Schafer: Fans worry too much about sales News

I think he's probably testament to that, otherwise there'd be no Brutal Legends. Shame Psychonauts didn't sell better though, since it did deserve it.

"Psychonauts developer Tim Schafer reckons we all worry too much about the sales of videogames, while publishers actually put a lot of stock in a game's quality and critical reception. "

Hmmm, were is Shenmue 3? How did the Dreamcast do? I wish RE didn't become a dull shooter? Why is nearly every other game a FPS?

Of course gamers worry about sales, whether it sells or not decides what happens to a console they own or a game/series they enjoy. Money talks, opinion doesn't, just look at the charts.

Psychonauts didn't sell because nobody knew about it, and the boxart, while funky, was just too weird to attract anyone who wasn't on LSD.

Same for Okami, I'm convinced the boxart killed that one at retail too. It didn't communicate how awesome the game was for a second.

Publishers do business and engage lots of money, so they care about good games only because they strongly believe there's still a correlation between critical acclaim and sales. People at the head of UBI or the likes are business men, it's no use pretending they want good games for the sake of it.

I think most peeps are missing the point slightly. Publishers like good games because if they do their job properly marketing wise they should make lots of monies. Turd polishing is usually much harder.

Good games generally sell better than bad ones, so any publisher with sense should be interested in funding good games.

Its not a rule of course and plenty of good games slip through the net, but that is often because of a bad marketing job. There are also just changes in gaming trends of course, which mean that gamers on the whole aren't so much into certain types of games at any given time.

Regardless, it seems that whoever Tim has been talking to has their publishing head screwed on, which bodes well for whatever he works on next :)

I think that often marketing simply don't understand the product they're trying to sell, be it a lack of involvement during production or simple laziness. When this coincides with a game that doesn't fit into one of the standard 'James Bond', or 'Racing', or 'Sports' brackets that are easy for any long-lunching marketing exec to understand then we see the kind of problems that Psychonauts suffered from.

That said, I've seen marketing become involved and given too much say really early on in pre-production and end up completely screwing things up. The relationship between development and marketing is often a difficult one.

I think marketing input is vital, perhaps even at an early stage. The key thing is to have honest marketing input that is genuinely acting in the best interests of the product.

A common phrase is "we can't sell that", but it is sometimes never clear whether that means "this can't be sold" or genuinely means "WE can't sell that".

Nobody really wants to make a product that simply won't sell (bleeding for your art is all well and good, but if the result doesn't sell nobody will pay for you to be able to do it a second time) so GOOD marketing input is very important. Some people have a poor view of marketing as a whole, but I think that is just a view build on experiencing poor marketing.

Some people have a poor view of marketing as a whole, but I think that is just a view build on experiencing poor marketing.

Not necessarily. Some of the best marketing in the world is entirely dishonest (8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas!), and lots of people (but clearly not most) recognise that.

@skillian

Well, fair enough. I meant specifically a poor view of the effectiveness of marketing (or lack thereof).

I agree that people can have a poor view of marketing because it IS effective in all manner of sneaky ways, but that is a different issue :)

a poor view of the effectiveness of marketing

Ah OK, I misunderstood your point. Agreed that poor marketing can make people doubt its effectiveness, but you'd have to be crazy to discount it completely.

Psychonauts was overrated. It was an average game just raised up to god-hood within the hardcore community because of Schafer's past history.

@green_nifta

Thats a bit of a blanket statement don't you think?

I don't hero worship anyone, and am regularly critical of exactly such practices in these very pages. Psychonauts had a few issues with its platforming mechanic, but was otherwise a very enjoyable game. I don't regard it as having Godhood status, but it was a damn sight better that a lot of the stuff out there and certainly worthy of an 8/10 average.

bad09 hit the nail on the head, we care about sales because we care about the future of games, Shenmue III being a prime example.

Is that why you got dropped, Tim?

I kind of agree with green_nifta but i'd go as far as to say Psychonauts was shit. People just glossed over this fact because it was quirky and ........ OMG Tim Schafer!11111!!!!!!!!111

Maybe you just didn't like it, that doesn't make it shit.

As soon as someone starts to tell others why they (the others) like something, you know that person has run out of proper arguments.

Brutal Bomb is a mediocre looking title that will flop.

Hey I'm sure you Schafer fans will love it, but don't deny that this thing is gonna tank, HARD.

Also, Bad09 is right on the money.

Money talks, and if a game series you love bombs, forget about seeing that series for a long time (after the classic that was dino crisis 2, capcom shat out dinos in space for DC3, which killed off the series by being a poor game on a console that never had the first two games and a smaller install base).

It's only natural to care about sales. Notice how after wii started going stratospheric, every publisher and their dog brought out crappy casual titles with waggle action? How many wii fit wannabes there are crawling out of the woodwork?

I may disagree with you on some things bad09, but you can be quite perceptive when you want to be mate ;)

Perceptive? nah just a moany old git, anyway CountFapula you can't disagree me ...RE5 IS a turd ;)

People will probably jump on me for weird reasons, but: I liked psychonauts.. kinda, but I thought jack and daxter 2 and especially number 1 was a wayyyyy better platformer than psychonauts.

The things that elevated Psychonauts above an average platformer were the art direction, script/humor and level design.

Of course if you don't 'get' Schafer humor then thats one of three out the window, but then you'd be dead inside so probably wouldn't enjoy anything of worth. ;)

The artwork was superb. It was bold and distinctive and conveyed the theme of the levels perfectly, be it the murky oppressive underwater flight from the sea monster, the bright cheery summer camp or the war-torn memories of a soldier, the artwork set the mood rather than just being a placeholder for a bunch of identikit enemies.

The level design was pure class too, like the 3-dimensionally curved roads of the milkman level or the godzilla-smash-tokyo-ness of the lungfish city.

There was also a story. A proper story with properly developed characters which at no point felt contrived or copied from anything else. Like all of Schafers other works the story could be novelised and would be able to stand on it's own merits.

It wasn't the most accessible of games though, leaning heavily toward dark humor with quirky characters and situations, and that was never going to be a recipe for high sales figures.

Not wishing to sound elitist but the fact of the matter is that the average gamer doesnt really want intelligent games, so a choice between an involving but slightly tricky to play game and mashing nazis/zombies/robot nazi zombies in the face with a clawhammer is (almost literally) a no-brainer for the masses.

As long as people like Schafer get enough sales to keep on producing games then I'm happy because without such gems as Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts I very much doubt run-of-the-mill videogaming would be enough to keep me playing games.

@ Ashen-Shugar

''Of course if you don't 'get' Schafer humor then thats one of three out the window, but then you'd be dead inside so probably wouldn't enjoy anything of worth. ;) ''

''Not wishing to sound elitist''

It seems I've detected another devout follower of shaferianity

I did get the humor. I just thought most of it was kinda.. not really good. Guess I'm even more elitist than you deny to be then? (I did however really like the milkman conspiracy).

Also the platforming itself was just not very good. This is my main gripe with the game. If it's supposedly a platformer, then why do I not enjoy the ''main game'' part of the game and most fun is derived from .. clicking characters for dialogue? Ooh wai11!!

I definitely don't want to go back to it and I've played the first jack & daxter 3 times. But thanks for proving to me once more that most ppl who like shafer games are.. well.. they think they are smart, that's good rite?

@notmyrealname

It seem I've detected a humorless poster. Initiating ignore poster protocol.

Goodbye.

insta-win!