David Cage, head of French developer Quantic Dream, said that one of his team's goals with its latest title, Heavy Rain, was to break the rules of video game design in order to bring real emotion into a game. While an admirable goal, it's a risky commercial endeavor.
But after the PlayStation 3-exclusive Heavy Rain debuted at the end February, it managed to break the U.S. NPD retail top 10 for the month, selling 219,000 units. In its opening week, it debuted at the very top of the weekly UK retail sales charts.
"No, I didn't expect it to be that popular," Cage told Gamasutra in a new feature interview. "I was quite used to having critical acclaim and commercial mid-success. This is honestly what I was expecting for Heavy Rain. I think that no one even at Sony was expecting this. No one even in the most positive reviews we got -- all the critics were saying, 'I loved it. I just hope it's going to sell, because if it doesn't it it will be a pity.'"
He added, "But I think the success took everybody by surprise, including Sony, because the game was sold out in the UK in two days; so you couldn't find it on the shelves. You couldn't buy it, pretty much, after two days. So it was really a shock. And same thing in Japan, which is even more of a surprise: the game is sold out. You can't buy it. And that's great; I think it means a lot."
Quantic Dream's last game was Indigo Prophecy, known as Fahrenheit in Europe. While that game did receive a positive response from critics, it certainly did not light up the sales charts. Cage saw Heavy Rain as somewhat of a test of the industry, whether the games sector was ready to support and accept a new kind of triple-A game.
"[The strong performance] means something because during the development of Heavy Rain, we said, 'This game, whether it's a commercial success or a commercial failure, is going to send a very strong message to the industry about how interested the market is in innovative concepts and games exploring new directions.'"
He continued, "If it's a failure, it's going to mean that, for the whole industry, 'Don't change anything! Continue to make the same games because this is what the market wants, and if you try something else you'll fail.' But if the game was a success, it would mean that the market was eager for something deeper and something new."
With sales data as ammunition, Cage feels that he and his team have proven a point. "Now I can say, 'Look! The market wants innovation.' So this is what we should concentrate on now, and Heavy Rain is a very strong message to publishers to take more risks and support innovation."
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Maybe we can start seeing more games like this and less MW2 clones.
Many of my friends own the game, so who knows. Hopefully we'll see an actual NPD chart or something.
The game hit the top 10 in all three major regions. That was not anticipated by Cage, clearly. And hitting the NPD top 10 on one week's worth of sales with no TV commercial (as I understand it, anyway) is pretty impressive, especially given the unusually tough competition in 2010 Q1.
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defined puffery as a "term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined." In this case, the puffery is how well received the game is, of which I am dubious.
When you consider Uncharted 2 sold 3 million that's a pretty huge success story.
considering it's a game not even the hardcore audience had a clue of what would become, it's not a small feat.
http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=7703®ion=All
About what Cage said, i truly hope there is a market for more niche titles like HR, maybe publishers will allow developers to take more risks. Note: I don't want traditional games to die, neither think HR is the future or anything, but i enjoyed the game and would like to see more titles exploring (and perfecting) it's ideas.
Thus I'm not too fond of whatever methodologies they using because, at least in my experience, they were not remotely close to the actual numbers.
I don't think the sales themselves send the "very strong message" about innovation. I think that message is better conveyed in the reviews Heavy Rain received. Innovation doesn't mean a thing if your audience doesn't recognize it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnck2oXdxMo&feature=related
Perhaps with all of the above considered, it can be considered a sales success.
While I did see that this game was getting a fair bit of pre-release hype from brand loyalists, it was up in the air whether or not the hardcore PS3 fan's excitement would trickle into the general market. I think to some extent it has.
This game, along with MS's Alan Wake, seemed to take a long time to develop and I'm not sure whether the costs were worth the returns. At the same time, both Sony and MS probably seek the sort of diversity these titles add to their first party libraries, even if they do not sell as well as titles from popular genres or IPs.
With other innovations on the horizon in the form of 3D TVs and motion controls, "Dragon Lair-esque" games may have a future. I can imagine playing Heavy Rain with Natal, for example.
