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Seeing one or two posts about... let's just say 'the current state of gaming' and leave it at that... reminded me of what happened recently involving the indie company Tale of Tales, the team behind games like The Path and Luxuria Superbia. If you haven't heard, they're out of the gaming industry altogether now.
Thankfully, it took a few days for the more vocal members of the games journalism crowd to calm down enough to try to have a rational talk with their readership about their thoughts of this. However, there's going to be something just gnawing on the back of my mind when I see that studio's name mentioned for quite some time: they lashed out like wounded wolves when they saw their game wasn't selling as well as they wanted it to.
The thing is this: Tale of Tales is a cautionary tale. Zero apologies for the joke.
Now, I can empathize with them because they are putting something out into a market that's saturated with games of all genres, varieties, ideas and functionality. The deck is already stacked against them, but I've seen games rise above long enough for people to take notice. Dwarf Fortress, Papers Please, Journey and Katawa Shoujo immediately come to mind. However,
They had no idea how to make their game appealing. Yes, the screenshots of the game I've seen have me convinced that someone will buy it and love playing it, but for the most part, the idea of playing as a housekeeper during the '70s doesn't seem all that appealing to very many people. Gone Home, to use another arthouse game as an example, did have a greater appeal, because the subject matter it covers is (from what I understand) a lot more engrossing.
They made very poor marketing decisions. To spread the word about the game, they hired on a marketing firm headed by someone who has a very low opinion of gamers in general. Said marketing firm then advertised on a website that's been slowly hemorrhaging readers over the past year, as opposed to more popular websites like Polygon who would have a much larger reach. The end result? Nowhere near an impressive launch.
Their reaction to the lackluster sales was alienating their potential audience. The Gameranx article I linked a while ago shows what their initial reaction was upon finding out their game didn't make as much of an impression as they wanted it to. Now, it's always a bad thing when a studio closes its doors before the market itself can work its magic, but saying 'fuck you, gamers!' and dropping out of the industry a week after launch leaves a very negative impression on people.
If Tale of Tales wanted to help the industry evolve, they just did by showing them how not to promote a game and how not to react when said game doesn't automatically win hearts and minds. The indie dev scene could learn a lot from their behavior by not emulating them.
Thankfully, it took a few days for the more vocal members of the games journalism crowd to calm down enough to try to have a rational talk with their readership about their thoughts of this. However, there's going to be something just gnawing on the back of my mind when I see that studio's name mentioned for quite some time: they lashed out like wounded wolves when they saw their game wasn't selling as well as they wanted it to.
The thing is this: Tale of Tales is a cautionary tale. Zero apologies for the joke.
Now, I can empathize with them because they are putting something out into a market that's saturated with games of all genres, varieties, ideas and functionality. The deck is already stacked against them, but I've seen games rise above long enough for people to take notice. Dwarf Fortress, Papers Please, Journey and Katawa Shoujo immediately come to mind. However,
They had no idea how to make their game appealing. Yes, the screenshots of the game I've seen have me convinced that someone will buy it and love playing it, but for the most part, the idea of playing as a housekeeper during the '70s doesn't seem all that appealing to very many people. Gone Home, to use another arthouse game as an example, did have a greater appeal, because the subject matter it covers is (from what I understand) a lot more engrossing.
They made very poor marketing decisions. To spread the word about the game, they hired on a marketing firm headed by someone who has a very low opinion of gamers in general. Said marketing firm then advertised on a website that's been slowly hemorrhaging readers over the past year, as opposed to more popular websites like Polygon who would have a much larger reach. The end result? Nowhere near an impressive launch.
Their reaction to the lackluster sales was alienating their potential audience. The Gameranx article I linked a while ago shows what their initial reaction was upon finding out their game didn't make as much of an impression as they wanted it to. Now, it's always a bad thing when a studio closes its doors before the market itself can work its magic, but saying 'fuck you, gamers!' and dropping out of the industry a week after launch leaves a very negative impression on people.
If Tale of Tales wanted to help the industry evolve, they just did by showing them how not to promote a game and how not to react when said game doesn't automatically win hearts and minds. The indie dev scene could learn a lot from their behavior by not emulating them.
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