I pretty much agree with all of the points you guys have raised.
BUT
How financially successful have most of the 'good' CRPG's mentioned so far (the Fallouts, the Baldur's Gates etc) been
in comparison to more action-oriented games such as Diablo, DOOM or Tomb Raider? When a game developer wants to release their product, they usually have to convince a corporate funding committee that their title will make a
substantial profit. Just making a little return from selling to a hard-core target market (such as role playing enthusiasts) isn't good enough for most large promoters when they
could be making mega-bucks by selling some generic action title to the masses.
Role Playing Games are usually enjoyed by reasonably intelligent (though often quite geeky, heh heh) people. Tapping into the 'mass market' does not involve selling to such small, select groups as 'intelligent people', you need to water your product down enough so that the multitudinous throngs of consumer morons, (that vast, swelling ocean of cash just waiting to be had by the corporate exec with the schmooz to dive in and bathe in its filth!
) will find it attractive.
Most 'good' CRPGs (such as the BG series)
have turned a profit, certainly, but did they turn
enough of a profit to convince multimedia execs that they are a worthwhile investment? Not really... Electronic gaming is not the cottage industry it used to be, nowadays there is simply too much money invested in a game for any major publisher to risk going with anything too 'revolutionary' or 'complicated'. It's tacky, soulless, greedy, hand-wringing, plastic, 'safe', inoffensive, bland, tasteless, corporate capitalism in action. And I hate it as much as you guys do. Such is the plight of any person with artistic spirit that lives among a mindless plebeian multitude
[ 09-28-2004, 03:59 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]