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Return to Monkey island by Ron Gilbert : 19 september 2022
Fair enough
Ron’s petty attitude towards the absolute classics of the past and his inexplicable misunderstanding of the target market for this game (hint: it’s not the under 35 crowd), have severely dampened my excitement for this one
but you do understand that Ron Gilbert as he is a pioneer, is also a different character from Tim Schafer for example; as they are both full of themselves but their approaches are quite different, we cant, I mean, we shouldn’t help the ‘cancel culture’ who always demand to be heard and engaged with to blur our judgment for the things that matter
and he is not alone away from the social media ethics and techniques, we have seen the Two Guys, Jim walls, and other pioneers fail to connect with social media quite as well as Agustín Cordes, for instance, whom his platforms helped him well enough to keep Asylum on the radar for many long years.
You’re right. Perhaps this is also the pitfall of being the face of a project and someone who received massive amount of praise in the past. With on the other side of the table, people who feel strongly about something they’ve cared about for a long time, some of whom feel entitled to a certain type of game because they mistake their emotional investment for monetary investment.
I’ve always wondered why some many devs choose to personally engage with their audience, on personal title. It’s a job in and of itself. Why not have a mascot? There are probably loads of people with some kind of (social) media degree available - I’d say that’s a good investment if you can afford it.
I think the inverted April Fools post was really clever. Maybe this back-and-forth between one grumpy gamer and his the rest of ‘em works for buzz, maybe it will do the opposite and put people off, as Jdawg445 and Burge suggest.
Yeah I’m not saying I think some great damage has been done to the brand yet, but if I was Ron, antagonizing the fans is not the path I would go down as a developer at all. To bring Star Wars into it, when the backlash to The Last Jedi came out a lot of the creatives said it was nothing but a minority screaming loudly. as the years have gone on it has been proven that’s not the case. a lot of fans simply do not like the movie at all. It is at least a fifty-fifty split. P.S. I like the Last Jedi for what it attempted to do, but the truth is the truth and the movie was not well received as a whole.
To bring Star Wars into it, when the backlash to The Last Jedi came out a lot of the creatives said it was nothing but a minority screaming loudly. as the years have gone on it has been proven that’s not the case. a lot of fans simply do not like the movie at all. It is at least a fifty-fifty split. P.S. I like the Last Jedi for what it attempted to do, but the truth is the truth and the movie was not well received as a whole.
OT, but I consider The Last Jedi a masterpiece, and the way they tried to “fix” it, The Rise of Skywalker, was imo a worse film than The Phantom Menace…
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
To bring Star Wars into it, when the backlash to The Last Jedi came out a lot of the creatives said it was nothing but a minority screaming loudly. as the years have gone on it has been proven that’s not the case. a lot of fans simply do not like the movie at all. It is at least a fifty-fifty split. P.S. I like the Last Jedi for what it attempted to do, but the truth is the truth and the movie was not well received as a whole.
OT, but I consider The Last Jedi a masterpiece, and the way they tried to “fix” it, The Rise of Skywalker, was imo a worse film than The Phantom Menace…
I wouldn’t go with Masterpiece the Canto Bight stuff really Lowers the movie, but it is a really good Star Wars movie. I also agree with rise of Skywalker I hate that movie. But Either way, it was not a vocal minority that hated the last jedi, it was a huge contingent of the fans. and the truth is the truth. the same goes with the art style here in return to monkey island, It’s way more than one or two people who just hate the art. And I don’t think antagonizing that big contingent is smart in the long run.
But just to switch topics a little bit, I was on a Monkey Island fan group page and one person said he thinks it will sell millions and millions of copies. I know Monkey Island is one of the hugest brands in adventure games but it’s still a niche market now. how many copies do you think the game will sell, all things considered. I’m guessing between 500,000 to 2 million at the most.
