Stillwater Giant on 2/6/2013 at 23:08
Quote Posted by heywood
Fallout 3 is fundamentally a different kind of RPG than Fallout 1&2. So naturally the fans who wanted the new game to be true to the originals weren't going to like it. But I think FO3 is a very good game in its own right. And let's face it, nobody was or is going to make a new Fallout game that plays like the originals. There's just not a big enough market for that kind of RPG anymore. So it's not like handing the franchise over to Bethesda prevented it from being made. If the Fallout setting hadn't been adapted for a new spin-off series, it would have been left to die.
Just thought that I would say that at the when when Bethesda bought the rights to Fallout they at the last minute outbid Troika who would have made a Fallout similar to the originals and that when Bethesda got the rights they canceled Van Buren which was supposedly 85% finished and was also similar to the originals. A lot of fans would of been more satisfied with Fallout 3 if it didn't get so much of the Fallout setting wrong and wasn't so generally terrible. Fans don't hate it just because it is a FPS because a lot of the fans of the originals myself included really like NV. To be honest I would rather Fallout to have ended up like Arcanum.
Renzatic on 2/6/2013 at 23:34
Quote Posted by Stillwater Giant
...and that when Bethesda got the rights they canceled Van Buren which was supposedly 85% finished and was also similar to the originals.
No. Interplay cancelled Van Buren back in 2003. Bethesda didn't get the rights to FO until about a year after its demise.
Jason Moyer on 3/6/2013 at 00:32
Troika trying to get Fallout 3 = something that should be on snopes.
Starker on 3/6/2013 at 11:31
Quote Posted by Chade
So look, by any objective metric, fallout 3 was a very successful game. Review score, industry awards, sales, successful follow-on titles, you name it. If Thief 4 has a similar reception, I'll certainly count it a success. I'm curious how many people here wouldn't?
Now perhaps you can say that fallout 3 didn't do very well according to the metric of "fraction of super hardcore fans of 1 and 2 that liked 3", but is that a metric that anyone apart from those hardcore fans should care about? (This is an honest question btw, I'm really curious to see what people come up with.)
See, this is one of the things why I found this article so relevant to this very situation:
Quote:
The distinction of whether Fallout fans have the right to feel bitter, or whether that bitterness is more honestly understood as representing their right to care, has been one of the most contested questions surrounding the fallout community. At heart is the right to an individual to have an opinion on something he cares about. This value is so essential a part of our culture that one may not even consider it a question, but for the way the gaming industry has evolved.
The gaming industry believes it is in a position to dictate terms to the community by being the only provider of the resource the community desires. Because it is in a seller-buyer relationship it seeks to maximize profits and must develop a PR campaign with the community. However, its power as seller means the industry believes it can determine the scope of that relationship because of its ability as seller to withhold that which the community (the buyer) desires.
The message is simple. If you don't like what we make, then you're not a true fan. If you don't like our product then don't buy it. But if you don't like it then we won't listen to you. If you don't like it, blacklist.
For the buyers themselves, this has created a collective mindset that would fit in Zamyatin's dystopic vision. There is little room for constructive or critical feedback from the buyer of unsatisfactory products. This discourages the buyer from anticipating the rewards derived from the buyer-seller relationship and silences critical voices.
But how fair is this? One could argue that Bethesda is "just" a company trying to make money. That doesn't work, because the Fallout fans (or indeed any fans) have no particular reason to be concerned with Bethesda's motivation in choosing a reaction. If Bethesda feels motivated purely by profit, fine, but that'll not spare them the rod.
The bitterness of a fan group is often a measure of its loyalty and devotion. For instance, one could turn open any page of Miller and Mayhew's "Better to Reign in Hell" about the relationship of the 2003 Raiders and their fans, for evidence of the bitterness of dedicated Raider fans. Raider fans have frequently demonstrated their right to criticize Al Davis and his mismanagement of their fandom and any who would deny the right of the fans to be bitter would either be blind, suicidal or both.
If this right to criticise by dedication applies to a multi-billion dollar business like American Football, why do people pretend it does not apply to the relationship of players to computer games? The Raiders franchise has been kept alive by its fans' stubborn unwillingness to give up. Likewise, the Fallout license has survived and thrived because of its fans. Anyone who believes that a series of events like the Brotherhood of Steel release and the Van Buren cancellation should not have killed the franchise needs a small gift voucher for Reality Shop, Massachusetts. In fact, the franchise should have technically already been dead after the disappointment of Tactics and cancellation of Tactics 2.
