Vatra closing?

[Wigeke]

The point is every game has bugs, and comparing Downpour to other games you'll see that they're not as bad in most cases. For someone who claims to want to work on the industry you don't seem to have played that many games.

[Falconv1.0]

That might honestly be the stupidest insult that has ever been thrown my way.

[Wigeke]

It's not an insult cupcake, I'm just pointing out that you're exaggerating, this game has no game breaking bugs, the only one that's actually common is the stuttering and as yourself said it's not crippling or anything. If you want to see a true unfinished (but still very good) game try Kotor 2.

[AuraTwilight]

I don't actually keep very much paper in my apartment. I also don't play video games to become an amateur cartographer.

I know you're a Downpour apologist, dear, but at least try to be objective about it. The map system was atrocious.

I am. I just never had a problem with it. I do, however, hail from the days where games didn't HAVE maps and drawing your own was part of the gameplay, so I'm completely numb to that sort of thing even if it did disorient me.

Really, we got someone trying to defend the map now with "keep your own notes"?

I love how the closest thing one can mount to a valid defense is HEY MAN, IT'S JUST OPINIONS, BECAUSE EVERYTHING EVER IS SUBJECTIVE.

I'm still shaking my head at the bit about the "difficulty". So it's not the monsters it's the controls? Is that why I still never died? Oh no, they're attacking, press the block button! Oh no! They're not attacking! Press attack! Uh oh, weapon broke, better just run while they barely do any damage if they even manage to hit me. But hey man, opinions, maybe I'm just secretly the Batman of Silent Hill.

Wow, lack of temper, much?

I'm not the one who's complained about the controls of the game as opposed to difficulty with monsters and whatnot. Go browse the forums. My statement was based on what I've read, not what I've experienced.

[Tillerman]

Strawmans are fun!

Gonna stop trying to argue with this apologist logic, it's ridiculous.

I'm not saying you're right or wrong... but sorry, you're misusing the term "strawman." It's when someone changes your argument into something different, and then attacks that similar proposition in order to create the illusion they have refuted your position, when in actuality they have not addressed your arguments at all.

The thing about maps, I think I'm with you on that. Some games it's okay to not have maps, in Dark Souls you don't need maps because the game is so well designed that everything is memorable. But Silent Hill games have always traditionally had useful maps, and when a Silent Hill game comes along that decides to have a ton of sidequests, that's about the worst time it could pick to break with tradition.

[PoemOfTheLastMoment]

I found the map system to be the worst in any game i've ever played..... How hard could it have been for them to make markers on the map and then remove them after the end of every sidequest?

[clips]

I not going to say it's the worst, but it kinda felt unfinished. A checkmark at least would have been fine to at least let you know you completed what needed to be done in that area. I found some of the sidequests in general to be a little too vague in what you needed to do.

I think i already explained in how you was finding clues all over the map just by chance, for multiple sidequests, which could be a bit confusing, combined with the notion that you did alot of back and forth between maps to solve sidequests,..even with the shortcut system...which didn't always work...

Lastly, it'll be interesting to see who Konami will get for the next game...i'm still hoping they give Vatra another shot, as i was very impressed with Downpour despite it's minor flaws...and i hope they release it on the current generation of consoles. Even tho it's still expensive to develop for this gen, developing on the next gen systems will be astronomical...

[Droo]

That's assuming there will even be another SH game. After Downpour's commercial and critical failure (it's the worst-reviewed SH to date), the HD Collection debacle, and Book of Memories being on a system nobody owns, the future doesn't look very bright for the franchise. I guess if the movie does well it might save it, but I can't help but feel Konami may cut its losses and give up soon.

[Skele]

^I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if Konami ended up calling it quits on SH, but something tells me they won't do that. I see maybe one more console release to see if somoene out there can get it right, and if that fails, it's curtains.

[Kenji]

Critical failure is insignificant compared to commercial failure. It's easy to live with the disapproval of some, if you're rolling in the paper.

That said, do we ever get information on how Silent Hill sells? All we know is that Konami never crows about it (and they would if they could), which would put it anywhere from "eh, good enough" to epic fail. Can't even honestly say its continued existence means much, since Konami almost seems to be running on autopilot, these days.

It's funny: Konami's so quiet, these days, that a Silent Hill could break past expectations, even turn a decent profit, and they probably wouldn't say a goddamned thing. What's with Konami, these days?

