Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

[Risewild]

Again, outside of Nintendo. How much of this stuff is actually turning a profit? Obsidian and inXile limped their way to a Microsoft acquisition, Underworld Ascendant failed miserably to the point where I'm surprised that anyone is actually excited for another game from that studio, yooka laylee failed, etc. The Kickstarter nostalgia bait and switch has been largely over for awhile now due to broken promises and sub par releases. I get what you're saying, but it's not like this thing popped up on Kickstarter or Fig and it isn't coming from Activision or EA.

I just want to see some proper fucking gameplay footage already.

Mate, I just posted tons of examples that are making money.
Microsoft is raking tons with their "Age of..." game remasters, so much they started releasing new expansions for them.

Beamdog is raking tons of money from the old Dungeons and Dragons "Enhanced Editions" games and new "expansions" they make.

Sega is making tons of money with their Remasters and Remakes of the old Yakuza games. Also making tons of money with their recent Yakuza sequels.

Activision made tons of money with the remake "Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy", released in 2017:

Now, Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy sales since release have reportedly hit over 10 million.
Daniel Ahmad followed up the statistic by providing some context to the numbers by stating, “For reference, the original Crash Bandicoot sold 6.8 million units on PlayStation.”

This means that, since 2017, the remake has already sold more than the original title has in its lifespan.

These are other remasters/remakes (that I can remember) released recently or supposed to be released soon:

• System Shock (original released in 1994) (remake to be released in 2020 or something)
• Romancing SaGa 3 (original released in 1995)
• Resident Evil (original released in 1996)
  
• Final Fantasy VII (original released in 1997)
• Resident Evil 2 (original released in 1998)
• MediEvil (original released in 1998)
  
• Crash Team Racing (original released in 1999)
• Fear Effect (original released in 1999)
• Spyro Trilogy (originals released in 1998, 1999 and 2000)
• Final Fantasy IX (original released in 2000)
  
• Onimusha: Warlords (original released in 2001)
• Resident Evil Zero (original released in 2002)
• Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (original released in 2003)
  
• Resident Evil 4 (original released in 2005)

The mini classic consoles are extremely popular and extremely overpriced, they are making tons of profit from it (and only the NES and SNES are Nintendo ones).

inXile made tons of money from Wasteland 2, they made so much money that they could use the profits to revamp (change the game to a newer game engine version) the entire game, add voice to all characters, add new mechanics and release the director's cut version for free to anyone who bought the Original game. The profits were still enough and considered such a success that they decided to make Wasteland 3, and make it larger than the second one.
inXile also made tons of money with the Bard's Tale 4, a sequel for a game from 1988, and also tons of money from the remake of the original Bard's Tale trilogy.
They're even making a remaster/remake (don't know which one is) from the first Wasteland game and included it with the purchase of the "Wasteland 30th Anniversary Bundle". It is scheduled to be released this year.

This is not what a game studio limping to Microsoft looks like. All of their crowdfunding projects were successful in record time, all their games brought lots of profit (not even one was considered a financial failure) it allowed them (a small studio with 80 people or so) to be developing several games at once. The thing with Microsoft is that they offer reassurance, they offer a free publisher, they offer a lot of things that independent studios can't compete with.
Brian Fargo said this about inXile becoming part of Microsoft:

Most people in development know a little bit of extra time goes an incredibly long way towards the end. I know it doesn't seem like it but it's always the case.

When you finally get it together, you feel it, you can really focus on iteration. Is the pacing right? Is it hitting the right messages? Do we like the arcs of difficulty? Gosh if I had 90 more days I could really tune that in. As a smaller company it's really hard to get that. That's what this gives us.

We want to bring up our visual style and also make sure our launches are smoother.

Let's say we're doing controller support for Bard's Tale 4. They have a whole user group; let's put it in front of these psychologists and gamers they have up there and see what they like and what they hate, and really hone it in before we release to the public. Things of that nature allow us to hone our craft.

Basically, being part of Microsoft will bring more resources and more time to develop their games, which inXile didn't have before.
Also worth noticing, Brian Fargo was retiring after Wasteland 3. So I think that being bought by Microsoft was something to prevent the studio from going downhill without Fargo at it's head.

You want more examples? Mafia IP. First one released in 2002, the second one released 2010 and the third one released in 2016. Got tons of money.

Here are a few more (that I can remember) recently released, or to be released soon sequels:

Mechwarriors 5 will be released this year. The previous Mechwarriors game was released in 2002.

