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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
It will probably take forever to come out here so I'll be importing the UK version - but is it that big a deal? Surely the gameplay is the important thing?
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Sun Feb 22, 2004 10:57 pm |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
@Lord_Brownie: They want to make money, as with anyone who is selling a product. Therefore, they'll do what they can to sell it to as many people as possible. If some people don't like it, then those people obviously aren't their target audience.
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Freeeeeeedom! Thank heavens it's summer!
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 1:58 am |
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Melvil
Village Leader
Joined: 08 Nov 2003
Posts: 80
Location: Austin, Tx |
quote:
Originally posted by Val
@Lord_Brownie: They want to make money, as with anyone who is selling a product. Therefore, they'll do what they can to sell it to as many people as possible. If some people don't like it, then those people obviously aren't their target audience.
I mean no offense to ya Val, but this mentality is what keeps creativity down. It is no wonder that the best RPG's in the last few years have come out of markets in Europe. Markets where the industry is still young and not yet completely defined by market forces and bar graphs. A well defined market will not produce creative, innovative and fun products. What it will create though, is redundant repititious games, controlled by folks two to three times removed from the front lines of gaming. And while this game is from a European developer, corporate interest is at work here and I'm not sure I see the reasoning behind limiting options in this game.
Ok, back down to earth, we are talking about blood and guts. This really will not have an effect on the overall gameplay experience and therefore this argument may seem a little extreme. My only concern is that instead of reasonable solutions to overly violent games, we will get orders from above about what we should be experiencing in our games.
P.S. I've been reading and writing about Thomas Paine a lot lately and his style seems to be rubbing of on me.  |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 2:36 am |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
I was merely stating the facts. Whether it effects "creativity" (arguing that violence is creative is questionable at best, it's all been done before) or not is not my concern. I'm just a realist.
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Freeeeeeedom! Thank heavens it's summer!
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 2:55 am |
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl |
The game looks good. But i'll wait for the review first.
I could agree that violence isn't really neccessary to dertermines whether the game will be good or not. But it seem society, peoples, gamers, are so got used to or attracted to violence that any effort to reduce it will received much brouhaha.
On another side, i wonder how many parents and peoples inside ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) ever play games and understood the culture of gaming.
BTW, why children (especially boy) and who are not neccessary gamer like to watch or even encouraging and chanting "fight!" "fight!" "Yay, Kick his ass!", when two other children fighting?. 
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 3:52 am |
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Decado
Head Merchant
Joined: 25 Mar 2002
Posts: 65
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quote:
Originally posted by Val
I was merely stating the facts.
What facts? There is no evidence that making the game "T" rated will garner higher sales. Quite the opposite, really.
That's what people are saying here...besides being a cruddy decision overall, it is also a particularly stupid business decision. |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 4:27 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
quote:
Originally posted by Decado
quote:
Originally posted by Val
I was merely stating the facts.
What facts? There is no evidence that making the game "T" rated will garner higher sales. Quite the opposite, really.
That's what people are saying here...besides being a cruddy decision overall, it is also a particularly stupid business decision.
Here's some evidence that "T" rated games are selling quite nicely.
quote:
"Moreover, the fact that 44 of the 49 games that sold more than half a million units were rated E or T reflects the fact that this industry is producing a broad array of highly entertaining content appropriate for people of all ages.
No doubt this is variable from year to year depending on the number and quality of titles but 44/49 is a massive majority for > 500k sales. The odd HL2 or Doom 3 would not change that balance.
Either way, Sacred will not be successful (or not) on the back of hardcore sales from gamers who have read about this issue; the big sales numbers will come from big retail chain stores and gamers who have no idea there is any controversy at all.
The point by an earlier poster about the quality of titles produced bu Euro devs is moot here - Germany quite regularly censors blood more often than happens in the US.
Personally, as an adult gamer, I'd like it as "hardcore" as I can get but they're not developing just to please me. 
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 7:05 am |
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Decado
Head Merchant
Joined: 25 Mar 2002
Posts: 65
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quote:
Originally posted by Dhruin
Here's some evidence that "T" rated games are selling quite nicely.
