Ubisoft: “Super Hardcore” Games Prevent Industry from Growing
According to Splinter Cell: Conviction’s creative director Max Beland, “super hardcore” games are preventing the industry from progressing. He did not elaborate on his assertion, so one can only assume he is referring to games that typically do not appeal to a mainstream audience.
Speaking to Industry Gamers, Beland explained that his studio was striving for a “balance” with Conviction, between the core gamers Ubisoft knew were interested, and the less dedicated, the mainstream, who were not:
I think it’s a subject that is very touchy right now because as an industry we want to grow. We need to stop making games that are super hardcore. But we’re afraid because we don’t want to lose the hardcore people!
At the same time, it’s a challenge because the journalists – the people that rank us – are usually hardcore. So it’s a real challenge to find a balance and make your game [appealing to all].
Beland then went on to talk about how accessible a game should be, and whether a developer should tweak a game to make it more accesible to a larger audience:
I don’t like the word accessible because it makes it sound like you’re dumbing down your game. But to me, Call of Duty is very accessible. So yes, it is something we want to do – I’d love for 10 million, 60 million people to play the games we make.
While not destined for the PS3, Splinter Cell: Conviction is heading to the PC April 29th. Should developers, in an effort to attain a higher volume of sales, make their games easier to play, for a larger audience? By doing so, will they exclude the hardcore gamers? Post your responses in the comments section below.
18 Responses to “Ubisoft: “Super Hardcore” Games Prevent Industry from Growing”
I don’t think Call of Duty really satisfies that many hardcore gamers so that is kind of a poor example, it’s fun while it lasts but I don’t see it as a hardcore game. I think it’s really stupid to say that “We need to stop making games that are super hardcore.” Instead of struggling to find the balance within a game, why not just make sure you create multiple types of games that will appeal to different crowds? There will always be some that both hardcore and casual gamers can enjoy, but if you start making fewer hardcore games you are going to piss off a lot of loyal gamers and that will hurt the industry more than anything. It seems to me like the industry is progressing just fine with how things are going now. If we get any more casual it’s going to ruin it for me and a lot of other people.
Max Beland just sounds like an idiot trying to justify why it isn’t coming to the PS3 or other platforms.
He’s not saying COD is hardcore, in fact, he’s saying the opposite. He’s saying it “accessable” (ie. dumbed down). That’s why so many play it.
It is a predicament, that’s for sure. Publishers and devs are getting to the point where they don’t have enough money to make games to please both crowds, but they have to do exactly that to make their company grow by that coveted 3-4% a year to stay in business. All I’m saying is, if they stop making games for core gamers, I’ll get a new hobby, because all that Wii garbage can kiss my butt.
I don’t know what “super hardcore” means, but what does it matter? Anyone who has been a gamer as long as I have, has already seen games become easier for anyone to pick up and play, as to invite more and more potential “gamers.” We have no choice in the matter either. It’s just how things have become, since game industry has gotten to huge.
Gaming should be hardcore. No want wants to play nintendo games any more.
I understand he wasn’t calling COD hardcore, but I think he was implying that it was a game that found the right balance between hardcore and casual. I was just trying to say that I think it leans much more towards casual than hardcore.
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His point is that to make enough money in the Video Game Industry you have to appeal to a larger audience of gamers. If you only create for the “Hardcore” gamers then you limit your profits. Look at Uncharted 2 it can appeal to both by having a Single Player mode and have Multi-player at the same level of game play. Some casual gamers don’t try MP online games because of the “Hardcore” gamers treat them as less than human because they can’t or don’t know how to play the games online.
And with profits starting to wane because credit is not as free flowing around the world they have to make decisions on how to stay in business. Or we don’t get the AAA games we like to play.
ArenHam Says:
March 30th, 2010 at 8:21 PM
Max Beland just sounds like an idiot trying to justify why it isn’t coming to the PS3 or other platforms.
How in the flying **** did you come to that conclusion based on his comments? Jesus Christ, some of you playslaves are as brain dead as the 360tards.