Remember this: the historic value of a game, how long people will remember and play it, depends on the quality of the game.
The survival of a franchise depends completely on the fans.
So far, the Fallout fans have not let the franchise down.
Quote Posted by Chade
I guess the other issue is how strong the parallels are between thief 4 and fallout 3.
Right, we don't even know a lot about Thief yet, but there are many similarities in the situation, don't you agree? For example, Fallout fans were/are depicted as irrational purists who blindly hate anything that isn't a carbon copy of the first two games. Also, the wall of silence from the developer and fans keeping the franchise alive over the years.
Chade on 3/6/2013 at 12:29
Quote Posted by TFA
The Raiders franchise has been kept alive by its fans' stubborn unwillingness to give up. Likewise,
the Fallout license has survived and thrived because of its fans. Anyone who believes that a series of events like the Brotherhood of Steel release and the Van Buren cancellation should not have killed the franchise needs a small gift voucher for Reality Shop, Massachusetts. In fact, the franchise should have technically already been dead after the disappointment of Tactics and cancellation of Tactics 2. (emphasis mine)
So, the bolded statement is surely at least 90% of the truth, and probably more. (Other reasons might include developer enthusiasm, good press, and proven track record.) But I think that the he doesn't quite understand who these fans are, because it sounds like he's defining the fans as members of NMA, which is much too narrow.
Fandom is a bit like an iceburg. You only see a small portion of it. The vast majority of fallout fandom is submerged beneath the water, waiting for an opportunity to strike. They aren't posting in forums, or debating the finer points of the game's fiction, or ... err ... doing speed runs? (What is it that fallout fans spend their time doing anyway?) But they have fond memories of playing the game many years ago, it might appear in many of their "best-of" lists, and given another fallout game, they'll be predisposed to buy it. These people make up the bulk of the fans keeping the fallout series alive, at least commercially.
And yes, I do believe that you could say the same about thief.
EDIT: And I think the author of TFA will find that there are considerable differences between the way a sports club makes money and a computer game, although admittedly I don't know much about sports clubs, but surely most of their revenue comes from ongoing sources like ticket sales and merchandise.
Starker on 3/6/2013 at 20:53
Quote Posted by Chade
So, the bolded statement is surely at least 90% of the truth, and probably more. (Other reasons might include developer enthusiasm, good press, and proven track record.) But I think that the he doesn't quite understand who these fans are, because it sounds like he's defining the fans as members of NMA, which is much too narrow.
That is a good point and additionally, NMA is not any more of a hivemind than the Thief fans here are. They have different opinions about Fallout 3 and some even liked it.
Quote Posted by Chade
Fandom is a bit like an iceburg. You only see a small portion of it. The vast majority of fallout fandom is submerged beneath the water, waiting for an opportunity to strike. They aren't posting in forums, or debating the finer points of the game's fiction, or ... err ... doing speed runs? (What is it that fallout fans spend their time doing anyway?) But they have fond memories of playing the game many years ago, it might appear in many of their "best-of" lists, and given another fallout game, they'll be predisposed to buy it. These people make up the bulk of the fans keeping the fallout series alive, at least commercially.
Sure, but the people modding the game, fixing the game, spreading awareness about the game, these are the visible people. And I think this is also a huge part of the reason why Thief is a cult classic and not an obscure game from the 90s.
heywood on 3/6/2013 at 21:47
Quote Posted by Shinrazero
It would not surprise me if nuThief is really successful but I fear the changes will be at the expense of alienating fans. As far as sweating the small stuff, it appears to be adding up already. The absence of SR is pretty significant IMO, not to mention 3P takedowns, muted presence of magic, focus, first person break, etc. Admittedly, I was not big into the original fallout games. I played some of the first one though and I can empathize with the fans of that series. F3 was a big departure from the format of its predecessors, alienated fans and was still successful.
Quote Posted by jtr7
And it's not small stuff if it's the stuff that defined the experience for the player, cementing it, vital to what separates it from the rest and makes it great. If a person doesn't care about those things, then the person...doesn't care.
It's only serving to undermine what could've been another defiant classic, but will be a hot-seller that isn't remembered but for it's quirks.
The point I was trying to make is that Fallout 3 was a bigger departure from Fallout 1&2 than what we seem to be getting with Thief, based on the limited info we have from EM. Imagine if new Thief is fully 3rd person with platformer movement and stealth by cover. That's the kind of departure Fallout 3 was from the originals. Our concerns about Thief are not yet at the same level, based on currently available info anyway.
