Sam & Max : Back on the Road

[Bomb Bloke]

Yet another announcement for a sequal!

[FullAuto]

I dare not even hope...

[Fishfins]

I sure am glad LucasArts decided to cancel all their promising adventure games, which looked set to reinvigorate the adventure games industry after years of horrible FMV games and the illogical Myst series. Yup, I'm glad they canned those sequels every adventure-gamer was dying for so they could make more Star Wars games for the more abundant nerd population.

[Zager]

You know, that's the exact sort of attitude I hate. Corporations are not your servants, they are not making games to please you, they are trying to earn a profit. Like it or not, the managerse at LucasArts thought that there wasn't enough of a market for adventure games to justify the expense.

[Azrael Strife]

And so they chose to start making crappy games instead of good ones , though to be fair they have made some pretty decent Star Wars games recently, but the LucasArts adventure games were excellent, I sure hope they pick up the ball again

[Pete]

As long as I can still run Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Star Trek Judgement Rites, I'm happy. Classic stuff

 

I know I'mway off topic, but wouldn't it be neat if Lucasarts remade the X-Wing and Tie Fighter series'?

[Azrael Strife]

Totally, those games are gold! I played X-Wing Alliance, not bad, but despite the great graphics I didn't find it nearly as satisfying as Tie-fighter (never got to play X-Wing)

[sir-roosio]

You know, that's the exact sort of attitude I hate. Corporations are not your servants, they are not making games to please you, they are trying to earn a profit. Like it or not, the managerse at LucasArts thought that there wasn't enough of a market for adventure games to justify the expense.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But whatever happened to 'artistic integrity' whilst profits are important surely milking the cash cow and producing mediocre products and lacklustre sequels to once-original games is worse for your company's reputation and reduces it's profits in the long term, whilst also having the effect of making the market less susceptible to new and original genres? and surley they are making games 'to please us'? If the games please people, people will buy, if they dont please people no one will give enough of a toss to spend cash.

[Bomb Bloke]

It's supply versus demand. The aim is to make the crappiest games possible, without denting your reputation enough that people will stop buying them.

 

If you make the best games possible, then you go broke. Not enough people will buy them to justify the expense.

 

Game engines and stuff are considered a good investment. These can be sold to gamers as well as developers. A game like Sam and Max can only be sold to gamers.

 

They aren't making games to please us. The corporates authorise the games that will produce the most money. The programmers code to pay the bills. Obviously, both sides of a company want to produce games which gamers will want, but only because games gamers want produce money.

 

There are exceptions to this rule, of course. But those companies who break it don't tend to become household names.

 

I mean, I can rant on all I like about the **** games EA keeps publishing, but that doesn't change the fact that those games sell in huge volumes compared to the games I actually like. Likewise, there are more StarWars fans out there then there are Sam and Max fans.

[Azrael Strife]

Then is it possible that there are not enough X-Com fans to make Genesis or Alliance profitable enough? I was under the impression that there was a huge community, that's what confuses me about what Atari (or whoever held the rights at the time) cancelled the projects.

[Gimli]

I'd really love to see Sam&Max again. My favorite adventure of all time. What a crazy combo that was. Max was my favourite, he was so cute and yet so rabid. Not to mention the excellent humor.

 

I mean, I can rant on all I like about the **** games EA keeps publishing, but that doesn't change the fact that those games sell in huge volumes compared to the games I actually like. Likewise, there are more StarWars fans out there then there are Sam and Max fans.

 

I don't even bother to install demos of various FIFA/UEFA games anymore. I don't suppose you people have heard of the case of the "EA spouse"?

 

I think the problem with X-COM is that most people aren't interested to check it out. Interestingly enough, those who do in majority of case that I know get immediately hooked. I remember at one point my library had X-COM: UFO. People who you'd never imagine playing games were hooked. People like local school bullies.

[Pete]

The only way X-COM could have survived was if Alliance had come out. It was squad-based first-person-shooter - totally unheard of and would have sold millions of copies just on the idea alone.

 

Squad based tactical games don't sell anywhere as many units as Bomb Bloke says. Even a remake of X-COM would sell only a fraction of that of Fifa 2006 for example. Companies who make these games like ALTAR and Nival either have to be brave enough to do it, have other games on the go, or, no offense to either of the above companies, develop the games in countries where the exchange rate is so very much in their favour that $30 is LOTS of money.