The problem with that is that it doesn't really have anything to do with Sacred. So EA sold a crapload of its sport titles and The Sims are still insanely popular? 2003 hardly had any major "M" rated releases...yet still grabbed a chunk of the the sales (a percentage that is far more telling for the simple reason that just about every "M" rated game is in the action arena...not completely different genres like The Sims or sport titles). If you don't think that figure isn't going to skyrocket this year (even with the odd increadibly stupid company making moves like this), you have a surprise coming.
Ever hear of the game Diablo 1/2? Sill one of the better selling games since its release. Must have been tough with that "M" rating |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 9:08 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
I agree these figures prove little. Still, what about meeting your own demand - where's your evidence for "Quite the opposite, really."?
I certainly won't be surprised if the overall market percentage of "M" games increases this year; afterall, there are several highly anticipated games that will impact these figures. A handful of huge games that skew the figures doesn't mean better sales for Sacred.
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:32 am |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
What fact? The fact that they think they can get better sells by going with a T rating. Sacred is an unknown game without a huge marketing machine behind it here in the US. If they want to sell it, they probably think that making it more palatable to the average gamer and their parents will get them more sales. As Dhruin stated before, the bulk of their sales comes from Joe Gamer and his mom.
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Freeeeeeedom! Thank heavens it's summer!
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:26 pm |
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niteshade6
Guest
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Hmmm....well certainly I don't think the sales for diablo 2 would have gone up at all if they had added more blood. And if they had made it too gorey, the sales might have gone down.
I think people are really just upset over the principal of the matter and that I can understand. I doubt it will effect the actual gameplay experience for most people. |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:05 pm |
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Ariel
Harmonious Angel
Joined: 21 Jul 2001
Posts: 432
Location: Germany |
quote:
Originally posted by Val
(..) Whether it effects "creativity" (arguing that violence is creative is questionable at best, it's all been done before) or not is not my concern. I'm just a realist.
It's not about the violence being creative or not, it's not even about the violence itself, it's about the game as an art form being a medium to convey a particular vision. The experience of a game with "all effects enabled" is innately different, if ever so slightly, from one that has certain effects removed.
Now, as far as Sacred is concerned, even the demo had gore turned off in the default setting, so one might argue that this was actually another vision of the game that the developers had intended, and that the gory version was just an alternative, similar to how Peter Jackson describes the theatrical and extended cuts of LotR. Personally though, I believe the bloodless version is ultimately a product of enforced self-censorship.
In this light, whether it effects "creativitiy" or not does concern me a lot. I'm a dreamer.
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“Through the sounds of falling rain, through the clouds of bitter times
I see the pure grace of your smile, in dreams of the warmth in your eyes” - Tim North |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:15 pm |
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Lexorin
Village Dweller
Joined: 29 Apr 2003
Posts: 2
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quote:
Originally posted by Lucky Day
good for them.
Its nice see someone still has some sense of standards and that game ratings are finally being taken seriously by parents and stores.
Yeah, because we all know how much american parents pay attention to what games their kids play and what they watch on TV.
Why is it the retailers job to police what games peoples children play? Shouldn't the parents actually take an active hand in their childrens lives and maybe pay attention to what kind of media they're being exposed to? I know... it's a strange idea... |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:29 pm |
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Seth
Last Man Standing
Joined: 23 Jan 2002
Posts: 1008
Location: Faerun |
I don't want to start political debate here, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this had something to do with Germany opposition against Iraq "liberation". Sounds a little bit like conspiracy theory, but if this was half a year earlier that though would be on everybody's mind.
And since we are on the subject of parenting will somebody explain to me why is that if somebody's kid is getting a little more violent parents blame (and sue) video games and when you see two growing men hitting the s*** out of each other on the ice ring they encourage them to cheer (for the record I have nothing against hockey)?
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Money - An article which may be used as a universal passport to everywhere except heaven, and as a universal provider of everything except happiness. |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:49 pm |
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Vival
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 06 Sep 2003
Posts: 39
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Geez, some people are really exaggerating. It isn't like this game was censored on order of the US goverment. It's soley the decision of Encore and apparently it's part of their policy to censor games that contain "too much" violence in their opinion(e.g. Silent Storm recently). So if you don't like this practice send them a mail and let them know your opinion or simply just don't buy their published products. You may try to get a hold of the UK version which isn't published by Encore AFAIK, so they won't see a penny of your money. |
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Mon Feb 23, 2004 8:39 pm |
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