Funding the Next Game

[Rueckkoppler]

And then release the game day one on all platforms, now that they're getting the hang of the most recent newcomer, the Nintendo Switch.

The Switch will never get the game on day one because it takes so much extra effort to downgrade a game enough to run on it. Playtonic is a small independent studio and it would probably take all their resources for months to do the job. In order to ship a product they will be forced to do what they did this time and focus on other consoles first.

They should just use Switch as the base system they develop for. They're probably going to have a bigger market on the Switch anyway, despite the whole debacle with the Switch port of Yooka-Laylee.

Exactly. It's been proven that these kind of games don't sell as well on PlayStation / XBOX consoles. People expect these colourful games to come to a Nintendo platform and actively buy these systems for them. All the other ones don't care as much and those who do can be divided in other categories than the target audience, like former Nintendo-owner (nostalgic fan) or a parent who happens to own such a console and wants their kids to have something to play as well... but they usually buy Nintendo anyway if that's the case.

[metalreflectslime]

I have a feeling the sequel will perform poorly in sales due to the NS delay of the prequel.

There may not even be a YL Physical NS.

[baker_boy0017]

If we're going down that road, I imagine a sequel would do poorly on the other consoles because of how terribly received the game was on them. Plus, kids - a definite target audience - aren't privy to this development fiasco stuff. They'll go to the store, or go on the e-shop, or hear from some other friend about Yooka Laylee on the Switch and buy it. Kids don't go "Ugh, this game should have come out six months ago, I'm not buying it now."

At the same time, this is why I say Playtonic should REALLY go for some extra goodies in the Switch version, even if they are just exclusive to Switch for a little while only. Any extra incentive for people to buy on the Switch is huge.

I personally think a sequel could still happen, and I sincerely hope Playtonic decides to use Switch as a base platform. Switch sales will reveal whether this does happen or not I suppose. I just know my nephews - as soon as they get a Switch - will be dying to get Yooka Laylee for it.

[Alph]

They should just use Switch as the base system they develop for. They're probably going to have a bigger market on the Switch anyway, despite the whole debacle with the Switch port of Yooka-Laylee.

Unless Nintendo pays them to do it the Switch will never be the base system for any third party. Imagine how ridiculous the graphics would look when ported to the consoles with bigger install bases.

Ridiculous? You mean like how Super Mario Odyssey looks ridiculous? Because I'd love it if every Playtonic game from now on looks as good as Super Mario Odyssey.

[Jinjo]

I would not donate money again. The company is clearly missing that Stamper magic that Rare had. Most of the employees there aren't even ex-rare people now anyway, due to who they've hired.

Let's be real. The game was atrocious. The level design was probably the worst part of the game. If you don't think a 5 year old could have designed a better swamp level, you're lying, or at least very easily pleased. The music was probably the best part of the game, but even that was nothing special - not that the composers had much inspiration from the game to draw from.

The company is a mess. From the level designers to the director. It's clear that aside from the backers they haven't really attracted many other people to the game. The game has only 1,000 reviews on steam (you'd expect about 500+ to be from backers, given the number of backers) and the recent ones are mixed. I am struggling to see how they will be in operation 5 years from now as there is only so much fanboy money and loyalty out there to rely on.

If you donate money a second time to this company, you really are a fool. Wait and let them make a good game before giving them your money. They have already shown that they can't be relied upon.

[Meinhard1]

The above comment is so bitter and filled with assumptions. And IMO if this game ends up missing some magic, it will moreso be the lack Gregg Mayles influence/oversight than anything.

On topic: do we know how this game has sold?

[JohnGrey]

The above comment is so bitter and filled with assumptions. And IMO if this game ends up missing some magic, it will moreso be the lack Gregg Mayles influence/oversight than anything.

On topic: do we know how this game has sold?

Not well from everything that I've been able to suss out. Steam penetration is rather anaemic, especially when you consider that A Hat In Time, which is Y-L's most direct genre competitor, already has 75% of the ownership base despite being out for less than two months. Console is anyone's guess. VGChartz, which isn't particularly reliable admittedly, has 140k and 40k for PS4 and XB1 respectively. Starting from that base, if we assume a reasonable digital vs physical split, say 60/40, you'd be looking at 450k total on console. If you further assume that sales favoured consoles, which it almost certainly did (Wii U/Switch especially), to the tune of 75/25,that would be 112k on PC which is right in line with where sales are on Steam.