Either way, it was not a vocal minority that hated the last jedi, it was a huge contingent of the fans. and the truth is the truth. the same goes with the art style here in return to monkey island, It’s way more than one or two people who just hate the art. And I don’t think antagonizing that big contingent is smart in the long run.
Well said. The Last Jedi comparison is apt in demonstrating just how divisive a fandom can become, especially when a portion of those who liked the movie (and the filmmakers themselves) attempted to gaslight those who didn’t like the movie and dismiss their completely valid criticisms as nothing more than the hateful words of a “toxic vocal minority”. See also; the 2016 Ghostbusters remake.
how many copies do you think the game will sell, all things considered. I’m guessing between 500,000 to 2 million at the most.
I think somewhere in the region of 500,000 - 1 million units for the first year sales seems about right, so my prediction would be between the two figures, at around 750,000 units.
Either way, it was not a vocal minority that hated the last jedi, it was a huge contingent of the fans. and the truth is the truth. the same goes with the art style here in return to monkey island, It’s way more than one or two people who just hate the art. And I don’t think antagonizing that big contingent is smart in the long run.
Well said. The Last Jedi comparison is apt in demonstrating just how divisive a fandom can become, especially when a portion of those who liked the movie (and the filmmakers themselves) attempt to gaslight those who didn’t like the movie and dismiss their completely valid criticisms as nothing more than the hateful words of a “toxic vocal minority”. See also; the 2016 Ghostbusters remake.
how many copies do you think the game will sell, all things considered. I’m guessing between 500,000 to 2 million at the most.
I think somewhere in the region of 500,000 - 1 million units for the first year sales seems about right, so my prediction would be around 700,00 units.
Agree on all accounts, if there was a like button I would be hitting it right now. Lucasfilm made a movie that divided the fan base which is already not the greatest but then they added fuel to the fire by gaslighting the fans instead of saying I’m sorry some of y’all didn’t like the movie, we hear your concerns, and are taking them into account. Ron is doing that gaslighting here, but to a far lesser extinct…. so far.
I also agree with you about the sales number. that guy who thought this game would sell millions of copies must smoking something. Like I know Detroit become human sold a lot of copies but that had Sony’s marking machine behind it. I don’t see Disney or lucasfilm dumping a whole lot of marketing dollars behind this at all.
that guy who thought this game would sell millions of copies must smoking something. Like I know Detroit become human sold a lot of copies but that had Sony’s marking machine behind it. I don’t see Disney or lucasfilm dumping a whole lot of marketing dollars behind this at all.
There’s definitely a sector of adventure game fans who are utterly deluded as to how popular the genre actually is. It’s a niche genre, through and through. The younger players who are addicted to Fortnite, Call of Duty and GTA Online are not going to be rushing to an online store to purchase a new Monkey Island game upon release. I doubt they’ve even heard of Monkey Island, by and large and if they did glance at it, they’d probably describe it as “boring looking”. It would be lovely if the world at large loved adventure games as much as us lot do, but that’s not reality.
...well, except for Germany perhaps :p
that guy who thought this game would sell millions of copies must smoking something. Like I know Detroit become human sold a lot of copies but that had Sony’s marking machine behind it. I don’t see Disney or lucasfilm dumping a whole lot of marketing dollars behind this at all.
There’s definitely a sector of adventure game fans who are utterly deluded as to how popular the genre actually is. It’s a niche genre, through and through. The younger players who are addicted to Fortnite, Call of Duty and GTA Online are not going to be rushing to an online store to purchase a new Monkey Island game upon release. I doubt they’ve even heard of Monkey Island, by and large and if they did glance at it, they’d probably describe it as “boring looking”. It would be lovely if the world at large loved adventure games as much as us lot do, but that’s not reality.
