Obi-Wan's Graphics

[Wilhuf]

Game developers do not agree that editors and the ability to make modifications to games have no impact on sales. Brandon Reinhart of Epic Games says :

 

'With professional quality mods like Counterstrike for Half-Life, companies are waking up to the fact that good mods sell games. Take a look at the GameSpy stats page. There are more people playing CounterStrike for Half-Life than Quake 2, Quake 3, and Unreal Tournament combined. '

 

source GameSpy http://www.gamespy.com/articles/moddevweek_b.shtm

 

Who's talking about the end of the world if no editor ships? Asking for an editor is not asking for the world, and the world doesn't end if LEC doesnt deliver. It *would* be a major letdown for a few people (would-be Obi-Wan map editors) and have a long term negative effect for many (people who want to play those user maps).

 

Wilhuf

 

[This message has been edited by Wilhuf (edited February 28, 2000).]

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

So are you saying ObiWan will fail if it doesn't allow editing? I'm saying it won't matter one way or the other.

 

'With professional quality mods like Counterstrike for Half-Life, companies are waking up to the fact that good mods sell games. Take a look at the GameSpy stats page. There are more people playing CounterStrike for Half-Life than Quake 2, Quake 3, and Unreal Tournament combined. '

 

This statement doesn't prove a thing, honestly. That's just the number of people PLAYING. That isn't the number of units sold, or profits accumulated.

 

How do we know people are buying it in spite of the editing, and not because of it?

 

What percentage did sales of Half Life units increase with the release of CounterStrike (or any other mod)?

 

What I'm saying is that editing only benefits the people who already bought the game and liked it. That doesn't exactly do anything for the people who hated the game, or didn't buy it. How many people are going to bother getting a sucky game, just so they can go online and download a mod that they "heard" was good?

 

I guess what it all comes down to is that we want editing for ObiWan, right? I have no problem with that. I'm not against it.

 

I'm saying that a game company has no strong motivation to include editing. None.

 

Sure it would probably increase some hype on the 'net scene (that's a small portion of the folks who get the game, and usually only applies to multiplayer games) assuming the game was alreay well recieved, but again, it's for people who already are going to get the game anyway, or already have it.

 

It's not like I'm going to buy a game twice because it features a good mod or two.

 

The only people that would benefit from it would be those in the "community."

 

I understand the point made about how while a tiny percentage edit, and an even smaller group release quality mods, alot more people than that (indeed anyone) can use them. However, alot of folks don't hop right on the 'net, go to the official site, and download mods. Alot of people just play the game that came in the box, and that's it. Most people get tired of it without even scratching the surface of what the online community/editing scene may offer them.

 

Official mission packs and addons (commercial ones) are another story. Those sell like hotcakes (if the initial game sold well). You don't have to have a good internet connection to get them, you just walk into the store or order it from a catalouge and you're set. But that's commercial editing (realize, you can have mods, and not have free editing).

 

Our argument really goes nowhere, because all we'll keep doing is saying "does too" and "does not." I don't see any evidence to back up the claim that a strong editing community or even one good free mod released for a game increases that games sales, or that by the lack of a strong editing community or good mods, the sales for a game decrease. I'm not asking for hearsay about some developers opinion of whether or not editing is good for a game's image.

 

If you can show me some figures and statistics that show sales of a game increasing or decreasing based on editing, I'll be happy to take a look, otherwise, I stick to my previous statements.

 

Kurgan

 

[This message has been edited by Darth Kurgan (edited February 29, 2000).]

[Wilhuf]

A quote (not hearsay) from an Epic games developer means more to me than the speculations of a gamer. It's a concrete indication of industry thinking, rather than the gamer's thinking on the subject. It's also a solid indicator that Epic does pay attention to the availability of user made mods and maps, and they have made the connection between them and sales of their own product.

 

BTW LEC plugged their little skirmish editor tool as a feature in Xwing Alliance. Amazingly, some at LEC have adopted the thinking that editors are a good thing™ and can be used as part of promotion. Presumably this was as much a marketing decision as a response to fan requests for editing.

 

The entire Team Fortress Classic (TFC) product for Half Life was the direct descendent of a user-made modification to the original Quake (Team Fortress). Sierra have used TFC as a commercial product in their promotional campaign for Half Life. I believe they even sold TFC in stores as its own product, although it was also available as a free download. Team Fortress 2, another commercial descendent, is slated for release this year.

