Comments Disabled | 23 comments

Let's Upgrade this Juggernaut!

  •  Profits... (none / 0)

    There are a lot of factors that would go into the "true" profits for this game.  

    It's safe to say that they are doing alright with this game.  

    In a profit driven industry, it's hard to convince upper management to dedicate man hours and capital towards stuff like community support and the likes.  

    This is not myself trying to condone how they have approached this, just another point of view.

    Bungie has a tireless dedication to this, some of which I care about, but 90% of which I don't.  I personally don't get into the whole FanFic, hypothetical discussions on future iterations of their potential products.  I do like talking about possible design changes, mechanics, and stuff like that.  

    I do software testing, and our "niche" allows me to really understand the importance of taking a customers requirements and translating that into our product.  Someday gaming companies will truly figure this out, because if you really listen to the customer, it will allow for your product to reach heights that you could never do internally within your given company.

    If Epic developed a formalized approach to integrating customers ideas into real world changes, life would be good.  I'm speaking in ignorance here, that being they may already of this sort of thing implemented, in which case their process is broken.

    Leader, Masters Few www.MastersFew.com

    by Master Pre on Thu Feb 01, 2007 at 03:24:00 PM EST

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    •  i am gamer, hear me roar .... (none / 0)

      Good point ... this is a very cultural thing in the gaming biz that hopefully studios will better figure out over time.  Gamers are a fickle bunch, and, especially when you're a AAA title trying to develop an active franchise (especially online), giving the right kind of attention to appease the community is huge (and difficult).

      Like you, I'm not a big fan of fanfic (unless RvB counts (kinda)), and I've had it up to here with "what's your favorite weapon polls", but outside of that, even the community feedback and support that Bungie gives about supporting & improving the game it great (and smart ... it's kept them on top).

      by geekinabox on Thu Feb 01, 2007 at 04:01:55 PM EST

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      •  Grain of Salt... (none / 0)

        Thanks for you response.  There is a flipside to my point, in that customer input must be valid for this to work.

        Every kid with an opinion out there will be screaming for what they see as "improvements", which in reality will probably be nothing that is even relevant to the game or helping it grow.

        My supporting evidence for this would be any gaming forum in the world, and the fact that there is always a small army of ungrateful brat's just waiting to take their aggressions out with a whirl of acronyms & terms (wtf, noob, etc, ...) completely disrupting any possitive discussions that may be occuring.

        Leader, Masters Few www.MastersFew.com

        by Master Pre on Thu Feb 01, 2007 at 04:25:20 PM EST

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        •  letting the people speak (none / 0)

          >>customer input must be valid for this to work.
          >>Every kid with an opinion out there will be
          >>screaming for what they see as "improvements",

          I was thinking about that recently ... unfortunately, forums kinda suck for customer feedback.  There's a lot of whining, in-fighting, repetition, rants, etc.  IOW, they've got the problems you describe.

          I was trying to think of a way to better format such feedback.

          One idea I had was the notion of a site dedicated to bug tracking and fix prioritization.  I could work something like this (admittedly, this idea is half-baked):

          • users submits bugs and/our suggestions for improvements/enhancements (maybe those 2 item types are tracked separately).
          • some core group of moderators reviews those submissions and decides whether it makes it into the master list.  this is mostly to avoid duplication, not necessary to filter out stupid ideas)
          • every register site users has, let's say 100 votes to pass out ... each user can dedicate as may or as few of those votes to each bug/fix as (s)he deems important.  IOW, the user was a limited number of votes, and he sets his/her priroties based on how he doles out his votes.
          • users can reallocate/re-divvy the votes at any time.
          • at certain set points (time-based, or after a patch), the votes are re-set to 0, and the users have to re-vote.  
          • Users can also perhaps cast votes for an item to be closed/remove from the list ... or, perhaps, every week, then bottom 50% of items are removed from the list, to keep it manageable.

          Just some ideas ... I'm sure there are holes in this idea...

          you might still have a forum backing the site, but I think fronting it with an active polling/voting mechanism would be cool, would be more reflective of user interest (dare I sya democratic), and be easier than sifting through forums of awkward pre-adolescent ramblings.

          by geekinabox on Thu Feb 01, 2007 at 04:53:18 PM EST

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          •  Well stated, (none / 0)

            geekinabox hit it dead on.  And many of your ideas fall into line with standard means of operations within all software development companies.  

