We can't really blame AAA companies for not being innovative. I wouldn't gamble with 15 million dollars. That's what we have indies for.

And, truth be told, innovative games have been commercial failures more often than not. Psychonauts being the poster boy example.

I agree.

Who was the target group? People who knew and loved the original Syndicate weren't probably that interested in this new FPS game, while for people who are not familiar with the earlier Syndicate games, having the name "Syndicate" is not a selling point.

Still, I quite liked the TRON 2.0 FPS game, even if it was nothing like the earlier TRON arcade coin op. :)

Next on the line: Dungeon Keeper 3 FPS, and Magic Carpet 3 free-to-play MMORPG, with microtransactions of course (every powerup costs real money).

That was an excellent game. On of the best shooters of its time.

TRON 2.0 was based on the film, not the old arcade game.

And you're more right than you know with Dungeon Keeper 3. Remember what they did with the Might and Magic licence? Dark Messiah ring any bells? Turned out quite well it seems.

It sold badly because of lack of marketing?
Maybe, because mediocre games need heavy marketing to sell, but if the game was great it would have sold.
I saw enough of media coverage and that without even being interested in the game.

The balls way to make Syndicate would be to take everything that worked in the originals and just add more stuff.
Add espionage and assassinations to the global gameplay, diplomacy between corporations and cooperator firms to the global gameplay. Add RPG-ish upgrades like chips for agents beside the usual upgrade system.

On the tactical side, enable entering of buildings in the city, add a CoH style of cover behind benches. Enable injures by body parts that effects your agents.

There, it's old school with innovation and 100x times better then a derivative shooter with overuse of bloom.

Sometimes I wonder if the game creators are prone to overestimating their own abilities. They want to have game with cool features but they have only a small budget. So they aim big, but they deliver an unfinished, unpolished game which doesn't get many things right.

But marketing is also important. For the big AAA titles the marketing budget is what percentage of the total budget?

Shitty remake is shitty, and sold poorly. Nothing to see here....

The sad thing is that this is just like the last Shadowrun. Instead of creating a game that's closer to it's roots, the developers made a shooter. No one wants an exact copy of Syndicate, but at least make it a tactical game of some sort.

Now that it sold poorly, EA will scrap any further plans with the franchise and move on. The chances of getting a more consistent Syndicate game will most likely never happen now.

Yeah I know, hence the smiley. It isn't the same.

I'm unsure how well a tactical Syndicate 3 would have sold either, though. Are there that many hardcore Syndicate fans out there that would rush to buy it? I felt Syndicate + American Revolt were ok, that's all. I can live without another Syndicate game, esp. as I've yet to play the Syndicate Wars that I have.

the point is that the "shitty" remake is not actually "shitty" at all, it is quite decent and solid. Did you play it?

Remember the game Freedom Fighters? It was a squad based tactical shooter with fairly deep group tactics. If you had a custom team that you can augment and equip any way you want for the mission at hand combined with a deep group based gameplay, then that is probably closer to the spirit of Syndicate.

Plus, the third person group based shooter is a good marriage with today's trends. You throw in some light co-op, as one of your buddies controls a member of your group that you already spec'd out or something and boom, you have the makings of a game that I would love to play. And to top it off, create a dark cyberpunk story and setting, and damn I kinda want to play my game now.


That is a better game idea that takes what Syndicate was and combines it with today's love of shooters than the mediocre FPS that was released instead.


@Sinizine

Yeah, I agree with you on the name thing. Why even call it Syndicate if the only people that name would attract are long time fans and the new version is so different it's only going to turn them off anyway? The kids today don't know what Syndicate was, so the name is irrelevant to them.

Civ 2 was basically Civ with more Civ. It was mainly just refining the formula.




And from what I've heard from people who actually played the new Syndicate was that it was a pretty alright game. Not a game worth 50€, but still a game worth playing once it reaches a lower price point.
Marketing sucked though. It looked like EA expected the name "Syndicate" to sell the game for them, because most of the marketing seemed to be based on pushing the name, and not show us anything about the game itself. It would probably have sold quite a lot better if they just tried to start a new franchise, and marketed it as such.
And to be honest, I don't get EA's marketing department, this is not the first time EA has thrown a lot of money on a game, only to forget to market it properly (another example would be Armies of Exigo, a big budget RTS, with a slightly derivative game mechanics, but which was really well put together, and a blast to play. And how many have actually heard of it?). Proper marketing can make or break a game's sales, far more than review scores and actual quality (look at Drakensang & its sequel, River of Time. Two excellent games... that they did not market at all outside of Germany. Of course they sold poorly)

Depends on the company. Some companies, like EA and Activision, don't include marketing in the dev budget, and the marketing budget ends up going well over the original production budget. I heard the marketing budget for Modern Warfare 2 was five times the actual development budget. Where the fuck is all this money going?