Can you predict a hit?

No.

Well, yes.  But you have to assume that execution is adequate, and this is a huge assumption.  Many, maybe most games fail based on poor execution alone.  Execution encompasses areas such as interface, controls, bugginess, gameplay balance, and all other areas of production quality.  Execution is the one true wild card.  We engage in folly when we predict if an unreleased game will be a hit, because we cannot predict execution quality.

Well, unless the studio has a tract record of top notch execution, like Blizzard, Valve, and Bioware.  Then it's a well placed bet.

Otherwise, we're back to no, it's not possible to predict a hit.

Execution happens to be the area most disrupted by the publisher's money squeeze, or when they try to rush a game out to beef up revenues in one of their fiscal quarters, to ensure their stock doesn't take a slight tumble and rile investors a wee little bit.  It's really hard to execute on execution when you've got limited time to get things right.  This shortsighted behavior by publishers has sunk more games than perhaps any other development factor in the industry.  Too many games are simply released before they're done.  Eighty percent done does not a hit make.  We all know this, right?

Well, I wish.

So, while it's deadly tough to predict if a game will be a hit, it's actually not nearly so tough to make a hit game.  In fact, I think it's kinda easy.  Except you need to have the time to execute the game to its full potential.  That's quite an "except," and only a handful of studios can do so.  Well, like Blizzard, Valve, and Bioware.  Funny that.

Comments

[Patrick Johnson Jr.]

Predicting a hit is like predicting who's going to win a fight, a football game or a stock car race. You can set a probability in favor of a certain person based on previous trends and evaluating the pros and cons of each factor of the decision.

While you can stack the odds in favor of it being a surefire hit, there's that probability of it going the other way. Betting on the Eagles to win the NFC East again, when there's a probability that the Cowboys (here's hoping), Giants or Redskins win it.

Predicting it is a game of chance, you can either come up with a correct assumption or you can predict wrong.

I agree alot of the publisher causing that unbalance in the force, but there are other factors that can derail it too...

While odds can always be improved, there is always that chance of stinking it up with a dud of a game.

[Anon]

I think there is some fundamental 'element' that greatly increases the chance of success.

Look at 2015. They make an amazing game, MOH that redefines the genre and spawns a ton of WW2 oriented clones. Most of the team subsequently leave to form Infinity Ward. The team members who are left carry on and reform the company to start work on a new game, Men of Valour. EA try to continue the franchise themselves with Rising Sun.

Men of Valour is released to widespread indifference. The title achieves mediocre ratings. The same thing occurs with Rising Sun, although here there seems to be a small spark of greatness. Infinity Ward finish up Call of Duty, a new franchise, which achieves widespread acclaim and popularity, becoming one of the top online titles.

I've mangled the timelines, but the point is there does seem to be some magic ingredient which allows a team to achieve repeated successes. When team members leave, that ingredient can be lost.

[Jeron Moore]

Ah, come on Scott... we all know Valve, Blizzard, and Bioware don't got nothin' on 3D Realms. ;) Actually, all of you guys are great companies making great games that speak to a high level and standard of production. Too many games nowadays are rushed -- it's alot like the pile up of bad movies that come down the pipe. Every now and then a few good ones will sneak out - take Spielberg's latest, War of the Worlds. Holy shit. That's an instant class. In the gaming world, only a handful of developers are going the extra mile and making the extra effort to assure their game is bulletproof. I can say with relative certainty and confidence that you guys, Valve, Blizzard, Bioware... y'all are in the market for instant classics. And you'll do it time and time again, because you know the secret on how to make it happen.

[Tedski]

In this day and age, especially if you aren't 'well known' in the first instance, a major criteria should be to be as 'bug-free' as possible. I can't think of anything else that is more likely to contribute to the relative 'failure' of a game than the necessity to have to patch/download drivers/mess with system settings, simply to get a game to run. I appreciate that what you're saying Scott is, by implication at least, covering this territory, yet I don't think it can be stressed enough. Gamers can, will, do enjoy 'tweaking' things to get better performance, but they don't want to be doing it in the hope of getting their game to run, and word soon gets around.

[Suresh V. S.]

I agree with the point on execution. Just look at what happened to Sin and Half Life 1. They both tried to achieve similar goals in terms of story, characters, scripted sequences etc. Just like Half Life 1, Sin was constantly being praised - right until it was released. Then suddenly, everybody started complaining. So what happened? Surely, the game's story hadn't changed, the characters hadn't changed ... the only thing that changed was how often you ended up being dropped to your desktop while playing. And no game character or story can save your game from that!

[Tadhg]

Wait a second here:

Define 'hit'

[Scott Miller]

Hit = top five percent or so successful seller for a given year, relative to its release platforms.