[alone in the town]

I have never seen sales figures from any of the games, so I do not know what the basis is for people saying any of the games succeeded or failed individually.

[clips]

Well if they end up calling it quits, maybe they can sell the franchise to another firm that would do it justice and support it properly. The only problem with that is will the said firm just go RE on it and ruin it even further.

The franchise really isn't failing because the games are horrible, all of the games are fairly decent, it's this current generation of gamers that really aren't into it. Development costs, really can't be sustained from hardcore followers like us...you need a few casual folks to pick the games up as well.

But Konami not saying anything about Downpour's numbers doesn't bode well. Even tho the SH series was never a big blockbuster to begin with, but like was already stated, it at least was able to pull a small profit to justify future games.

[Glenn]

I have never seen sales figures from any of the games, so I do not know what the basis is for people saying any of the games succeeded or failed individually.

Konami announced strong sales for SH2 and I believe SH3. They never announced exact numbers but at least it got some praise.

[Falconv1.0]

The franchise really isn't failing because the games are horrible, all of the games are fairly decent, it's this current generation of gamers that really aren't into it. Development costs, really can't be sustained from hardcore followers like us...you need a few casual folks to pick the games up as well.

Don't make excuses for Konami's incompetence when it comes to getting their ip's sold, especially with some shit like it's just too hardcore. The game was not marketed very well, every reviewer and their mother said it was looking really rough when they tried it out and when it launched it got decent at best reviews. (That is not your prompt to find a few positive reviews, it doesn't somehow take away from the far more negative ones.) It was a horror game that didn't scare me nor did it ever truly challenge me, the only thing hardcore about it is that there's zero appeal to anyone who wasn't already a Silent Hill fan because Konami blows ass at pretty everything at this point.

[Wigeke]

Don't make excuses for Konami's incompetence when it comes to getting their ip's sold, especially with some shit like it's just too hardcore. The game was not marketed very well, every reviewer and their mother said it was looking really rough when they tried it out and when it launched it got decent at best reviews. (That is not your prompt to find a few positive reviews, it doesn't somehow take away from the far more negative ones.)

So what you're saying is that Downpour's release was pretty much the same as every other game in the franchise? Oh the surprise!

[clips]

The franchise really isn't failing because the games are horrible, all of the games are fairly decent, it's this current generation of gamers that really aren't into it. Development costs, really can't be sustained from hardcore followers like us...you need a few casual folks to pick the games up as well.

Don't make excuses for Konami's incompetence when it comes to getting their ip's sold, especially with some shit like it's just too hardcore. The game was not marketed very well, every reviewer and their mother said it was looking really rough when they tried it out and when it launched it got decent at best reviews. (That is not your prompt to find a few positive reviews, it doesn't somehow take away from the far more negative ones.) It was a horror game that didn't scare me nor did it ever truly challenge me, the only thing hardcore about it is that there's zero appeal to anyone who wasn't already a Silent Hill fan because Konami blows ass at pretty everything at this point.

Don't get me wrong, i know konami's marketing team was extremely lackluster for the last few games. And when i meant hardcore, i didn't mean the game itself..i meant in terms of supporting the franchise..the hardcore SH fans will most likely purchase these games, but we alone cannot sustain the series.

I also agree that the games need to be up to the task as well, which is why i stated that while none of the games are bad SH games (some are better than others) SH games don't contain machine guns or explosions or fast paced gameplay. Look at RE operation RC,...it rode off of the RE name of course and capcom marketed the s**t out of it,..and it sold pretty well, but alot of fans was upset with it....lacking in story and it was uninspired and very buggy.

Konami could've done the same thing with Downpour, which i believe is a much better product, because it still stayed true to it's roots while it tried some new things...but konami's marketing team has been dropping the ball in this dept for an extremely long time.

[Kenji]

Hey, I appreciate the lengths Tomm and the Gang are going to, as well. They've put up with our bullshit, as a community, and tried to deliver the best products they could under their many constraints.

However... well...

A good product sells itself. Look at Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. I predict the next Souls game will outsell the next Zelda game, if their respective trajectories continue (in brief: Souls performs Zelda's job better than Zelda). How much marketing did the Souls series get? About as much as Shattered Memories and Downpour (if not less). Word-of-mouth, essentially.

