2K: turn based xcom not contemporary enough

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defiant007

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http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07/13/2k-strategy-games-not-contemporary/

2K bossman Christoph Hartmann has been talking to MCV, and has been defending the decision to make XCOM into a manshoot:

“The ‘90s generation of gamers all love Xcom and we own the IP, so we thought OK, what do we do with it? Every studio we had wanted to do it and each one had its own spin on it. But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing – strategy games are just not contemporary.”

So that clears that up, eh? I am sure there will be a lively discussion of this. Can a game genre really get old enough to be abandoned? Should we consigned turn-based games to the past? If the 90s generation love it and that’s a reason to remake it, why try making it “contemporary”? Surely the challenge should bring to bring the game to a new generation, not the IP? Why do publishers think game and IP are somehow unrelated?
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Yup, so instead try something different and new.....how about an FPS! :D
 
Valshistixol said:
Give us an FPS with regenerating health, a cover system, and entire maps of waist high walls and I'm fucking sold!!
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Trollolololol.

Needs lots of $15 map packs too, don't forget. Preferrably already on the disc so we don't have to wait for them to download...we all have ADD don't forget.
 
Plague_Injected said:
Trollolololol.

Needs lots of $15 map packs too, don't forget. Preferrably already on the disc so we don't have to wait for them to download...we all have ADD don't forget.
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this is an excellent idea and it will make the decision-making process so much easier for us by already suggesting a great value-added experience!
 
"But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing" that part really stood out to me....
 
Valshistixol said:
Give us an FPS with regenerating health, a cover system, and entire maps of waist high walls and I'm fucking sold!!
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We cant have the game itself being too long either, I have so many other things to do.. I say 5 hours tops!:D
 
I think there's plenty of room these days for a good turn based strategy, though admittedly I dont care for the old school style of turn based strategy and I dont think it'd have a huge market.
 
Count me as one who thinks 2k has gone the wrong way with this. I don't think the argument has any merit. I believe I saw that civ5 has done over 800k in sales so far. May not be blockbuster numbers but not every game is going to sell millions on day one.
 
I like turn based, and it has nothing to do with "limitations" of the era. I don't forsee this working out for fans of the series.
 
We all know they made it a "contemporary" FPS because they can't sell a turn-based strategy game to the joe sixpack/kiddie/CoD XBro console crowd.
 
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Mr. Bluntman said:
I'm calling BS. We all know they made it a "contemporary" FPS because they can't sell a turn-based strategy game to the joe sixpack/kiddie/CoD XBro console crowd.
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Huh? You call BS on what? They said it pretty clearly...

"But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth"

They didn't try and spin it into some bullshit excuse, they just up and said it, turn based strategy games aren't as marketable to the current gaming crowd compared to the 90s gaming crowd.
 
We loved XCOM precisely because of what it was. Typical cookie cutter console shooter attempt, using old names/IP to try and spiff up sales.
 
RTS is a crown jewel genre of the PC. What the hell are they talking about?
 
Monkey God said:
We loved XCOM precisely because of what it was. Typical cookie cutter console shooter attempt, using old names/IP to try and spiff up sales.
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Very true. Though if they have solid marketing data to back up their claim that they would make more money on a FPS (and I'm sure they must, SC2 sales were beyond lousy :rolleyes:) then there is a legitimate business reason to go this route.

That said, will yet another shooter, using IP a 12 year old xbrox kiddie has never heard of, take the gaming world by storm? No.
 
Seems like a cheap excuse to cop out on putting an effort into doing something that actually takes creativity or doing something different. Why cant they make it turn based and real time, sort of like the D&D games where there are turns but you can still play it in real time. The problem with them thinking that mainstream gamers will have a problem with it being a strategy game vs the XCOM fans who want the new XCOM to stay true to its roots can be solved by using a real time turn based system.

They could even make it so that you can toggle between first and third person mode and set it up so that you can pause during each turn if you want to be more strategic or play it without pauses on. Maybe they could even make the action similar to Fallouts VAT's system and make it so that playing it run and gun style is as hard as hell vs playing strategically. Add in stealth elements and you have a real winner. But of course they don't want to put in the time/effort/creativity to accomplish something like that.
 
causticspill said:
Very true. Though if they have solid marketing data to back up their claim that they would make more money on a FPS (and I'm sure they must, SC2 sales were beyond lousy :rolleyes:) then there is a legitimate business reason to go this route.
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SC2 has sold over 4.5 million copies so far....in what universe is that a lousy figure!?!
 
I see this ruining the series, pretty much like every other recent rendtion of aquired IP's. The big studios fail to understand that fans what more of the same with updated graphics and refinement/addition of game features.
 
Q-BZ said:
The entire strategy genre is a crown jewel of PC gaming. That's what I should have written.

