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Post by mercuryminerva on Jun 12, 2021 0:54:53 GMT
My introduction to the wonderful world of games happened when my mother and sister introduced me to Pogo. I liked Hidden Object games and decided to download a few from them. I accidentally downloaded a hidden object adventure game where you had to do things from scene to scene and liked it. I wanted more games like that and found Big Fish which had plenty of games to offer.
The early ones were a bit primitive but they soon improved as computers became more powerful. They had a Golden Age if you will of wonderful HOPs out there.
Then something happened. Someone bought the company and it has gone downhill ever since. I will list a few of the problems I have encountered with Big Fish here.
The first and most important one is the developers themselves seem to have given up in quality. They make cookie cutter games that look exactly like their games from the past few years. There are still some I look forward to but now with a wary eye.
They have added a big red X to the HOP scenes. Why? Who asked for this?
They also have been offering less HOPA games for us as it is down to one a week. Sometimes they skip a week. They also skimp on new Time Management offerings as well. But they do have countless match three games. (I know there are fans of those and they are complaining about how low quality the offerings are.)
Then there is the customer service. Or lack of it. I had a problem with my purchases not downloading. I sent an email to resolve this and was given the usual automatic response. They also sent me a code for a free game. How can I use the free code when I can't even download the games from my past purchase history?
Long story short I had to create a brand new account and have been repurchasing my old favorites I know I will play again. House of a 1000 Doors and the Beyond series are among them. I will never take them off my computer and have purchased a 2 terabyte external drive to keep them. That way if this problem happens again I won't lose all my games.
They did finally send a response but it was asking me how they did. They never fixed the problem or sent correspondence to me about it.
I tried to look for others who do what Big Fish do but to little avail. There are a few out there but I am wary to try them.
Maybe Big Fish's new owner wants to get out of this business. If they do, why did they buy it in the first place? Ah, Big Fish Casino. That is a money maker for them.
I won't abandon Big Fish just yet. However, I will soon join the many thousands who have abandoned Big Fish for better fishing opportunities out there.
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moni
Squirrel
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Post by moni on Jun 12, 2021 2:40:30 GMT
mercuryminerva, I thoroughly sympathize with your pain about BFG. I also, recently bought an external drive to download and conserve all of my BF games I have purchased throughout the years. I'm not sure, though, if it will save me from eventually loosing all of them, if BFG decides to close its doors. I just hope, if it ever happens, they will be decent about it, and will offer to the gamers some sort of solution to keep their purchased games.
Watching and following the posts @pennmom, has been making on the Steam Related board, I've decided to give a try to that platform, and I'm getting more and more convinced, that BFG is just simply "outdated". I don't think, BF management has a good standing relations with the game developers, either, hence the truck loads of "assembly-line factory" games developers kinda forced to release. As pennmom or joybell said in one of their posts, it seems that BFG pushing developers to release Collector's Editions, keeping little attention on quality and more emphasis on "overloading" their games with already proven good seller additions, and paying little attention of the repetitiveness of the features.
It is REALLY a shame how they alienate the game enthusiasts in the mean time, starting with the dissed game forums through the broken Game Manager to the malfunctioning games and dull releases and ending in poor customer service. But, just like in case of any products, we can find them in an other store, if we are kept dissatisfied with the service in a current store. (I did stop shopping in stores before because of poor overall experience)
I'm like you, I'm still swinging along with BFG, but I started to visit other gaming platforms more and more, and the more I visit the others the less I like BFG current practices, and on one point I will leave them for good.
To have a comparison, you could visit the Steam site. It is absolutely FREE to create an account, and you can start to play immediately - they have thousands of Free or Free To Play games to choose from in any category. You can chat with your friends, you can invite others to connect with you in a multiplayer or board game... and it is packed with community support and game support. I just recently joined, and I'm already neglecting my BFG. Here is a link, if you want to take a look, and you can add me as friend, if you like... (my friends code: 1218969991)
Also, visit the Steam board, where pennmom is working hard to have daily updates on every kind of games, and sales. Change your sorrow to joy, dearie, and find your gaming experience enjoyable once again.
