Whats the problem with Sandboxes?

HangTime said:
Here's a few of the issues as I see them:
-"what is the point?" - it is difficult to market something which has no real objective, and by market I'm including stuff like getting positive reviews in the press
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That isn't true, Minecraft is a perfect example.

But i do agree with you you some what, its hard to sell a game about creativity to a market that lacks it.

-Giving players too much freedom gives much more potential to expose flaws in the game design (engine, continuity, performance etc). Make things too open ended and you might make it too easy for a player to have a very boring / flawed / pained experience (e.g. something unexpected happens that makes 'progress' (however you want to define that) very difficult)
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Thats true, but if you are a keen dev, you can just fix the exploits as soon as they are discovered. You could maybe offer in game rewards to people who find exploits and send them into devs?

The boring experience aspect i feel is down to a lack of gameplay incentive and player creativity. You could add in theme park elements, like player created quests from their towns to provide the town with resources, rewards for bandits or pkers etc

-It is difficult to know where to focus development effort, or rather, feel like you are getting good value from it. With linear games, you can focus on making that linear path an incredible, atmospheric experience with high production values. With a sandbox game, you could spend days developing something that 99% of players will never get to appreciate. This in my opinion is one of the main reasons why even seemingly 'open world' RPGs always have more focus on the primary quest arcs.
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This i completely agree with.
 
Ace Modder said:
What about Skyrim? That is sandbox and AAA title?
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I think Skyrim is a Theme Park in a Sandbox, but it falls into that "outside of the main story, what do i do" problem that a lot of gamers experience.

Yeah it has lots of side quests and so on, but they are bring 10 bear pelts, deliver this to dave and I've lost this item go find it. I'm not saying Skyrim is bad, i love Skyrim.

You can't build an NPC bandit army and take over towns, you can only build your house in very specific locations, you can't turn a cave into your house etc etc.
 
LateX'Dog said:
That isn't true, Minecraft is a perfect example.
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I actually don't believe Minecraft is that easy to actively market, in spite of its success :) It was basically an indie hobby project that prospered through word of mouth and a shareware-type licensing model, rather than a traditional publisher-backed development.

Of course, in the modern age the need for publisher backing is arguably diminishing, so this type of game may become more common.

Thats true, but if you are a keen dev, you can just fix the exploits as soon as they are discovered. You could maybe offer in game rewards to people who find exploits and send them into devs?
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Doing so requires ongoing developer support, something that many publishers may be reluctant to finance. They want them to be creating new things to sell, not excessively supporting existing products. One exception might be games with a subscription model where player retention is important.

"Sandbox" is probably something that means different things to different people. Minecraft is definitely Sandbox IMO, but Skyrim is more of a grey area (there is a temptation to brand any open world game a sandbox).
 
I think we'd solve a lot of problems if publishers provided funding. and game devs made games. and we just left it at that.

Especially with hugely successful studios, Bioware, Dice whatever else. Those are the kind of dev studios you should fund and let them get on with what they know best. I can understand for a smaller less well known studio putting some sort of restriction down, to avoid losses etc but the big guns should be left to excel. It might take a year longer, but you'll spawn something HUGE.
 
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