Yeah the whole ‘New IP’ canard is just an incredibly bad excuse. New IP is all the more reason to take extra care of that first impression you make on the public. And yes, they could’ve seen this reception coming miles away.
These people will be the same who will say “Yeah but see, the original Brink didn’t get traction, that’s why the sequel failed”.
[QUOTE=tokamak;388275]Yeah the whole ‘New IP’ canard is just an incredibly bad excuse. New IP is all the more reason to take extra care of that first impression you make on the public. And yes, they could’ve seen this reception coming miles away.
[/QUOTE]Yeah because most people working on a New IP have limitless time, money, and man power to polish it to perfection. You funny.
that is not the point he was trying to make. Even though Brink was a new IP there were a number of things that could have been done to improve how it was received. So far SD hasn’t really been making public statements about this. It’s frustrating to those of us who actually enjoy and want to keep playing the game, but can’t really do so because of the lack of players and all of the annoyances that Brink comes with.
You can’t just blame it on, “this was a new IP, so it’s not like we had the funding.” A lot of the biggest mistakes Brink makes would have impacted an already established IP just as negatively. They are absolute faults that are exacerbated and magnified by the fact that Brink is a new IP, not diminished or excusable because of it.
For comparison, Unreal Tournament 3 was a game that shared a lot in common with how Brink was received. The interface was horrid, patches infrequent, and communication with the development team wasn’t very clear. The community vanished as a result. It’s a good game, but the little things add up. And UT is one of the most well-known and well established IPs in the genre. They had plenty of money to throw at it.
We should not be excusing a new IPs failure simply because it’s a new IP. Nor should we be excusing the failure of sequels just because their predecessors didn’t fare well. If they make a Brink 2 and it tanks, it’s safe to say it would be because Brink 2 was a bad game.
In other words, Brink didn’t need to be perfect. It just needed to be far better than it is now. And if we can’t at least expect that from our games then we really can’t expect anything.
They haven’t build any credit and can’t afford mess ups, so more time and man power to polish it near perfection is tantamount. Otherwise you might as well not bother at all.
If you set the costs of extra polish, better testing and the few hurt feelings of spineless interns getting the boot against the enormous long-therm profit of a well-supported franchise then the costs are negligible.
Though not a new IP as such but Batman Arkham Asylum was made by a relatively unknown developer and didn’t have a massive budget from what I gather. However they produced a cracking game that was highly crafted and polished and has spawned a mini franchise with the recent release of Arkham City with more titles sure to follow.
Gears of War is a relatively new franchise, though I’ve never played it but I assume it was same situation, you gotta start somewhere, get it right and you’re onto a winner.
Saints Row, again quite new, the first game got average reviews from memory, like Brink, it get a sequel that faired better and recently got another sequel that seems to be doing even better.
Also how the hell do yearly updates have unlimited time, money and man power as you are insinuating, I’d like to know how they could have unlimited time to get a game released for next year…
For the sake of fairness I think we must take into account the advantage of being a launch title.
If you want recent games that are original IP and did well: Borderlands. Still getting more play than brink on PC.
Torchlight. Same as above.
Both of which are going to soon be launching number 2 in their series.
“New IP” may hinder a game slightly, but not much. New IPs can still do really really well. Especially from known publisher and developers. Rage seems to be doing well in spite of it being a new IP. It’s still getting played a fair amount.
Dead Island is another example of new IP doing well. There’s plenty of new things doing well on PC (these are all based of steam’s stats).
“New IP” is a crutch of an excuse.
New IP for a game based on existing games, by a company with a history in game development lols. New IP on console would make some sense… but even then consoles have plenty of team based class objective shooters.
:} we all see things a different way. hell if bethesda just drops another pretty dime they made with skyrim and put some funding into brink things could really shape up. but money is a thang, and its been a minute yah know? just drop an AD somewhere Tv i dunno? and offering the dlcs could be a tight marketing scheme to make stoopid idiots buy the game. sales sales sales cause 1/100 that buy it might actually like it.
[QUOTE=*goo;388147]Of course other games have attrition but I can’t recall a single game that’s had attrition anywhere near as bad as Brink. Can you?
Like I said already, the cost of developing further content for a currently small fan-base in the hope that it will attract a bigger fan-base to turn profit is incredibly slim. Given the general feedback across the web, being that the game just isn’t that good (regardless of platform); it would be a risk so massive that I’d be willing to eat my hat if it wasn’t loss making.
They’d be better off putting their time and money into their next game. Which I’m sure they are. This Ark has sailed.[/QUOTE]
Duke Nukem Forever continues to churn out the DLC and from all reports it’s one of the biggest disappointments of last year. Not saying that SD should follow suit with Brink, but it’s understandably confusing that an absolutely horrible game continues to spew out DLC while one that’s at least solidly in the middle of the pack gets jack.
Edit: 4 Stars!
[QUOTE=nephandys;389824]Duke Nukem Forever continues to churn out the DLC and from all reports it’s one of the biggest disappointments of last year. Not saying that SD should follow suit with Brink, but it’s understandably confusing that an absolutely horrible game continues to spew out DLC while one that’s at least solidly in the middle of the pack gets jack.
Edit: 4 Stars![/QUOTE]Yeah. What happens to the rest of the Brink Site Map showing all the grey areas? C’mon, man!
Have you played DNF? It feels like 13 years of “cool” ideas stuck together with spunk and sweat. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was years of DLC left in that game on the cutting room floor. In short, the DLC is done, cost to push it out is minimal.
[QUOTE=nephandys;389824]Duke Nukem Forever continues to churn out the DLC and from all reports it’s one of the biggest disappointments of last year. Not saying that SD should follow suit with Brink, but it’s understandably confusing that an absolutely horrible game continues to spew out DLC while one that’s at least solidly in the middle of the pack gets jack.
Edit: 4 Stars![/QUOTE]
http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=57900q22350&from=0
While Brink has more spikes of play, DNF actually has maintained a (admittedly small) community on the PC. Probably mostly MP with people liking the whole “oldschool DM feel”.
If you look at the graph there were 2 months of “dead space” for Brink where Duke fans kept chugging along.
Ofc this is all PC-centric. Apparently Duke was far worse on console due to load times that the PC severely reduced.
I have not played it and was not personally saying it’s a bad game. It’s on my list of games to play since I played the original when I was just a kid. However, the reception of the game was largely negative, even more so in my experience than Brink.
However, you make a really solid point that considering the game was developed over the course of 13 years there’s probably a ton of content that never made it into the game and can be used as DLC.
To clarify, I used “cool” in quotations because many of the ideas are far from it. 
Someone obviously thought they were though, for me many felt awkward, embarrassing or just plain boring. Occasionally though, the old Duke level design and gameplay shines through the barrage of crap they buried it in.
I enjoyed it from a nostalgic point of view. A lot of the crude jokes made the stupid kid in me giggle. I’m still dubious about the DLC though and the MP side of things, while nice with a bunch of collectables and challenges, just doesn’t cut the mustard IMO, but it’s still popular enough to have about 500 people playing it every day (PC).
Some (much) of the crudeness comes off as creepy IMO (the twins at the start) although I admit there are some occasions where it raises a childish giggle (the wall boobies). Duke, for me at least, was this kick ass character first and a titty lover second, DNF in many places turns that on its head and Duke comes off like someone that needs to be on a sex offenders register. I’m surprised you don’t need to spank one off to regenerate your health.
But as I said, underneath that you still have the old Duke trying to get out. I’ve not played MP but I can imagine that sans the storyline it plays in a familiar way and that’s usually enough to keep players.