LogIn"Sometimes gamers need to put their money where their mouth is."
Troika Games
Tim Cain is an important person in the game industry, nowadays sharing his experience and views on YouTube but in the past, creating such famous games as the first two Fallout titles, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
With these popular RPGs in his portfolio, some fans wonder why we haven't seen continuations from him. The truth is pretty harsh: the originals just didn't sell as well as expected.
"People regularly tell me, 'Why don't you make another game like Bloodlines,' or, 'Why don't you make a sequel to Arcanum?'" he said (via PC Gamer). "They're like, 'You made a cult classic.' And I'm like, 'The problem is the cult part.' They didn't sell well enough for a publisher to go, 'Oh yeah, we definitely gotta jump on a sequel to that.' So it's weird to hear people say to me, in some cases decades later, 'You should have done another one.' It's like, 'You should have bought it.'"
With the marketing of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 (I don't know about you, but news about it is often in my inbox,) Cain's words might seem strange, but if we go back in time, we'll recall that Cain's development studio, Troika Games, was disbanded soon after its release – the game was praised for its writing but criticized for many technical issues. Eventually, the team couldn't find a publisher willing to fund their next unnamed post-apocalyptic RPG and had to close its doors.
Troika Games
"I hate to put things so mechanically," Cain added, "but sometimes gamers need to put their money where their mouth is. If they don't like a game, they shouldn't buy it. If they love a game, they should buy it, and then they're going to get more of what they want." He's adamant that he's not blaming gamers, though. "I just think the only way to get more of what you want is to buy the things you want and not buy the things you don't want. Because ultimately, that's all that people are hearing. If a game comes out and sells a million copies, it'll probably get a sequel. If a game comes out and sells 50,000 copies, it's not getting a sequel."
Alas, Bloodlines 2 is growing without Troika, but hopefully, The Chinese Room will make sure the game has a future, although its several delays don't look too good for Paradox Interactive, its publisher.
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