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mooky
Hummingbird
Looking for the emergency exit
Posts: 204
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Post by mooky on Jun 12, 2021 3:30:37 GMT
The days Paul Thelen ran the business will never come again. The pond was a nice and friendly place to be. Every day there was a game you really wanted to buy. Customer Service was known by name, friendly and helpful "friends" they were. I fear that the beginning of the end of BFG is already past
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pennmom
Bear
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[TI0] IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK AND ALL'S WELL
Posts: 16,570
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Post by pennmom on Jun 12, 2021 4:35:33 GMT
mercuryminerva, moni, Originally, BF did their own production & development and they had a crazy idea and created MCF: Huntsville which gave birth to the HOPA genre. They had the best of the best when it came to writers, graphic artists, story scripts, etc. because they were making a ton of money and MCF put them on everyone's radar. Then they stopped producing in-house games and started outsourcing, they had developers chomping at the bit for a chance to get their games on the BF site. BF became their producers. This meant that they would back them financially, usually requiring the company to give up their Intellectual Property, it was a win win situation because HOPAs were a hot commodity and both partys were making money. They were offered bigger chunks of the pie if they signed contracts to be "exclusive" meaning BF would always have 1st dibs for a set time period and sometimes these games would never be available on other sites. (that's why you don't see a lot of HOPAs on other sites) BF was king of the hill so why wouldn't they? Most developers were not able to keep up with the growing demand so BF taught the developers how to copy/paste formatting to speed up production & lower the cost...are you starting to see the connection yet? Eipix was one of the first developers to apply this method, if you think back a tad bit, you may have suddenly noticed a shift in quality, the graphics became more colorful, but that was so you wouldn't notice that most of the detail was gone. The games no longer had cobblestone sidewalks, individual leaves on trees & shrubs, houses weren't built with boards that actually had a woodgrain finish, but most did not notice because they were too busy staring at the pretty new colors when they started adding orange and red to make vivid skylines or crystal blue oceans with teal highlights...ooohh so pretty, right? You may have never noticed that they reduced the active areas to a measly 2-3 hot zones per scene and you definetly didn't notice that every new game had the exact format, the HO scenes & MG's were always cued at a set point in the game (if the game you were playing had a HOS in the second, fourth, sixth scene the next game you played by that developer would have HOS in the second, fourth, sixth scene...because the format was a copy/pasted formula. The story changes, but the graphics and game mechanics are simply tweaked. If you are an avid HOPA player you probably started noticing this shortly after the practice began but you weren't sure what was different yet because our brain hadn't caught up with our subconscious who was having a case of Deja Vu. This my friend was the rise of the Cookie-cutter game. We still couldn't get enough of HOPAs but but then we realized that the games were no longer challenging & we mistakenly believed that we had just been playing too long and that the challenge was gone. WE didn't change, we didn't become so good at playing we outgrew them...the genre changed because BF got greedy and they were betting we'd never notice the difference! The crazy was beginning to die down now because HOPA fans had no desire to play new releases that all seem the same. Less interest in HOPAs meant that many developers went belly up, ok, 95% of the developers are gone. Here's the kick in the teeth...BF still believes the market simply dwindled and that HOPA fans are a dying breed because we just don't like them anymore. It's true, we do not like them anymore...we do not like the newer games they have to offer. This practice killed the genre, BF killed the genre! WE DID NOT CHANGE-THE GENRE CHANGED! Set up a poll asking which games you prefer games from 2010-2016 or 2017-2021 and I guarantee most will choose their older games. How many times have you heard someone say "I'll just go replay one of my older games"? I am absolutely burned out on playing BF HOPAs but I feel like a kid in a candy store every time I download and replay one of the classics like Weird Park, Sacra Terra, Mystery Legends, Princes Isabella, Empress of the Deep, Abyss the Wrath of Eden, House of 1000 doors, Twisted Origins, the earlier pre-Epix Entertainment Dark Parables, the earlier Dark Dimensions, etc. (I can list a ton of oldies but goodies) So if you use this logic, how is it possible that we all LOVE our older HOPA purchases if what BF says is true, that we no longer like the HOPA genre? BF deserves a round of applause, Clapping they successfully created the HOPA genre AND destroyed it...a lesson in why you should never get too greedy, it may come back to bite you in the butt!
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moni
Squirrel
[TI0] [TI0]
Posts: 1,057
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Post by moni on Jun 12, 2021 7:34:08 GMT
Naa naa, pennmom, just let it out dearie! I can feel your sour anger! Lemme give you a little massage.
