Games that have it all?

[kessie8yl]

I would add Goblinboy and several other from the TADS realm to those names too...

[kessie8yl]

ExLibris wrote : Profitability is certainly a major obstacle. Games have become a lot more expensive to make over the last twenty years, and a lot of big budget games don't end up making a profit. Consequently the game industry largely sticks to established genres and franchises.

The rot set in with the original Wing Commander, which was supposedly the first game with a budget of over a million dollars. Despite its success it didn't actually turn a profit until the release of the Secret Mission add-ons (the proliferation of DLC these days is probably for the same reason).

I could see the adult industry producing small, low-quality games for the 'casual' market, or possibly subscrïption based online multiplayer games (for the stable revenue stream, and because emergent behaviours would allow them to keep some costs down).

But high-quality interactive adult games? Not until game creation tools massively increase in power and decrease in price. A cultural shift towards seeing video games as being not just for kids would help too, but that's going to be 10-20 years.

The porn industry has the technology alright but, as far as I am aware, there is no actual gameplay element involved... You just "have sex" with an avatar loosely based on some celebrity porn star... I've never tried them. Maybe I'm too fussy but the whole thing feels too similar to "click Next" in my mind... and it seems a lot of money to pay up front when you already have the feeling it's not quite going to live up to they hype

[outrider]

As far as I know, there is an AO Second Life clone. It's called Red Light Center.

I also don't think that a good commercial-grade AO game would have no market. I suspect there are a lot of people who would pay good money for such a game.

I believe there is a reason why the Indy AO games end up so popular, despite the abundance of readily available (and cheap, if not free) porn on the Internet. Look at the GoblinBoy's and Leonizer's game discussion threads. They have tens of thousands of page views. Even if 1 per cent of those are potential buyers, we are talking about tens of thousands of dollars of potential revenues. Not much for a big studio, but certainly very good for a one-person studio, especially if that person really enjoys creating such games. Not to mention that a commercial-grade game would have a much higher appeal than those (very good) hobby projects.

I suspect many people don't dig porn as much as they dig social interaction + porn. This is why the dating sim games are so popular despite the fact that the actual sex in them (when compared on its merits alone to the mainstream porn) is lacklustre, to say the least. People want to go out, meet a girl (or prefereably several of them ), get to know them, flirt, and then have sex with them. This makes for a much more wholesome experience than simply watching films with people just shagging each other.

Don't get me wrong: porn is a good thing. It's just that there's no emotional side to it, pure mechanics. Good AO games are, in my opinion, much more enjoyable than even the best of porn.

I don't think we need big budgets and major studios to produce enjoyable and commercially successful AO games. We need all-around teams of proven and dedicated people doing their magic. If only, say, GoblinBoy (with his superior AO game design and writing skills), could team up with, say, Leonizer (with his great graphics design and web-programming skills), and with somebody experienced in the development of sandbox-style (a la GTA) games --- I'm sure, after a couple of months of full-time work, they could produce a game that most of us here would gladly pay real money to play.

[ExLibris]

kessie8yl wrote :
The porn industry has the technology alright but, as far as I am aware, there is no actual gameplay element involved... You just "have sex" with an avatar loosely based on some celebrity porn star... I've never tried them. Maybe I'm too fussy but the whole thing feels too similar to "click Next" in my mind... and it seems a lot of money to pay up front when you already have the feeling it's not quite going to live up to they hype

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, then I wouldn't actually describe that as a game at all. More like one of those interactive DVDs I vaguely remember from the 90s (using the word interactive in its loosest sense).

btw if you can find a book called "Sex in Video Games" by Brenda Brathwaite, it covers a lot of what's been discussed in this thread and I would recommend it (with the caveat that it came out in 2006, and things have obviously moved on a bit).

[gymfrog]

Along this topic... Japanese games are some of the best of its kind right now.
I do believe that it won't be that far off (5 years), but who wants to wait 5 years....

I think that SD3 and Meteor are two of the best out there right now.

Does anyone know wht software people use for the VDG, ariane, and Meteor SD3 games people use?

