#flagshipped

Ok, well maybe these doomsayers of (mostly indie) game development have somewhat of a point. I can think of many games in my prior gaming experience that haven't done as well as their potential.

                                    You know what I realized was the similarity? Lack of transparency through to the game developers, frequent updates to existing game content, and just plain bad management.

Some of the more video-game savvy folks will realize that I've posted two games here from the same company. Mythos and Hellgate: London used to be developed by the company Flagship Studios (who also had a notorious troll site made just for them called flagshipped.com which has since dissolved). For a compilation of this info check out Wikipedia and do some digging. It's quite an interesting story for just a video game developer.

Awesome note: Mythos is being re-launched under Hanbitsoft.

I'd hate to burn them anymore than they've been burned already but they serve as one of the absolute best examples of what NOT to do when developing a video game. Hellgate: London had big problems right off the start. Their game was buggy and it was a bit too ambitious of a project for a studio that had not released ANY new IP's under their new brand name (much like someone else).

Now that I've addressed that immediate point, I'd like to quickly address the other issue that some of these ambitious developers have in the short blog space I have: gamers will... always... pirate your game. You cannot ignore it as a game developer. You must plan around it and it is NOT O.K. to blame pirates for your failure to cater to your audience's needs and demands.

I'd like to conclude with a fact. Gameplay is not the ONLY thing that constitutes a good game as the title of this post implies. Titan's quest, Hellgate: London, and Mythos are all bad games ultimately. Each were unable to keep the player's interest past a playthrough, lacked strong multiplayer support nor offered an affordable price for the content delivered. Ironically, Hellgate: London not only didn't offer a good price but a FUBAR pricing structure.

Best of luck to those that lost their jobs from these very talented companies. I hope you find publishers that are more willing to provide some strong support who understand the changing marketing dynamic.

credit: Penny-arcade

I feel like there were a lot of topics that I could have expanded on here but in my lack of time slightly rushed them out. I'll probably dedicate some future posts to single out these said topics.