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smitty189
Squirrel
[TI18] "No great mind ever existed without a touch of madness" Aristotle
Posts: 1,000
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Post by smitty189 on Jun 12, 2021 15:33:44 GMT
@pennmom joybelle moni This is all RIGHT ON. Games like Dire Grove and Madame Fate were so fantastic and the HOPA games all slowly MORPHED INTO THE SAME GAME. I still love HOPAs but it's like Groundhogs day playing them. Elephant and some devs are also responsible it's like they just got lazy or greedy. Just started playing the Final Haunted Hotel. What an ignominious end to a series that gave us Charles Dexter Ward, Silent Waters, Eclipse etc. etc. I've just started using Steam and have some difficulty navigating but certainly will stick to it. Also started using IndieGala. I'll not give up on BFG YET but it's close to a breaking point. I didn't even bother complaining about a recent purchase because why bother. When there used to be a tech problem they had people who would try to help and of course the ever helpful forum. If they had continued the forum they would have saved themselves a lot of money with fewer free game codes.
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pennmom
Bear
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[TI0] IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK AND ALL'S WELL
Posts: 16,570
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Post by pennmom on Jun 13, 2021 13:11:00 GMT
mercuryminerva, moni, mooky, smitty189, I'm trying to convince developers to break away and create retro games. If done right, they will cause the market to boom again. More competition is what is needed but they are thinking it's a dying breed instead of what it truly is a ship that sunk because there was no competition and they gave us cookie-cutters that we hate. Why oh why can't they see that they still have billions of baby boomer fans just dying for a chance to play a game like they were in 2012-2016??? DEVELOPERS: here we are we haven't left, you left us!
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Post by mercuryminerva on Jun 13, 2021 15:08:47 GMT
for all the replies to my rant. I have just created an account at Steam and will start looking through that site. I will get as many of the older games at BF which I like and then fully move on.
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pennmom
Bear
Chief Ranger
[TI0] IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK AND ALL'S WELL
Posts: 16,570
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Post by pennmom on Jun 13, 2021 17:18:00 GMT
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mooky
Hummingbird
Looking for the emergency exit
Posts: 204
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Post by mooky on Jun 14, 2021 3:19:07 GMT
I loved the FROG games of the old days. I stopped playing HO games some time ago. I have bought a few over the last year, but need to play them still. BFG killed my love for them. Freeking murdering Fish
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sandy
Mallard Duck
Posts: 148
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Post by sandy on Jul 4, 2021 19:22:38 GMT
Fanatical is another good place to buy games. (You get a code to use at Steam.) They have great sales, especially bundles.
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Post by ranbar61 on Aug 30, 2021 11:42:18 GMT
Hi all, this is my first post on The Woods and first I must thank pennmom and crew for creating this site.
Now, on to Big Fish. I have been a game club member since 2003 (I recently passed on my stuffed Felix to my grand-daughter) and have purchased hundreds and hundreds of games from Big Fish. Throughout the years there have been a couple of lulls where a couple of weeks might go by without a new game that caught my interest. However, the current drought has lasted months, and months....and months. Last I looked, I have six game credits and I can't recall ever having more than two at a time. However, not being a fan of pixel art, paint by numbers, really bad jigsaw puzzle games or cookie cutter HOGs (on the rare occasion a HOG is released), the only thing that keeps me coming back seems to be nostalgia, Casual Arts (yea Park Ranger 12!) or the possibility that Britons 3 will finally be released. I, apparently like many of you, find that I am replaying my old games more and more. In fact, I just finished what is probably my 20th play-through of Hidden Expedition - Amazon. They certainly don't make them like that anymore.
So my question is, is it finally time to give up? What a sad day when you have to ask yourself that question.
P.S. I've been on Steam for almost as long, but always used it for the "big" games (CRPGs, big budget adventure, etc) due to my loyalty to BF as a source for casual games. However, Steam is now my go to for all games. Great sales and some wonderful indie stuff that you'd never find on BF. I highly recommend Steam.
