What's Next for Frictional - Consoles!

Neil79

Neil79

Neil79

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The Frictional Games Blog looks back on the year since the release of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, their survival/horror game (thanks GameInformer). They discuss the game's development and reveal more sales figures, saying the game has sold a bit under the previous estimate of 400K copies, while also noting that 75% of the copies were sold at a discount during sales. They also offer some tidbits about their next game, including the fact that it will include consoles in its target platforms. Here's a portion:
Another big change for the future will be consoles. The main reason for choosing consoles is purely financial. Right now our main income comes from very few channels, and we need to spread out the risk somehow. The other reason is that we feel we are missing out on exposure by not being on a console and not reaching as many players as we should be able to. Unfortunately consoles are really old compared to the PC right now, so it will be far from straightforward to develop for two platforms. Our current thinking is to make the console get a lower end version and make sure console specs influence the PC version as little as possible.

Finally, in regards to what our next project is about, the basic idea is to use lessons learned from Amnesia and then take it to the next level. We have mentioned before that the next game will not be as horror focused as our past ones, but still have a scary atmosphere. Our intention this time is to dig into deeper and more intellectually demanding subjects. Another goal for us is to get past having classical puzzles that break the flow, but without making the game into a spoon-fed type of experience.
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Heard that before so many times :mad:
 
Studios can not continue to pump out advanced graphics with little return....attitudes have to change we either stop being graphics whores or accept that studios need to share the love to make a profit.
 
Games like Penumbra/Amnesia would work ok on consoles with some adjustment, so why not. If it means more profit for them and therefore better possibilities for games, I am all for it.
And I doubt they would be that stupid, to abandon their core PC audience.
 
Frictional have always been strapped for cash. If this is what they need to do to stay afloat then I'm all for it; far better than the alternative.
 
Don't know how they are so strapped when other indie developers have done so well, is it because of a lack of advertising?
 
I don't know really, I think it might be to do with development cost. I remember a blog post from around the time Amnesia came out, maybe a bit earlier, in which Grip discussed the hypothetical scenario of receiving a million quid in backing. He said that a million sounds like an amazing amount, but when you factor in x, y and z and multiply it by the number of months it takes to make a game, it actually doesn't amount to much.

He also said, in the first blog entry reflecting on Amnesia's success, that this is the first time the team had been able to pay themselves even minimum wage. :/
 
Neil79 said:
Don't know how they are so strapped when other indie developers have done so well, is it because of a lack of advertising?
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Amnesia got pirated to pieces. Their fault I suppose but they are clearly running with small budgets. I say fair play to them as if it gives them a revenue stream, it means more scary Frictional goodness for us all.
 
These guys worked on half salary during the final phase of Amnesia and came very close to cancelling the whole project and looking for "real" jobs. Only trough STEAM sales of their previous games did they manage to scrape enough together to finish the game. I think they bloody earned the right to have some financial security.
 
The right move really. It's a shame people have to still pirate as it hurts the smaller developers most and drives them away from bothering to make another title. The benefit of the consoles much larger audience should bring in a lot more cash for them.
 
Damn, had no idea they had such problems :(

I've bought and love both Penumbra Collection and Amnesia, so I hope things work out well for them and they indeed stay true to us PC gamers, which I think will be the case :)
 
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I never heard of this game until now which tells me the marketing of this game was ass. If the studio wants to sell more games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent on the PC then they should really have tried harder to give it more exposure and make PC gamers more aware of it rather then trying to rely on a few trailers and word of mouth.
 
Well right now thanks to PC ONLY sales of Amnesia they are more financially secure than ever and have more than enough money to make their next game completely on their own, with nice salaries too.

So when they release their next game, it will sell like hotcakes because they are very famous thanks to Amnesia's success. I would guess of 400000 people that bought Amnesia so far, majority of those (incl. me) will buy whatever else they make.

And if they release on consoles too, and sell a million total of their next game, it could mean they could hire even more people and get into the AAA development WHILE staying independent. Which, with their skill/vision/ambition could result in some amazing games.
 
Freddie1980 said:
I never heard of this game until now which tells me the marketing of this game was ass. If the studio wants to sell more games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent on the PC then they should really have tried harder to give it more exposure and make PC gamers more aware of it rather then trying to rely on a few trailers and word of mouth.
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As we've gone over already in this thread, they had no money throughout Amnesia's development and the game barely got made as it was. Where would this marketing budget magically come from?

Paul_cz said:
So when they release their next game, it will sell like hotcakes because they are very famous thanks to Amnesia's success. I would guess of 400000 people that bought Amnesia so far, majority of those (incl. me) will buy whatever else they make.
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Yeah, absolutely. Hell, I don't even play their games - just too frightening for me - but I still buy everything they release. I just love knowing they're there and making the games they want to make.
 
If developers want to sell their games on PC, they need to include some sort of online activation, or use a service like Steam (Which is nicely packaged DRM effectively).

What XBLA and PSOnline offer is a walled garden, which means the content is secure and users can readily get at it.

Personally I would have liked Castle Crashers to come to PC, but... Nope.
 
Well, it's about time that people realised that piracy is an own goal. Nobody wins.

And devs need to price their games sensibly too. Or get used to only selling copies during sales, as they said... I'm all for indie games, but there are few indie games I'd pay more than £10 for.
 
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