Hard to attract gamers to new franchises: publisher

That's because people are leery of blowing $50-60 on a game that can (and often does) suck. I can't think of how many RTS games I have that don't hold a candle to C&C or AOE.

One thing I didn't admit to in the threads about d/ling music is, I also d/l games for free. BUT, my reasons are mostly for the reason boots mentioned. Quite often the game sucks. If it sucks, I remove it from my system. But if I like the game, I'll then go out and buy it or order it on-line. That way, I don't waste money on something that looks good but has shit for playability.
Quite often, demos don't really give you a feel for the game because you only get an hour to try it or most of the options are unavailable.
One place I'm glad I took a chance though was with LOTRO. I bought one of the last lifetime subs they had for the game. In 3 days it's going F2P which for me means I get free points to spend in their store for life OR, if I save them up, I'll never have to pay cash for another expansion pack. Well worth the $200.

I usually wait, problem with the game industry is it's fast approaching the same issues as hollywood, recycled ideas and sequils sequils sequils with no original though other than to blow away people on graphics quality.
I use modern warfare as the prime example.

I rushed into buying Battlefield 2142 and it sucked sooooooooo bad. The gameplay was much slower than in Battlefield 2 and the weapons and vehicles and etc. were really just reskins of what was in BF2. Taught me to wait a while before buying a game. Oh, and years before I bought the recent incarnation of DooM and it sucked just because the game was so bloody-damned dark. At least in the old school DooM there was a cheat code to turn on the lights.

I liked the darkness. Made it creepier.

I liked the darkness. Made it creepier.

At my age it just makes it a bugger to see anything. For that reason I never liked the night maps on BF2:SF

Steam = Fail

I haven't really thought about this for a while, but this is one of the chief opinions I've kind of had for a good amount of time -- used to be much more involved with the gaming community but got tired of it a while ago now.

Not surprised that it's Konami which has said this, since they seem hell bound to stick to the same titles a lot more than other big names out there. It's ironic that the game companies say this, because, at the same time, big name gaming journalists have for years been saying that they'd be far more interested in a new title than the same game being repackaged. All you have to do is look to gaming companies like EA (EA Sports) to see how much they like to rebrand the same stuff from year to year.

For every company like Konami, there's ones like Valve, Bioware, or Ironclad, which have come out with a number of good games and built on the ones which were in need of building on to the right extent. Bioware and Obsidian did not make ten KotORs before deciding to move on to something else. Ironclad did not stick entirely with Sins, and has made a few other good games. Valve places emphasis on the effort of making a good game. Other companies, like Konami, routinely fail to bring anything new to the table, and instead fall back on reviving old titles, like Silent Hill, for new platforms.

While there is no doubt difficulty in breaking into the gaming market these days with a good hit, there is also a lot less PR given to new titles from these companies, and that doesn't help. When Lucas Arts took Gladius public, they did very little publicizing for the release or for the game after it -- after having been incredibly quiet on it before. But Gladius was one of the best games nobody play, and has gotten a lot of critical acclaim. Since it wasn't a big title, though, it never got the spotlight, even when it was getting good reviews around the middle of the last-gen era. It's not the only game I could probably pull out of my butt which could have been a lot more successful had the right marketing scheme been taken with getting the name out there, instead of advertising yet another game in the never ending Star Wars franchise to the exclusion of a lot of the other games being developed or published by that gaming company.

When it comes to an industry as crowded as gaming, where people don't make a ton, being able to provide something innovative and new is important, and should be one of the driving goals behind game development. Portal, Spore, Assassin's Creed, Heavenly Sword, and a dozen other titles announced almost immediately after the PS3 was announced, were met with various levels of success (ironically the last real rush of PR I can remember, outside of E3 and one or two other major gaming conferences since the end of 2004), but all came from companies which have proven to be more successful in getting the public's eye than Konami, since they were willing to differentiate what they would offer. Games such as Warhammer Online forced already present companies, like Blizzard, to update the MMORPGs they had to a new level to meet new features being presented by these companies while those games were in development. Competition between long running series like PES and FIFA force continued innovation which can blow up in people's faces if they do too little and fail to fix the problems people had with the last iteration of the game (and there has been a little drama there).

Some companies have found success in selling bulk and the same series over and over, usually since they have a strong monopoly on the title by getting exclusive rights to it, like EA has with a number of professional organizations which stop others from being able to compete with them. Others, like Lucas Arts, have successful franchises like Indiana Jones and Star Wars to fall back on. When you look at the sales, it's easy to see that these groups tend to survive on those facts rather than on actually providing something new and exciting, and when they do have something new and exciting they fail to back it up properly. I see these companies as more of a hole in the gaming industry where sequels and endless retitling of old games becomes a standard which too many other companies try to emulate whenever they have a successful hit, like Konami seems to be doing with Silent Hill and Metal Gear.

Finally, part of the blame most definitely rests on the gamers. As a whole, gamers are a finicky, less than adventuresome lot. Most of those who have played the last five or six incarnations of NFL will buy the next incarnation. Those kids who have played Pokemon will continue to play Pokemon. Those of us who played Star Wars RPGs will get the next in the series (unless they do something monumentally stupid and turn what could have been an epic trilogy into a 2+MMO, blargh). Those who got a certain shooter and liked it will do the next in the series. Very few people will take a chance on games like Darwinia when it gets released and even if they hear news that it's good, they will still stick to the big names like Age of Empires. I had problems getting people to play me in other games who I played with in Empire Earth II, since they all wanted EEIII (even though it was oversimplified to death) and I had begun moving on to other titles. Very few people actually go out looking for some new thrill, and would be more than willing to wait for the next Halo and Gears of War to come out before switching.

All in all, to break through the screen of safe mediocrity and to draw attention of a largely apathetic user set, the gaming industry needs to be way more proactive in new ventures and way more reactive to what happened with previous failures. A lack of investment in new titles which pitches and fanfare coming from a PR department is part of the problem, one few companies are actively trying to fix or overcome, and especially few of the bigger titles (even after breakthrough hits like The Witcher or Unreal from small companies over the years). Fostering innovation isn't easy in the first place, and never seems to be a priority, and whenever I hear about new projects it's almost always being done by some subsidiary office or company few people ever hear about. Some of the blame doesn't belong on gaming companies, but some of it comes from their own issues as well. Leaps and bounds come with new engines and new thoughts, and it's easy to see which companies have begun to really leap and bound and which ones are more willing to stay the course which seems to keep them trapped from the good currents.