Look it's a Jane Jensen adventure game, there's no way the game will be anything but AAA goodness. That said however it would be sad if the game got delayed after going gold because the publisher wanted to push other adventure games...

Well, I can definitely understand your worries that Gray Matter may not be marketed well enough for us to see sequels, though in all fairness it's too early for us to know how well the game will be marketed. Yes, there's been a shortage of news--I, too, wish the Gray Matter development blog were updated more often--but that kind of news is mostly marketing for existing Jane Jensen fans anyway. Once the game is near release, we'll see if DTP does enough to get the word out to a bigger audience (of casual gamers, especially, who won't care about the delays because its imminent release may be the first time they hear of the game). That near-release marketing is what really counts, I suspect. For that reason, I'm keeping the faith that Gray Matter will perform well.

However, even if we never see sequels to Gray Matter, I'm a little surprised that you're worried about a cliffhanger ending. I know GK3 left fans dangling about the relationship between the two protagonists, but neither GK1 nor GK2 had cliffhanger endings. They were entirely self-contained episodes (even GK3 is self-contained, except for that relationship issue, which I wouldn't exactly call a cliffhanger), and could easily have been the last entry in the series. Jane Jensen's book Dante's Equation was also stand-alone, and I believe Millennium Rising was too, although that one is still sitting on my bookshelf unread. So her track record doesn't suggest a tendency toward cliffhangers.

As far as I know, Jane Jensen has never said that she is planning more games with the protagonists of Gray Matter*, only that she'd like to make more games with them if Gray Matter sells well enough. To me, that sounds like Gray Matter is a self-contained story that could have a sequel, but doesn't require one. It's like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson mystery: solve one case, and there could be another, if the public likes the characters, which they did in that case, leading to a whole series of mystery stories. So I think Jane Jensen will be wise enough not to leave anything significant dangling like in GK3, but will just set up a situation that could allow for more stories like Gabriel's position as Schattenjager did in GK1.

* If she ever said "planning," or something similar in regard to Gray Matter sequels, she may have just meant that she had ideas for a sequel, like how during GK3's development she believed that GK4 would involve ghosts and she had a decent notion of what might happen.

-Luke

Good points, Luke. You're right about "Cliffhanger" in the traditional sense being innappropriate usage in this case. Historically, Jane Jensen has delivered complete games with stories that stand on their own. I don't mean to rush the characters of Gray Matter into a "Stay Tuned!" situation that necessitates 5+ more years of waiting for resolution. I don't believe Jane would do that to us.

My frustration really has to do with the code of silence adopted by everybody surrounding this game. If it's for a good reason, and I often have faith that's the case, then when the game is delievered it will be made clear and understandable and I'll just feel like I was impatient. I mean, I've been waiting for this game since 2004. Or really, since I finished GK3 the first time, which was in 2000. So it's been a long wait, and at least the wait is almost over.

On the other hand, there are times I really do question the wisdom of the people marketing this game. The official media released so far amounts to a handful of screenshots that have almost certainly changed since the developer has changed, some concept artwork, and a couple of very ambiguous teaser trailers. I don't know how long we've been waiting for something new.

I haven't given up on this game, but it sounds like others have. When adventure gamers have lost interest, what does that bode for the rest of the public?

DTP barely marketed "Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island" in Germany. I don't think many people noticed it when it was released, it was like a non-event.

But isn't that the case for most adventure games? I consider myself a fairly heavy gamer, yet before I came to this forum I had no idea of the existence of all these adventure games which were released after "The Longest Journey" and "Runaway".

I often wonder where the problem lies. I don't think it's only the company's marketing; they can hardly make advertisements with slogans like "coming to a game store near you", when said stores don't even carry adventure games at all (I went hunting last Saturday and all I found were a bunch of casual games and "Art of Murder" in a sales bin).

I don't know how it works in the gaming world, but official websites for movies are usually the last place you can find new info. Like they're afraid to post (and give away) too much. Or perhaps it's just a risk free strategy: let's say they spend a lot of money on advertising for a product that isn't even complete yet. Suppose something happens and they have to pull the plug. Money in the drain. So isn't it better to wait until your product is actually released, or on the verge of being?

By the way, release dates being pushed back happens all the time in the movie business as well, and usually it's pretty obvious it's because of other, bigger and more popular productions being scheduled around the same time.

No, Book of Unwritten Tales and The Whispered World were rather well marketed, with new information, trailers, screenshots,... all the time.
I guess it was better that dtp didn't hype Mata Hari, but it also got a rather low-key release, not as extreme though.

There is no connection between movie industry and gaming industry. None. Enormous budgets, big target group, lots of writers/producers. Apart from that, what you state for movies is false. No "pulling the plug" during production, fixed dates, no pushing back due to other releases, lots of information in official web sites. The things you are refering to happen only in b-movies or movies straight to dvd.