BIOSHOCK 2* 360 TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE Feb-10 562.9K
NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Nov-09 555.6K 2
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2* 360 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD Nov-09 314.3K 3
JUST DANCE WII UBISOFT Nov-09 275.4K 4
SPORTS RESORT W/ WII MOTION PLUS* WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Jul-09 272.5K 5
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2* PS3 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD Nov-09 252.8K 6
MASS EFFECT 2 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS Jan-10 246.5K 7
DANTE'S INFERNO: DIVINE EDITION PS3 ELECTRONIC ARTS Feb-10 242.5K 8
DANTE'S INFERNO 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS Feb-10 224.7K 9
HEAVY RAIN PS3 SONY Feb-10 219.3K 10
Yeah the game may be in 10th place, but it's right up there with Mass Effect 2, Dante's Inferno, and Call of Duty. In SALES. Every single other game on that list is part of a AAA franchise, or is an easy Wii cash-in (except for Dante's Inferno, the only other original IP debut). Heavy Rain should certainly be proud, for this type of game.
Nope you haven't played the game. That is obvious. Those QTE's are gameplay. Calling someone a fanboy is just immature name calling. Grow up. And speaking of the Sega era, I am confident that I am older and more mature than you.
Back on topic. Here is Mr. Cage discussing the issue.
There is a balance -- there's a certain amount of "gaminess" in the game. Particularly, I'm thinking about things like the power plant: you've got the maze through the tunnel, and the challenge with the wires. How much do you want to stick to gaminess in the design, and how much do you want to back away from it?
DC: I try to back away, but sometimes I feel bad about this and get to feeling I need to do something a little bit more gamey. But I'm happy with the balance in Heavy Rain, because it's almost like a reference to old games, and old adventure games especially. There is also the scene with Manfred when you need to get rid of the fingerprints, which is really --
Which, apparently, I screwed up, but I thought I had gotten it right; but I found out I got into the police station.
DC: You forgot something. Yeah, and that's the kind of gameplay mechanics [we use]. Having a little bit of this is fine when it supports the story -- when it's not just something to keep you busy, when it really means something and has its place in the narrative. That's fine.
@Bob, I think that this comment of yours:
"Anyone who thought heavy rain was a game needs to be taken behind a shed and shot. To put it metaphorically : It's like they took bioware's dialogue system and inserted into a cutscene which you can navigate.
That is not a game, period. It's a computer rendered movie with dialogue tree's."
Is completely wrong. Which s why I said that I don't believe you actually played the game. Because if you actually played through it you would find it a cinematic game and not a dialogue tree. There is some much more to Heavy Rain than your pedantic comments.
You see Mr. Cage didn't mean that there isn't any gameplay when he gave that interview to Destructoid. http://www.destructoid.com/cage-heavy-rain-not-a-videogame-anymore-in-my-mind--1
58115.phtml He meant that this was not a video game in the traditional sense.
I'd love to see games like those made into cg with way more options.
Seems like some folks have been drinking haterade while talking about Heavy Rain.
"@ steve @ gus
You both don't get it. Steve you are a moron of epic proportions, Heavy rain has way too much QTE in it and it's reminiscent of earlier "movie games" from previous era's.
Look at what the guy says here:
"Cage says, there's simply no other way to tell a story but through cut-scenes. "
What a crock of shit!! The guy has no legitimacy what-so-ever.
Heavy Rain missed one of the two cruxes of video game development. Yes, a drive for art and storytelling in the medium is important, and I appreciate the attempt that they've tried to integrate the two, but the second pillar, the most important pillar, is whether or not the gameplay is fun. Fun enough to do it over and over again. Pressing the right button on the controller as it appears on the screen has never been an engrossing mechanic, and is rarely something I want to do more than once."
Bob dillan's derogatory remarks toward Mr. Cage are unprofessional and uncalled for and he has completely taken what Mr. Cage said out of context.
Here is what Mr. Cage actually said:
"Using the term 'interactive movie' to describe Heavy Rain has been a tricky question from the beginning," he continues. "It is in many ways what Heavy Rain is -- a visually told story that the player can affect by his actions."
But he's quick to distance himself a bit from the term, mostly due to the negative connotation gamers might have. Early "interactive movies" would offer up a series of scenes for players, offering them mostly meaningless choices from time to time. Despite the fact that Heavy Rain offers a very different experience to those "interactive movies" of old, Quantic Dream still had to field negative comments from people ignorant to how to the game is actually experience. To many people, Cage says, there's simply no other way to tell a story but through cut-scenes.
