current generation of consoles than it,s been in the past however, which we can use to combat this. The power of majority unification.
I,m not talking about unification in a console specific fanboy sense, but in an overall gaming fanboy sense. As overall fans of good games, we may of course have our preferences, and biases, but we all respect well made games that are fun. We want them to succeed. For example, Killzone 2 is causing many Xbox 360 owners to buy a PS3, just as Gears of War 2 caused many PS3 owners to buy an Xbox 360 late last year. But before we go any further, let,s introduce the Reboot Principal by asking a question and exploring it a bit:
If a good game comes and goes without selling well enough to create worthwhile profit for a developer, or to justify a sequel, what,s wrong with trying again?
Sometimes those of us who experience, and help create the hype of games through word of mouth and the internet don,t realize how small the audience is in certain cases, since oftentimes the audience is huge. Would it hurt at all to start from scratch sometimes? If a Developer whose game sold poorly chose a reboot date, and commited more funds to advertising, I don,t think gamers or the gaming community would mind at all contributing from our end.
Sometimes, the timing just isn,t right when a game is released. Sometimes the hype months later, after people realize how good a game was, is greater than it was at release. Sometimes, a game is released with issues that are later corrected via downloadable patches. Sometimes, these games are hard to find because they,ve been given up on, and sold out on the clearance rack, or were sold back to Gamestop and resold used, destroying demand.
A new infusion of gaming community hype, television commercials and magazine ads just may do the trick for some games.
For example, Zack and Wiki Quest for Barbaros, Treasure is an awesome game that (pre-Wii motion plus) made best use of the Wii remote; and had a nice underground following around the time of its release. It soon became apparent though that the “cutesy” look of the game gave misconceptions, and turned many people off. It sold poorly. However, the outcry from many regarding this has at this point made most of the gaming community aware of the tragedy. Many went after the fact to attempt to buy this game, but could not find it. I own the game, but I,ve checked, and these days, it,s nearly impossible to find. You can,t even find it for rent in most cases.
Considering the facts that many more people would like to buy this game, and the Wii install base has more than doubled since it was originally released, a cheap, but smart and new ad campaign on its behalf, in conjunction with the renewed efforts of the gaming community to re-spread the word about a Reboot would likely work wonders. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft gamers alike respect Zack and Wiki, and many would love to own it. But it has for the most part, passed away.
If we are the “Core” of the gaming community, then there is much that we can do to support games that should be supported, ensure sequels for games that deserve them, and help take care of developers who make games with us in mind. When we are of one accord, word spreads like wildfire. When we are of one accord, game sales skyrocket. However, when we are too divided, we become compartmentalized, self-preservationist, and games that we know should have done better, slip through the cracks. We all suffer when that happens.
No doubt this console war has its good points and bad points. But there is alot of gray in this world between the black and white. Alot of common ground. Alot of games that not only should no one want to see fail, but games that deserve our efforts as true gamers to try and bring them the success they deserve.
Is there a game out there that you feel didn,t get a fair shake? Make sure you own it for yourself, and buy a copy for a friend. Do you only own a single console? Well make sure your friends who own others know what games they missed if they,ve missed them. Refuse to buy a Wii? Surely you know someone who owns one. If you,ve got the cash, buy Mad World or The Conduit for them. Help them to grow away from Carnival games and the like.
Here are some other games that a reboot would do wonders for:
God of War II
God of War II is an amazing game, and by no means sold poorly. However, if God of War III were to sell the 2.5 million copies or so that this game sold, I doubt it would be enough to recover development cost, earn deserved profit, and justify expensive spinoffs of the series in the future.
What does this mean? It means that more people need to go out and buy God of War II. It,s now a part of the Greatest Hits series, and can be obtained new for cheap. Tell a friend. Hell, buy it for a friend! But as we await this third installment, it sure wouldn,t hurt for Sony to release some new ads for the second. There are probably few better ways to get new people excited for God of War III than for them to see how amazing God of War II was on the PS2.
Lost Odyssey
In a generation that is rather short on grand scale RPG,s so far, it,s kind of hard to see how this one fell through the cracks. When we first dreamed of HD graphics, this type of RPG is what so many of us wished for. With an art style set up by Takehiko Inoue, a deep story, and interesting characters, this game deserves to sell far more than it has already. It,s developers deserve to have the funds it will take to continue creating games like this. Of course it,s no Final Fantasy, but Lost Odyssey is great in its own right, and deserves our respect, and efforts.
Boom Blox
Even though there is indeed a sequel to Boom Blox on its way, the original is a game that everyone should play, but a relative few have. In a console generation full of advanced physics based purely on raw number crunching power, this little Wii game is a simple gem. There hadn,t been anything quite like it on a console before now, and yet, many passed it over after seeing the cover, or wrote it off because of the huge amount of garbage-ware that plagues the sales of good games on the console.
Valkyria Chronicles
Valkyria Chronicles is a Real Time Strategy RPG. I felt the need to say that because so few people have actually bought this incredible game that I,m guessing that most don,t know about it, or knew a little bit but lost track of it in the blitz of bigger name titles of last year. The story is great, the characters are deep, the gameplay is excellent, and the graphics are superb. It,s like playing out an awesome anime on your console.
We won,t have some of these opportunities again though unless we support such games with our wallets, and our renewed and ongoing efforts. Both gamer, and developer alike. Such love of and devotion to games is what makes us Hardcore. Not which console we like, or what type of games we like most. It,s time to unify in the ways and areas that we can all agree on.
It,s Reboot time!
