developing a game after it goes gold

[Spino]

In defense of CA, Bioware had a hell of alot of leverage in dealing with publishers after the phenomenal success of Baldur's Gate and its expansion pack. When they followed it up with Baldur's Gate II, an even bigger seller and considered one of the best rpgs of all time, it became essentially a seller's market for Bioware's properties and ideas. I'm sure all subsequent contracts gave Bioware sweet deals and a great deal of say with regards to content, support, etc.

Shogun and Medieval were huge successes (Shogun sold over 750 thousand copies, Medieval over 1 million) but not the overnight sensations that BG1 & 2 were. Who knows what CA's current contract with Activision is like? If CA is contractually obligated to Activision to make a sequel to Rome and each of these titles wind up selling over 1-1.5 million copies each then CA will have that much more leverage when it comes time to renew the contract or seek a deal elsewhere. However, given the limited patch support we've seen with Medieval and now Rome I doubt CA's contract with Activision is as sweet as we'd like to think it is.

[Kraxis]

No fret, they come from EA themselves, well actually the employees spouses as the workers are afraid. And we are not talkiing about a mere crunch, it is crunchtime alltime.

[drone]

Regarding EA and their studios, I think the situation can get even worse than fret says, since they have to deal with console games as well as PC. Burn those console discs, and pray there are no show-stopper bugs. Vodka, with a milk of magnesium chaser, keep them coming until closing time, be here same time tomorrow...

[fret]

since they have to deal with console games as well as PC. Burn those console discs

This is a very real problem, however, because console development is done on proprietry hardware, the occurance of such show-stopping bugs is a much rarer occurance than in the PC market, which has to cope with an infinate number of combinations of hardware manufacturers and a myriad of varying client specifications.

A 'rushed' console game is more likely to result in a less polished title, rather than a title needing emergency patches.


With regard to gauranteed franchise success and the mega succesful studio's, such a id, Bioware, Valve, Firaxis etc, the draconian measure's forced on them by the publishers still remain, the differance is that the Studio will be able to negotiate a better SPA in the first place - but if they fail to meet the the terms they still get punished the same as the little guys. ie when Firaxis negotiated the Civ3 SPA, they would have bargained for a longer development period mainly, if Joe Bloggs Studio wanted to develop a title, Activision would give them less capital and less time to create the product, wheras id or Firaxis would get more capital funding and a longer deveopment period.

Still, there are very, very, very few people who can arrogantly have the attitude of John Carmack and tell the Activision big-wigs "It will be ready when its ready".

Another consideration with these mega-succesful companies is that much of the work will be contracted out anyway (for example, id never made Return to Castle Wolfenstien, they merely oversaw the development of it in a consultative capacity) in this case, the publisher still has to enforce a draconian regime which is passed down the chain.. Activision pressure id -> id pressure contractor -> and so on.

Ad naseum hell on earth

[Khorak]

In defense of CA, Bioware had a hell of alot of leverage in dealing with publishers after the phenomenal success of Baldur's Gate and its expansion pack. When they followed it up with Baldur's Gate II, an even bigger seller and considered one of the best rpgs of all time, it became essentially a seller's market for Bioware's properties and ideas. I'm sure all subsequent contracts gave Bioware sweet deals and a great deal of say with regards to content, support, etc.

Not to mention Bioware were holding the D&D license, and have practically no competitors in the realm of top town stat-run RPGs. Combined with a quite obvious reputation for extreme quality (they're like Blizzard used to be, it's frightening) and enthusiastic post-release support, any publisher can be pretty much guaranteed a cash cow of massive proportions, complete with craploads of expansions and continued consumer interest through the support Bioware provide. Publishers would be shitting kittens to get their hands on that much moolah.

[Mayfield The Conqueror]

Not to mention Bioware were holding the D&D license, and have practically no competitors in the realm of top town stat-run RPGs. Combined with a quite obvious reputation for extreme quality (they're like Blizzard used to be, it's frightening) and enthusiastic post-release support, any publisher can be pretty much guaranteed a cash cow of massive proportions, complete with craploads of expansions and continued consumer interest through the support Bioware provide. Publishers would be shitting kittens to get their hands on that much moolah.

That and no one makes RPG's anymore.. can you name 3 that were released for the PC in 2004? They are considered the #1 RPG maker and they can basically do what they want.

And correction: NWN 2 is being developed by another studio for Bioware. Bioware is currently developing another RPG called Jade Empire.

No one has mentioned the obvious restrictions for this game.. this game was marketed and hyped more than any strategy game I have ever seen. With the History Channel tie ins as well as commercials the publisher had a lot riding on the game being released about the same time that the marketing hype hit. The marketers must have planned all of this a year in advance, and the developer (CA) probably had to have pretty hard release date. They could not fall back on Blizzards classic "when its done" release date, they had to have it out in Sept 2004. This could be a reason for a rushed product.

[nokhor]

Shogun and Medieval were huge successes (Shogun sold over 750 thousand copies, Medieval over 1 million) but not the overnight sensations that BG1 & 2 were.

Spino, where did you get that info? it's not that i doubt you, but i am curious as how well some pc games have sold and have never been able to find the data online. do you have a link to a site, or do you have some serious insider connections, and if you tell me, you'd have to then kill me? by the way, any idea how many units moved RTW has had so far?

[Mikeus Caesar]

they had to have it out in Sept 2004. This could be a reason for a rushed product.

Well that means if they ever release another TW product, they might regret having rushed RTW. I've heard of a lot of people saying that they were so annoyed with RTW they'll never buy another TW game again, which means that activision will have lost a large amount of suckers, oops wait, i mean 'valued customers'. So if they do release a new TW game, they might not make as much money, and will be very dissapointed.

[Mayfield The Conqueror]

Well that means if they ever release another TW product, they might regret having rushed RTW. I've heard of a lot of people saying that they were so annoyed with RTW they'll never buy another TW game again, which means that activision will have lost a large amount of suckers, oops wait, i mean 'valued customers'. So if they do release a new TW game, they might not make as much money, and will be very dissapointed.

You are right, they will lose the diehards like us who know what is wrong with the game, but for the vast majority of consumers they think it is cool to just toss armies at armies. I will not buy another game until after they patch it AND people here say it is ok. And if they dare fix all the problems with an expansion, basically ransoming you to pay another $30 US for a fixed game, it is then a sorry state in PC gaming.