Hi-Rez studios.. blaming multiplats+controllers for the death of twitch

the developers of tribes ascend have blamed the decline or demise of twitch shooters on multiplatform games

u cant twitch on a console controller.. as nobody is willing to try and bring the controller to the mouse+keyboards standards and are instead trying to drag down the superior of the two to a consoles level. and as a result the fps genre is full of tactical corridor hide-n-seek type shooters

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/02/21/tribes-ascend-dev-on-the-decline-of-the-twitch-shooter-blame-multiplatform-development/

I blame aliens.

I blame changing interests.

Well, twitch based shooters never were massive as their learning curves were far to steep for the average gamer.

Yes they are awesome, yes I prefer them, no I don't want to see them go away, but I do see why most people would rather play Call of Duty or Halo over Counterstrike and Quake. They are easier to get into, easier to enjoy, way easier to pick-up-and-play, and don't require tons of dedication to stay good at them.

A lot of old "hardcore" PC games were never that popular in the first place. It's just that gaming in general was tiny and you didn't need sales of 500k+ to break even on development costs. Not to mention the volume of games coming out each month was less than a quarter of what it is today.

Now, games cost way more to develop and people have many more choices. If they can't get into the game quickly, they can just buy another game. In the 90s, if you couldn't really get into that game you either had to learn to play it well to have fun or simply not play it. There wasn't a new game coming out next week that you could buy instead.

The market has changed. Those old twitch based shooters could survive when the market was small and the options for people were very limited. That's really not the case today.

The market is there for twitch based shooters but it's not very big. A few games can stay afloat in it, but the majority of games are going to go for much more accessible routes.

I think they are just upset that they're games don't sell as well as those "twitch" shooters, so they are trying to blame everyone else for it instead of themselves.

I think they are just upset that they're games don't sell as well as those "twitch" shooters, so they are trying to blame everyone else for it instead of themselves.

ShadowMoses900

Well, twitch based shooters never were massive as their learning curves were far to steep for the average gamer.

Yes they are awesome, yes I prefer them, no I don't want to see them go away, but I do see why most people would rather play Call of Duty or Halo over Counterstrike and Quake. They are easier to get into, easier to enjoy, way easier to pick-up-and-play, and don't require tons of dedication to stay good at them.

A lot of old "hardcore" PC games were never that popular in the first place. It's just that gaming in general was tiny and you didn't need sales of 500k+ to break even on development costs. Not to mention the volume of games coming out each month was less than a quarter of what it is today.

Now, games cost way more to develop and people have many more choices. If they can't get into the game quickly, they can just buy another game. In the 90s, if you couldn't really get into that game you either had to learn to play it well to have fun or simply not play it. There wasn't a new game coming out next week that you could buy instead.

The market has changed. Those old twitch based shooters could survive when the market was small and the options for people were very limited. That's really not the case today.

The market is there for twitch based shooters but it's not very big. A few games can stay afloat in it, but the majority of games are going to go for much more accessible routes.

Wasdie

If difficulty was the deciding factor in the popularity of a video game I don't think we'd see games like Starcraft, Dota, or CS as some of the most popular games in the world.

I imagine it has more to do with the $150 million spent on advertising CoD as the reason CoD is more popular than Tribes Ascend will ever be, and the same goes for every other big budget shooter that has a large advertising budget.

Twitch based shooters just require more dedication and effort to be "good" at, its less appealing, especially when there are so many other pick up and play games. So in a way I do agree with with Hi-Rez, may the abundance of console focused shooters may have an effect.

But I think that they are harder to pick up is more of the issue than consoles.

Well, twitch based shooters never were massive as their learning curves were far to steep for the average gamer.

Yes they are awesome, yes I prefer them, no I don't want to see them go away, but I do see why most people would rather play Call of Duty or Halo over Counterstrike and Quake. They are easier to get into, easier to enjoy, way easier to pick-up-and-play, and don't require tons of dedication to stay good at them.

A lot of old "hardcore" PC games were never that popular in the first place. It's just that gaming in general was tiny and you didn't need sales of 500k+ to break even on development costs. Not to mention the volume of games coming out each month was less than a quarter of what it is today.