...well, except for Germany perhaps :p
Very true, I wonder how many copies that King’s Quest remake sold for all platforms, I mean that’s an adventure game Cornerstone in the community and I don’t think it sold very well at all. But then again it didn’t have the original Creator coming back either like this does. either way I think it’s going to be a very uphill battle
I wonder how many copies that King’s Quest remake sold for all platforms, I mean that’s an adventure game Cornerstone in the community and I don’t think it sold very well at all. But then again it didn’t have the original Creator coming back either like this does. either way I think it’s going to be a very uphill battle
I am convinced that the King’s Quest reboot sold very poorly and underperformed from the developer’s (The Odd Gentlemen) sales projections by a considerable margin. My theory is supported by the episodes themselves. The first couple of episodes are epic in scope, with lots of original assets, a lengthy quest and various locations/characters. Episode 2 would have been well into production by the time episode 1 was released, so that explains it matching the ambition of the first episode. Then episode 3 was released and there was a very noticeable scaling back of production value.
This scaling back further continued with the final two episodes - BIG TIME! The final episode was uncomfortably short, almost exclusively reusing pre-existing assets/locations/characters and lacking in content in general; the final “boss” is a tiny arena (more a grassy patch of ground in fact), in which you have to sit down and play table top games against Manannan. Quite the departure from the opening to episode 1, where you were cinematically running and swinging through a large cavern, whilst fighting against a huge dragon in epic style.
Furthermore, it’s rather telling to note that the last couple of episodes were delayed from their initial release dates. It was clear to me as I played through the game (as each episode was released - with me having to wait longer for those delayed episodes) that the developer was struggling to realise their planned vision due to poor sales for those early episodes. It’s a real shame too because I thought the game was excellent and easily one of the best adventure games of the 21st Century (my only criticism would be that the puzzles were too easy - well, that and the scaling back of production value). Oh, it’s also worth noting that The Odd Gentlemen haven’t released a new game since their King’s Quest reboot in 2016, which only further supports my long standing theory that the game was a financial disaster for them.
All of which goes to show that a HUGE name in the adventure game community is not a huge enough name in the gaming community in general to result in massive sales. Thankfully the scope of Return to Monkey Island seems to be much less ambitious than the King’s Quest reboot (what with it being 2D and all), so I’m sure it will sell enough to turn a tidy profit when matched against its production budget, even though it likely won’t exactly set the gaming world on fire.
Urgh, Ron retweeted this image on his Twitter page (in support of it)...
Literally nobody is trying to stop people from liking the art style, much less shouting at them and telling them that they’re wrong for liking the art style and that they shouldn’t play the game. Whilst there were a few idiots on Ron’s blog who were being unnecessarily rude about the art style and disrespectful towards Ron, by and large the criticism has come from people merely respectfully expressing their own personal opinion and their own personal distaste for the art style. If anything, it’s obnoxious images such as the one above which are an attempt to silence other’s right to an opinion, not the other way around.
Also, gotta love the way they went that extra mile to insult people with differing views, by depicting those in possession of critical faculties as a stereotypical fedora wearing nerd as well. Oh, and the way they depicted themselves as completely unbothered by the imagined shouting lunatic. So unbothered in fact, that they took the time to make an image to complain about the very people they claim not to be bothered by.
It’s just a variation on this tired, old, god awful meme…
—————————————————————————————-
(SIDENOTE: which of these two characters looks like the imposing bully within this strip?)
—————————————————————————————-
I can’t stand the whole “let people enjoy things” attitude. It’s so damn egocentric.
“Well, I like the art, so everyone else has to like it too, or just shut up if you don’t like it because my ego can’t handle hearing critical thoughts about something which I personally like! It’s as though they are being critical of me for liking the art style, even though that’s not what anybody has actually said, it’s like that because the world revolves around me and my massive, inflated ego. Just let me enjoy the art and stop having your own opinions about it… unless those opinions align with my own, in which case that’s fine.”
It’s also interesting to note that the same hypocrites who post the above “shhh” meme NEVER, EVER stop short of expressing their own critical thoughts for something which they don’t like, nor attempt to stop others from being critical of something which they don’t like. Funny that, isn’t it? It’s almost as though they don’t actually practice what they preach and it’s got nothing to do with “letting people enjoy nice things” but in fact everything to do with “letting me control the voice and opinions of others, to reflect my own world view and tastes”.