Couple that with the fact that brick-and-mortar retailers have discontinued stock refill and are selling what stock they have of physical discs at significant discount, it's safe to assume that it wasn't exactly flying off of shelves.

[NPChilla]

The above comment is so bitter and filled with assumptions. And IMO if this game ends up missing some magic, it will moreso be the lack Gregg Mayles influence/oversight than anything.

On topic: do we know how this game has sold?

Not well from everything that I've been able to suss out. Steam penetration is rather anaemic, especially when you consider that A Hat In Time, which is Y-L's most direct genre competitor, already has 75% of the ownership base despite being out for less than two months. Console is anyone's guess. VGChartz, which isn't particularly reliable admittedly, has 140k and 40k for PS4 and XB1 respectively. Starting from that base, if we assume a reasonable digital vs physical split, say 60/40, you'd be looking at 450k total on console. If you further assume that sales favoured consoles, which it almost certainly did (Wii U/Switch especially), to the tune of 75/25,that would be 112k on PC which is right in line with where sales are on Steam.

Couple that with the fact that brick-and-mortar retailers have discontinued stock refill and are selling what stock they have of physical discs at significant discount, it's safe to assume that it wasn't exactly flying off of shelves.

Sobering.

Looks like unless Playtonic hooks up with someone bigger, the company might be snookered.

[JohnGrey]

Sobering.

Looks like unless Playtonic hooks up with someone bigger, the company might be snookered.

Depends on your expectation of what PTG will be going forward and the sort of development model on which they'll be operating. I think I've read that the next game will be a free-to-play game of some sort, which essentially means that for their next outing they're going from traditional output to MTX-monetised GAAS; if I'm incorrect on that point, or any point, I'm happy to be corrected by an employee. If, however, that's correct, I don't think that bodes will for classically Rare-type output, at very least in the near term. I would love to see them become a second-party dev to a far wiser and benevolent master than Rare did; a Guerilla Games-type arrangement with Nintendo would be very heartening.

As an aside, one of the great joys I experience when contemplating the Everett interpretation is that there are universes out there where Nintendo realised the gem that Rare was and Banjo-Threeie was published on the GameCube. Would that I lived in that world.

[Tek]

I believe the talk of a MTX-monetised GAAS thing was simply a joke. Gavin Price spoke about what's next for Playtonic in an article on Gamesindustry.biz and said the following:

"Maybe it is the MMO built upon the framework of a free-to-play Match-3 puzzler with a lot of loot boxes," Price jokes. "We will either do that next, or the thing that most of our fans will be hoping for, only with a lot of surprises."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... oka-laylee

Combining that with all of the other things that are said and discussed in the article (including statements that they now consider themselves self-funding), I'd say it sounds like they're still very much interested in making traditional kinds of games that Rare fans would appreciate, and not focused on microtransaction models.

[Gorjo]

Plus I remember YL mocking microtransactions at least once, not sure now if it was through Laylee or Capital B.

[Taylor]

I would back another Playtonic Kickstarter project; I really enjoyed Yooka-Laylee and it was without a doubt worth my money.

I had hoped their next game would be funded by the profits of Yooka-Laylee, but I really don't know how realistic that is. I'm not sure what to make of the huge delay on the Switch in terms of business -- it's certainly not an ideal situation -- and then we also need to wait for the promised DLC as well. Dare we even remember the Kickstarter promise of a live orchestrated soundtrack?

Lots of money being eaten up, and no word from Playtonic how much they have in the bank.

I do believe a second game will begin development, but I'm not sure what game it will be, or how it'll be funded. Let's wait (possibly 6-12 months?) and see what's announced.

Edit: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... oka-laylee

This article confirms they are already working on other projects (although this may just been conceptually), and that they are (or want to be) self-funding.

[Meinhard1]

I’m not sure how good/bad 450k estimated on console alone is for an indie studio of Playtonic’s size. Doesn’t seem awful? It seems there’s a lot of variables we don’t know, including, as Taylor says, their post-launch patching/porting efforts and their ratio of resource demand to lucurativeness.

Lots of games self-fund, if it comes to it. As long as their next game pays off, they could be fine.