Now, games cost way more to develop and people have many more choices. If they can't get into the game quickly, they can just buy another game. In the 90s, if you couldn't really get into that game you either had to learn to play it well to have fun or simply not play it. There wasn't a new game coming out next week that you could buy instead.

The market has changed. Those old twitch based shooters could survive when the market was small and the options for people were very limited. That's really not the case today.

The market is there for twitch based shooters but it's not very big. A few games can stay afloat in it, but the majority of games are going to go for much more accessible routes.

Wasdie

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

Well, twitch based shooters never were massive as their learning curves were far to steep for the average gamer.

Yes they are awesome, yes I prefer them, no I don't want to see them go away, but I do see why most people would rather play Call of Duty or Halo over Counterstrike and Quake. They are easier to get into, easier to enjoy, way easier to pick-up-and-play, and don't require tons of dedication to stay good at them.

A lot of old "hardcore" PC games were never that popular in the first place. It's just that gaming in general was tiny and you didn't need sales of 500k+ to break even on development costs. Not to mention the volume of games coming out each month was less than a quarter of what it is today.

Now, games cost way more to develop and people have many more choices. If they can't get into the game quickly, they can just buy another game. In the 90s, if you couldn't really get into that game you either had to learn to play it well to have fun or simply not play it. There wasn't a new game coming out next week that you could buy instead.

The market has changed. Those old twitch based shooters could survive when the market was small and the options for people were very limited. That's really not the case today.

The market is there for twitch based shooters but it's not very big. A few games can stay afloat in it, but the majority of games are going to go for much more accessible routes.

SW__Troll

If difficulty was the deciding factor in the popularity of a video game I don't think we'd see games like Starcraft, Dota, or CS as some of the most popular games in the world.

I imagine it has more to do with the $150 million spent on advertising CoD as the reason CoD is more popular than Tribes Ascend will ever be, and the same goes for every other big budget shooter that has a large advertising budget.

Good thing that compared to CoD, Halo, GTA, World of Warcraft, and countless Wii games, CS and Starcraft and even LoL are small. Those would be the biggest games of their respective genres. They are the most talked about gaming tournaments and in gaming culture, but in terms of their playerbases they are small when compared to current "casual" titles (using that word loosely here).

Even back in the 90s, Nintendo was selling millions of copies of Mario and Pokemon. The numbers dwarfed the major PC title's sales.

Gaming in general has grown as well. Now those "hardcore" game's player bases are larger than ever just because gaming in general has grown. Everything is selling far better today than it did in the 90s.

It's a changing market. There are still plenty of twich games and hardcore games out there. It's just that the standards are so damn good, it's hard to convince people to move away from them. Hell it took Blizzard 100 million dollars just to convince the Starcraft players to move to a modern game, and that game was practically identical to Starcraft.

Blame customers for their opinions and the fact they do not like whatever it is you're selling. I personally had fun playing the Tribes: Ascend beta. Its obvious to me that game isn't mainstream though.

[QUOTE="SW__Troll"]

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

Well, twitch based shooters never were massive as their learning curves were far to steep for the average gamer.

Yes they are awesome, yes I prefer them, no I don't want to see them go away, but I do see why most people would rather play Call of Duty or Halo over Counterstrike and Quake. They are easier to get into, easier to enjoy, way easier to pick-up-and-play, and don't require tons of dedication to stay good at them.

A lot of old "hardcore" PC games were never that popular in the first place. It's just that gaming in general was tiny and you didn't need sales of 500k+ to break even on development costs. Not to mention the volume of games coming out each month was less than a quarter of what it is today.

Now, games cost way more to develop and people have many more choices. If they can't get into the game quickly, they can just buy another game. In the 90s, if you couldn't really get into that game you either had to learn to play it well to have fun or simply not play it. There wasn't a new game coming out next week that you could buy instead.

The market has changed. Those old twitch based shooters could survive when the market was small and the options for people were very limited. That's really not the case today.

The market is there for twitch based shooters but it's not very big. A few games can stay afloat in it, but the majority of games are going to go for much more accessible routes.

Wasdie

If difficulty was the deciding factor in the popularity of a video game I don't think we'd see games like Starcraft, Dota, or CS as some of the most popular games in the world.