Furthermore, the image which Ron retweeted is operating under a fallacy which I’m sick of hearing at this point; that people who voiced critical opinions towards the art style just wanted pixel art because they’re stuck in the past and refuse to embrace new technology. I’ve literally not read a single comment from anyone saying that their problem with the art style is that it’s not pixel art. What I have read is people saying that they don’t care for the specific art style being utilised within the game and that it looks cheap. It’s such a strawman argument to try and project made up reasons onto someone else as to why they don’t care for a particular style of art. It’s insulting, presumptuous and condescending, not to mention a deflection from the actual criticisms being made.
For the record, I am among those who was critical of the art style upon first glimpsing it and I remain unconvinced that it’ll work for me personally in the final game, though I remain hopeful. However, I have also made an absolute point of making it clear, from day one, that I respect that this is Ron’s game and that I 100% respect his right to make it as he sees fit, art style and all. Apparently that’s not allowed though and everyone needs to either praise the art unequivocally or shut up and not say anything at all. What kind of BS attitude is that?! It’s akin to some kind of media dictatorship!
Instead of a one sided, self-serving “Shhh, let people enjoy things” meme, how about an inclusive, neutral and all encompassing “You’re entitled to your opinion of art and I’m entitled to mine. Let’s discuss and debate the merits of the piece as grown, mature adults, without trying to shame one another for not sharing our own individual, personal tastes” meme instead? No, I guess that’s not catchy or divisive enough. Gotta draw those lines in the sand, put everyone into boxes and turn everything into a petty schoolyard battleground. I despair sometimes, I really do.
I’m just gonna drop this here because it’s an active thread, I know it’s not the right place but here goes
1. I get logged out of this forum an inordinate amount of times that never happens anywhere else - is it a cookie issue?
2. When I’m in a thread and log back in again - after being logged out for no ascertainable reason - I get booted out of the thread, back into the top level main menu instead of putting me back from where I logged in from. This has been a problem for 20 years here and has never been fixed
Urgh, Ron retweeted this image on his Twitter page (in support of it)...
Literally nobody is trying to stop people from liking the art style, much less shouting at them and telling them that they’re wrong for liking the art style and that they shouldn’t play the game. Whilst there were a few idiots on Ron’s blog who were being unnecessarily rude about the art style and disrespectful towards Ron, by and large the criticism has come from people merely respectfully expressing their own personal opinion and their own personal distaste for the art style. If anything, it’s obnoxious images like the ones above which are an attempt to silence other’s right to an opinion, not the other way around!
Also, gotta love the way they went that extra mile to insult people with differing views, by depicting those in possession of critical faculties as a stereotypical fedora wearing nerd as well. Oh, and the way they depicted themselves as completely unbothered by the shouting lunatic. So unbothered in fact, that they took the time to make an image to complain about the very people they claim not to be bothered by.
It’s just a variation on this tired, old, god awful meme…
—————————————————————————————-
(SIDENOTE: which of these two looks like the imposing bully within this strip?)—————————————————————————————-
I can’t stand the whole “let people enjoy things” attitude. It’s so damn egocentric.
“Well, I like the art, so everyone else has to like it too, or just shut up if you don’t because my ego can’t handle hearing critical thoughts about something which I personally like! It’s as though they are being critical of me for liking the art style, even though that’s not what anybody has said, it’s like that because the world revolves around me and my massive, inflated ego. Just let me enjoy the art and stop having your own opinions about it… unless those opinions align with my own, in which case that’s fine.”
It’s also interesting to note that the same hypocrites who post the above “shhh” meme NEVER, EVER have a problem with being critical of something which they don’t like, or allowing others to be critical of something which they don’t like. Funny that, ain’t it? It’s almost as though they don’t actually practice what they preach and it’s got nothing to do with “letting people enjoy nice things” but in fact everything to do with “letting me control the voice and opinions of others, to reflect my own world view and tastes”.
