IGN AU interviews Pete Hines

ORLY Imperial Guard? Then why do first games in computer game series tend to sell better than sequels? Take the Ultima series, by Ultima IX so few people who had played the first games were still interested, and those who hadn't didn;t think 9 was a good place to start. Thats one of the main reasons why EA didn't care enough to make another one.
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There are many reasons games might not sell well, but as long as we are pulling blind examples out of our ass we can go with a gem called Master of Orion 3 (But will there ever be a MOO4?), which initially sold well because it was a sequel, despite suffering from that fatal flaw. Pretty sure what was even more fatal was that it sucked.

Or how about that other game, hmm, what's it about, o yeah OBLIVION.

Gosh so many Final Fantasies, which one do I start??

I was just thinking recently; I wanted to see the genesis of House, having realized I really like that TV show. So I started from the beginning because I didn't want to miss the story.

Games are not like movies, and it takes one who sees the big picture to realize it. Some people are just not suited; people are made for different things.

EDIT:

"Sequels don't sell as much as the originals" and leaving it at that is merely naming a problem that goes unexplained.

Movies and TV are much more static in terms of technology. Movies and TVs are also fundamentally narrative. Or at least pretend to be so. That is why the "law" of sequels holds for cinema but not video games. GTA IV certainly outsold GTA 2. But a movie series? Well, I heard it sucks, or I saw the original and didn't like it, or I heard all about its genre and it seems repetitive and derivative, I won't watch. Maybe all its fans are pathetic, not sure why I would suddenly introduce myself into their company when my life has been going fine. Why should I spend all that money and forcibly waste that time going to what may just well be just another crappy movie? Or, it seems like a great movie, so do its predecessors, I better catch up from the beginning so as not to spoil the story and get the whole show.

Games can be ground breaking often simply because of the nature of the medium, movies can't. Games can be played over and over; movies can't. Unless it's porn or it's investigative or you're a girl.

Games, as I'm sure many people here know, you can go back to.

EDITed to clean up ramble. Whew, need some good sleep.
 
While I understand what you're saying with regards to newcomers to the series not caring about lore continuity, Imperial Guard, it's still inherently flawed for you to make a comparison to Final Fantasy. As was pointed out, none of the Final Fantasies are sequels (with the sole exception of X-2 of course) or even take place in the same universe (ignoring the wild speculation of supposed connections that are most likely just inadvertent similarities or purposeful nods to previous games).

On the other hand, Fallouts 1 and 2 are direct sequels, and Fallout 3 takes place in the same alternate reality with the same history, recurring characters (however implausible it might be for them to recur), etc., etc.
Imperial Guard said:
Things change and there's a reason we have textbooks. And there had to be someone to write those textbooks. Now you know.

If someone newly hired is attached to gaming companies and trying to decide and plan out company policy, spewing out cliche catchphrases from the classroom, I've just done them a favor.
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No matter how much I squint at that passage I can't make head or tails of it. What the hell "textbooks" are you talking about? Are you arguing against someone who claimed that textbooks had no authors and were magically generated out of thin air or typed up by the proverbial thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters over a thousand years? What does things changing have to do with there being textbooks?
Video games are a new and different genre.
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Really now. How is Bethesda's butchering of Fallout 3 any different from the butcherings that have been done on many "updates" of classic movies? Just because it's new and has the latest special effects doesn't make it better. In most cases, the "updates" are, in fact, vastly inferior to the originals. Occasionally you get a gem, sure, but that's the exception to the rule. Same thing applies to video games as movies in that regard.
 
Imperial Guard said:
From a new customer standpoint the story has nothing to do with continuity.
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What a ridiculous argument. Are you one of those "I don't know any details of this case whatsoever, but the guy sure looks guilty to me" people? Let me explain this it you. A sequel is a sequel. The word itself implies at least some sort of continuation of the narrative of its prequel(s). If you're a new consumer who is largely ignorant of the content of any preexisting works in the series, you don't have a right to discuss the quality of the sequel in regard to its predecessors, plain and simple.
 