Kinda hard to define, but we all know what it means. ;-)

[Tadhg]

Not good enough because there are two distinct kinds of game that make that cut. There are those who have a ton of money spent on them in terms of promotion and brand awareness etc, and those that genuinely take the world by storm.

For example, FIFA soccer has millions spent on it every year and sells very well year in year out as a result. Is that truly a hit, or just an average day at the office? We can predict it will do well because of its spend.

On the other hand, a game like Halo, though promoted was uncertain and became a huge success story, a true hit to the extent that it sold tons of consoles.

My point is that there needs to be a distinction between both types of big seller. One is just a successful franchise, but the other is an actual hit.

[Robert Howarth]

It's very easy to predict a hit provided you know the market, what the game offers, and a basic run down of what it can do. Usually it's as easy as seeing a few screen shots...

[Mark]

Funny, when I think of when games started to come out, there was hardly any pressure from publishers(from what I can recall, I was 10 at the time). Ok, so the markets grown and there are a lot of more generic titles. You want a hit game? let the developers take risks and allow creativity. I've recently played Psychonaughts, it has to have one of the most unique level designs I've ever encountered for a platform type game. Been a while where a game has given me that type of "wow, something new" feeling.

[Spot]

I think you are right on here Scott. It is much like normal IT development matters. When you rush something, you will get crap, or at least more crap than if you spent your time. Some company executives do not understand this and pressure their IT divisions to produce and launch much quicker than is advised, then complain when it does not dance like they expected.

I also think that in many cases, producers do not focus and allow time for some of the smaller, yet very important, aspects of the execution process. When the core game essentials are wrapping up, they start pressuring for gold when all the polishing details have not been completed on the ‘first impression’ variables such as interface, menuing, keymapping support, etc. Small things which can infuriate your audience to the point of madness and therefore set off bombs in your viral marketing networks.

[Tadhg]

"I think you are right on here Scott. It is much like normal IT development matters. When you rush something, you will get crap, or at least more crap than if you spent your time. Some company executives do not understand this and pressure their IT divisions to produce and launch much quicker than is advised, then complain when it does not dance like they expected."

All he's saying is 'If you spend the money well, you'll get a return.' These aren't really hits though in the sense that they're not runaway successes and they're not attracting 'hit' levels of profits.

You can't predict a real hit.

[Wilf]

Take the press, marketing and internet away for a moment. We're stuck with old-fashioned stores selling games.
Which do you buy?
The one with the cool graphics?
The one with the buzzword bullshit splattered all over it?
The one with a familiar name/brand/developer/producer on it?

I have a theory that a game is a hit long before it arrives in stores and it begins the sharp descent in to mediocracy the instant it hits the shelves.

A true hit, therefore, is the one that resists the bargain bucket the longest.

Subjective naturally.

[Scott Miller]

I generally think of a hit as a game that sells 1.5 million plus copies, whether on one platform of several combined.

Part of my point in my original post was that execution is critical to success, and the companies that are given the time/money to execute well, seem to be consistent hit makers. By no means is execution everything, there are of course other factors, but I think execution is the factor most often short-changed.

[Anon]

"It's very easy to predict a hit provided you know the market, what the game offers, and a basic run down of what it can do. Usually it's as easy as seeing a few screen shots..."

Wow, someone should sign this guy up to work at a publisher. He can tell a hit from a sell-sheet and a few screenshots.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

It's very easy to predict a hit provided you know the market, what the game offers, and a basic run down of what it can do. Usually it's as easy as seeing a few screen shots.

Sadly, Robert, you're right, and the reason why you're right isn't magic, nor should it be applauded. Very simply, it's a question of looking at what's there, rather than seeing what you want to see, and the fact of the matter is most game designs, marketing, and markets, are predictable, and not in a good way.

Part of my point in my original post was that execution is critical to success, and the companies that are given the time/money to execute well, seem to be consistent hit makers. By no means is execution everything, there are of course other factors, but I think execution is the factor most often short-changed.

At the risk of boring everyone to tears about Zen and strategy, a basic principle of Zen is that you can only directly control yourself, and a strategic principle is not to worry about speed, as speed comes through expertise of execution.

The lessons here are that developers should get more real about their ambitions, and better juggle time and ability to delivery. If that means scaling back ambitions or extending schedules, do it. By putting your head in the sand, you disrespect yourself, your publisher, and your customers.

Looking at the concept of a hit. Here, I think, you've got to seperate the sales and critical aspects, as we all know that a film, such as "War of the Worlds", may be a sales hit and a critical failure, which the vagaries of the market and special interests often obscure.

