The "new" fighting game

[kitzkozan]

SNKplaymore problem is obvious even if I’m not working for them.

You can tell that the management is absolutely horrendous and clueless.

They have absolutely no clue as to how they should act in order to make the company flourish again.

-No marketing experts
-management is probably clueless or doesn’t care all that much about public perception,reality of the market,etc
-tiny budget to work with which doesn’t help…
-they seem unable to contract a reliable third party to port some of their classics
-why the fuck did they think the newest 3D samurai showdown was a good idea?
-how’s the bunch of geniuses that decided that shipping KOF XII in it’s current state was acceptable? Worst thing is that they probably weren’t fired.

You just can’t run your business like that and they will go bankrupt again.

[Ultima]

kitzkozan:

Two things:

-management is probably clueless or doesn’t care all that much about public perception,reality of the market,etc

I believe it’s both. With regard to KoFXII, SNK set out to create “the ultimate 2D [i.e. hand drawn] fighter”. They had to have known that hand drawn sprites in this day and age is hard sell, far less going out of their way to make sprites that would be acceptable on modern console displays. Management knew they were going against the grain, they just didn’t care. Or perhaps they thought the long term gains would outweigh the short term risks. I suspect they didn’t realise just how long KoFXII was going to take, though, which probably made them scale back their plans (I sincerely doubt KoFXII was always going to be shipped sans a boss and having fewer characters than KoF94)…

With regard to online, though, they’re definitely clueless on that front. With all the other strikes going against KoFXII out the starting gate, compounded by lack of hype, they NEEDED the online to be spot on from day one. If and when they ever get around to making it acceptable, people would long have stopped caring and already moved on to something else.

-why the fuck did they think the newest 3D samurai showdown was a good idea?

Actually, I can at least understand this one. They took a look at Soul Calibur and thought “let’s get in on some of that”, and thus made a SC/Tekken hybrid with some SS characters shoehorned in. They also ramped up the violence (in the form of the finishers) to disturbing levels. I actually see their marketing department thinking this would sell, albeit perhaps only in the US. I dunno why they even bothered to release Sen in JPN arcades.

Now of course, I think Sen is an abomination (the Hyper Neo Geo SS games weren’t particularly good, but even those duds were better than the awful, awful Sen; at least they tried do resemble SS games, and SS64II did some neat things, just wrapped in an ugly, slow package). I think the whole idea of SC-lite is more than likely to backfire. BUT, if the game were actually advertised to a notable degree, I can also see the game selling decently well. As awful as it seems, I think Sen has the potential to sell much better than KoFXII. Unlike KoFXII, SS has some name value in the west, and we all know the violence sells. The graphics are terrible in motion, but are respectable in stills, so the casuals looking at the back of the box will think it looks great and pick it up based on that alone. Really, all SNK needs to do is give Sen a decent advertising budget and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did well.

[kitzkozan]

kitzkozan:

Two things:

I believe it’s both. With regard to KoFXII, SNK set out to create “the ultimate 2D [i.e. hand drawn] fighter”. They had to have known that hand drawn sprites in this day and age is hard sell, far less going out of their way to make sprites that would be acceptable on modern console displays. Management knew they were going against the grain, they just didn’t care. Or perhaps they thought the long term gains would outweigh the short term risks. I suspect they didn’t realise just how long KoFXII was going to take, though, which probably made them scale back their plans (I sincerely doubt KoFXII was always going to be shipped sans a boss and having fewer characters than KoF94)…

With regard to online, though, they’re definitely clueless on that front. With all the other strikes going against KoFXII out the starting gate, compounded by lack of hype, they NEEDED the online to be spot on from day one. If and when they ever get around to making it acceptable, people would long have stopped caring and already moved on to something else.

Actually, I can at least understand this one. They took a look at Soul Calibur and thought “let’s get in on some of that”, and thus made a SC/Tekken hybrid with some SS characters shoehorned in. They also ramped up the violence (in the form of the finishers) to disturbing levels. I actually see their marketing department thinking this would sell, albeit perhaps only in the US. I dunno why they even bothered to release Sen in JPN arcades.