[outrider]

VDG and ariane use simple javascrïpt for the game itself, while Meteor and SD3 use the TADS(3) IF development system. Both use Poser (Daz Studio) for the graphics.

[kessie8yl]

outrider wrote : As far as I know, there is an AO Second Life clone. It's called Red Light Center.

I also don't think that a good commercial-grade AO game would have no market. I suspect there are a lot of people who would pay good money for such a game.

I believe there is a reason why the Indy AO games end up so popular, despite the abundance of readily available (and cheap, if not free) porn on the Internet. Look at the GoblinBoy's and Leonizer's game discussion threads. They have tens of thousands of page views. Even if 1 per cent of those are potential buyers, we are talking about tens of thousands of dollars of potential revenues. Not much for a big studio, but certainly very good for a one-person studio, especially if that person really enjoys creating such games. Not to mention that a commercial-grade game would have a much higher appeal than those (very good) hobby projects.

I suspect many people don't dig porn as much as they dig social interaction + porn. This is why the dating sim games are so popular despite the fact that the actual sex in them (when compared on its merits alone to the mainstream porn) is lacklustre, to say the least. People want to go out, meet a girl (or prefereably several of them ), get to know them, flirt, and then have sex with them. This makes for a much more wholesome experience than simply watching films with people just shagging each other.

Don't get me wrong: porn is a good thing. It's just that there's no emotional side to it, pure mechanics. Good AO games are, in my opinion, much more enjoyable than even the best of porn.

I don't think we need big budgets and major studios to produce enjoyable and commercially successful AO games. We need all-around teams of proven and dedicated people doing their magic. If only, say, GoblinBoy (with his superior AO game design and writing skills), could team up with, say, Leonizer (with his great graphics design and web-programming skills), and with somebody experienced in the development of sandbox-style (a la GTA) games --- I'm sure, after a couple of months of full-time work, they could produce a game that most of us here would gladly pay real money to play.

You're kind-of making my point for me - If any or all of the people you suggest, plus others, did get their heads together they could indeed produce a more than acceptable game between them - but only one. The next thing you'd know is this forum would be full of people clamouring for more and more - and the guys simply wouldn't be able to keep up (viz Chaotic).

It would need big bucks to keep something like that going. These guys have day jobs, mortgages to pay, coke habits to support (joke)... If anyone knows a venture capitalist who could throw the money in then let's bring him on and get the guys talking turkey - but I won't be holding my breath while I'm waiting for one.

I fully agree there must be a market out there somewhere for the "killer" game that will bring it all together... but, as ever, it will need a marriage of the idea, skills and, most of all, money, to get it realised. Evidently we are blessed with a lot of the first two ingredients sharing the lagoon with us - Anyone know the number of a tame venture capitalist?

Maybe we should go on Dragon's Den? lol

( For the benefit of non-UK residents http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/ )

[kessie8yl]

outrider wrote : VDG and ariane use simple javascrïpt for the game itself, while Meteor and SD3 use the TADS(3) IF development system. Both use Poser (Daz Studio) for the graphics.

The problem I've found with TADS games is that unless you know the EXACT word the author is looking for, you are stuffed - and often the authors aren't blessed with an extensive English vocabulary. If, when you eventually give up, you are lucky enough to find a walkthrough for the game, the word turns out to be so out of context that you wouldn't have thought of it in a lifetime.
Surely there must be a way of programming games to accept any word from a list of synonyms? At least those of us for whom English is our native language might have a fair chance

[outrider]

You're kind-of making my point for me - If any or all of the people you suggest, plus others, did get their heads together they could indeed produce a more than acceptable game between them - but only one. The next thing you'd know is this forum would be full of people clamouring for more and more - and the guys simply wouldn't be able to keep up (viz Chaotic).

Writers somehow manage it. Game franchises also do well, there are many games out there with sequels being better than the originals. If people clamour for more, more power to the authors: they'll make more money this way, in addition to getting the satisfaction of producing something people are enthusiastic about.