There's a new "Toe Jam and Earl" game released at the start of this month.

The Guild 3 was released in 2017, it's a sequel to a 2006 game.

Shenmue 3 will release this year, and it's a sequel to Shenmue 2 released in 2001.


These trend of making remakes, remasters and sequels from older games started around 2010 and it's still going strong almost 1 decade after.

And it doesn't matter (to the gaming companies), if these sequels, remakes, remasters are good or bad games. The initial boost of sales and pre-orders just from nostalgic fans usually already give the gaming companies profits. And it's easier and cheaper to make a sequel, remaster or remake a product, then to come up with a brand new product. So even if the game is bad, and players do not like it, it's fine, because the initial sales already made profit for the company, and it was cheaper to produce than make a totally new IP or game from scratch.

 

[SquidWard]

Nostalgia sells. New IPs and games are a bigger risk. Seriously. Look at Call of Duty. The games aren't even relevant to each other half the time. They just share the same gunplay and multiplayer design. There's even different timelines and other shit. Why not make Modern Warfare and Black Ops their own IP and series? Why would you? Especially when you know slapping the Call of Duty name on it helps sell it?

Granted, that's not the best example but you should see what I mean by that. Why are there so many Halos and Gears of Wars? Those games never even stopped. People trust familiar products even if the product is getting worse and worse. It eventually hits a point of death though. Then you wait 10 years and grab the games that were the best ones and HD skin them or remake them in a newer engine and sell them again.

 

[Walpknut]

Imagine getting triggered by an optional dropdown menu on a game.

 

[Buxbaum666]

The mini classic consoles are extremely popular and extremely overpriced, they are making tons of profit from it (and only the NES and SNES are Nintendo ones).

What does "extremely overpriced" mean to you? What would you consider a reasonable price tag?
Also some of them are not that popular and there aren't that many in the first place. The ones I know of:

NES classic (US$60, 30 games included) - sells well
SNES classic (US$80, 21 games included) - sells well
PlayStation classic (US$100, 20 games included, most of them crap) - doesn't sell
THEC64Mini (US$70, 64 games included) - no idea and this is basically a computer that has games installed
And there's a growing amount of Atari Flashback devices with an ever-increasing amount of games included so I assume these are selling well.
There are various licensed 3rd party Sega Genesis/Mega Drive versions, no idea how those are selling.

The Nintendo ones are selling like hotcakes because they're good, simple as that. The PS classic is a dud that doesn't sell at all because it's not.
I own the SNES classic and don't think it's overpriced. The emulator is very good and the games list is easily expandable (not out-of-the-box but the developers made it intentionally easy). It's not like they just shat out a half-assed product, slapped a "GET YOUR NOSTALGIA HERE" sign on it and made a profit. Sure, they're super cute mini versions of iconic consoles but they also work as intended.

 

[joevonzombie]

And it doesn't matter (to the gaming companies), if these sequels, remakes, remasters are good or bad games. The initial boost of sales and pre-orders just from nostalgic fans usually already give the gaming companies profits. And it's easier and cheaper to make a sequel, remaster or remake a product, then to come up with a brand new product. So even if the game is bad, and players do not like it, it's fine, because the initial sales already made profit for the company, and it was cheaper to produce than make a totally new IP or game from scratch.

I understand what you are saying, but I still think it's cynical hyperbole at best. Are some these releases guilty of nostalgia baiting, sure , but there's a huge difference between something like Halo: The Master Chief Collection which literally didn't work at launch and the crash and Spyro rereleases which were completely rebuilt from the ground up and sold at a budget price. I'm also confused at how Nintendo's micro consoles are ''overpriced" considering acquiring these games legitimately would cost substantially more. They could have sold these things at 100 bucks a pop and it still would have been a deal.

Also it's worth noting that the current triple A space is dominated by "live service" games that are largely new IP.

 

[CerberusGate]

Sega is making tons of money with their Remasters and Remakes of the old Yakuza games. Also making tons of money with their recent Yakuza sequels.

To be fair, Yakuza Kiwami 1 and 2 are pretty good games on their own as they are full remakes of the older games rather than remakes. 1 is not as good as 2 though.

3, 4 and 5 are remasters though.

 

[Norzan]

Imagine getting triggered by an optional dropdown menu on a game.

Who did this?

 

[Risewild]

What does "extremely overpriced" mean to you? What would you consider a reasonable price tag?

