4e DM's rule call and 4e video game

[Kaodi]

I have been asking, or more like begging, for an epic turn-based D&D CRPG set it Eberron since I got into Eberron years ago. I am "obsessed" insofar that whenever such a topic arises I have to get in on the action, hehehe...

Turn-based can be as addictive as anything real time has to offer. I got a DSi a couple months ago, with Disgaea DS as one of the games... I have put in over 150 hours into it.

As for what works... Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to try and determine what makes good games sell badly rather than what makes games that sell well good.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Videogame publishers are stuck in a Hollywood mindset: bank on what has come before.

That may change as indie games are on the rise through the console download markets (as well as online and free-to-play models).

Squareenix gets a pass because they can do whatever they want.

Yeah, 4e could totally have a good game like this.

But since they're saddled with Atari's boneheaded game design for a few more years at least, they probably won't.

The publishers are actually a lot worse then Hollywood.

Look at most indy productions or low budget films, follow one of the lines, and you'll reach a big publishers. Hollywood understands that niche markets exist, and that there's money to be made in them, so instead of trying to force everything into one umbrella as the video game industry is, they actively branch out to a bunch of small umbrella, knowing that profit is profit.

The movie drag Me To Hell was amazing. It was also risky, in that it's branch of comedy/humor hadn't been done for some time, and it was a big departure from the hordes of violence porn that had become the horror genre. And it did fantastically. It's also something that you wouldn't see come out of the video industry.

My ranting aside, your last bit hits the biggest problem square on. Atari has the license. Which means you won't be seeing a good D&D game for some time longer, as the good ones that've come out while they've held the lisence have been due more to the developers actively fighting against Atari then working with them.

 

[Kaodi]

Did I also mention that these sorts of threads tend to die all too quickly with too little discussion?

I mean, most of us do not make video games, because they have not the skills nor necessarily the patience to acquire those skills (or use those skills), but it is nice to be able to talk abount concepts and stuff like that, which I do not think is a completely futile exercise.