Super Hardcore haha.
i think a lot of people fail to understand what hes saying because he has no point…
i see myself as a hard core gamer *been playing since the genesis was new* and i strongly disliked uncharted 1/2, i also thought god of war was crap, which both got high marks… a lot of the generation is becoming about AAA titles, and B titles which is whats hurting it, back in the day we didnt have so many games to spend money on as we do now so people got to think arder/make a choice of what game they want the most, which is the only real problem
unless you think, god of war 3/XIII in the same month didnt make people not buy White Knight/yakuza 3/others because they wanted those more…
well, hardcore gamers are the ones who buy games. Casual players just play party shit once every new moon. And regarding COD and other multiplayer FPS, I know lots of people who only play that shit. Those kind of people that buy ONE COD GAME A YEAR and spend their whole gaming time on that! is that good for your industry Mr. Ubisoft? HELL NO!
Victorinox? LOL since the Genesis was new!??? Thts not hardcore LOL ‘dnt like uc1/2 or gow games WTF DUDE!?!
iv been playing since the specrum 48k (1982) ffs! There was just as much choice then as now….!?!
If a games good it gets bought simple… This dude is talking Hound muk…. & as for mw2 ‘CRAP’ SIMPLE…..
Ahem…. as a gamer for as long as I can remember I still would find it hard to define a hard core game from a… uhhhh…. soft core game. Even the thought of doing so seems strange to me. These days every game (well almost, damn you Demon’s Souls) has an easy mode. They all have tutorials. Most games are designed with the realization that not every one wants the migraine inducing challenge of a lifetime, but if you want it, its there. Whats so difficult about putting in easy mode? I feel like they’ve already done that with the puzzles I find in adventure games any more (even GOW3 puzzles were surprisingly easy). The boundary of hardcore/softcore lies within the gamer, not the game. Sure, MW2 is dumbed down, or “accessible”, and many people play it, but I know a few people that are “hardcore” about it. Its all they do, talk about, and talk shit about. Anyways, I think this guy is confusing “hardcore” with “challenging”. In which case, put in an easy mode, and focus on whats really important – making a fun game.
I don’t have a clue what this guy’s on about. The only “super hardcore” game I can think of would be Demon’s Souls, and it won game of the year at Gamespot and had some stuff in it that was quite unique and “pushed the industry forward”, or at least gave it a nudge. Almost all other games seem to be perfectly approachable by the average gamer (like me) and if you set the difficulty to the highest level, quite challenging for the hardcore gamer as well. We’ve all got our favorite genres, mine is racing, and I’ll play a racing game at the highest difficulty level. With action / adventure games, I set it on medium and it’s usually about perfect.
So what is this guy even talking about? Does he mean that he wants PS3 and Xbox games to be more like what’s available on the Wii? If so, screw him.
We should remember that this industry started with arcade games that were so damned hard that you could put $20 worth of quarters in them before you ever managed to make it to the third level. It’s called a challenge. Once you take that out, all you’ve got left is simple rubbish that doesn’t even appeal to little kids.
Those days of the prominent arcade wasn’t build to be challenging, they were built for you to keep putting quarters in them. Whether the challenge was there or whether it was just outright cheesy to the player is questionable.
With me that article started making no sense once that guy mention “super hardcore” seriously what does that even mean?
Every game that has a competitive aspect on it can become “super hardcore” and a real good game is built to be accessible from the start so that everyone can play, then because of how in depth it’s game mechanics are it can cater to those who want to play it competitively.
The best example is fighting games, most notably Street Fighter 4, the game is accessible enough for a lot of people to pick it up and play it, you can play arcade mode and watch everyone’s endings. But then if you really want to get serious, you can pit yourself against the grueling online competition. Competitive games lend themselves to become super hardcore, everything from racing games, FPS’s to sports games. In other words, it’s built to raise your skill level when you desire to get better at it.
This is the only way the “super hardcore” theme makes sense to me. Yet I’m not going to give him credit for using that term in the way I just described. I think overall he is just complaining like your usual Tool Developer, who wants to analyze the industry, because the company he works for, just isn’t getting it right with consumers, in terms of sales figures.
Sounds like somebody’s been bitten by the jealousy bug! If Ubisoft want their games to grow staying multiplatform might be a good start, so how about it ubisoft we PS3 gamers getting SC: Conviction? No? Then stop bitching about COD: MW2 being better then.
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