However, I know that the Thief changes have already taken some fans past the breaking point. Once you're past that point, I guess it doesn't matter how the situation compares to Fallout.
Chade on 4/6/2013 at 11:52
Quote Posted by Starker
Sure, but the people modding the game, fixing the game, spreading awareness about the game, these are the visible people. And I think this is also a huge part of the reason why Thief is a cult classic and not an obscure game from the 90s.
I'm ... not all that confident either way, tbh ... but I tend to lean towards believing that's not actually true.
It seems like I should be able to find counter-examples of well loved titles that didn't have lots of fan-made content if I really wanted to. Beyond Good & Evil is the first example that springs to mind. Broadening the goal-posts a little, I imagine that even amoung titles with significant fan-made content, most don't really have content that becomes widely known outside the hardcore fan community. (If fallout 1-2's longevity relied on fan-made content that became widely known outside NMA, then I haven't heard of it. This is certainly possible, but I'd be a little surprised. Do you know of any examples?)
I'm kinda curious to hear from the dark mod guys about this, because afaik it's our community's biggest success story. Considering the relatively small size of our community, if the dark mod were to achieve significant penetration amoung the wider gamer population, you would expect the "outsiders" to outnumber us many times over. I'm under the impression that this isn't true, but perhaps someone involved with the mod can correct me.
EDIT: I should add, I don't see this as any sort of problem with our fan-made content. In fact, I think one of the dark mod's great strengths is that it
can focus on being a game "by hardcore thief fans, for hardcore thief fans".
demagogue on 4/6/2013 at 14:25
Just to respond to your comments about Dark Mod... Well, I'll back up to the general point. The extent to which fan made content spreads to general gamers is on a spectrum. Some fan made content becomes very famous, cf. Counter Strike, one of the biggest classic multiplayer games of all time (where the fan made addition is much bigger than even the commercial game). Some never gets out of their little niche. (How many of you play Drod fan maps?) But for most mainstream games, I think general gamers at least know about it... like Morrowind, Oblivion, & Skyrim mods get a lot of exposure ... Tomb Raider fan missions less so. So I don't think it's a general principle you can make because it varies so much.
Now for Dark Mod, I'd say of the active people on its forums, most of them were Thief fans already, a core group came from this forum, over half come from other places or didn't participate here, and a good handful had never even played Thief but were already into Doom3 modding or found out about it some other way. At the time we made it, it got reported in some media outlets. I think the big reason it hasn't had more exposure is being tied down as a Doom3 mod. But when it goes opensource this year, I think it'll start seeing a lot more mainstream outside exposure (I hope!).
But the point is it does get exposure outside a core group in spite of/because it's fan made. Like here, there's probably a lot more people playing the FMs than people who are really active on the forums or contributing things... So what you see being posted isn't necessarily representative of how wide the exposure is.
As for the fan's role, I think it matters more to the longevity of a game than its initial exposure... Will people still be playing it 5-10 years from now? With fan content, they could. I don't know how much EM/SquareEnix care about that though, since their biggest payoff comes from early sales. It's something we can care about...
Starker on 4/6/2013 at 16:50
Quote Posted by Chade
I'm ... not all that confident either way, tbh ... but I tend to lean towards believing that's not actually true.
It seems like I should be able to find counter-examples of well loved titles that didn't have lots of fan-made content if I really wanted to. Beyond Good & Evil is the first example that springs to mind. Broadening the goal-posts a little, I imagine that even amoung titles with significant fan-made content, most don't really have content that becomes widely known outside the hardcore fan community. (If fallout 1-2's longevity relied on fan-made content that became widely known outside NMA, then I haven't heard of it. This is certainly possible, but I'd be a little surprised. Do you know of any examples?)
Right, I'm not stating this as a fact. We don't know if BGE would be more popular with active fans or that BGE2 would be more likely to happen. Likewise, we don't know that Thief would be less popular and long-lived without the fan missions and whatnot. It's just a guess on my part.
But the article is not making that statement just about the games alone. It's talking about franchises:
Quote:
Remember this: the historic value of a game, how long people will remember and play it, depends on the quality of the game.
The survival of a franchise depends completely on the fans.
It's not just about additional content. The fans are creating a something that newcomers can tap into, a community they can be part of, a space for discussions and interaction.
