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By
David Jenkins
Gamasutra
April
24, 1998
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 News
Analysis
Eurospeak
Recycles,
Retreads and Rejects
1998 was
to be the "best year ever". Software sales were up in 1997, and they were
expected to reach an all time high this year. Mountains of new, high quality,
releases were promised from day one and throughout the year. A new era
of stable, long life-platforms and an increased commitment to quality
and professionalism was but a moment away. Unfortunately there was one
problem with this rose-tinted predication: it was complete arse. Admittedly
sales are significantly up from last year. Recent figures published in
trade mag CTW show that sales this quarter are up 38% this year
from last in the UK. Which could theoretically mean £1 billion ($1.6
billion) worth of sales by the end of the year. The problem with this,
in case you were wondering, is that the overwhelming majority of this
year's sales are due to last year’s releases and new budget re-releases.
If it weren’t for the likes of Tomb Raider II, FIFA ’98
and Grand Theft Auto the shelves would be bare in many a games
store. In fact in the top ten multi-format chart, for the first three
months of this year, not a single game was released this year, and 4 of
them were re-releases harking back even further than 1997. This cannot
be good for the industry, but its hard to believe that anybody’s
going to be doing much about it with the taps running hot and cold cash.
What’s even more worrying is the patent lack of upcoming big releases
in the coming months. If the UK wasn’t yet to receive Resident
Evil 2 and Gran Turismo there’d be nary a title to look
forward to before the close of the year. Surely someone must realise that
the today’s re-releases were yesterday’s mega-hits. If we don’t
actually get some decent products out on the streets soon the release
schedules are going to hit the metaphorical brick wall, while the literal
shit hits the undeserving shelves.
What makes this problem all the more disturbing is EA’s threat to
sell more than 2.3 million copies of World Cup '98 this summer.
With the world, with the probable exception of the US, about to go football
[soccer] crazy games companies have taken this as a cue to abandon any
pretence of gaming originality and instead just release a footy game.
Which makes absolutely no sense considering a) the aforementioned lack
of any big releases this year, meaning that original new releases actually
have a better chance than ever, without companies having to resort to
the nth football game release of the week; and b) the fact that EA are
clearly going to outsell every other game by a ratio larger than the odds
of Scotland winning the real World Cup. Which for those not in the know
means they’ll be selling lots more. A perfunctory investigation shows
at least 14 new football games being released this summer, and that’s
before you even begin to count re-releases and titles that won’t
make it till later in the year. Games companies of the world we implore
you, stop releasing sports games like they’re going out of fashion.
They’re not and they never will, so your only chance of selling any
is to make sure they’re good, and that they haven’t got fifty
billion competitors come out the same day. In short just stop it!
While we’re on the subject of imponderable games industry traditions,
have you ever wondered just why Psygnosis are so famous? Their recent
official announcement, that they’ll be developing for the N64, has
resulted in waves of suffocating praise from Nintendo. Obviously it’d
be a bit stupid if they hadn’t got the hyperbole dictionary out,
but it’s kind of interesting that Pysgnosis’ first release is
set to be a new version of Wipeout. After all what other classic,
triple A, games have they ever done? There was… erm, Lemmings?
Well in truth titles like Destruction Derby 2 and Formula 1
weren’t bad, but neither were they great, and come to that not
even Wipeout really worked as it should until its sequel came out.
So what’s all the fuss about? If that question goes unanswered then
Nintendo can at least satisfy themselves with the fact that they’ve
snagged another big name developer, and arguably one of the most important
considering that the Liverpudlian underachievers are partly owned by Sony.
It’ll be interesting to see how their new products look when compared
to the output of the likes of Rare and Nintendo themselves though, and
whatever results from the new venture, we can at least be assured that
the graphics will be good.
One of the few surviving UK industry veterans, from the bedroom programmer
age, has just made a rather unexpected move. John Ritman, responsible
for such 8-bit classics as Head over Heels, Batman, and
Match Day 1 & 2, has moved lock, stock and development team,
to Argonaut. Known for their technical excellence Argonaut have had some
trouble in recent years in replicating their earlier 16-bit gameplay success
like Starglider 1 & 2 and StarFox. This is apparently
were Ritman comes in, who has had a disappointing time lately at, the
wonderfully named, Cranberry Sauce, which he helped to set-up a
few years ago. Flops like Q.A.D., and badly delayed titles like
Super Match Soccer (hey a football game!) have obviously caused
him to seek out pastures even greener. First to take part in the upcoming
revamp of Sir Geoff Crammond’s Sentinel, and now to move to
Argonaut. Where according to Jez San he will "develop some of his finest
work at Argonaut and could help some of our existing games further refine
their game play. Matching our technology and tools with his intense passion
and ideas about game play should produce great stuff." Which indeed it
should.
David Jenkins (works with British Telecom's Wireplay, an online gaming
service. He also contributes to Develop, Europe’s premier
newsletter for computer game developers and publishers, and CTW,
the weekly trade magazine. He has also been involved in the organisation
of the Develop! and Online conferences in London.
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