I imagine it has more to do with the $150 million spent on advertising CoD as the reason CoD is more popular than Tribes Ascend will ever be, and the same goes for every other big budget shooter that has a large advertising budget.

Good thing that compared to CoD, Halo, GTA, World of Warcraft, and countless Wii games, CS and Starcraft and even LoL are small. Those would be the biggest games of their respective genres. They are the most talked about gaming tournaments and in gaming culture, but in terms of their playerbases they are small when compared to current "casual" titles (using that word loosely here).

Even back in the 90s, Nintendo was selling millions of copies of Mario and Pokemon. The numbers dwarfed the major PC title's sales.

Gaming in general has grown as well. Now those "hardcore" game's player bases are larger than ever just because gaming in general has grown. Everything is selling far better today than it did in the 90s.

It's a changing market. There are still plenty of twich games and hardcore games out there. It's just that the standards are so damn good, it's hard to convince people to move away from them. Hell it took Blizzard 100 million dollars just to convince the Starcraft players to move to a modern game, and that game was practically identical to Starcraft.

That's exactly my point though.

CoD, Halo, GTA, WoW, and the Wii series of games all have way higher marketing budgets than the more difficult, but still very popular games I listed. Granted, SC2 did have a big ad campaign, but it's also played worldwide by millions.

Games like LoL, however, have reached 32 million accounts, and over 4 million unique players DAILY, and that game didn't come close to matching the ad budgets of those others. Dota was a mod, and had 20+ million unique accounts at its highest point.

Counter Strike was also the most popular shooter worldwide (if Valve is anyone to go by) before CoD4 hit.

I'm just saying it's not really a fair fight to compare a game like CoD to a game like Tribes, or to compare any game with massive advertising to one which does not have the same benefit. Tribes is basically working purely on word-of-mouth advertising, so it's not really right to say it'll never compare to CoD's sales due purely to the difficulty. There are a lot more factors involved.

Sounds as if the studio didn't make the money they wanted.

Sounds as if the studio didn't make the money they wanted.

Heirren

Their game is in beta still, and it's free to play.

This sounds more like they're trying to draw attention to their own game by seperating it from other games.

I think they are just upset that they're games don't sell as well as those "twitch" shooters, so they are trying to blame everyone else for it instead of themselves.

ShadowMoses900

You do realize their incoming game is F2P, right?

Sounds as if the studio didn't make the money they wanted.

Heirren

Wonderful logic.

You don't even know the studio we're talking about.

[QUOTE="Heirren"]

Sounds as if the studio didn't make the money they wanted.

N30F3N1X

Wonderful logic.

You don't even know the studio we're talking about.

I don't have to know. It is an obvious kick to the MW crowd. It is a way of saying "support this game or this genre isn't financially viable anymore."

Long live Quake Live!musicalmac

With titles like Tribes, Firefall and Smootmania twitch shooters seem to be making a come-back. It's not surprising though. Even in their hey day they were niche and nowadays PC is pretty much the only platform where niche games can hope to succeed

That is one of the reasons. There are still a bunch of twith shooters on the PC. CS:GO will be interesting to see happen as a crossplatform game. Tribes will be great (in the beta and it rocks). Firefall has a little bit of twitch going on. And there are plenty more.

Now-a-days, causual gamers just like their auto-aim and aim-assist, luckily those are almost nonexistent on the PC as only 1-2 ports a year have that option slip through for the SP portion of a game.

[QUOTE="musicalmac"]Long live Quake Live!Heil68

[QUOTE="N30F3N1X"]

[QUOTE="Heirren"]

Sounds as if the studio didn't make the money they wanted.

Heirren

Wonderful logic.

You don't even know the studio we're talking about.

I don't have to know. It is an obvious kick to the MW crowd. It is a way of saying "support this game or this genre isn't financially viable anymore."

twitch shooter equals GET TO THE ROCKET LAUNCHER FIRST.

But then again most fps are like that but twitch shooters are worse.
Seems like someones pissed off that they had to go free to play just to get some sales.

What about Nexuiz? Thats coming to consoles.

Long live Quake Live!musicalmac

Agreed. Although until I finally get an actually gaming rig I mostly just play against bots. My inexperience and lame computer make me look and feel terrible playing against anyone. Same goes for CS:S.

Says the people who made Global Agenda...

