It's August - Hurry up and take my money

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Well in November, TESV: Skyrim is coming out, so is Minecraft and apparently CoD: Modern Warfare 3.

Meh, its another CoD game, don't we get 3 of those a year? 
I'm probably one of the few that cares about the RPG genre who doesn't care about Skyrim.  After getting burned by the terribleness of Oblivion, I just don't have a lot of faith in that series of games. 
Minecraft has been out for so long....well, basically what x said

King

[Kronic]

I'm sure Skyrim will be worth it 12 months after release when the price has halved and there's enough mods out to sort any nagging issues.

[x4000]

I'm sure Skyrim will be worth it 12 months after release when the price has halved and there's enough mods out to sort any nagging issues.

Note to self: don't release AVWW in November 2012. 

[Kronic]

Considering I've only got back to playing Oblivilol these last few days, I don't think it's a problem.

And frankly, I don't think it'd keep my attention over an AI War/AVWW release.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I'm sure Skyrim will be worth it 12 months after release when the price has halved and there's enough mods out to sort any nagging issues.

*one wonders why the modders aren't hired to work on the game *

King

[Kronic]

Because that would be silly.

/straight face

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Because that would be silly.

/straight face

*waits* 

King

[Kronic]

 

 

 

_{As a textless reply, this made me feel unclean. So this line exists solely to let me pretend this post wasn't daft. :3}

[x4000]

As far as textless replies go, that was a pretty good one though.

And it sometimes does happen -- rarely -- that the modders get hired to work on sequels or future games.  Just look at the main guy who was modding the AI of the original Supreme Commander, for instance.

[Kronic]

Aye, Sorian.

I know Bethesda hired Oscuro, maker of one of the better rebalance mods, and although there's no word on it, he's probably working on Skyrim: However, being an Elder Scrolls game, I'm sure I'll still need 8Gb of mods before I'm happy with it.

/unappeasable fanbase

[x4000]

Right, Sorian -- surprised I forgot the name that fast.  That was a great hire on their part, at any rate.

My read on the Elder Scrolls series is basically that it's the bastion of traditional western RPG development, but with prettier graphics and slightly faster action gameplay in parts.  Or something approximating that.  So I've not really gone near it, because I simply don't really like western RPGs most of the time.  I did enjoy Fallout 3 pretty well, though I didn't finish it, though.

I think that Bethesda finds themselves in a tough spot because they're doing something that is partly progressive and largely genre-traditional, and they're trying to pack in HD graphics and ridiculous amounts of content all at the same go, and then the end package is pretty expensive (like any next gen game).  That basically gives them the impossible task of trying to make games that would be the best example of a well-known genre.  Easier to do with FPS games, which are all about refined mechanics and a unique gameplay hook, but not so much with something so content-heavy.

[zebramatt]

Or look at Portal, where Valve hired the entire independent Narbacular Drop development team to come work for them!

[x4000]

Definitely!  Or DotA.

[BobTheJanitor]

Once AVWW is out in the hands of the public, hopefully in about 6 weeks, then the question of when 1.0 hits is mostly about whether a lot of people are waiting for 1.0, Steam release, etc, before buying it. 

The Steam release is what gets you here. A lot of people, I've noticed, will just not buy anything if it's not on Steam. The ideal would be the option to tell people that a pre-purchase will include a Steam license once the Steam release comes. But that doesn't seem to be something that most developers can be sure about ahead of time. I'll buy things outside of Steam rarely, but usually only if it's something that I really really want. The last non-Steam purchase I made was... I think Space Pirates and Zombies. That has a happy ending though, since it is coming on Steam soon and the license is transferable to Steam, so I won't have to worry about booting up Impulse to check for updates any more. But yeah, some people are just Steam or nothing.

[x4000]

Yes, this is true -- but on the other hand, not being on Steam hasn't hurt some very high profile indie games.  Minecraft being the obvious example, but there are a handful of others that sell as well as AI War does on Steam, but without the help of Steam.  If we hit some solid numbers based on excitement from the folks who aren't "Steam or nothing," then that's enough.

One thing about Minecraft and some of the others, though, I should think: is that apparently there's no chance of Minecraft coming out on Steam, at least in the opinion of most folks, so that makes the "Steam or nothing" actually "Minecraft or not, regardless of Steam."  So that might somewhat negate my point above.

Assuming that AVWW comes out on Steam, which I see no reason why it wouldn't at this point, there's no way it wouldn't have registerable keys there.  We've got 5 products on Steam at this point, all with registerable keys, so I think it's pretty clear that's something that would continue.  I can't promise anything on Valve's behalf or anything, but I don't know why that would suddenly change, anyway.

So, yeah.  Who knows!  Only time will tell.