Did I say there are connections between gaming and movie industry? I only offered theories, assumptions made by personal experiences which I hardly introduce as universal truths, without making distinctions between "classes" of movies, as a possible answer to questions posed. Something to think about, if you will. I thought this was a forum to discuss things, not a lecture on the exact sciences. We don't know what goes on behind the scenes of either of these industries, but if you have never experienced a difference between "the official story" and "the actual reason" in whatever kind of situation, you're a very lucky person. If my view on things is not wanted here, I'll gladly remove my post. One more example of how easy it is to misinterpret forum messages.

It's good to see some lively discussion here in this thread for a change!

Maybe a Gray Matter advertisement before a feature film? Something appropriately dark and atmospheric. It would certainly get some attention, and I don't recall seeing a game like this marketed in this way before. Next, bookstores should carry adventure games as well, especially those with a literary bend to them, such as this one, Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, and so on.

Cause it's awfully expensive.

The words on adventure game releases are getting out. Even mainstream sites write about them, post videos etc. There have been plenty of news articles around the web on games like So Blond, Gray Matter and Secret Files 2.

But they unfortunately get less attention on mainstream sites compared to many other genres - you don't see 10+ posts about Gray Matter, as it is the case with big mainstream titles like Modern Warfare 2 and Tomb Raider. This is of course understandable.

Sites like www.gametab.com and www.gamerankings.com are good places to get an idea of the adventure game situation, since they collect news and reviews (the first is probably best for overviewing news articles, the latter is primarily a review site).

EDIT 2: Adjusted even more things :)

It's not like dtp-entertainment isn't capable of promoting their games. Go to their website, and there's a transitioning graphic showing a number of their games in order: Drakensang, Ghost Pirates of Voojou Island, Venetica, Divinity II, Black Mirror II, and Moorhuhn - Das verbotene Schloss.

The Gray Matter website is dated, with a copyright 2007 down at the bottom. Look at the website for Drakensang to get a better idea of what they could do. http://www.drakensang.com/

I just don't feel they are handling Gray Matter as well as it deserves, almost like they don't even expect it to do well, or care enough to ensure that it will.

dtp is indeed capable of promoting games, as they showed with Drakensang, Divinity II & Venetica, all three RPGs, BTW. But it's not like they always want to, as it seems, at least not with adventure games...
Black Mirror 2 was the exception for last year, it got solid marketing.
In the years before dtp's marketing wasn't lacking, either. So I don't understand why they chose to sweep some of their titles under the rug, so to speak.

AG's don't get the same attention as games in other genres as a general rule mostly because they don't make the same kind of money. So the devs are reluctant to put out big bucks to promote something they know isn't going to sell as well a game like Dragon Age or Bioshock2.

Why don't they sell as well is the question. Personally I think it's because they've become pretty stagnant, (way to many mediocre games), but in the case of this game in particular, you would think they would hype it more. Dreamfall got a ton of attention before it was released. Not sure how well it did in actual sales, but it sure did get a lot of pre-release hype.

I think the AG genre needs a game that will put it back in the forefront of the gaming world, and this may be the game to do it. But as it stands right now it really does seem like it will be the next Duke Nukem.

Well, adventures sell rather well in Germany. Not amazingly well, but compared to other countries, they're rather profitable here. And dtp is one of the biggest publishers for adventures here. But in the past few years HMH, Deep Silver and Daedalic made their way into the adventure market and got their share with titles of partly higher quality and more enthusiastic and probably "louder" advertising.
I think if you already capitulate beforehand then yeah, your title won't sell. Sure, if you do your best you can't be sure either, but at least there's a chance. ;)

Edit: I agree that there's lots of mediocrity and stagnation in our beloved genre.

In one of her recent video interviews here on AG, I remember Jane Jensen saying that one reason she thinks adventure games don't sell well is their lack of exposure to the correct audience. There's an audience out there, but it isn't the kind of group that normally plays games.

I agree with her because I know a lot of people who are not interested in games because they have very specific (and usually negative) associations with games and the kind of people who play them. My girlfriend was blown away when I showed her that there are actually games that don't involve killing.

Quite true.
Never heard of any of them :P Not that it's any kind of indicator...
Which in turn is because there's not enough money to have enough budget, which is because they don't sell well, which is because there's lots of mediocrity and stagnation... Unfortunately it's a cycle. Perhaps the only way to get out of that is to actually get several high-profile, commercially successful (and perhaps innovative) AGs so that the genre as a whole would get more attention and the companies could spend more money on them.