            Usually they establish what is called an "External STR Database", STR standing for "Software/System Trouble Report".  This database allows for a formalized report to be generated and tracked to ensure it is either determined to not be a problem, or it is resolved within the code.

            There are formalized approaches for this, as Epic has undoubtedly implemented, and a "moderated" forum or input means for these reports to come in from the general public would be huge.  

            There are a myriad of ways to approach such implementation, and this would really allow for the community not only to be informed on how things are going within Epic, but also have the means to indirectly influence the development of future updates/etc.

            The gaming community has matured, in that there is a large portion of gamers that are no longer the pimply faced, stereotypical teenagers of the 90's.  We have now matured, married, and educated ourselves (for the most part! hahah).  A lot of us are professionals in our own right, and are quite competent.  Just imagine if they could establish a means by which to bring our well thought out ideas to the table.  

            The potential is there, it just hasn't been fully realized within the gaming community.

            Leader, Masters Few www.MastersFew.com

            by Master Pre on Thu Feb 01, 2007 at 05:11:50 PM EST

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    •  I must be a dork (none / 0)

      I absolutely love the Halo novels (though I still haven't completely finished the third) and I'm waaaaaay into the storyline/fiction created around the universe.  I tried to explain a bit of it to my wife the other day and she looked at me like I had just grown an extra head.

      by papi blez on Thu Feb 01, 2007 at 06:47:29 PM EST

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      •  You know (none / 0)

        Gears, as we know it today, has a huge window for genre-tales and separate story lines.  14yrs of untold tales of Marcus, Dom, and the rest is pretty tempting.  Not to mention what the Pendullum Wars were like.  

        Ready to finish all the Fights!

        by Damn Boris on Thu Feb 01, 2007 at 10:32:57 PM EST

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      •  I do to, (none / 0)

        really like the Halo novels.  I think they added a lot to the games and am glad they made them.  I am also looking forward to the movie, crosses figners.  I hope they make a some Gears novels, I think that would rock!

        Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid! Things perceived as real are real in their consequences.

        by Major Dan on Fri Feb 02, 2007 at 11:46:08 AM EST

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        •  Halo Novels all the way (none / 0)

            Yeah I'm reading Ghosts of Onyx right now, on page 108.  And they are going to have 2 MORE books after this one.  Fall of Reach is still my favorite.
            The Halo Graphic novel was awesome too, but back to the discussion I like the Bungie forums a bit, it's annoying how many rumors, ideas, brainstorms show up and guess what, they don't matter.  Not to mentiont the stupid polls... do the Forums Ninja's get paid??  If so that's cool, if not they're nuts.

            Also don't forget besides Halo 3 there will be Halo Wars, and the Wingnut game that hasn't been detailed but confirmed.

          Let's get it own!

          by Macaface on Fri Feb 02, 2007 at 12:00:09 PM EST

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          •  My 2.3 cents (with exchange rate) (none / 0)

            "do the Forums Ninja's get paid??  If so that's cool, if not they're nuts."

            They're nuts.

            As others have pointed out, there's plenty of room in the Gears storyline for additional material; heck, with that closing cinematic (spoiling no spoilers) they've given themselves plenty of room to flesh out their universe.  I'd be surprised if we didn't see something else follow on from the game.  Maybe (probably) not to the same extent as Halo but something anyway.

            As to community feedback, forums have a, er, "checkered" potential.  Since the participants are self-selected, and they're bound to be vocal (if they're quiet, or just content instead of overjoyed/enraged, they won't post!), you have to be really careful that forum feedback isn't reflecting the opinions of a vocal minority.  It's best if you can compare the forum stuff with observations of actual play.

            As to community development, well, all I can say is that it's good business as well as rewarding... if you can allocate the resources necessary to do it well, and that (IMO) isn't as easy as some seem to think.

             -- Steve finally finished off RAAM last night on Casual, and enjoyed the heck out of Gears' campaign.

            by Anton P Nym on Sat Feb 03, 2007 at 09:48:12 AM EST

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Comments Disabled | 23 comments