They are overpriced because you can get free emulators that do more than any of the official "minis". I bet it cost them less than 15 bucks to produce .

This also created a different problem for emulator fans. Nintendo started to force many emulator sites to close after they released their "minis".

I would say a good price is half the price they cost now:
NES classic (US$30, 30 games included)
SNES classic (US$40, 21 games included)
PlayStation classic (US$50, 20 games included, most of them crap)
THEC64Mini (US$35, 64 games included)

Let's not forget that these days you can have emulators for all of those consoles for free and pretty much any device you want. I even have NES, SNES and C64 emulators in my old gameboy advance and my old PSP. I have them all on my android tablet, I have them all on my laptop, I have NES and SNES emulators on my damn PS2 too. All for free.
People shit on Bethesda for releasing overpriced armors and skins on their Creation Club for their games, and complain that modders make better products and for free. This is pretty much the same.
And it's not like emulators are a new thing and inaccessible.
I have been playing them since before I got internet. I got MAME, NESticle, ZSNES for the first time in 1999 (before I joined the army) and added KGen and ePSXe the next year to my computer.
I've been using emulators for all kind of stuff ever since.

The Nintendo ones are selling like hotcakes because they're good, simple as that. The PS classic is a dud that doesn't sell at all because it's not.

Also, the Playstation Classic sold a lot too It's not selling much anymore because they produced too many, it costs too much and the big problem is that they only made PAL versions, which creates problems for USA players. But they still turned a profit.
It even sold more in preorders (fully priced) than Super Smash Brothers Ultimate during the same month:

Right when it was announced, the console was available for pre-order at Gamestop for $99.99. It was so popular that it sold out at several online retailers at times during the month.

When it was in stock, it outsold everything else at the nation's top video game retailer when looking at the store's best-selling items in September. That includes gift cards — AKA the gift non-gamers give to their friends and family when all else fails — as well as Nintendo's much anticipated video game Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.

Remember, with it costing so much, it only needs to sell a smaller number of units to make the same amount of money .

If I buy from a store a sandwich that costs $15 and I can just make the exact same sandwich home for 1/5 of the price. Then I call that sandwich overpriced. Doesn't matter if I like it or not, doesn't matter if I'm happy with buying it, I still know it costs much less than that to make and that price is several times higher than it should be. Of course, companies have to make a profit, but they would still make tons of money with those being half priced or maybe cost 2/3 of it's actual price instead (to not be too hard on them).

I own the SNES classic and don't think it's overpriced. The emulator is very good and the games list is easily expandable (not out-of-the-box but the developers made it intentionally easy).

It's still easier to just use a free emulator .
What is selling these mini consoles is nostalgia and the "cool effect". Even I think they are pretty cool, and even I would have bought some of them if I had any spare money. But i know quite well that it's those two factors that would pull me to buy them, since I never really stopped playing the "good" games that come with them for over 20 years now.

I understand what you are saying, but I still think it's cynical hyperbole at best.

I thought I explained in several posts already what concerns me about the Bloodlines 2 and the information provided and the lack of it.
It's not cynical hyperbole at all. They come by and show a CGI trailer of the PC chasing and bashing NPCs. They talk all around the RPG system and focus on things that are not important, they turned a RPG system and RPG Universe where guns are an important part of it, into a "you use guns in some areas and then discard them".

Now if you're talking about the whole "Gaming companies found a gold mine to make profits with less costs". Then i don't understand, because that is exactly what they are doing. And I don't mean this isn't a good thing, there are good remakes, remasters and sequels that come out of it. But there are also bad ones.
It's all about profiting from memories. Sometimes a company makes so they can profit from it and make the player relieve those memories again, sometimes a company doesn't really care and just want to profit and then the player gets disappointed.

I love Bloodlines, I want Bloodlines 2 to be excellent. But nothing they said or showed me in the little info reminds me of the previous game and they even go as far as making stuff that is contrary of what the first game, the Universe and system is. This worries me and I'm not the only one that caught those things up a it's worried.

 

[Walpknut]

Ì thought you were all about DAT PHYSICAL MEDIA, yet here you are flaunting about emulation.

 

[Risewild]

Ì thought you were all about DAT PHYSICAL MEDIA, yet here you are flaunting about emulation.

I would prefer to have the physical consoles and cartridges, but I have no money for them. And I can't even find a good CRT TV for cheap around here either (been trying for years to get one to play my PS2 on).