Myself, I think, a true hit, whether it be an individual work, body of work, individual, or concept, just to broaden things out, is an expression of pent up demand that's invisible to the market, which is why true hits are always a surprise.

A useful comparison is the early Hollywood start system, which took actors with the right qualities and managed and marketed them into a lead position, but the real and enduring stars, like James Stewart or Cary Grant, had a magical X factor.

You do, what you are.

[Wilf]

If you (quite understandably) define a hit as selling a certain amount of games, then let's liken that to the water level.
It's as if we're saying all games start at the floor of the ocean and they strive to breath air at the surface before becoming a "hit".
With every sale they swim upwards. With every negative review they sink.

Some companies are a license to print money. id software and Rare here in the UK once held this license. I believe that to be changing.
But the point is, their titles were lifted from the sea floor the moment their development was announced. By the time the game has hit the shelves some 3 to 4 years later, the internet, marketing and magazines have sold enough for them to breach the surface. An instant hit.

This is severly undermining or side-skipping the issue of the game's content and as you say execution.

Once upon a time, all games were sold by word of mouth. Playground chatter. Who had the high score etc. It used to be important to say that you had completed a game and experienced the special ending (although most were not always so special).

These days a game is not necessarily played to be completed, rather it is played to enjoy a certain element. I think this may well have started with the advent of deathmatch.

I think that gamers have lost that initial focus with games that made them so appealling. The whole picture as it were. The start, the middle and the end.
In reacting to their audience's desires, developers have followed suit.

I know I make a clumsy point, but the point is that I don't think volumes shifted is a reflection of a game's appeal.

[Wilf]

Just to extend my last post.. I guess what I'm asking is, for a game to be a hit, who does it need to be a hit for?

The game playing public or the game's publisher.

UT2003 sold a bucket load but generally speaking it's regarded as a weak title.
The publisher however could argue that the game was a hit. The gamers may disagree.

I should go an enjoy the sunshine now. :)

[PaG]

I think it's a mistake to just blame publishers for developers lacking time to add a high level of polish to their game. Even if the publisher gives more time, there is a tendency from developers to simply make their game bigger in response. Instead of improving the quality of what they already have, developers just increase the scope of what they have.

Both publishers and developers must realise that quality takes time. Developers must realise it so that they choose to make games smaller in scope so that there is time left for polish. Publishers must realise it so that they don't pressure developers into removing all the time for polish out of a fear that developers are just wasting their time.

I think the game industry would gain a lot to move toward a culture of quality over quantity. Right now there's a lot of pressure to create the biggest game possible in the given time, rather than the best game possible.

---
Sacred cows make great steaks -- Fresh ideas on game development: http://www.pagtech.com

[Wilf]

I think the game industry would gain a lot to move toward a culture of quality over quantity. Right now there's a lot of pressure to create the biggest game possible in the given time, rather than the best game possible.

I've read interviews with various Nintendo luminaries who state exactly this. I'm hoping that their Revolution console will be home to some high quality, instantly accessible games as a result.

[Anon]

OK, predict this Mr. Miller: will your next game be a hit? (Indeed, will it even come out this decade?)

[Scott Miller]

God I hate typing in this teeny, tiny edit box. What were the idiots at Typepad thinking?!

Anyway, yes, I think Prey and Duke 4 will both be hits, both critically and sales-wise. But we get to make games without our publisher telling us when our funding runs out, or when the game needs to come out. Plus, for us, we simply refuse to release an unpolished, or unfun game.

Also, when starting a new IP, we are pretty good at innovating in compelling areas, and this is one of the other big factors to making a hit.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

God I hate typing in this teeny, tiny edit box. What were the idiots at Typepad thinking?!

Why do you favour one way when a better one is available?

I'm drafting my reply in Notepad, which gives me acres of space, and could use Word if I had niggles with spelling, and am cutting and pasting the result into the comment box. Sure, it's an annoying workaround to someone else's problem, but it gets the boat to port.

It's funny how we, sometimes, trip over small pebbles.

[Sludge]

So what happens to Bungie? They used to be independent, and released games on their own clock.

I'd speculate Halo 1's Xbox release was relatively easy to achieve. But with Halo 3, they're looking to nail down a specific date -- the launch of the PS3.

In much the same way the third Matrix movie defined whether the second sucked or not, the third Halo game will define whether the series will really put quality first.

But I don't know -- they are using the game as a marketing tool. The reasons for nailing down a launch date are HUGE.

[Tadhg]

"Part of my point in my original post was that execution is critical to success, and the companies that are given the time/money to execute well, seem to be consistent hit makers. By no means is execution everything, there are of course other factors, but I think execution is the factor most often short-changed."

And then there's Driv3r.