What would have to happen for someone to make a real X-COM successor?

[NowhereDan]

As a PCG editor, I know something about games in development and plenty about finished games, but I know very little about the process of getting one off the ground. I'm particularly curious about why no one has had the [brains? balls? initiative? gumption? pixie dust? hookers and blow?] to make either an X-COM 2 (TFTD was a glorified expansion, and I choose to pretend none of the other games bearing the name ever happened) or a decent clone by a name of their choosing. You know, one that the fans don't have to finish for them.

I know it all comes down to dollars and cents, but are publishers really so frightened of losing money on a remake of a game that shows up prominently on the top 10 games of all time list (if not THE top game) of pretty much any PC game critic who actually played it? I can't believe that confidence in turn-based games is so low when the Civilization franchise is still going strong, Heroes of Might & Magic V did well enough for an expansion, and you still see upstarts like GalCiv doing well for themselves.

I may be wrong about this part, and if so please fill me in, but wouldn't a game like X-COM be relatively cheap to produce, even after a respectable level of polish, if you just licensed a half decent engine? There would be a lot of art to do, I suppose, but if you stick to the original design concept of randomly generated maps, you get a ton of replayability out of relatively little. And if you went with an anime-inspired art style, maybe even cel shaded (kind of an homage to the original game's opening cinematic) you could get around a lot of the expensive and time-consuming process of making things look realistic.

Seems to me like the worst thing that happens is, if it bombs in the US, they localize it to some Eastern European languages and make their money back in the Czech Republic. They can't seem to get enough X-COM clones over there, yet can't MAKE a good one to save their lives. In the meantime, they get a sure-thing critical darling that would certainly have an instant modding community spring up around it, as demonstrated by UFO:ET.

So what am I missing here? What's stopping this from happening?

[Jay Adan]

Back in my Cyberlore days I kept pushing to try to do this. Unfortunately, the common wisdom at the time was "turn-based strategy doesn't sell."

[Njal]

The only possible reason is that game companies hate gamers.

[Mark Asher]

Originally Posted by Jay Adan

Back in my Cyberlore days I kept pushing to try to do this. Unfortunately, the common wisdom at the time was "turn-based strategy doesn't sell."

Probably a bit of truth there in comparison to some other genres, but some TB games do sell, and some, like Civ, sell very well.

Infogrames/Atari kept trying to leverage the X-COM IP, so they clearly saw value in it. Everything they did was a bit clumsy, though.

[Kaigen]

Don't we already "know" (it seems all we're lacking is an official confirmation and the first screenshots) that Irrational is working on the new X-Com?

[olaf]

Does it seem fucked up that as successful as Xcom was it really did not spawn ANY successful clones in the severely underrepresented on the PC, 'Strategy'-RPG genre?

I love those games and would kill to have more to play, especially ones where the cast was not bubbly 12 year olds with big heads, bigger eyes and tits.

[Brian Rucker]

*in best Homer Simpson voice* "Hmmmmm. Tit-Com."

[davidf]

I pray that Irrational is working on it...the only thing I'm worried that they'll pass up doing is modeling the inside of buildings on their outdoor maps (Based off of FF), but otherwise I think they'll do a great job of representing the source material, and I have little doubt thy would make it quite fun :)

[Rob_Merritt]

There are two problems, Dan. First was who owned the rights to Xcom. Shortly after Microprose released Xcom, it was swallowed by Spectrum Holobyte who sold out to Hasbro, who in turn sold out to Atari/Infogrames. Every time a decent Xcom game got started (Alliance and Genesis), the company was sold and the project was killed. It was at Atari for the longest time and they had no interest in doing anything with it or selling it. It wasn't till 2005 when Atari started falling apart and was willing to sell parts of itself. Take Two got a bunch of IP from them, one of which is Xcom and in theory, they put Irrational to work on the game.

The second problem is no one seems to have got what made Xcom so good in the first place. Even the original creators seem to have missed the boat. They have put out two games in the Xcom model only to miss the target.

[Robert Sharp]

Does it need the name? What bothers me is that they haven't just made a game reasonably similar, excepting the European attempts at the UFO series. Why can't we get a decent budget for such a game?

Part of the problem is that for every Civ IV, you have Age of Wonders, Disciples, and a whole host of other games that are quite good but don't sell well. I think the companies are actually right about this. TBS doesn't sell as well as RTS as a rule. As hardcore gamers, we all want a new X-Com. But we aren't the principle audience for publishers. First, we are quite picky. If it isn't exactly what we want, we slam it completely and tell everyone not to play it. Second, as a percentage of gamers who buy games today, we don't register very high, it seems.

[davidf]

I saw the Gallop brothers demo of their updated X-Com at E3 before it got killed (was that 2000), while it was mostly a techncial demo we did get to see bits and pieces of play mock ups, intended style design, and the engine they were using (stunning for the time, completely destructable enviroments and multi level designs) and they had the vision and elements nailed down flat IMO. A tragedy it got the axe...