It would need big bucks to keep something like that going. These guys have day jobs, mortgages to pay, coke habits to support (joke)... If anyone knows a venture capitalist who could throw the money in then let's bring him on and get the guys talking turkey - but I won't be holding my breath while I'm waiting for one.

Well, venture funding rarely works this way. First you need build a working product, preferably with some satisfied (no pun intended ) customers (the more the better), then you make your pitch to venture capitalists.

[outrider]

The problem I've found with TADS games is that unless you know the EXACT word the author is looking for, you are stuffed - and often the authors aren't blessed with an extensive English vocabulary. If, when you eventually give up, you are lucky enough to find a walkthrough for the game, the word turns out to be so out of context that you wouldn't have thought of it in a lifetime.
Surely there must be a way of programming games to accept any word from a list of synonyms? At least those of us for whom English is our native language might have a fair chance

My experience with TADS games is that they tend to be of better quality, with "guess the verb" rarely being an issue, at least for seasoned AIF players.

[ExLibris]

kessie8yl wrote :

The problem I've found with TADS games is that unless you know the EXACT word the author is looking for, you are stuffed - and often the authors aren't blessed with an extensive English vocabulary. If, when you eventually give up, you are lucky enough to find a walkthrough for the game, the word turns out to be so out of context that you wouldn't have thought of it in a lifetime.
Surely there must be a way of programming games to accept any word from a list of synonyms? At least those of us for whom English is our native language might have a fair chance

What you're talking about there is at least partly a playtesting issue. The author should obviously implement all of the synonyms for a particular verb that he or she can think of. TADS (And indeed Inform and ADRIFT) does allow for synonyms for verbs and objects. TADS also has as a reasonably sophisticated level of disambiguation (ie. the author can 'weight' certain actions/objects so that the game considers it more likely that the player is talking about them in certain contexts).

However, any game (especially one that is to be released commercially) should also be playtested to death systematically, and that process is likely to throw up synonyms that the author hasn't considered.

I would agree that veteran AIF players are used to the common commands in AIF, some of which might not be obvious to a non-veteran. For that reason you'd probably want a wide range of playtesters.

[Graen]

Welp... after seeing the latest "Duke Nukem Forever" trailer I'm wondering how in the hell that game isn't getting an AO rating.

Somebody must've bribed someone.

[kessie8yl]

ExLibris wrote :

What you're talking about there is at least partly a playtesting issue. The author should obviously implement all of the synonyms for a particular verb that he or she can think of. TADS (And indeed Inform and ADRIFT) does allow for synonyms for verbs and objects. TADS also has as a reasonably sophisticated level of disambiguation (ie. the author can 'weight' certain actions/objects so that the game considers it more likely that the player is talking about them in certain contexts).

However, any game (especially one that is to be released commercially) should also be playtested to death systematically, and that process is likely to throw up synonyms that the author hasn't considered.

I would agree that veteran AIF players are used to the common commands in AIF, some of which might not be obvious to a non-veteran. For that reason you'd probably want a wide range of playtesters.

Hmmmm... If only it were so eh?

[kessie8yl]

Graen wrote :
Welp... after seeing the latest "Duke Nukem Forever" trailer I'm wondering how in the hell that game isn't getting an AO rating.

Somebody must've bribed someone.

That clip tells you everything u want to know about the titsup world of censorship... People getting blown up, smashed to bits, killed and maimed? Yeh! Fine....

Nipples on a monster???!!!!!!! Are you mad?! Quick!! Pixillate them out before anyone sees them!!!

What a fekked up world we live in...

[ExLibris]

Duke Nukem Forever won't receive an AO rating for the simple reason that Gearbox/2K will ask what changes they need to make to get an M rating. Then they will go back and make them. And for some reason, Americans are very sensitive to the sight of female nipples (hence the L-shaped bedsheets commonly found in movies).

I should also point out that the ESRB don't actually engage in censorship. They're a self-regulatory body whose ratings have no force in law (unlike the BBFC for example). It's the fact that neither of the major console manufacturers will allow AO rated games and most retailers won't carry them that means that an AO rating is the kiss of death.