Le Saboteur said:
You know, I have to agree with Cliffy B. The numbers don't add up. But he's going to wrong way if he attempts to blame the consumer base for trying to cut their costs. It's the bloody industry who needs to find a way to cut theirs, especially when their current behavior is
very much driving the gamers towards finding out ways to get off cheap.
Like Cliffy himself puts it, Ubi is currently using thousands of devs across multiple studios to push out an Assassin's Creed title once a year. However, the only gain out of using this manpower is the savings in time. Smaller teams can also make quality titles - they'll just need more time.
But hey, less time, more volume, more $$$, right? Well, not exactly. It
might work if one publisher was the only player in the market. But thanks to the lords of free economy, they're not. And won't be.
Let's assume that we end up in a situation where we have 20 different publishers doing the same. That's 20 "must play" AAA titles a year. Except, majority of the gamers on this Earth can't afford to buy all of 'em. They'll have to get a little more picky - especially if one expects them to pay the full price. One guy buys titles A, B and C, another buys A, B and D, third buys B, D and E and so forth.
So yeah. What do you get in the end? A business environment where the costs are sky-high and the competition extremely fierce, meaning only a select few titles can consider themselves lucky to make it above the line. Unless... you slow the hell down, you dumb f**ks. Cut down the team sizes, use more time and the product will be as good. And if everyone does the same, it also means you'll end up peddling in a far calmer market where the competition is only 10, not 20 titles released at the same time. Which means a far greater likelyhood that more gamers pick up your title when they consider their choices.
Okay, there may still be added competition given how at least some of those devs not working for you will be working on some other, brand new IP which will likely add to the competition. But still, it's not so bad, because you've still cut down the costs. Meaning that while the market may not be a whole lot calmer, but you have still cut your costs, meaning you'll still have to sell less before you make it to the line and start producing a profit.
You're really the one who sounds silly here, Cliffy. You
can cut down your budgets. The tradeoff is more time spent on a title, but if it is expected enough, you can still make a pretty penny out of it. In fact, the mirror image of the current Ubi method is a little phenomenon dubbed "Valve time". Sometimes, making your base wait can even embellish the success, even multiply it. Now, if few years down the road, my personal budget balances out by making a choice either between
Half-Life 3 or
Assassin's Creed 7, I don't think I'll have to consider for long. In fact, it's not even a contest.
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Le Saboteur said:
Now, let's start by clarifying something.
Far Cry 3 does make an attempt to give us an explanation to Jason Brody's proficiency to survive in the hostile environment he's flung into. The line he says after being rescued by Dennis is not "I have never shot a gun before". It's "I have never shot
anyone before". I trust you see the difference. I know I've handled my share of firearms and know my way around them comfortably enough, but I've still never pointed one towards a man and pulled the trigger with the intention to kill him.
Also, it's explained in a later flashback his brother who died in the intro did give him some weapons training.
Okay, while it's there and pulls off an attempt to explain some things, it still does it in an extremely shoddy manner. Though ironically, what bothered me far more was that after liberating the first outpost (which I, by the way, did like a boss by knifing every pirate and fragging that annoying dog for the extra XP reward) I was told to go see the doctor in his mansion. On the way there, I climbed another radio tower, hunted down and skinned quita a handful of veracious animals, liberated another outpost and killed probably a couple dozen more (very literal) redshirts who just happened to be riding along the same road as I did - and yet when I got there, feeling like a legitimate badass, Jason suddenly decides to act like a timid schoolboy again.
But eh, in the end, I couldn't care less. Because even if the plot had been about something else altogether and had you play a random grunt on a random mission doing random things, the game's charm would likely still have persisted. In fact, I think I hit quite close to mark when I said earlier that the protagonist in a game like this doesn't matter, if the game world manages to nail it. And that it did.
Far Cry 3's true protagonists are the Rook Islands. The way game gives you the chance to do things your way, be it noisy or silent, all on land, water and air made it such a joy to play. I was genuinely surprised how there was no contrivances on any playstyle. Whatever you decided to do, however you chose to approach a situation, it just worked. Which is no small feat to pull off in a game like this.
In fact, I consider this the biggest contrast between this one and
Tomb Raider. The latter simply took a handful of gameplay features that are already known to work and mixed them together, whereas
Far Cry 3 set out to tackle things that have not previously quite worked - and got them bloody right. The story may still be what it may, for that alone they already have my respect.
And while the storytelling could have used some polish, I actually found Jason Brody quite an ingenious player avatar in the end. Because that is exactly what he is a
player avatar. He's not a SpecOps grunt or something like that, he's a run-of-the-mill college kid on an unexpected power trip - which is something most of the
gamers are when they pick up the controller. Also, it actually does serve as an extra layer of integration between the story and gameplay. Why would some SpecOps grunt spend hours jet ski racing, hunt animals just for the hell of it, or delve deep into the jungle after some long-lost relic when his next objective is already clear and his friends are suffering in the hands of an insane, bloodthirsty pirate king? It'd be perfectly out of character for a disciplined soldier. But for Jason Brody such behavior actually makes perfect sense. While a badass growing in power, he's still a spoiled slacker at heart - and that means he can get easily distracted while looking for the next adrenaline surge.
Though like I said, the execution stills falls a little flat. But you can't say that the concept itself is nothing short of brilliant.