 

Without an editor, neither Team Fortress, TFC, nor Team Fortress 2 would exist. A fine example of how the availability of an editor for the end-user can have a direct impact on future sales and even professional product development.

 

Please feel free to provide a quote from a game developer that indicates that an editor does not effect FPS game sales.

 

Wilhuf

 

[This message has been edited by Wilhuf (edited February 29, 2000).]

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

A quote (not hearsay) from an Epic games developer means more to me than the speculations of a gamer.

 

"Hearsay" means "what I heard from another person." Ie: you don't know it's true, you only are reporting what somebody else said (they might be right or wrong, you have no way of knowing).

 

Okay then, I guess anything I say is meaningless to you then. I'll stop trying to convince you I'm right. Unless I can find a quote from another game developer that supports my position of course. ; )

 

Kurgan

[Guest Vagabond]

I hate to butt in Kurgan, but:

 

...Okay then, I guess anything I say is meaningless to you then...

 

I didn't preceive that as Wilhuf's message. My interpretation was that the statements of actual game developers have more credibility than us mere gamers.

 

Similarly, when asking for medical advice, that of a trained medical doctor would be far more credible than my own, a mere web developer.

 

So no, I wouldn't agree that anything you have to say is meaningless. However, with regard to the computer gaming industry I'd say your statements are less credible than someone who actually develops games for a living. No need to be so melodramatic

 

 

 

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VagabondNomad on the Zone...

 

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players...

 

 

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

No problem Vag. ; )

 

I guess I see that not as a fact, but only an opinion by a game developer. If he's right, then how does that explain all the highly successful games that lack editing out there? It doesn't. That's a big hole in the argument. It would be more proper to say that SOME games benefit from editing. However, I still don't see any sales figures supporting this, only a couple of people's opinions.

 

It sounds like he's trying to put his finger on a reason why Half Life was so successful, that is, it had a great mod community that produced some great things. However, I think it's a little too simplistic to say that the success of a game is based on editing.

 

Half Life apparently was widely liked for the game it was, plus it had several mission packs released for it (official commercial addon packs). It also got great reviews. Not to mention it was based on the successful Quake2 engine.

 

Epic put alot of emphases on Unreal Tournament's editing, primarily I think because of the hype surrounding the editing for Half Life (persumably since it was mentioned).

 

However, I disagree with his opinion. He's not a market analyist, and neither am I, but I don't think he's right. If you trust him though, fine.

 

Kurgan

[Wilhuf]

Hearsay is the report of someone's words through a third party (e.g., 'well, so and so said that so and so') A quote is, well, a quote, a direct statement by the speaker. Exactly what I've provided through a URL to a published paper. Reinharts words, not mine. Enough on the irrelevent semantics.

 

My reliance on game industry members for information isn't a judgement on the value of forum participants, despite some member's oversensitivity. It isn't about you. It's about Obi-Wan. It's a simple and reasonable comparison.

 

The fact is you have no idea what I am or what I am not. You don't know my vocation. Bad enough that you make speculations about the gaming industry. It's inappropriate to speculate on the occupation of a participant in a discussion board, especially when it's an attempt at discrediting his or her competence. I'll resist the urge to comment on the quality of the moderation in this forum at this point.

 

The pattern is pretty clear. When an amateur runs out of aruguements, usually they revert to attacking the character of the person who holds the opposite opinion.

 

*sigh*

 

Half Life was successful precisely because it was so customizable and editable. Team Fortress Classic and the impending Team Fortress 2 (both commercial sellable products) wouldn't even exist if it werent for a user-created modification for Quake, Team Fortress. Team Fortress wouldn't exist without editing tools for unpaid end-users. Half Life is an all around excellent example of how the availability of editing tools in the hands of end-users can directly lead to the development of successful, sellable gaming products.

 

In reality a myriad of very succesful games, especially in but not limited to the FPS genre, have in fact shipped with editors. Unreal, UnrealTournament, Tribes, many of the Quake Engine Games, StarCraft, Warcraft, I'm sure there are many others.

 

I see that no concrete game industry representative statements have been provided to this forum that reason how editors don't improve sales.