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pennmom
Bear
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[TI0] IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK AND ALL'S WELL
Posts: 16,570
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Post by pennmom on Aug 30, 2021 12:34:26 GMT
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Post by volauvent on Sept 3, 2021 19:24:05 GMT
mercuryminerva , moni , mooky , pennmom , smitty189 ,@valdy , sandy , ranbar61 , Ayayay. I believe Aristocrat Tech has lost interest in their BF purchase, or has lost track of their investment amid the stable of acquisitions. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Speaking of which, has anyone contacted Aristocrat to explain the problem, that they are letting a booming investment go down the drain? There are few actions as effective as talking income and profits with the right internal department, which is not always the one with the logical name. When in doubt, follow the money. So, here is the website, street address, phone number, contact page, names of the movers and shakers, list of who to contact, and a HOW-TO for successful contact. aristocrat.com/about/Scroll to the bottom of the page. A couple of the statement links are rather uncommon. Contact form, street address, mailing address, phone number: www.aristocrat.com/contact/Movers and shakers (Board of Directors and executives): www.aristocrat.com/about/our-leaders/ My picks for a Revive BFG campaign are: Trevor Coker, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director and Member of the Board. Neil Chatfield, Chairman of the Board Julie Cameron-Doe, Chief Financial Officer Dan Yang, Chief Strategy Officer Mitchell Bowen, CEO Aristocrat Gaming and Chief Transformation Officer <-- CTO is an uber important title. Look it up. How To: 1. On the Contact Form: Message type, Other 2. In message area: - To the attention of [contact name]
- From: Big Fish Games member since [Feb. 2009 for me]
- Ref: Big Fish Games, a once thriving asset, now unnecessarily losing members (money) due to Aristocrat neglect.
3. Message text Keep it short and sweet, list problems in bullet points. These are busy people who most likely have others filtering messages; bullet points are efficient, powerful, and draw attention. Example (this is what I am sending to each of the execs on my list above, feel free to copy and edit as the same message from different people does impact a corporation): Areas requiring attention: - Hidden object adventure games have devolved to cookie cutter status, other game genres doing the same. Creativity, quality, proofing in the toilet. No joy, no power of play.
- Intermediary and Expert/Advanced members moving to Steam. Steam, your biggest competitor, is profiting from your neglect of Big Fish Games, the which is the biggest casual game site on the Internet; we'd all like to keep it that way.
- Website falling into disrepair - Blog not maintained, entire alphabet sections of the walkthroughs (such as all games starting with "T") are missing, etc.
- Customer/member email contact has become close to non-existant. I am suddenly receiving emails that ask for more reviews (for someone like me, that's a big red flag), in-message links do not work (one must copy link and insert in new tab depending on the recipient's browser).
- Game Manager does not work properly for those of us who own more than 450 games. Really? You have a ceiling for how many games a member can purchase?
- Customer service is on the fritz. Though the CS reps are very nice and patient, emails are not read, canned replies are sent with free game coupons (these are literally handed out like candy, i.e. lost revenue).
Ah, look. It's great that you are advertising all over the Internet for new customers; however, the above list is causing customer atrophy beyond the norm, which will only get worse if not attended to. It doesn't take all that long for a newbie to become and Intermediate player.
Respectfully,
[member name and country]
-----------------
Important points: Be sure to include "No joy, no power of play". Their motto is "Bringing joy to life through the power of play". Unnecessary loss of revenue is the theme. As for the bit about the Game Manager in my bullet list, I own over 600 games and my GM started acting weird around 450. Finally, after some 18 months of fiddling with the blasted thing and Customer Service, one delightful lady in CS explained that I have too many games in the app and must use a work-around for some items such as reloading old games into the My Games section. If I want to see my Purchase History, I have to go to the BFG website, and when I use a coupon in the cart area I get a strange little dropdown menu on which I have to select "Finish" to paste the coupon; the Game Manager cannot handle the load. Lemme know what you think.
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smitty189
Squirrel
[TI18] "No great mind ever existed without a touch of madness" Aristotle
Posts: 1,000
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Post by smitty189 on Sept 3, 2021 20:39:26 GMT
mercuryminerva, volauvent, moni, mooky, pennmom,@valdy, sandy, ranbar61,@pennmom, Jo, volauvent for this important info. Don't have time today but tomorrow I believe my email account will be steaming. Still being restricted a bit by the Covid surge and not ever having any new decent games to play has been a real bummer si I for one will give it a shot got nuthin to lose but time and carpal tunnel
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pennmom
Bear
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[TI0] IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK AND ALL'S WELL
Posts: 16,570
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Post by pennmom on Sept 3, 2021 21:01:15 GMT
Ah, look. It's great that you are advertising all over the Internet for new customers; however, the above list is causing customer atrophy beyond the norm, which will only get worse if not attended to. It doesn't take all that long for a newbie to become and Intermediate player. The best description of the situation I've ever heard Clapping
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pennmom
Bear
Chief Ranger
[TI0] IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK AND ALL'S WELL
Posts: 16,570
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Post by pennmom on Sept 3, 2021 21:16:44 GMT
mercuryminerva ,moni ,mooky ,smitty189 ,@valdy ,sandy ,ranbar61 ,volauvent ,
I finally got around to playing and reviewing Twin Mind: Power of Love this morning and I kind of went on a long-winded rant because it is clearly not just the developers who are at fault for the poor game quality.
