When They Know It Sucks.

[Rainecloud]

Developes can only make assumptions. It's once the game is released to the public that they know whether it's good or not.

Sorry, but I refuse to believe that the developers behind Devil May Cry 2 got together and decided that the game was good enough to release to the public ... and believed that consumers might actually like it.

[Slothy]

Why bother making the game good if you're going to rake in loads of money regardless of quality? As people have stated correctly in this very thread, movie tie-ins generally make a truckload of cash regardless of whether or not the game is actually any good. Okay, so E.T. for the ancient Atari console is an exception to the rule, but that game was the pits.

I don't agree with this at all to be honest (except the E.T. thing, you're bang on there). A company can only make crappy games for so long before their reputation is shot. Tomb Raider sucked for so long that even when I saw the last one (I think it was the last one anyway) getting good reviews I find it hard to believe many long time fans had any interest (I never liked the series even when it was popular, so I can't say I ever had interest). Even with movie licenses I refuse to believe that developers set out to make a bad game. More likely it's time pressures on the release as well as input/demands from publishers and movie creators that leads to sub-par games. And lets face it, does anyone really expect a movie licensed game to be good anymore? Heck, they have to make a decent game for anyone to give a damn now, especially after the Enter the Matrix fiasco.

[Lynx]

they makes games so that it will look good to there target audience. so what might seem like a dumb game to you might be the best game ever to someone else. and then theres people who are satisfied with any game really. an example would be like asking which is better FFVII or FFVIII but lets not start that fight. some people love and hate the other and other people love them both.

now as far as production quality some creators realize games dont need amazeing graphics to be a good game. graphics dont make a game good. they help a little though.

[Rostum]

they makes games so that it will look good to there target audience. so what might seem like a dumb game to you might be the best game ever to someone else. and then theres people who are satisfied with any game really. an example would be like asking which is better FFVII or FFVIII but lets not start that fight. some people love and hate the other and other people love them both.

now as far as production quality some creators realize games dont need amazeing graphics to be a good game. graphics dont make a game good. they help a little though.

I think we were talking about poor games, not games we think are bad because we don't like the audience they are targeted towards. Graphics don't make the game, but in today's world, there are some standards you have to live up to.

[The Devil Man]

But what about companies that just have a nearly perfect track record of good games or vice versa. Everytime I pick up a new Nintendo developed game, it never disappoints me. Is it because they have such talented people and the extra money? But if that's the case, then why does this happen: There are many games on the market that had extremely high development costs, but didn't really come out to be well good. Also the recently released God Hand by Clover Studios had many talented people working on it, one of which was Shinji Mikami, the man responsible for the Res Evil games. But yet this game did not turn out to be nearly as good as Clover's previous projects.

Hmm... good point.

I haven't played God Hand yet either but I guess what others have said in this thread are right. Sometimes the concept is far better then the execution.

As for Nintendo... hmm... I don't wanna start a fanboy war here, but I guess it's because Nintendo probably genuinely cares a lot more about it's final product then a heck of a lot of other companies. I really can't think of a truly awful game made by Nintendo. Some have been 'underwhelming' like Luigi's Mansion and the Warioworld games, and some have become a little 'tired' like the Mario Party games... but none of them are bad games at all. They are not packed with glitches like games from some other developers. And the Mario Party games really depend on a players point of view. I bought 6 and 7 and loved them, though many complained they weren't as good as the first few in the series. I think Nintendo cares a lot more about it's final product.

I mean... take a look at the attitude of some developers in the West. In particular, look at PC gaming. Very few PC games get released in 'perfect' condition. In other words, they are packed with glitches and after a couple of months patches become available for download over the net. I think this attitude sucks. I think many PC developers release games, wait for players to discover the bugs and then start fixing their games. Nowadays I just wait for the 'collectors edition' to come out a year or so later before playing a game I really wanna check out.

So I guess it just depends on developers attitudes really. Some passionately care... others don't.

[Slothy]

I mean... take a look at the attitude of some developers in the West. In particular, look at PC gaming. Very few PC games get released in 'perfect' condition. In other words, they are packed with glitches and after a couple of months patches become available for download over the net. I think this attitude sucks. I think many PC developers release games, wait for players to discover the bugs and then start fixing their games. Nowadays I just wait for the 'collectors edition' to come out a year or so later before playing a game I really wanna check out.

So I guess it just depends on developers attitudes really. Some passionately care... others don't.

Keep in mind that PC's (which are the almost exclusive domain of western developers) are a completely different beast than consoles. It's easier to optimize a console game since the specs are the same for everyone who owns the console. There's no variation, whereas PC developers have to try and optimize a game to run on more types of systems than you can shake a stick at. It'd be impossible for them to make a game that runs perfectly on every PC out there. Even if they did, new PC configurations would pop up on a daily basis and you'd see patches being necessary before long anyway.

[~SapphireStar~]

They must have known something was up when they were making FFVIII lololol

... even though its become a massive hit?

[RiseToFall]

They must have known something was up when they were making FFVIII lololol

... even though its become a massive hit?

So was 50 Cent: Bulletproof, oh what a great game that was.

[Xander]

I think they know the movie games are bad but dont' care cos people will buy it, and uhh, I think they know the crazy frog game is bad >=O I guess the developers are to blame for these things anyway *shrug*

Edit - And I think you can safely say some of those games are bad, whereas FFVIII is really a matter of opinion. Well so are the others, but when a C64 game looks better than a DS game and actually has more you can do then yeah.

[Nasarian Altimeros]

They must have known something was up when they were making FFVIII lololol

... even though its become a massive hit?

Making insane amounts of money off a product which is clearly inferior isn’t exactly unheard of.

Although FFVIII isn't exactly in the same boat as some of the crap which has been mentioned so far.