 

Wilhuf

[Guest m_w_noname]

"Half Life was successful precisely because it was so customizable and editable. "

 

As a game developer I have to say that I find that statement pretty offensive. It discounts the hard work and YEARS of design effort put in by the good people at valve. Not to say that editing doesn't help sales in some unmeasurable way, but could we be overlooking the obvious here that a game has great sales BECAUSE IT'S DESIGNED WELL, had lots of talented nad hard working people slaving on it, and well... is kick A## to play?

 

I think that support of editing in games is pretty cool, but if working on an editor and tools dilutes the main objective - releasing a very cool game which is a blast to play, there is a problem.

 

I think that one thing that hasn't been pointed out here yet is how many EDITABLE games there are that were released and months later were in the bargain bin?

 

My personal opinions on the subject...

[Guest Conor]

I am sure I am not a minority, in that I love Half-Life and Jedi Knight and I don't bother with editing or (for the most part) downloading anything edited.

 

Actually, I downloaded my very first edited things for Jedi Knight just yesterday (Spork and Art of the Lightsaber). I haven't used any of them yet, but a group I joined suggested spork so I am going to give it a shot. I only downloaded They Hunger for HL just recently, and it was my first.

 

My point is that I doubt all that many people really care about editing. It is a good thing, and it should definitely be included in Obi-Wan, but it will not influence my decision to buy the game in the slightest. It is not a priority in the least (just a bonus, and maybe not an important one). That could be just me, but I don't think it is.

 

If LEC can release another great game and also make it editable, that is great, but editing is not especially important to me.

 

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"Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words."

-St. Francis of Assisi

 

[This message has been edited by Conor (edited March 01, 2000).]

[Wilhuf]

You won't be receiving an apology for my statement. Enough with the fragile egos. This is not about you. It's about Obi-Wan.

 

If anything, a 'thank you for the complement' is more in order. The foresight of Valve (and Id) programmers in including editing tools is testimony to their talent, and in no way detracts from the quality of the game or their efforts.

 

No, noone has mentioned how many games that shipped with an editor have ended up in the bargain bin. I'd like to know which did.

 

Has anyone in this forum suggested that editing should be the #1 top priority for any game?

 

Many consumers I'm sure would not care about game editing since it's beyond them. As stated earlier, a small group of (hopefully talented) individuals who bother to learn the tools and make modifications to existing games are likely the most concerned. It is their work (often taken as granted) which beneifts hundreds of other gamers.

 

Many consumers I'm sure do care about the availability of user-made mods and addons to keep their interest peaked. (For the nth time, CounterStrike for Half Life is a good example.)

 

Conor, my saber weilding friend (have I seen you in the Draken forums?), you *are* in the minority. There are more Counterstrike (a user-made mod) players online than Unreal Tournament and Quake3 Combined.

 

Without a published editor, the availability of these types of user-made addons will suffer.

 

Wilhuf

 

[This message has been edited by Wilhuf (edited March 01, 2000).]

[Guest Conor]

I can accept that online play for certain games is dominated by edited material.

 

I downloaded CS, but I haven't got around to playing it yet. I hear it is exceptional though.

 

Online play is another thing I do not care deeply about (give me a cable modem and I will change my mind in a hurry though). I simply do not like the lag, and thus rarely play any game online. I have been trying UT online (I bought the game for the single player, believe it or not ) and, even though I can thoroughly kick most people's asses, I still don't enjoy it that much because of the lag.

 

JK runs well, and I will be trying HL with that 'clan' I joined soon. If HL runs anywhere near as good as JK online then I will probably get into Counter Strike.

 

Nope, I can guarentee you haven't seen me on the Drakan forums, as I have never been there. I didn't get past playing the demo for that game (other games I wanted, which I was sure would be better, came first).

 

 

 

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"Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words."

-St. Francis of Assisi

[Wilhuf]

Sorry, confused you with another 'Conor Mcleoud' who always haunted a Draken board over on http://www.draken.net

 

Unreal 1 has really cleaned up its netcode from the original disaster. UT's net performance seemed a lot better even than the updated Unreal 1. Large (~16 player) multiplayer assault games online in UT are a pretty thrilling experience.

 

I have yet to play a stable JK game with more than five players online. Presumably none of the maps that shipped with the game is reallly designed for, say 8 players or more, although there are probably some user made maps that might work.

 

Wilhuf

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

I'm not trying to be sensitive here, just trying to see a balance.

 

If this guy knows what he's talking about (ie: a member of Epic knows the secret to another company's game's success) then I'll accept that.