Also I'm against DRM, and ROMs have no DRM, I'm against not owning the games we bought (which is one of the biggest complaints I have about digital distribution platforms) and that is not applicable with ROMs.

And I also made sure to say I like GOG (and that is one digital distribution platform), because we can own the games we buy on them.

And let's also, just ignore where I said that if I had the money, I would buy the mini consoles too, since I think they are cool. But I can buy something or like something and still know it's overpriced, specially if there are free alternatives that in some (or all) cases are better and offer more options (like being portable).

I guess I was right back then in our huge discussion about why I don't like Steam. You don't really read my posts .

EDIT: Here we go again, now with a Sequel to the 1994 game Beneath a Steel Sky. Another good classic game that has a cult following:
https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/beyond-a-steel-sky-1203171285/

 

[Walpknut]

You guys know you can hack the Mini systems and install more games right?

 

[Risewild]

You guys know you can hack the Mini systems and install more games right?

And you know I can just download more roms and don't have to hack anything to play them in an emulator, right?

 

[Walpknut]

So digital is more convenient then.

 

[MutantScalper]

First one was good, especially liked the "Haunted mansion" -part and some others. Having said that I haven't played it in ages. Hope the different character options make sense and some aren't just nerfed like Brujah was, if I remember correctly.

 

[joevonzombie]

They are overpriced because you can get free emulators that do more than any of the official "minis". I bet it cost them less than 15 bucks to produce .

Everything is overpriced if your primary mode consumption is theft and yes, emulation and piracy are theft.

 

[Cobra Commander]

I don't like vampires. Wake me up when they make a rpg about mummies.

Mummies rox.

 

[Alphons]

I don't like vampires. Wake me up when they make a rpg about mummies.

Mummies rox.

Well, certain sarcophagus and an ancient mummy are major plot points in first Bloodlines...

 

[Risewild]

Everything is overpriced if your primary mode consumption is theft and yes, emulation and piracy are theft.

Not if I rip my old physical games. I did that to a lot of games when I moved to another country and couldn't bring all of my hundreds (maybe even thousands) of legally purchased games and their consoles.

Also many games and programs are abandonware and so you can get them legally from the internet, so those are not piracy either.
There are other stuff that doesn't count as piracy if you make roms of. Like old Playstation magazine demo disks.

Also there isn't really legislation that says I can be prosecuted by making one rom from my game and then use it privately. There is against distribution, there is against mass copies, but there isn't any real law against one copy for personal use of a product I own (because of "fair use"):

ROMs are such a grey area because there are potential legal defenses on both sides—but no one’s truly tested these arguments before. Bambauer couldn’t point to any case law specifically about video game ROMs, and was mostly just extrapolating from other areas of Internet copyright law.

If one thing is clear, though, it’s this: if you don’t own a legal copy of a game, you don’t have any right to download it (yes, even if you delete it after 24 hours, or other such nonsense).

Australia does not have a "fair use" law, but has a "fair dealing", which is more restrictive, but even then roms can be made from the games you own, if you can prove that the game can be a collectible (which pretty much all games for classic consoles are today):

Arguably, if the original might one day be a collectible, there is some merit to an argument that the ROM image is made so that the original can be stored away.

These are quotes from lawyers. Not just some random on the internet, by the way.

And yes, like I mentioned, many rom or game images are abandonware today and legal to be downloaded. For example stuff for Spectrum, C64, Amiga, etc are most (or all) abandonware. Some DOS games are also abandonware (like TES Arena and TES Daggerfall which Bethesda considered it abandonware and allows it to be distributed for free).

I could go on and on about this more, but I don't have time at the moment. But no, your assumption that roms are always illegal is wrong.

Also emulation is totally legal. Really, there isn't a single grey area about emulators, only about roms.

 

[joevonzombie]

Not if I rip my old physical games. I did that to a lot of games when I moved to another country and couldn't bring all of my hundreds (maybe even thousands) of legally purchased games and their consoles.

Even if I did believe you actually did this, this directly contradicts why the micro consoles are allegedly overpriced. You already had the games. For those who don't and want to avoid the murky grey area of emulation, the micro consoles are still a deal.

Nobody who is looking to to emulate Nintendo's consoles are looking to play abandonware. If you're playing Nintendo's first party software on an emulator, you've likely stolen it.

 

[Alphons]

They've responded to "wokeness" concerns.