Hello, my name is Benjamin Le. I am an avid gamer whose passion resides in Marketing for the Video Game Industry. This site is for people to read about gaming news and how the industry works. Please feel free to reach out to me at lebenjaminj@gmail.com for any questions.
2017 saw the return of Crash Bandicoot and it become one of PlayStation‘s best selling games for the year. Crash Bandicoot: The N. Sane Trilogybecame “No. 1 top selling remastered collection in PS4 history” and since its release in June, “has continued to remain among the top 10 selling PS4 titles in the US for the year, so far, in units” said Activision. Fans of the franchise proved the demand for Good Crash games exist and Activision is listening.
According to the spring edition of licensing trade publication Licensing Source Book Europe, Activision is to port The N. Sane Trilogy to the Nintendo Switch and Windows PC. GB Eye, a UK licensing company who sells licensed posters, drinkware and other merchandise, stated that Activision plans for a new Crash Bandicoot game for 2019. Whether it will be a new remaster or a new game remains to be determined. Hopefully it is a new entry for the series as the later games for Crash were received poorly than the original trilogy.
A new game shows the power that the audience can have on a game. While remakes or HD ports are becoming more common, they are to gauge customer interest into a new entry in the franchise. Fan petitions are one method of showing interest of a game to video game companies but money speakers louder than words. If you really believe your favorite game should receive a new franchise than it will take a lot more than a thousands of fans. Hopefully the port of The World Ends with You sells well.
So I don’t have a new article yet but I would like to use the opportunity to promote a new podcast I am doing with my friends. Give it a listen! It’s called the Game Giants Podcast and we talk about gaming and anime. Please feel free to provide feedback about it as well.
Project Octopath Traveler is a upcoming 2018 JRPG from Square-Enix for the Nintendo Switch. The game had a downloadable demo where they could gather fan feedback for the game. The feedback was used to improve the game. Fans were able to convince the developers to improve the UI, movement around the map, visuals, and motivate them to improve the game even more. More details in video below.
Recently, Nioh was another previous Japanese game title that also took fan feedback to improve the game and how fans felt about the overall game. The power of fan feedback can have huge effects and will greatly effect how video game development changes in the future. Depending on the success of Octopath Traveler, future JRPG or games could have more feedback demos. Even Star Wars Battlefront 2‘s beta helped induce changes before the release (clearly not enough before the game’s release). Although developers want to appeal to their fans as much as possible, they will not able to please everybody. For Nioh, developers become stress about trying to please every fan. “The first problem we encountered after researching feedback was that many members of our team became too influenced and affected by the opinions of the players,” Team Ninja’s Fumihiko Yasuda writes. “By attempting to consider all of those opinions, we were not arriving at solid solutions, but rather creating more questions” said Yasuda.
Opinion on Nioh. First Beta
Fan feedback can create a good fanbase prior to the game release. Nioh did extremely well for a new IP from Ninja Theory with a 8.5 Metacritic rating. For a new game, developers can build a large interest by taking fan feedback. For a new IP, Square-Enix is taking steps to continue to push new classic JRPGs. Jairus Cambe stated that he is “excited for this since it’s an homage to the old school JRPGs presented in a beautiful way.”
Amy Hennig is a video game director and script writer. She is famous for her work at Naughty Dog and writing the story for Legacy of Kain and the Uncharted series. A veteran in the gaming industry, she spoke up about the price of creating video games and how video playthroughs of games ruin sales for the creators and justify microtransactions.
Video games need to contain enough content to warrant consumers to pay the $60 price tag. Now more than ever, micro payments such as loot boxes and DLC are customary with every game purchase. Consumers often complain that the inclusion of microtransactions are ruining the gaming industry and that video games have become more of a service. To experience the full content of a game or play online, you’re often forced to pay for additional content that many believe should already be included. Hennig states the reasons games as a service have become the standard is because the price of creating video games have risen. She defended the popularity of loot boxes because creation cost have increased but the price of games have not. The budget continues to grow to create bigger and better games but it comes with the price of trying to earn a profit via game sales. The demand for better games have increased as amazing and beautiful games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin’s Creed Origin, The Last of Us, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild have shown single player focused games can still be amazing. However, Single player games have an even difficult time because the replay value isn’t as strong to more audiences in comparison to games with multiplayer aspects. This has led to more video games to come with DLC, season passes, multiplayer, and micro-transactions.
The single player Star Wars game by Visceral – Studio was close by EA for linear based only games
Hennig also stated that the popularity of Let’s plays and video game playthroughs have ruined the sales of Single Player games. People can watch entire games stories or gameplay on YouTube or Twitch through other players. She believes the rising popularity of online media will continue to drop games sales and force companies to find alternative forms on sales such as loot boxes.
Let’s Plays have become a major form of media. Popular online personalities have started gaming channels and play through the entire series. This can introduce potential consumers to buy the game. Now, YouTube and Twitch link to stores where you can buy the games when watching online playthroughs. Videos are seen as indirect marketing and one of the biggest platform that can reach an audience without heavy cost. Some introduce a game that people would never have bought until they saw content creators make playthroughs. However, there can be an argument on whether it is worth to pay $60 for a single player only game. Video games have become a luxury for some and lack of side content in a story or additional modes of gameplay leads to lower sales. This justifies the addition of microtransaction to make up for the profit lost when games eventually price drop. It really depends on the individual.
What do you think about what Amy Hennig said? Do you agree or do you disagree?
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