Now of course, I think Sen is an abomination (the Hyper Neo Geo SS games weren’t particularly good, but even those duds were better than the awful, awful Sen; at least they tried do resemble SS games, and SS64II did some neat things, just wrapped in an ugly, slow package). I think the whole idea of SC-lite is more than likely to backfire. BUT, if the game were actually advertised to a notable degree, I can also see the game selling decently well. As awful as it seems, I think Sen has the potential to sell much better than KoFXII. Unlike KoFXII, SS has some name value in the west, and we all know the violence sells. The graphics are terrible in motion, but are respectable in stills, so the casuals looking at the back of the box will think it looks great and pick it up based on that alone. Really, all SNK needs to do is give Sen a decent advertising budget and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did well.

Nice reply. :china:

I think you are right: management is probably both clueless and they couldn’t care less since the morale must be low when you aren’t seeing the commercial success.

Problem with the samurai showdown game is that critics will rip it to shred.In this day and age,a low profile title can enjoy a small success if it can at least garner a decent score on metacritic.A lot of casual trust “critics” before buying a game,especially if they didn’t follow closely the development of said title.Most hardcore gamers and SRK members will not touch it with a 10 ft pole,so your target audience is mostly casual.

Despite the huge hype for SF IV,it’s the second best rated fighting game behind soul calibur.It did help IV,especially in the first month which is crucial.I still remember those predicting IV to become a commercial bomb(that guy who wrote the IV guide :arazz:) or 700 000-800 000 copies sold max.

If you put together a bad game and slap some violence on it,it still won’t sell worth crap.Critics will still trash it to oblivion and that’s about all SS will have in order to attract attention.The worst reviewed mortal kombat games tanked badly.MK vs DC had decent reviews and it sold around 1.7 million copies and it’s better than the upcoming SS. :razz:

[magical_voice_show]

Actually, I can at least understand this one. They took a look at Soul Calibur and thought “let’s get in on some of that”, and thus made a SC/Tekken hybrid with some SS characters shoehorned in. They also ramped up the violence (in the form of the finishers) to disturbing levels. I actually see their marketing department thinking this would sell, albeit perhaps only in the US. I dunno why they even bothered to release Sen in JPN arcades.

this sounds awesome

[Ultima]

kitzkozan:

I have to disagree with your thesis, re: that critics will a major effect on games’ sales. I think scoring well with critics has a pretty negligible effect on sales. I mean, a good review may help and a bad review may hurt, but those don’t matter as much as a good hype machine.

In the absence of hype, reviews probably have a much greater effect, and it’s unlikely that Sen will get much hype (though I could be wrong), so it getting hammered by critics (which I agree is likely) is probably going to harm its sales. But if the game was sufficiently hyped, I don’t think bad reviews would matter.

[kitzkozan]

kitzkozan:

I have to disagree with your thesis, re: that critics will a major effect on games’ sales. I think scoring well with critics has a pretty negligible effect on sales. I mean, a good review may help and a bad review may hurt, but those don’t matter as much as a good hype machine.

In the absence of hype, reviews probably have a much greater effect, and it’s unlikely that Sen will get much hype (though I could be wrong), so it getting hammered by critics (which I agree is likely) is probably going to harm its sales. But if the game was sufficiently hyped, I don’t think bad reviews would matter.

There’s always exceptions to the rule.

Scarface was trashed by critics and it sold well,even surpassing the 1 million sold mark.It’s not the only example of crap games selling well.

The contrary is also true: a game will get glowing reviews and nobody will give a shit.Psychonauts/Okami are perfect example.

A mediocre game normally doesn’t survive the hype machine.Devil may cry 2 received mediocre reviews and it ended up selling less than half of the first one.Microsoft hyped brute force like crazy and it ended up being a flop(despite selling one million copies).Heck,I lost interest in Blinx after seeing the reviews and Microsoft hyped the crap out of it.Bioware is one of the most well known rpg developer and nobody did care about that sonic rpg when they saw the reviews.I’ve seen it happen too many time since the age of the internet so I know how the system work. P.S: the virtual boy was one hell of a flop after all the money Nintendo did sink promoting it. :lol:

Good hype+good review generally means a success.Perhaps not a super hit,but enough to make profit on it.As much as I hate game critics,there’s no way to deny the fact that they have an enormous power over the game industry.I think some publisher will even give out bonuses depending on if a game is doing well on metacritic.