[mann]

Hi David,
Nomad Soul Is Such Brilliant Game And Eidos Had Big Hopes For It, So Why Was It Not That Successful

[David Cage]

Nomad Soul was to me a great success in matter of credibility (the game get about 20 awards worldwide and still has today a great aura among the gaming community. It's been listed among the 40 games that changed the history of video games by a major american magazine).

Sales were not as good as the game disserved, probably for more than one reason. On the design side, the shooting parts were not right, which turned down a lot of people especially in the US that were judging the game compared to Half Life (which was not right, Omikron never pretended to be a first person shooter). Visually, the world looked too weird to a lot of people, and they did not want to get into it.

Eidos also failed to market the game right for internal reasons. It was a unusual game and they did not know how to communicate about it.

This is why I am so please with the sucess of Indigo Prophecy and the marketing work done by Atari. I started to think that I would never make a success as long as I would try to make games that are different. Innovation can sell, this is to me the biggest lesson of Indigo. I hope it will open new possibilities in the future to other developers than Quantic Dream.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by David Cage

Eidos also failed to market the game right for internal reasons. It was a unusual game and they did not know how to communicate about it.

This is why I am so please with the sucess of Indigo Prophecy and the marketing work done by Atari. I started to think that I would never make a success as long as I would try to make games that are different. Innovation can sell, this is to me the biggest lesson of Indigo. I hope it will open new possibilities in the future to other developers than Quantic Dream.

This is exactly one of the main issues I addressed in part 3 of my article for AdventureDevelopers.com, The Cold Hotspot: A critique on the state of adventure games.

Basically "You can design the best adventure game ever in the history of mankind, but it's absolutely worthless and a waste of time if nobody knows about it, and you're not gonna make any money off of it so forget about that sequel."

Good, strategic marketing is incredibly vital for today's games.

[David Cage]

At the same time, there are also some design decisions that can greatly help marketing. PLacing Fahrenheit in currenty day New York was an important step in order to make the game accessible to more people. Of course, if you go to far in giving people what they expect, you will probably fail. You just need to find the right balance in order to get their interest with something they know to give them something they don't know.

[BoyToy]

Originally Posted by David Cage

I started to think that I would never make a success as long as I would try to make games that are different. Innovation can sell, this is to me the biggest lesson of Indigo.

Well, it was always like that. (And I'll never understand why publishers have such a hard time realising this. It's a simple trade-off between risk and chance.)

You have to create something different, if you want to make a trend-setter.*) And the real block-busters are usually trend-setters, and not just hits of the latest fashion. (This probably holds true for any media, and for any business.)

Thus I think, having convinced business partners to believe in your vision, was one of your greatest achievements already!


*) Admittedly, this sounds a lot simpler, than it actually is. (And this is certainly another great achievement of yours!)

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by BoyToy

Well, it was always like that. (And I'll never understand why publishers have such a hard time realising this. It's a simple trade-off between risk and chance.)

You have to create something different, if you want to make a trend-setter.*) And the real block-busters are usually trend-setters, and not just hits of the latest fashion. (This probably holds true for any media, and for any business.)

Thus I think, having convinced business partners to believe in your vision, was one of your greatest achievements already!


*) Admittedly, this sounds a lot simpler, than it actually is. (And this is certainly another great achievement of yours!)

I think this is one major irony in the industry, that publishers go by the highest numbers yet they never seem to truly listen to the customers.

[BoyToy]

Yeah, Trep, we fought a long battle for innovation and consoles.... This smells a tiny bit like success, doesn't? Even though it wasn't us, who slayed the dragon, I think it's time for a glass of champange martini! *cheers*