But then, where are you going to get those? Most likely you'd need some really big company to make some AGs almost as an AG revival package, just for the sake of getting the genre back up and running again (in the mainstream). Only they'd have the proper resources to market them enough and hire all the best people to make the game. And why would they do that, since it'd not actually be good business (and it's not like they love AGs so much as to just want to see them do so well :P).

Well, anyways. Just my theorizing.

Still, I think that in most respectable gaming magazines and such, only the fact that Gray Matter is a Jane Jensen game should build enough interest etc. to get them to cover it (better than just a side-note) as long as they release the game everywhere and at least make an effort of marketing it when it's released. Then again, perhaps they really don't have professional-level people in their marketing department.

And as I said, I don't see a reason to get all negative about Gray Matter. I doubt Jane would let a mediocre game get through.

Less so than in other genres though.

Forgive me if I am misunderstanding what you have written above, but are you saying (among other things) that A-list movies never have their release dates pushed back for the sake of marketing? If so, I can think of some counterexamples. One famous recent one was the sixth Harry Potter film, which was originally scheduled for Nov. 2008, but was pushed back to July 2009, because Warner Brothers realized they didn't have a lot of big summer movies, and they believed HP6 would make more money there. They were very open about their reason (see here), and it had nothing to do with the film not being able to be finished by November. It was purely based on financial and marketing considerations, as Producer David Heyman further explains here.

Though it is not always necessary to push back a release date to accomplish this if the release date was set well in the first place, film studios constantly time their films to come out when they feel the window of opportunity for that film is biggest.

Also, as a side point: Adventure games in the current market are the rough equivalent to B-movies, independent movies, and straight-to-DVD movies, to the extent that they're all niche products. So why not compare them to those? The analogy should be cautious (as no analogy is perfect), but it can be made.

Based on what I've said above, I don't think it's unprofessional for DTP to admit on the forum that they might wait for a good window of opportunity to release the game, even if the game is finished soon enough to be released a little earlier. I realize it's a silly argument to say "Warner Brothers did it, therefore it is professional." But at the end of the day, what is professional if not the norm for behavior among companies?

That's an excellent idea, though the difficulty is in persuading big bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble that this would really be a worthwhile venture for them.

There is a used bookstore chain called Half-Price Books that I believe is the biggest used bookstore chain in the United States. They do carry software, but they do so at bargain prices, often inheriting overstock from the distributors (as well as selling used software that customers bring in). Otherwise, I'd recommend pursuing a store like that, instead. I don't know if there are any smaller chains in the U.S. or chains worldwide that already carry new books and new software who might be interested.

I think Jane Jensen's idea from the GK days was to advertise in magazines for mystery/thriller book enthusiasts. Sierra wasn't interested, but if DTP is smart, they should be. A trailer before a feature film or a TV spot would be way too expensive, but an ad in a magazine like this shouldn't cost any more than it would in a mainstream gaming magazine. Of course, I don't know how deep DTP's pockets are . . . maybe they don't even usually buy ads in gaming mags.

Thanks, I'd never seen GameTab before. Glancing at it, it seems the mainstream attention to Gray Matter is a good bit more than I expected, but it has trickled off in 2009 a little, especially compared to 2007. When a game is in production for awhile, especially if the game is in a niche genre, I suppose that's to be expected. Hopefully, nearer to release there will be a run of such articles, though I do agree with DustCropper that mainstream gamers shouldn't be our only, or even our best hope as far as audience goes.

Exactly.

-Luke

First of all, you omit to refer that the reason for the delay was two-fold. The writer's strike was one of them, which turned upside down the schedule and they couldn't predict its affects. So it wasn't solely a marketing decision.
But the most important thing you confuse is that Warner took the decision based in the inexistence of another release of their own company in summer 2009 (while they had many other releases for fall 2008). They didn't refer to other companies blockbuster releases i.e. Paramount, Miramax etc as a reason for the delay. And as I recall, Wizardbox doesn't have a "big" game in its schedule this year in order to assume that they have to "coordinate" their releases.
I don't know if you get what I mean, but it's one thing to postpone a release due to your own time schedule, and another thing to postpone due to "fear" of other companies work. The first shows logic and professionalism, the second shows not belief in yourself and non professionalism. And for the record, rival production companies in the movie industry love to release their movies at the same period. Because that's business. Competition. Your loss, my win. Trust me, there is no cartel.

Although this is disappointing to accept, you are right about that :frown:

Wizarbox is the developer of the game, not the producer.

Got confused :P

dtp then? Not taking into consideration Black Mirror 2 and Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island which are scheduled before the expected release of Gray Matter. 15 Days? But this is planned to be released in summer (so goes the argument for not releasing a game in summer)

Okay, yes, I do get the distinction that you are making now, although it is a somewhat fuzzy distinction since both factors are likely to come into play when a company decides when to a release a product. I assume, though, from what you've written previously, that you don't have a problem with the fact that competition from other products will secretly be a factor, you just don't feel it should be admitted openly, unless perhaps it is self-competition with your own products. For example, perhaps it was okay for The Weinstein Company to say that they were moving the musical Nine to Christmas to avoid competing with their own movie The Road, but they could not have said they were doing it to avoid competition with another studios' films, yes?