 

However, in principle, I still disagree with him. The evidence I present is all the other games on the market that prove that editable games that are successful are the exception, rather than the rule. If you can show me some facts and figures that prove instead that a NEW TREND or something like that is showing that editing is making games increase in sales, and is the sole factor in their success etc, then I'll definately come over to your side.

 

All this definately affects ObiWan. If this guy is right, and developers ARE waking up to the FACT that good mods sell games (notice he didn't say "a strong free editing community"), then we can expect LEC to "wake up" and make some "good mods" for ObiWan to sell more games. Right? If not, then I guess either LEC is still asleep to the industry standard, or this guy's theory is not based on sensible foundation.

 

It's hearsay when I get it. Oh, I see that Wilhuf (excuse me) told me that on a website he read a quote from some guy at Epic that proves editing made Half Life a success and good mods sell games. And that somehow proves that unless ObiWan offers free editing to the public, it won't sell many copies.

 

I think you can speak for the quote, but it's more of a stretch to apply it in this situation. I find it hard to believe that ObiWan would have all X things going for it, but because they decided to leave out free editing (this doesn't stop them from making their own mods to sell or whatnot) that it will drop over the edge and people will just not buy it.

 

As we have seen with other recent games, it won't necessarily be a matter of "patching the game to allow editing." All LEC has to do to prevent editing is issue a liscense agreement with every copy of the game that says "Don't edit and distribute any mods or levels for this game" and then refuse to release any technical documentation or commercial editors. Then boom, there goes your editing community. Most people will respect the rights of the game company, and there will be a general lack of interest.

 

All the game company has to do to allow editing is make it so in their liscense agreement. Tough as it may be, fans will find a way to edit, once they're given the okay (well the developers can help be leaving certain parts of the code modifiable).

 

And I never said we should stop this debate for fear of hurting anyone's feelings. I just don't see anything more coming out of this, honestly. Either we agree that ObiWan must have editing, or we don't. What else is there?

 

Kurgan

 

[This message has been edited by Darth Kurgan (edited March 04, 2000).]

[Wilhuf]

There's simply no reason to expect editing should be a sole factor in improving the sales of a game. There are too many other factors influencing gamers' purchasing decisions (e.g., the gamers' available $, game price, game genre, story, advertising, packaging, graphics, publisher, reputation, word-of mouth, experience playing a demo, reviews, system requirements, etc.) It's foolish to insist someone prove such an absurd theory.

 

So far the only example made here of the 'benefit' in not shipping an editor is that LEC saves some cost in time and labor by doing nothing. This is a savings the gamer will unlikely enjoy in terms of a lower product price. Instead, the benefit is presented in this forum as profits to LEC.

 

I've provided some good reasons why the Obi-Wan 'communtiy' could benefit from an editor.

 

I've tried to suggest it doesn't have to be a zero sum game for LEC. In other words, providing an editor to the user community does not represent pure cost to LEC. There could in fact be pickup sales and certainly longevity of the online community as a result. The demonstration was made in the case of Half Life.

 

Again, I have yet to hear in this forum any concrete examples of FPS games that sold well that didn't ship with an editor. Well, as I said earlier, I suppose Deer Hunter might not have had an editor...

 

The discussion may not matter much, if the Gamestar article Neumi mentions at http://www.jediknight.net/mboard/Forum2/HTML/000230.html is correct. No editor will ship with Obi-Wan according to his translation. (Now that is a good example of hearsay, since the direct German text isn't provided.)

 

Just for clarification. I provided the Reinhart quote to show one industry member's opinion on how an editor could help sell games. I did not provide it as an example of how the lack of an editor could harm game sales, although there was some hearsay earlier that I was attempting to use the quote that way.

 

Yes LEC has fallen asleep with regard to leading industry 'standards.' I think they may have been nodding off as early as Jedi Knight (no DS, no editing tools).

 

Wilhuf

 

p.s., who is Winwulf? It hurts my feelings even more to see my nickname butchered than to be told in speculation that I'm ignorant because I'm not a market analyst.

 

[This message has been edited by Wilhuf (edited March 02, 2000).]

[Guest rapina]

your nickname is hard to recall...

I'm mean What is a... winl... win..er.hmmm..

see what I mean?

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

Um,

The pattern is pretty clear. When an amateur runs out of aruguements, usually they revert to attacking the character of the person who holds the opposite opinion.

 

Huh?

