Admittedly, I don't know the ins-and-outs of the video game industry or this particular case, but why is it that they release thousands of ^^^^ty, licensed games every year, but won't or can't release something like this that could be a real winner?
Money
Really, while the recession isn't affecting the sales of video games, it is affecting them by the video game studios losing funding. Games are usually successful (enough to pay for their costs) but they take a long time to make without any money coming in until they are released.
sorta. The problem is that the video game industry, like most indsutry is run by people who's only concern is money, and making as much of it as possible. The game industry makes a REDICULOUS amount of money. Beleive it or not, the Game industry typicaly makes twice the profit of hollywood movies every year. The reason for this is when you get a hit, blockbuster game title, you make Crazy money. The people who run the industry are very rarely gamers themselves. there are exceptions to this, but for the most part, they are big busness executives. and one thing they teach to big buisness Excts, is deversifacation is the safe way to make money. so the diversify, the're safer. The following business model, is just that, a model, so Bear in mind i'm inventing the numbers. the actual dollar amounts will vary from publisher to publisher.
Lets say that a game publisher has 10 million dollars to invest in the games they're launching this year. Knowing that diversifying is the safe way, they pick 10 games, and give them each 1 million to work with. the HOPE is that one of those 10 games will be a blockbuster, and pull in 10 mil in profit, paying for the entire investment, and then the games that don't sell so well are not considered a loss, becuase they made bck their initial investment, so ANY additional profit is just icing on the cake.
What Alot of These Big business guys don't understand is that by putting MORe money into a games development you can almost garintee a blockbuster title, because more money = bigger budget, which = better people, which = better quality of finished product. but they've all been taught to never put all their eggs in one basket, so this is RARELY the case. the only companies that do this, seen to never release a lemon though. Examples of companies that DO put all their eggs in a single basket : Bioware, Blizzard.
But that's the reason why so many Crap games get published. Diversifacation.
so ^^^^^**** depressed!