Modern business pedagogy overemphasizes the importance of marketing. Marketing cannot make people want something they don't really want. And if someone gets burned by slick marketing for a lackluster product, who will they blame for wasting their money? I can tell you who they won't blame. They wouldn't be particularly wrong, either: Lying to the customer breeds cynicism and is both shortsighted and ultimately self-destructive.

Of course, companies (and business education) have latched onto this little untruth because it's a quick and convenient explanation. It's not that your product frankly isn't up to par or doesn't address your customers' needs -- it's merely that your marketing didn't convey its obvious value to the customer. So, you take the more convenient option of liquidating your marketing division instead of taking the scalpel to R&D, which is where the real problem usually lies.

The flipside, of course, is that you consult your marketing division on things they frankly have no business touching. Like your corporate strategy.

I don't think it's extreme to say that the majority of Silent Hill fans came in with the first three games (and still come in with them). A second boost occurred with the movie, which brought the series to unprecedented visibility simply by being in a more mainstream venue. However, do the recent games create new fans like the old ones did? Sure, you'll get an individual here and there who says they came in with Shattered Memories or Downpour, but not in any sizable group I've seen.

Going back to how Tomm and the Gang cater to our whims (which, again, I appreciate), haven't you guys thought it was unusual? We all know how conservative publishers get, how they don't wanna mess with the golden goose. Does anyone here think it's easy to stray outside the tried-and-true Blood, Rust, n' Iron? Why would they go to this effort, if new fans were coming in at a pace comparable to the old games?

The reason, and I think everyone here has already sensed this, is because we're all they have left. As odd as it might sound, the best sign of the brand's health would be if they kept regurgitating SH3 on new consoles, regardless of our reaction, because it'd mean (short of them following their muses to insanity or whatever the artsy developers do, these days) that the inflow of new customers frees them from listening to our demands. However, Origins and Homecoming haven't defined the last ten years of Silent Hill. They can't bring in new fans, so now their strategy has shifted to trying to keep us from going away.

Meanwhile, Book of Memories is going after a completely different market (and on the Vita, of all places... my condolences), which leaves the Revelations movie as the last hope for expanding the audience. However, as I said above, marketing just doesn't have the power ascribed to it. The movie makes a great commercial, but if the available games don't live up to the impression left on the new audience's imaginations, they'll feel cheated.

I think we'll get some new fans, just not enough to keep Team Silence from being forced onto broken glass to appease us.

[clips]

^I completely agree with everything you stated,...but i still think a bit of marketing wouldn't have hurt Downpour. Konami's attitude kinda felt like they had "0" support for it....while i'm sure for the next MGS game, they will promote the heck out of it.

And i understand why they would or maybe why they wouldn't since the MGS series really doesn't need any real type of push. But for a game series that has been struggling to hold on to it's roots and traverse a new audience, i think it only makes sense to have some type of formal marketing for your product to spark some kind of interest.

And no offense Kenji, normally it'd take alot for me to read long posts like that, but there is some quality wisdom bein' dropped up there and i read all of it...again i agree...

[Augophthalmoses]

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are more of a stroke of luck though. The fact that good games sell themselves isn't always true as game quality isn't the only thing that factors into a game's success. It's also genre (some are simply more popular with the gaming public than others, advertising, competition, the timeframe of the release, budget, and so on. Sure, marketing can't force people to want to buy the games, but it at least tells the people that the game is out there and you always have to make that evident especially with a lesser known (in contrast to all those big budget AAA games anyway) property like Silent Hill.

Silent Hill also heavily relies on open endedness and allowing the player to carve their own experience out of the games. So there's no overall universal appeal across the fanbase when everybody has a different idea of what the series is supposed to be. And that's what kill word of mouth advertising for a game series like this. It also effects reviews too since they too also have a different viewpoint of how the series is supposed to be and how it's supposed to evolve.

That's not excusing the lack of advertising. But even if Konami had vehemently marketed this game there's no way it would have turned into this gigantic success story. It would have been a minor hit at best, but that's still much better than what actually happened.

You can make a good game, but that doesn't mean it's guaranteed from the get go to sell. It's never that simple in the video game industry.

[Skele]

I think there was enough marketing and advertising for Downpour, it's just that in the end it turned out to be a poorly made game. Devin said all the right things in so many interviews. Tomm (or whomever that was) was here often socializing with the fans, saying positive things, and hyping the game. Heck, I'd go to gamestop prior to Downpour's release and see posters, and large video game boxes of Downpour to help with advertising (not to mention all the ads in game magazines)... i just think Vatra failed us.