"In Heavy Rain, the player is in control second to second," he explains, "he tells the story through his actions. All this is done in a very fluid, seamless way, with no cut scenes, no big flashing sign to make decisions, and this is what makes the game really unique."
----
Clearly Bob Dillan has no idea what he has been talking about and it is very proof has not played the game at all. Bob Dillan believes that Cage's Heavy Rain story is told through cut scenes. However, that isn't is the case. Here is what Bob Dillan wrote:
"Anyone who thought heavy rain was a game needs to be taken behind a shed and shot. To put it metaphorically : It's like they took bioware's dialogue system and inserted into a cutscene which you can navigate.
That is not a game, period. It's a computer rendered movie with dialogue tree's."
Again, Bob dillan did not play the game. His comments should be ignored or better yet removed entirely.
Many of us have great respect for David Cage and what he has accomplished with Heavy Rain. And even if you didn't like Heavy Rain that isn't justification to flame and troll in the comment section of Gamasutra.
(Why are game developers so myopic?)
The point isn't Heavy Rain. It's innovation. It's about taking a chance on something new. It's New Game X - whatever New Game X is. To get into some argument about whether a game made yesterday constitutes innovation or not isn't what's being discussed here. The topic on the table is innovation for games of tomorrow.
The argument seems to be about whether or not Heavy Rain is actually innovative and therefore whether or not its sales send a message about innovation. I have not played it but from what I've seen I think that the extent to which HR is innovative has been somewhat overstated partly because the genre died out a long time ago and was largely forgotten about. That's not to say that there isn't a place for this type of game. It seems to be the highest quality game created for its genre. Therefore, I'd suggest that the reasonable (considering the massive hype) sales of Heavy Rain say send more of a message about quality movie-games than about innovation.
I'd be willing to reassess this opinion after actually playing the game but to be honest I'm never going to play it. The premise doesn't appeal to me and I've never even seen a PS3.
The irony of this situation is that the mechanical structure of Heavy Rain isn't all that innovative in the scope of video game history. However, it is innovative in the sense that nobody has made a product with this type of structure _and_ such high production values before. Plus, this type of product has largely been abandoned in recent years (especially in visibility to the public), long enough for most people to have forgotten its predecessors, so the old feels new again to many people.
I would say also that on the atomic scale, there are particular elements in Heavy Rain that are innovative and good, and others that are innovative and bad. (and still others that are just pedestrian)
'Innovation' by itself is insufficient to denote anything meaningful. There has to be another component of value alongside it to give the innovation itself value.
But be assurred that this is not a story told in cut scenes and that is where the innovation comes through. If you want to get a good idea what this game like I suggest just hoping onto Youtube and watch a variety of videos on it. You will be surprised at how much work went into creating this story game.
Like Ara said:
"However, it is innovative in the sense that nobody has made a product with this type of structure _and_ such high production values before. Plus, this type of product has largely been abandoned in recent years (especially in visibility to the public), long enough for most people to have forgotten its predecessors, so the old feels new again to many people."
I totally agree with this.
Anyway, I am not here to argue about HR but rather to set the record straight. David Cage said that that there would be people who are ignorant about what HR is and offers who have never played the game and that those people really would poison the well before people could approach the game on the game's own terms. This is what Bob dillan has been doing. He has been skewering HR without actually know what HR is and telling people to avoid it. That is just plain wrong.
>>> want a soother in their mouth as they digest more
>>> passive movie like experiences with only the barest
>>> amount of interaction.
Sorry, Bob, but there's a whole spectrum of desire out there when it comes to gaming or anything. Some folks enjoy light comedy, other need Lenny Bruce and George Carlin injected directly into their veins. Same for gaming. It's OK for some folks to not be "hard core" as I think the little kids call it these days.
>>> Anyone who thought heavy rain was a game needs
>>> to be taken behind a shed and shot.
Good gravy, Bob, did Cage run over your dog or something?
I rented HR and found it interesting, but ultimately it didn't pull me in and I went back to finish Demon's Souls. I can still appreciate it from an experimental angle. If any game made me wish death upon people who had a different opinion about it I'd be seeking psychological treatment. Cripes, how do you react when someone has an opinion you don't like an actual serious subject? The health care bill must have had you waving around a rifle in a clock tower.