Wasn’t there an article a few months back about someone who got to visit Playtonic studios and play their unnanounced new game? It was a young person, they had a picture taken with the team

[Xellos]

I'm not giving Playtonic a single penny if they don't learn from their mistakes. Yooka-Laylee is flawed to its very core, the level design, gameplay, story, characters, minigames, quiz shows, bosses and even the music can't hold a candle to Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie. It's clear to me that without Nintendo's financial backing and guidance, missing important people like Gregg Mayles, George Andreas and so on - Playtonic couldn't replicate what Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie made so memorable for millions of people around the world.

If I were Playtonic, I would hire a lead game designer who has many years of experience under his belt (like Chris Seavor) - and put him in charge of Playtonic's next game. Then I would find a publisher which agrees to invest in the project, losing the IP be damned if that is what it takes to get an AA budget for the next game. And no, I don't think Team 17 is willing to fork over the dough if it would cost them tens of millions of dollars. There's no guarantee that this game would turn out to be great, but I believe it will have a better shot at it than Y-L had which was slammed by critics and fans alike.

I had so much faith in Playtonic. But in retrospect, it was too good to be true.

[Yitsul]

This has been a thought crossing my mind for a long time. I'm scared a new crowdfunding campaign will fail...

[NPChilla]

This has been a thought crossing my mind for a long time. I'm scared a new crowdfunding campaign will fail...

Same here.
Their best bet might be courting a larger company. Have they given Nintendo a ring?

[Operationgamer17]

The above comment is so bitter and filled with assumptions. And IMO if this game ends up missing some magic, it will moreso be the lack Gregg Mayles influence/oversight than anything.

On topic: do we know how this game has sold?

Not well from everything that I've been able to suss out. Steam penetration is rather anaemic, especially when you consider that A Hat In Time, which is Y-L's most direct genre competitor, already has 75% of the ownership base despite being out for less than two months. Console is anyone's guess. VGChartz, which isn't particularly reliable admittedly, has 140k and 40k for PS4 and XB1 respectively. Starting from that base, if we assume a reasonable digital vs physical split, say 60/40, you'd be looking at 450k total on console. If you further assume that sales favoured consoles, which it almost certainly did (Wii U/Switch especially), to the tune of 75/25,that would be 112k on PC which is right in line with where sales are on Steam.

Couple that with the fact that brick-and-mortar retailers have discontinued stock refill and are selling what stock they have of physical discs at significant discount, it's safe to assume that it wasn't exactly flying off of shelves.

Indie games like YL don’t need to sell a lot to make a profit. Hellblade, for example, broke even at only 500,000K copies, which would be considered low by AAA standards. I asked Andy Robinson how well it was doing for Playtonic a while back, and this was his response: https://www.twitter.com/AndyPlaytonic/s ... 6768874498

[Rueckkoppler]

Indie games like YL don’t need to sell a lot to make a profit. Hellblade, for example, broke even at only 500,000K copies, which would be considered low by AAA standards. I asked Andy Robinson how well it was doing for Playtonic a while back, and this was his response: https://www.twitter.com/AndyPlaytonic/s ... 6768874498

Sounds good so far, but I hope that they seriously scale down the scope of the next game if that means more polish and a more consistent direction (gameplay/content wise).

[dotEXE]

I would back another Playtonic Kickstarter, though I have to say Yooka-Laylee did not live up to my hopes.

I admit my hopes were high, but it does sort of feel cathartic eventually admitting that YL didn't live up to them. It had its charms, but it was no replacement for Banjo Kazooie which I've beaten three times since YL came out.

Perhaps the best part about YL is that it has finally allowed me to let Banjo Kazooie 3 go. It's never happening. Banjo Kazooie and Tooie were unique creations in a unique environment that will never be replicated.

[Pgcrooner]

I have to agree that Yooka-laylee didn’t live up to my expectations either. It’s got all the right ingredients, but it seems to lack the magic of B-K and B-T. For me personally I think it’s the level design, and the repeat NPCs and enemies. Also this game’s narrative isn’t as gripping and high stakes as B-K and B-T. Both those games had a lot of comedy to them sure, but they also weren’t afraid to be dark at times. B-K felt like a fairytale, and that’s missing from Y-L, a game where you literally go into book worlds.

That being said though, I still got enjoyment out of Y-L but there is a lot of room for improvement. The success and praise towards both a hat in time and Mario Odyssey more than proves the guys at playtonic were right to re-explore this genre of gaming.Just like how back in the 90s they saw Mario64 and improved the formula with B-K, I think they too can learn from and improve the formula set by odyssey.