Better? :)
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Amen. A day when strategy games are watered down for the consoles and we are left with raped franchises is not a good day.
 
I'm keeping an open mind. They said they are keeping many aspects from XCOM. You can take aliens alive, which is much harder to do than dead. Allocate research everything you found. You recruit your team and if they die, they stay dead. You can accept or ignore missions. The FPS part is said to play very squad based. Similar to Rainbow Six I guess.

As someone who played and beat XCOM 1 & 2, I was disappointed to hear the change. Yet that doesn’t make this a bad game.
 
Sovern said:
Seems like a cheap excuse to cop out on putting an effort into doing something that actually takes creativity or doing something different. Why cant they make it turn based and real time, sort of like the D&D games where there are turns but you can still play it in real time. The problem with them thinking that mainstream gamers will have a problem with it being a strategy game vs the XCOM fans who want the new XCOM to stay true to its roots can be solved by using a real time turn based system.

They could even make it so that you can toggle between first and third person mode and set it up so that you can pause during each turn if you want to be more strategic or play it without pauses on. Maybe they could even make the action similar to Fallouts VAT's system and make it so that playing it run and gun style is as hard as hell vs playing strategically. Add in stealth elements and you have a real winner. But of course they don't want to put in the time/effort/creativity to accomplish something like that.
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Realtime with pause isn't the solution. Neither is the Falloutification of xcom. A well crafted, visually updated, feature rich turn based xcom game would sell well enough. There is a pretty large fanbase for it. It would also be big in Japan and S Korea.
 
Man the original X-COM is one of the best games ever, if you haven't played it and can get past the ancient graphics and "old-school can't market this to young whippersnappers" gameplay then you really should do so (I got it on Steam awhile back and gave it another 40+ hours of my life). I would drool all over myself if some company just updated the original with some new graphics and a couple new alien races or something.
 
Silent Storm 2: Sentinels came out a couple of years ago and it was an awesome x-com like game.
Men of War is another strategy game that uses the x-com model.
How about UFO:Afterlight?

All good fairly recent turn based(ish) games, don't know what 2k is talking about.

I actually liked X-com 3, with all of those destructible building and the semi real time combat that can be paused.
 
I don't get crap like this from companies. "Oh TBS games aren't contemporary!" Really? Hmmm I seem to recall a little title, maybe you've heard of it, called Civilization 5. Turn based strategy, released 2010. 90 average on Metacritic, topped Steam's weekly sales over several shooters, etc.

Seems to be like TBS games do just fine, if they are good. In fact, I'd argue it is a pretty ripe market. There are people who like it, but few games in that area. That means you have a lot less competition. You release another shootie, well you have to fight with Battlefield 3 and CoD 55 (or whatever). However not so many TBS games. You can have the market all to yourself for at least a few months.

I also don't get why some developers don't understand that it isn't the "IP" that people love, it is the game. I didn't love X-com for the universe. It was generic. "Aliens invade Earth, you kill them." Wow, haven't seen that a million times. I liked it because it was a damn good game, well designed.

A new, well done, TBS X-com would do quite well I think. Hell there have been some 3rd party X-com clones that have done ok, despite being very poorly designed and implemented. People want to play those kind of games.

Oh well, on their head be it. I won't write the game off until I see what it is, but I think they are going to find that the "IP" doesn't do it.
 
This will not do xcom justice. just like xcom enforcer. I was introducted to xcom on ps1 with the first ufo defence(i still have it in that big case they started with), and have to say that was one of my top 5 games for the system, from there I had terror of the deep and Apocalypse for the pc. I now have all of them again thanks to steam. While playing on the first xcom, a friend and i even turned it into a 2 player game, I took half the squad, he took the other half. ah the good times. A fps xcom... nah. I will rent it.
 
Strategy not contemporary? Bullshit.. They just lack vision to create a contemporary strategy game.
 
An analogy:

Fallout 1 is to Fallout 3 as X-COM: UFO Defense is to ... 2K's next game?
 
Duke Nukem 3D is to Duke Nukem forever as XCOM: UFO defense is to the new mainsteam ADD mother approved fps XCOM.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
TBS ;)

I'd throw a fit if they turned my Wizardry games into CoD.
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Id rather that than


wizardry323-1300908988.jpg
 
piscian18 said:
Id rather that than


wizardry323-1300908988.jpg
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Yea, I know. There are quite a few Wizardry JRPG's now. None of them are any good, IMO.

I'd be happy if they could resurrect the Western blob-crawler genre without "streamlining".

I predict, in 5 years, everything will be FPS.
 
I never tried X-COM: Enforcer, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it turn out to be rather mediocre?

It really seems like they just want to dumb everything down to the Cowa Doody FPS crowd level, because they think it will sell millions of copies. The original X-COM games were always about the slower-paced tension, the thinking & strategy needed, and the gameplay mechanics.
 
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