 

Yes, yes, we understand that simply insulting somebody outright, just because you disagree with them on some issue is pointless.

 

There are those who, when they run out of arguments, resort to attacking the character of the person who holds the opposite opinion. Oops! I don't consider myself one of those people.

 

I wasn't personally attacking anyone. If you were a market analyist or a game developer, then I was in error to say you were not, however, I think that statistically, the chances of me being wrong in that regard are quite high.

 

How do you know I'm not one of those myself? That's just a cyclical argument. By your insistance that editing increases sales, and in fact Half Life's success is based entirely on editing.. proves.. what? Everything you have been saying hedges on this conclusion (I don't consider your evidence thus far as being valid, but let's say it is for the moment).

 

So let's say you're right, let's say Half Life was successful precisely because it was so editable. All that proves is that HL is the exception to the rule.

 

Please tell me what your point is in all this opposition rhetoric.

 

I see that no concrete game industry representative statements have been provided to this forum that reason how editors don't improve sales.

 

The "evidence" is simply the sales record. According to gaming magazines which list the top selling games for a period, I have noticed that the top games were not dominated by those that had strong editing communities, and the top games were not necessarily editable games. So, if there is no hard and fast rule about editing, I conclude that editing does not have a significant effect on sales.

 

Perhaps that guy you quoted meant that since HL was so popular, in the future, games with editing will tend to do alot better. If this is true, we should see a growing trend of top-selling games providing for a substantial editing community in each case.

 

Then I would be forced to change my statements to say that in the PAST, editing has not been the determining factor in the success or failure of a game, but that in the future, it may end up being this way (that of course would really only apply to PC games, not arcade or console games, which make up a substantial amount of the gaming industry).

 

Kurgan

 

[This message has been edited by Darth Kurgan (edited March 04, 2000).]

[Guest rapina]

This time you only needed 90 posts to catch the idea.

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

You're cute rapina, and that's why I love ya. ; )

[Guest rapina]

I used to say that to trinity2k...

 

[Guest Darth Kurgan]

Wow, 93 posts. Let's keep this going.

 

Oh yeah?! Well ObiWan won't have dedicated servers.. studies show that dedicated servers are considered "cool" and will Obiwan have them? LEC is ASLEEP, so NO!

 

(throws chair)

 

Kurgan

[Guest Captain_Ramen]

Fact: Most, if not all FPS's do not prevent editing in the license agreement. So what if Tomb Raider isn't editable? No one gives a crap about that. Wolf3D, Duke3D, Doom, Quake, Dark Forces, Unreal, the list goes on and on. I'm not saying we should have out-of-the-box editing, but telling us 'no, you can't edit it cause we're a bunch of bastards' is just plain mean.

 

Fact: LEC is a crappy place to work. No other successful gaming company behaves the way they do.

 

Fact: The JK dev team wanted to give us out-of-the-box editing, but LF said no. At least they were able to liberally comment all the code.

 

LucasFilm is bucking the trend by being tightasses about their filmrights. These guys just love to shut down sites like tatooine.com, etc.

 

You know, there is a way for LF and LEC to make a ton of money by making a game editable. Step 1: Set up LEC only dedicated servers, battle.net style. Step 2: Put lots of ads all over the place. PepsiCo would pay big bucks to reach hypnotized gamers waiting for a game to load. Step 3: reword the EULA to allow editors to distribute their work through media such as PC Gamer, ala HL Darkstar by Manke. Step 4: Hire some guys, preferrably from the community, to approve mods for play on the servers (keeps out the poor quality levels and illicit material). Step 5: Sit back and rake in the money.

 

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Increase your rate of exploitation with relative surplus value!

 

Webmaster,

Outpost D-34

 

[Guest m_w_noname]

"Fact: LEC is a crappy place to work. No other successful gaming company behaves the way they do."

 

Have you worked at lec?

 

[Guest Captain_Ramen]

No, but I've talked to a bunch of people that did, namely Huebner, Borkmans, and Gresko. Besides, why do you think their best people have left in drones?

 

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Increase your rate of exploitation with relative surplus value!

 

Webmaster,

Outpost D-34

 

[Guest Heidi Clogs]

A Good game doesn't need to be able to be edited for it to sell well. Editing is a nive option (I luv editing jk myself) but they game shouldn't rely on this option for it to be a success!!

 

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Now you will feel the power of my clogs!