The old movie based on Fahrenheit 451 had a scene where the main character's wife acts out a role that's part of a television program, although it's pretty crude. Don't recall if that scene was in Bradbury's original or not. Maybe we all need to calm down and go read a nice book. :-)
Also, to the people calling it a QTE-fest. At what point does a QTE become a context sensitive action, by the end of the game you could play most of it without seeing a QTE, to slide open a door, you slide the direction the door opens, to pull open it's up to grab and swing outward to open. Additionally, while much of the action is scripted, the amount that you do or see, and the wild differences in action make this far more than just a cutscene, not to mention that failure doesn't simply result in restarting as many QTE laden games do.
Overall, while not for everyone, it's detractors overstate the issue far too often, without offering much in the way of constructive criticism. For the people this game was made for, myself included, it was a great success.
Overacting some skepticism just for balancing their confidence about originality is not deserved and not honest here, imo.
Oh, and kudos to Quantic Dream (I'm following them since Nomad Soul), who are the type of people who THINK before producing.
Also, all the reported critics on the Wikipedia page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Rain ) are about 8 to 9.5 of 10 ...
and yeah, i believe the game is innovative - it's very different from the usual type of games we get to play currently...i doff my hat at 'Cage and co for taking the leap...i think all game developers should take a cue from these guys; do something different, do something that makes you happy...i think that's what matters. :)
I understand what you mean about users "trying to convice" others to follow their taste.
Also, I just read a few user critics on metacritic.com, and honestly, the bad scores don't feel very objective, nor professional.
For example, one gives 3/10 just because the killer is not the one he wanted to be O_O
Overall, most of the bad scores are made because of that : they expected a better scenario than any actual best film noir ... Just like if one movie reviewer was putting a bad score to Avatar because it doesn't have enough interactivity ...
I mean, this is where those user reviews are not professional, and therefore not as important as pro critics. Some of them just don't know how to judge a game, because they take personal expectations for common ones.
Lol, seriously, some users are putting 3/10 because "voice acting is not good" (I'm serious) ...
Just like in painting, movies, and music, user metacritic is one thing, but professional metacritic is by far more reliable and more objective.
Another example : look for World of Warcraft : Wrath of the Lich King user score ...
Some people put it a zero just because they didn't have their epics last night ...
It all comes down to whether you are making games for. Everyone? A niche? Your peers? Yourself? People ascribe lofty values to the desire to make games for yourself by "doing what you love" etc. but an equally if not more valid way to look at that is to say it is selfish and rarely produces lasting art. If you're going to make games which are "personal" in this sense don't expect them to sell well or trumpet them as the future of gaming, while normal folks come away from it disappointed. Ultimately, sales are the most accurate democratic indicator of quality.
Indeed there are complaints and "protest reviews" for Wrath of the Lich King. The thing is that Blizzard will hear these complaints and try to take them into account in future (not an easy task to please everyone obviously) and this is what sets them apart from many other companies. The know the customer is the boss and they are massively successful for it.
On the other hand, the average professional rating for the original game and 2 expansions has remained almost constant, yet WoW's popularity is diminishing. What is reliable and objective about that?
A user having to address an issue at some part of a game doesn't necessarily mean to put a 0/10 on the whole work.
As there is a whole world between an absolute random user notation and his experience feedback, there is not such a gross contrast with pro reviews. This is what I call unobjective, and to an extent, childish.
Users don't know how to handle the score weapon for the most.
Here, some people were putting a lot of importance in Heavy Rain global user score. More than pro critics ones.
And here is why I think this is not quite right ;)
And besides, the effect is balanced out somewhat by the fact that people who like a game will often rate it 10 in the user opinions. Also, naturally the stronger opinions are the ones that are more likely to motivate the user into writing a review in the first place so they will always tend to give the impression of polarised opinion. The most useful way of interpreting each user opinion is working out if it means they wouldn't have bought the game in hindsight or they are less likely to buy future products from the same company. A zero score means they are less likely to buy more or to recommend the game.
29 Mar 2010 at 3:08 am PST
@Charles
My criticism is for those who buy mediocre games thereby sending the message that MEDIOCRE GAMES are OK TO PRODUCE.
And heavy rain was as mediocre as they come, the "innovation" people are lauding is nonsense because these people have _no taste_ in _quality_ to begin with. "
LOL. Criticizing the end users "taste." You ought to leave the video games market immediately and take up fashion.
Shut up. Grow up. And go away.
And there i was thinking my cynicism was poison... guess i better go back to kindergarten.