 

Think about it - a game made in the UK and sold to Americans would have to sell twice as many copies to make the same amount of money as if it were produced in the US and sold to Americans.

[Azrael Strife]

Hadn't Rainbow Six already come out when Alliance was being developed? the genre was fairly successful, wasn't it? I enjoyed a lot Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear, etc. A futuristic game based on Rainbow Six would be awesome, and one from the genre with X-Com would have been the best.

[Pete]

Well Alliance was started in 1999, and it's extended on-offproduction took it to 2001 before it vanished (70-odd percent comlpeted I might add)... When was Rainbow Six?

[Azrael Strife]

1998. Just read that there is a Rainbow Six movie coming on 2006, now that's something I'm not looking forward to be released

[Fishfins]

The thing was, virtually every PC games magazine was raving about Sam and Max 2 and Full Throttle 2. And just when those games were almost finished, they canned them for good. Later on, an independent games developer offered to buy Sam and Max 2 and finish developing it, but LucasArts refused.

 

Obviously they'd make more money if they made and sold Star Wars games than if they sold Adventure Games, but whatever happened to customer satisfaction? After causing two widely mourned game cancellations, they bring us horrible dirge like Republic Commando and Revenge of the Sith. It doesn't look like they'll be making a Tie Fighter remake anytime soon either, mediocre action games and movie tie-ins rake in more greenleaves.

 

You'd think they'd at least finish off one of those canned projects as the last adventure game they'll ever make, but no.

[Azrael Strife]

Greed, that's what happened to customer satisfaction

[Zager]

Then is it possible that there are not enough X-Com fans to make Genesis or Alliance profitable enough? I was under the impression that there was a huge community, that's what confuses me about what Atari (or whoever held the rights at the time) cancelled the projects.

 

This is probably the largest X-COM community on the net, and how many of us post regularly? Not even a hundred, I'm guessing.

 

The thing was, virtually every PC games magazine was raving about Sam and Max 2 and Full Throttle 2. And just when those games were almost finished, they canned them for good. Later on, an independent games developer offered to buy Sam and Max 2 and finish developing it, but LucasArts refused.

 

Sure, people like it. But they're not representative of the main population that buys games. An adventure game lacks many key components that would increase sales, such as replayability and multiplayer.

[Gimli]

There was another thing that I think X-COM was missing. Hype. Lots and lots of hype. Look at Doom 3 for example. A lot of hype, and it wasn't exactly state of the art (except the graphics, which were great).

 

Sure, people like it. But they're not representative of the main population that buys games. An adventure game lacks many key components that would increase sales, such as replayability and multiplayer.

 

I agree, though more life could be brought to them, if they gave you more freedom. IIRC, Blade Runner had 13 different ends. Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) looks very promising, though the demo was a bit short.

[sir-roosio]

"To stop itself from dying under the weight of lowest common denominator, samey titles, the games industry needs to trigger a paradigm shift among the games-buying public to increase profitability of original genres." Discuss

[Fishfins]

Adventure games make less money. True.

 

By why, oh whyever why would anyone in their right mind cancel a hyped-up game like Sam and Max 2 just as it neared completion?

 

Metaphor time!

 

I run a bakery. I put together a batch of cream pies. All I need to do is put them in the oven. However, apple pies sell much better. So I'll throw out the almost-done cream pies and make more Star Wars games... I mean apple pies.

 

https://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=90

[FullAuto]

I don't think it's the public that's the problem. Attitudes at the distributing/publishing level have changed. Now it's not enough that a game make a profit, games that do not look like they will make the MAXIMUM profit possible get shitcanned while the company makes a sequel to some previous hit. Hence the dearth of shitty games. It's not enough for an original game to sell (see Beyond Good and Evil et al for examples) it has to outsell iteration 3 of Average Racer X or the company throws its toys out of the pram and demands a racing game.

LucasArts didn't cancel Sam and Max et al because they wouldn't sell, they most assuredly would. They cancelled them because it wouldn't sell as much as a Star Wars game, and just like 95% of the industry, they're greedy little tykes who don't care about the quality of the game more than than is necessary to ensure it sells in quantity.