How does StarCraft 2 release date impact NS2?
Soul_Rider
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
With Blizzard announcing a June release date for SC2, will you have to perform a slight restructuring of your release plans? I see a potential conflict of interests with people's money if they come out within a few months of each other, and while this doesn't harm the money made from pre-orders, will it impact the release sales market?
Interested on the opinions.
Interested on the opinions.
Comments
I don't think the Dev's will bother much.
It would make a lot of sense if NS2 would avoid the big hitters though. SC2 has a june release date and frankly, I don't think NS2 would be out by then. The alpha would be, but not the full game.
It would make a lot of sense if NS2 would avoid the big hitters though. SC2 has a june release date and frankly, I don't think NS2 would be out by then. The alpha would be, but not the full game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Even SC2 and... SC2, coming out together isn't neccesarily a problem as they are almost polar opposites when it comes to the style of RTS.
Any release date has its ups and downs, I'm sure UWE has taken market considerations into account, or at least paid someone else to.
If it did happen, I'd hope that an indie game isn't impacted much by a juggernaut like SC2.
That said, I agree that if SC2 is being released around June, NS2 won't have anything to worry about. NS2 is awhile away.
If you don't make any deeper thoughts about what you buy next - you just buy a well-known game with good marketing. Some friends heard about Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, but nothing about NS2. They tried to figure out if they should buy SC2, D3 or both. Now where they have heard about NS2, they are thinking about it too.
So <b><!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->publicity<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> is an important factor.
That's the basic. If people know about NS2, they can start thinking about, where they'll spend their money.
But only a small group will start a research about different games. Someone has to show them the style of NS2 and has to tell them some of the great facts we know about it. "Someone" is in most cases a very big company, what can spend a lot of money in it - much more then UWE can. "Someone" is not anyone - "Someone" is you! ;)
None of the people I know that play RTS games are into shooters at all, really. Although... a lot of the people that play NS also play RTS games, so it does work in that direction I suppose.
so those people that play ns and also play rts don't play rts? :P
on with the thread, remember ns2 is only 20 dollar, which might cause people instead of buying the 2 big titles to chose to buy 1 big title and ns2 on the cheap (sc2 and diablo 3 will prolly all be 60 dollar)
I see it completely the other way: If you play <acronym title='Real Time Strategy'>RTS</acronym> and <acronym title='First Person Shooter'>FPS</acronym> - and that's what many gamers do (you can see that on many LAN-parties) - You aren't interested in the genre, but in the style of a game. And here are a lot of similarities...
I play RTS and FPS games. Plus sims and 4X and turn-based strat. Oh, and DotA. And indies.
In theory yes there will always be genre/style conflicts since I have never met someone who only plays Strategy or only plays FPS. It's a matter of how much you think the overlap is in comparison to your total fanbase/target audience.
Heh, I didn't really mean it that way. The people I know that game: tend to like shooters, and also other games as long as their pace isn't too slow OR they like RTS games and other games that were not too fast or too competitive. Whenever I tried to get people in the 2nd camp to play NS, they'd be put-off by the speed of combat and the fact that you were fighting other players instead of the computer. Whereas one of my ex-roommates that plays shooters still plays NS every once in a while.
I always thought it had to do with what games you played as a kid. I grew up playing Doom 2 and Q2 over dialup, so keyboard controls and fast action is like my natural environment. If you just played Final Fantasy on PS or something like that then this kind of game (NS) might just be too overwhelming. Just a theory tho.
I've converted a hardcore FF player (i.e. best Black Mage in FFXI and has played all FFs) into a DotA+FPS gamer as well.
While I will admit some people gravitate towards different genres, I think most actual hardcore gamers enjoy all the genres. That being said, they all have their core game that they absolutely rule at. For example, I'm pretty crummy at fighting games, but that doesn't stop me from getting in some SSB with friends.
It's probably the "pro" problem. Some people become "pro" at a certain game/genre and don't like moving to a new one because their skill set doesn't transfer.
That's pretty much what I see in all this hullabaloo about why aliens MUST have bunnyhopping (and not, say, some sort of new movement mechanic), and the main reason I'm completely opposed to it...
I always thought it had to do with what games you played as a kid. I grew up playing Doom 2 and Q2 over dialup, so keyboard controls and fast action is like my natural environment. If you just played Final Fantasy on PS or something like that then this kind of game (NS) might just be too overwhelming. Just a theory tho.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you never seen pro rts players, or played online, the pace those people game at is much faster than a mere fps where there is time between klls
I think NS2 would appeal more to the FPS crowd. it is more an FPS with RTS elements in it but SC2 is wholly RTS. Very different.
Yeah, when top Terran players have 400+ APM, you know they're on an entirely different level.
With regards to the question posed by the thread, if anything, I could see SC2 attracting more interest in the game than taking sales away. Players who pick up SC2 for it's sci-fi setting and gameplay may, after finishing the single player and tiring of the multiplayer, be interested in another sci-fi game that shares some elements (such as resource gathering and opposing races playing extremely differently). I can well imagine a Zerg player watching one of his Ultralisks rip a squad of marines apart and thinking "Man, I wish I could play as something like that!", or a Terran player wishing they too could gun down Mutalisks from a first person perspective. Then they see a game that lets them do something very similar to what they're seeking, and for a low price too.
The one possible cloud to this silver lining is the Starcraft map editor; already Blizzard have shown that it is infinitely variable and able to create a plethora of different maps including FPS style ones. Two reasons give me cause for hope here however. Firstly, it will take time for these maps to come out, especially if it requires whole new textures and animations, as an FPS map would. Secondly, said maps will take even more time to gain polish, and will most likely never achieve the same extremely high levels of polish and balance that NS2 can offer, with it's full-time development team being paid real money.
<a href="http://us.battle.net/?rhtml=y" target="_blank">http://us.battle.net/?rhtml=y</a>
yeah am sorry, I just read this somewhere else.
didnt really knew how this works when i first saw it.
With regards to the question posed by the thread, if anything, I could see SC2 attracting more interest in the game than taking sales away. Players who pick up SC2 for it's sci-fi setting and gameplay may, after finishing the single player and tiring of the multiplayer, be interested in another sci-fi game that shares some elements (such as resource gathering and opposing races playing extremely differently). I can well imagine a Zerg player watching one of his Ultralisks rip a squad of marines apart and thinking "Man, I wish I could play as something like that!", or a Terran player wishing they too could gun down Mutalisks from a first person perspective. Then they see a game that lets them do something very similar to what they're seeking, and for a low price too.
The one possible cloud to this silver lining is the Starcraft map editor; already Blizzard have shown that it is infinitely variable and able to create a plethora of different maps including FPS style ones. Two reasons give me cause for hope here however. Firstly, it will take time for these maps to come out, especially if it requires whole new textures and animations, as an FPS map would. Secondly, said maps will take even more time to gain polish, and will most likely never achieve the same extremely high levels of polish and balance that NS2 can offer, with it's full-time development team being paid real money.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Truth be told, I was sold on NS because I heard it was "Starcraft played in first-person"
I think in a nut-shell that basically explains it (Although there are very different mechanics at play in both games)
But even with the differences I think the release of SC2 will definitely hurt the sales of other games, including NS2.
Of course there can be positive implications as well, such as word of mouth in the starcraft community about NS, but that won't be a large effect either.