If that's what you're saying, then, sure, I agree that that seems to be the standard among movie studios, at least as far as I know (which is not very far). By that standard, it was a poor choice of words on the part of the PR guy from Mamba (the London distributor partnered with DTP) to say that one of the factors in Gray Matter's release date might be competition (the other factor being the release quarter). However, he didn't name other specific products they were worried about competing with, as you did above, so I don't think it's that severe a gaffe.

Also, I can't help but feel that the reality is that adventure games especially, and perhaps even games in general, remain more of a cottage industry than the movies are, despite the fact that in the literal sense that's not true (products are of course made by corporations, not in the home). So it seems reasonable to me that a PR guy from a small games publisher will be a little looser and more open in his talk than a PR guy from a major movie studio, for good or for ill.

Anyway, I didn't mean to sidetrack the discussion by dragging out the analogy between game industry and movie industry practices. I'm happy to return to just the games industry and just Gray Matter's marketing in particular.

-Luke

Yes ;)

That's what I wrote. Amateurism. Non professionalism. At least, be self-aware that you are a "cottage company" and don't make such statements. In my home country there is the apothegm "better chewing a gum than talking"

Anyway, nice "talking" to you :)

Does anybody have a theory why Wizarbox, who is developing Gray Matter, makes absolutely no mention of this fact on their website?

Release date decisions should always be based in part on what else is going on that could divert your customer's attention. It has nothing to do with fear; it's a desire to maximize the launch. If a smaller game with a small marketing budget launches the same day (or even the same week or month) as a really big game with a huge marketing budget, the smaller game gets drowned out. (And it's not as if this is a revolutionary decision on their part. Publishers make release date decisions like this all the time, even for big games.)

I'm extremely excited about Gray Matter, but let's face it, it's not going to "sell itself" like a Sims or Gears of War (and even high profile games like those don't "sell themselves"; they have huge marketing budgets behind them). Anything the publishers can do to get attention for the Gray Matter launch is a good thing in my opinion.

I consistently get the impression that publisher DTP doesn't have a very good reputation among German gamers.

German adventure gamers or gamers tout court? I'm asking because I see many DTP-published games (adventures or not) being usually bashed by Italian dedicated magazines (like Mata Hari, for example, or Drakensang), but Germany has more a wide audience for adventures.

Adventure gamers. But it's more about the lack of info, release dates, marketing etcetera, not simply about the kind of adventures DTP publishes.

Have to say, as somebody completely outside this situation, I'm not getting a very good vibe from them either.
I agree, I don't really care if they release the game a little later, as long as they can sell the maximum amount of it.

Also, I don't care if they state that that's the reason, to me it's just good that they say that's why (also, some guy saying that on a forum can hardly qualify for an "official statement" in my opinion, but nevermind that), so that I know the game is ready and that it will be released, instead of them making some false excuses (basically: lying about it) or not saying anything and just quietly moving the release date.

To me that's more professional, but I guess it's just my opinion (and it's just so irrelevant to discuss in this thread any further)

Well, that's a relative issue (and certainly genre-specific) ;) and certainly not a matter to be discussed here, so excuse my side-tracking :)

Seeing how we've yet to see anything of Gray Matter itself, this should drive everybody nuts, but here's an interesting line tacked onto the end of a press release today from the UK publisher about the game:

I'm speechless.

I really hope this is true. If i may dust off an old chesnut, GK4 now please!

Nah, i think everyone has heard that enough.

Hears hoping it's good news about a near future release of gray matter and hopefully more products from jane

Now that's funny!

I'm flabbergasted.

Great news. I'm getting more and more excited now that the release window is getting closer.

Right there with you!

The sequel thing is pretty awesome, but I have to say it doesn't seem too surprising. Didn't Jane mention that this would be a more likely and even definite possibility in those interviews she gave when asked about doing GK4? Either way, very very cool :D.

Is it possible to be teased to death?

The story of the first Gray Matter has been ready for years now, and Jane may have the second story quite completed already. The game engine and character models etc. are ready and they can be re-used in the second game. Because of that the second game budget doesn't have to be as big as in the first game and they can do the second game much faster.

So much depends about the success of the first game. If it's successful, I think we'll see more Gray Matter games which tell different stories but use the same game engine and style.

Someone unearthed a 1680x1050 version of one of the first screenshots ever released, and now it's making the rounds.

I don't even know anymore.