I copy/pasted the rant portion of my review:
I've always considered Domini Games to be in the upper-class as far as professionalism and quality goes, until lately. The past dozen or so games have slipped significantly as far as quality is concerned. Lately, games have had mechanical issues where objects are "invisible" in a zoom zone, achievements that are awarded for the wrong action at the wrong time, and strategy guides that have missing or wrong information. After playing Power of Love, I'm shocked because the grammatical errors are blatantly obvious and so numerous that you have to wonder if they are wearing themselves too thin, or they simply don't care about quality anymore because they have no competition?
Even if you don't care about grammatical errors, you have to wonder why someone would say "the criminal sent a parcel, it might be something" of course it's something...it's a package??? A note attached to said package says "we've sent you a new knocker instead of the broken one" Were they contemplating sending a broken doorknocker because that's certainly what the note implies?? Even if none of these things bother you, surely the fact that this "new" game series has the exact same plot as the last new series by this developer, Fatal Evidence: The Cursed Island??
I've already come to terms that Domini will never be able to think outside the box. They will never be able to make their games more interesting because they cannot or will not put forth an effort to be more creative with the tasks & gameplay. When a developer targets ALL of their games towards beginners, the genre will become self-limiting because eventually even those new to the genre will grow weary of the same gameplay over and over, beginners are only beginners for a small period of time!
One might argue that HOPA developers have disappeared because the genre no longer interests gamers. IF this were the case, then why do so many people talk about replaying their older games. Why do so many people still state how these older games were so much better than what's offered today? When is the last time you were blown away by a HOPA folks, has Big Fish offered an epic game in the last few years that will go down in history as a fan-favorite like MCF Dire Grove?
The HOPA genre hasn't died, BF killed it because they refuse to listen to the correct audience. They are giving these few remaining developers poor advice and guidance! BF is clearly making developers adhere to an outdated guideline because they never bother to do any marketing surveys other than the mobile/gambling market. HOPAs put BF on the map, but when it started to run out of gas they just left it behind and looked for the next money-maker when the real goldmine was still sitting in front of them in a huge heaping pile.
BF just chose to keep doing what they were doing, riding the money train w/o bothering to listen to the fans that made the genre number one. They milked the money train even longer by cutting corners and telling developers to copy/paste the same mini-games, HO's, and game mechanics into each proceeding game, only bothering to change the graphics and storyline.
Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, and a little bit of research would have saved this genre (and perhaps a survey to the right people asking the right questions) This would have saved all of the wonderful developers we grew to love, and miss so much, such as Vendel Games, Amax, Boolat, Eipix, Blue Tea, Daily Magic, Deep Shadow, Vast Studio, Sunward Games, Mariglorum, games and so many more! We lost a ton of amazing developers and we will lose the few remaining because of poor management and advice. It's still salvageable, but not until BF realizes that their "vision" is outdated and geared toward the wrong audience.
The current direction they are forcing these developers to take will be the last nail in the coffin. We HOPA fans know what changes need to be made, so why not take a chance and start asking us? Let's not forget that most HOPA fans are Baby Boomers or at the tail end of that era...imagine how many creative minds there are in a group 71 million strong!