Twitch shooters aren't really dead though, and its just blame that doesn't belong. People just like different things, and with so many different options, hardcore PC twitch shooters aren't going to be in massive demand, but they're still being made and have an audience so I don't see how they're dead.

Seems like someones pissed off that they had to go free to play just to get some sales.

WilliamRLBaker

of course

PC gamers have been saying this for years

I find it ironic how they originally intended this game to be on Xbox 360.

well certain things die out and reappear, tastes change with time one cant expect a genre to still be at the forefront of a genre all the time.Everything comes and goes in cycles.

Every shooter is a twitch shooter.

Makes me Quake in mah boots. :twisted:

I'm okay with the way most shooters have evolved but honestly, there seems to be room for multiple types of shooter so, just sayin. :P

I blame kids.

twitch shooter equals GET TO THE ROCKET LAUNCHER FIRST.

But then again most fps are like that but twitch shooters are worse.
Seems like someones pissed off that they had to go free to play just to get some sales.

WilliamRLBaker

Congratulations, you are so ignorant you don't even know what "twitch" shooters are.

I always found twitch shooters to be the easiest, gameplay wise. Where games like Halo have a multi faceted design--short/long range, melee, vehicles, etc--twich games seemed to boil down to one thing, "HEAD SHOT." Other fps games contain this, as well.

I always found twitch shooters to be the easiest, gameplay wise. Where games like Halo have a multi faceted design--short/long range, melee, vehicles, etc--twich games seemed to boil down to one thing, "HEAD SHOT." Other fps games contain this, as well.

Heirren

[QUOTE="Heirren"]

I always found twitch shooters to be the easiest, gameplay wise. Where games like Halo have a multi faceted design--short/long range, melee, vehicles, etc--twich games seemed to boil down to one thing, "HEAD SHOT." Other fps games contain this, as well.

AdrianWerner

Do we have some concrete definition of twitch shooter? Because imo, games like Unreal--extremely fast/be killed at any second-- are the definition. Throwing elements of Halo into a game sort of changes the gameplay to where it is more relaxed/strategy oriented.

Do we have some concrete definition of twitch shooter? Because imo, games like Unreal--extremely fast/be killed at any second-- are the definition. Throwing elements of Halo into a game sort of changes the gameplay to where it is more relaxed/strategy oriented.

Heirren

The only gun in Unreal Tournament that could headshot was the sniper/lightning rifle.

UT2004 had both long and short range weapons, melee (which gives you a shield aswell), vehicles, bunnyhop and a ****load of jump-dance. You don't get "killed at any second" if you have a clue of what you are doing and some reflexes.

You don't get "killed at any second" if you have a clue of what you are doing and some reflexes.

N30F3N1X

I haven't played the game in a LONG LONG time, but what I mean to say is that the entire game feels different from other fps games--the way it moves and the control scheme/etc. And I disagree--the game moves so fast that it does have that "be killed at any second" feeling.

I haven't played the game in a LONG LONG time, but what I mean to say is that the entire game feels different from other fps games--the way it moves and the control scheme/etc. And I disagree--the game moves so fast that it does have that "be killed at any second" feeling.

Heirren

It didn't feel that different when it came out. There was still the Quake-like climate in FPSs. It sure does feel different now if that's what you're saying.

And by "be killed any second" I mean be seen first, get killed first like in CoD. There's no skill involved in that, no juggling, no way to escape - you're dead. In UT you can still escape by juggling properly. Unless you're 1vs5 or get face to face with a flak gun.

And by "be killed any second" I mean be seen first, get killed first like in CoD. There's no skill involved in that, no juggling, no way to escape - you're dead. In UT you can still escape by juggling properly. Unless you're 1vs5 or get face to face with a flak gun.

N30F3N1X

Well, that is what I am getting at. THAT is the twitch nature of the game. The level design of the games also factors in---COD is downright garbage.

Aiming down the sight and emphasis on realism also made a deep impact on twitch based shooters too. Although it is not as popular at least we're starting to see them making a come back.

twitch shooter equals GET TO THE ROCKET LAUNCHER FIRST.

But then again most fps are like that but twitch shooters are worse.
Seems like someones pissed off that they had to go free to play just to get some sales.

WilliamRLBaker