Furthermore, the image which Ron retweeted is operating under a fallacy which I’m sick of hearing right now; that people who voiced critical opinions towards the art style just wanted pixel art because they’re stuck in the past and refuse to embrace new technology. I’ve literally not read a single comment from anyone saying that their problem with the art style is that it’s not pixel art. What I have read is people saying that they don’t care for the specific art style being utilised within the game and that it looks cheap. It’s such a strawman argument to try and project made up reasons onto someone else as to why they don’t care for a particular style of art. It’s insulting and condescending, not to mention a deflection from the actual criticisms being made.
For the record, I am among those who was critical of the art style upon first glimpsing it and I remain unconvinced that it’ll work for me personally in the final game, though I remain hopeful. However, I have also made an absolute point of making it clear, from day one, that I respect that this is Ron’s game and that I 100% respect his right to make it as he sees fit, art style and all. Apparently that’s not allowed though and everyone needs to either praise the art unequivocally or shut up and not say anything at all. What kind of BS attitude is that?! It’s like some kind of media dictatorship, that’s what!
Instead of a one sided, self-serving “Shhh, let people enjoy things” meme, how about an inclusive, neutral and all encompassing “You’re entitled to your opinion of art and I’m entitled to mine. Let’s discuss and debate the merits of the piece as grown, mature adults, without trying to shame each other for not sharing our own personal tastes” meme instead? No, I guess that’s not catchy or divisive enough. Gotta draw those lines in the sand, put everyone into boxes and make everything into a petty schoolyard battleground. I despair sometimes, I really do.
Amazingly well articulated post
*round of applause for St_Eddie*
AKA Charo
*round of applause for St_Eddie*
Agreed, 100 percent. This is a strawman arguement, i would say 99.99 percent do not care that it is not pixel art. We just dislike this style. Telling the consumer who YOU WANT TO BUY your game to shut up, is not only counter productive, it is downright idiotic. Ron is going to dig himself a hole he cant get out of.
I’m not going to touch the art style discussion anymore, as I’ve said all I want about it.
But in terms of the sales number speculations. Ron made a post back in the day, that his two biggest platforms were Steam and Nintendo Wii. Steam sales took 30% and Wii 32% of the total sales (this was back in 2018 https://grumpygamer.com/twp_sales).
SteamDb gives estimations for Steam numbers, not accurate, but they do give some ballpark estimations ranging from 98k to 500k copies. The lowest number is based on review numbers, the highest numbers are based on other Steam statistics.
So, if were are conservative here, and say Steam accounts for 250k numbers, then Wii would be around the same number, so Ron’s previous game sold at least 500k copies on two platforms.
Considering that Monkey Island is a well-liked brand name, I’d figure him coming back to it would account for at least 500k in sales.
For a note, Tales of Monkey Island has a range from 22k to 500k for its complete season. So all these numbers need to be taken with a pinch of salt, as they are just estimations.
Another smaller edit.
King’s Quest, the first episode, has numbers ranging between 87k-500k, but it also has to remember, you can play it for free. The following episodes have abysmal player numbers. The season pass ranges between 1k-2,5k, while Episode 2 ranges from 2.5k-6.1k. So by those numbers, it was a complete flop in sales.
Oh, the never ending debate of “I like it” vs “I don’t like it” vs “I HATE it, they’re ruining the game!!”
Seriously, I find it counterproductive to even argue about the chosen style, beyond expressing your own opinion and then moving on.
It is what it is. They chose this graphics style and they certainly won’t change it now.
I liked the trailer, animation was cool. I like static screenshots a bit less, but I do hope seeing them in motion will make them look that much better.
And I love lead artist’s visuals in his previous game Knights and Bikes. One of the most unique and cool looking games out there.
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