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smitty189
Squirrel
[TI18] "No great mind ever existed without a touch of madness" Aristotle
Posts: 1,000
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Post by smitty189 on Sept 3, 2021 22:49:10 GMT
mercuryminerva, moni, mooky, pennmom, smitty189,@valdy, sandy, ranbar61, volauvent,@pennmom, Jo, ADD TO THE WONDERFUL DIATRIBE HOW THEY KEEP SHOOTING THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT WITH FREE GAME CODES INSTEAD OF TRYING TO ACTUALLY FIX A PROBLEM. IF I HADN'T WANTED TO PLAY A GAME I WOULD NOT HAVE PURCHASED IT. ALSO FIX THE BLEEPING FORUM SO HOPA FANS COULD HELP EACH OTHER AND SAVE SOME MONEY
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Jo
Skunk
Forest Ranger
Posts: 2,024
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Post by Jo on Sept 4, 2021 16:24:25 GMT
The one fact that people are missing here is that the gaming market has changed.This was Big Fish Games prediction in 2015 for the next three years. Is it any wonder that the quality of HOPA games decreased? What we are seeing now, in the offerings from BF in the HOPA genre, are mobile games which, by definition, are shorter and less complex because they are cheaper and more in demand. Gotta crank 'em out fast! The prediction came true plus some. There has been some increase in PC gaming in the last couple of years primarily due to the surge of indie games.
As much as we would all like BF to remain loyal to us and provide games we love, the fact of the matter is that any company's primary goal is to make money. Even before BFG was sold to Churchill, revenues of the premium game division (HOPA CEs) of the company was starting to fall and mobile/F2P/gambling revenues were increasing. The other thing that happened is that mobile devices became more powerful, more capable of handling complex graphics which opened the gaming market for mobile gaming even more. My cell phone is more powerful than my first computer with a bigger hard drive and better resolution. My cell phone takes better, higher resolution, photos than my first digital camera ( a Sony Mavica with 2 megapixel pics and cost me $700). My cell phone is a middle of the road Samsung S205DL. My one year old iPad is amazing!
When BFG was sold to Aristocrat in November 2017, an Australian gambling machine manufacturer, the whole focus of BFG changed.
From Wikipedia: "In July 2014 Aristocrat agreed to buy Video Gaming Technologies for about $1.3 billion to triple its North American business amid falling profit in Australia. On 10 August 2017, it acquired mobile game developer Plarium for $500 million to enter into mobile gaming.[8] On 30 November 2017, it acquired mobile game developer Big Fish Games for US$990 million." See this GeekWire article with special attention to this statement: “Big Fish is a very successful business with a bright future that will be best realized by being part of Aristocrat’s strategy and vision for their online and mobile gaming portfolio.”
This isn't going to change for BFG. I have been playing some old HOPAs (pre-2015) lately and I am amazed by the quality, length of gameplay and attention to detail. But my first love has always been and will always be adventure games. I came to BFG in 2007, my sister recommended it, because I just couldn't find adventure games. This was mostly pre-digital download and about the same time that consoles were gaining popularity. Devs just weren't making PC adventure games because the money was in console games. It was a bleak period for adventure gamers and BF was my port in the storm.
We won't even get into BFG predatory practices with HOPA devs especially that a lot of devs no longer own their games, cannot sell them independently and must be dependent on BF sales even at other portals like Steam. Now that's not unusual for game publishers. Lots of predatory publishers have cheated game devs in all genres. And we won't get into BFG's premium game pricing which is exorbitant.
So the whole point of this is to add a different perspective. It's very similar to the movie industry. Video rental store like Blockbuster have gone out of business. The cables companies are taking a hit. Movie theaters are getting shuttered. Streaming rules the movie industry now. Even Disney has jumped on the streaming bandwagon. I know it's no comfort, but times change.
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Post by volauvent on Sept 4, 2021 17:23:42 GMT
Oh my, Jo. You nailed it. Now I remember why I subscribed to GameDev.net: to find out what the hell is going on. :(. I had forgotten.
Over there I read that the big money is in those so-called free games where you have to buy more whatever's to keep playing. One article stated that even those games are starting to whither away, but that die-hard companies will keep some of them going to the bitter end.
Basically, the money is in dumbing down the audience to play, pay, play, pay. I mean, it's only $1, right? My brother and his wife got caught up in that until they suddenly realized that it only takes a couple of sessions to fork over a grocery bag's worth of only-one-dollars.
The interesting thing about the goings on in the game production community is that casual games barely rate a mention, don't seem to be even a blip on the radar. As a matter of fact, reading the GameDev news became more depressing than scanning the daily headlines on Yahoo News.
Thank heaven for Steam. I went back to them a few months ago and am now totally addicted to locked room games. "The Room" series is to die for.
And thank heaven for all my BF old games. Been playing retro for a while now, and often go prowling in the "Puzzle" section.
So. Now I need to re-think my Aristocrat plan. Bless you for that, Jo. I might have ended up with egg on my face. Missed My Beer
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