No. Sequels and prequels are by their nature different. The number is crucial. you say something is Episode 1, newbies think "This is a good place to start", you say it's number 3, newbies often say "Maybe I should start with 1 and 2". That is infact how the law of sequels works.
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A Star Wars sequel trilogy would sell just as well if not better than the prequel trilogy. And in case of games, lost of people think in the exact opposite way - "it's number 3, so it's probably improved in every way, no need to play the inferior previous ones".
 
There WAS a game for Xbox 360 called Shadowrun (I think). It totally tanked... It was a spin-off, just like Fallout 3
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I have read some Shadowrun novels, so my interest was piqued when I heard about this game. Unfortunately Microsoft got involved and the game ended up being a piece of shit.

FO3's different in that Bethesda know how to do the Marketing/PR, and, as an adventure game, it probably will be ok. Don't forget there's plenty of people who like Oblivion.

And in case of games, lost of people think in the exact opposite way - "it's number 3, so it's probably improved in every way
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Agreed.
 
Ahahah :lol:

And Microsoft doesn't know how to do Marketing?! :lol: Microsoft is THE marketing company, and empire built upon marketing and little else. Look at Halo for fucks sake! Shadowrun was no different, it tanked because it sucked in comparison to the original, or at least was a completely different game.

And it sucked too, just like Fallout 3 will.
 
Well, Shadowrun's case is different, since it's a new adaptation of a PnP franchise (with not only an RPG, but also a card game and a minature game), not a sequel to a computer-only one.
 
Sure, that makes the brand stronger, but Fallout is pretty strong too don't you think?
 
Shadowrun was no different, it tanked because it sucked in comparison to the original, or at least was a completely different game.
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But by "the original" do you mean any of the 3 previous Shadowrun games, or the PnP RPG?
 
Ausir said:
Shadowrun was no different, it tanked because it sucked in comparison to the original, or at least was a completely different game.
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But by "the original" do you mean any of the 3 previous Shadowrun games, or the PnP RPG?
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I thought there was only one for Sega Genesis. I mean the videogame, not the PnP RPG.
 
Isn't it silly to say it sucked because it was a completely different game than "the original" if it was never meant to be a sequel to the Sega Genesis game, but a new adaptation of the same source material (that is not to say it didn't suck, but not for this reason)?
 
Ausir said:
Isn't it silly to say it sucked because it was a completely different game than "the original" if it was never meant to be a sequel to the Sega Genesis game, but a new adaptation of the same source material (that is not to say it didn't suck, but not for this reason)?
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No because otherwise no game would suck. We ALWAYS compare games to others when we say it's good or bad. Even if the games we compare them to don't exist, there's always a reference point.

For example, Fallout 3 wouldn't suck if we weren't comparing it to other FPSs, to other RPGs, to Fallout, in the end. We have expectations, so we compare things. If we don't have expectations, we don't compare things.

It's not as if there's a scale or something. It's very relative.
 
No because otherwise no games would suck. We ALWAYS compare games to others when we say it's good or bad. Even if the games we compare them to don't exist, there's always a reference point.
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This is a retarded argument. If a game is an adaptation of something from another medium, you should, of course compare it to the source material to see how faithful it is to it, and to other games in the same genre, to see how good it is apart from that. You can also compare it to previous adaptations of the same source material to see how well it adapts it compared to previous attempts.

But saying that a game is bad because it's "a completely different game" from previous adaptations of the same material, unless it is explicitly meant to be a sequel, is just silly. That's what I have issues with, not with comparing games in general.

The fact that the new Shadowrun game is a shitty adaptation of Shadowrun source material doesn't make your argument against it better.

And the game you're calling "the original" is not even the first Shadowrun game, for fuck's sake.
 
Shadowrun was one of the best SNES games I ever played.
It sucks that they had to change it to a FPS.
 
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