In fair disclosure, Apocalpse promised a lof of innovative things but dropped many of them with its release...and that theme??? Japanese anime meets George Jetson??? bleh, still they got all the core feature sets right at least

[jeffd]

Part of the problem I think is that game developers can't risk tinkering. Everyone knows all you need is a straight up port of X-Com gameplay to a modern 3D engine and you'll sell like hotcakes. But developers are engineers, and engineers can't help but tinker. So we've had all these spiritual remakes (like that latest one that went around qt3 a few weeks back) that change minor stuff that end up totally diverging from XCom.

[Kunikos]

I'm enjoying Rebel Star on my GBA, but I would probably buy a DS if they made an X-Com-esque portable game for it.

[ElGuapo]

It wouldn't sell. People SAY they love X-COM. They SAY they'd love a remake. But it's all nostalgia. If the formula is changed even a sliver of an iota, people will bitch. Even if it's a strict remake with better (more high res) graphics, it won't sell because people will bitch they didn't improve it.

A remake of X-COM doing well is the greatest hoax perpetuated by gamers there is. It won't sell.

UFO: Extraterrestrials proved it.

[Shadari]

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

Part of the problem is that for every Civ IV, you have Age of Wonders, Disciples, and a whole host of other games that are quite good but don't sell well.

Are you sure that Disciples hasn't sold well? I was under the impression that it did.

[Kunikos]

Originally Posted by ElGuapo

UFO: Extraterrestrials proved it.

... and here I thought it was because the graphics were ass, the translation was terrible, and they deballed the series greatness (no permadeath? WTF?). Fans can overlook the first two, but the third is unforgivable. The masses can overlook the last one, but the first two (especially the first one) is unforgivable. If you need low polygon and low texture quality, then go with an art style that works with it, don't try to do some bullshit that makes people's faces look like I drew with pen on an eraser head.

[Cold Blooded]

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

Part of the problem is that for every Civ IV, you have Age of Wonders, Disciples, and a whole host of other games that are quite good but don't sell well. I think the companies are actually right about this. TBS doesn't sell as well as RTS as a rule. As hardcore gamers, we all want a new X-Com. But we aren't the principle audience for publishers. First, we are quite picky. If it isn't exactly what we want, we slam it completely and tell everyone not to play it. Second, as a percentage of gamers who buy games today, we don't register very high, it seems.

Bout the size of it. Want more, buy more.

[instant0]

1993 all over again.

[davidf]

Originally Posted by ElGuapo

It wouldn't sell. People SAY they love X-COM. They SAY they'd love a remake. But it's all nostalgia. If the formula is changed even a sliver of an iota, people will bitch. Even if it's a strict remake with better (more high res) graphics, it won't sell because people will bitch they didn't improve it.

A remake of X-COM doing well is the greatest hoax perpetuated by gamers there is. It won't sell.

UFO: Extraterrestrials proved it.

Huh? It hasn't stores yet...though I agree with Kunikos to a degree, the the fact that the game is essentially unfinished is going to keep people that would have loved a X-Com game from risking a look. The sad thing is the mod community is really polishing this one up from its unfinished state..it might turn into a real winner in a month or two :)

I wanted to like this game as well, but once I got far enough and I realized just how many of the advertised features were not active (i.e. the third faction) I was really annoyed. and yes the graphic will turn off many gamers, isnt the point of a hotly coveted remake is to redo it using the industies current bells and whistles...not a title that would look "so so" 7 years ago. For the hardcore fans sure we might pick it up, but for the majority they are going to wait for somene to do it "right"

[NowhereDan]

Originally Posted by Kaigen

Don't we already "know" (it seems all we're lacking is an official confirmation and the first screenshots) that Irrational is working on the new X-Com?

That rumor is a glimmer of home for the X-COM IP, but given that Irrational's never made a turn-based game, I doubt that any game they might make (while it would almost certainly be awesome) would scratch the X-COM itch.

Originally Posted by Rob_Merritt

The second problem is no one seems to have got what made Xcom so good in the first place.

I know, and that's what blows my mind: The game design is ALL THERE, ready to be copied and then expanded upon. A monkey should be able to do this!

As for the IP, Like Robert Sharp said, I don't think that's even required anymore. Call it Earth Defense Force or Terror from the Stars for all I care, just get the gameplay right.

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

Part of the problem is that for every Civ IV, you have Age of Wonders, Disciples, and a whole host of other games that are quite good but don't sell well.

Isn't that true of every genre, though?

Originally Posted by davidf

Apocalpse promised a lof of innovative things but dropped many of them with its release...and that theme??? Japanese anime meets George Jetson??? bleh, still they got all the core feature sets right at least

Apocalypse was a disaster (which sounds a little redundant). Just like Fallout: Tactics, they tried to do both turn based and real time at once and ended up doing neither very well, and when it didn't sell they say it's because turn-based games don't sell. No, it's because crap games don't sell - great turn based games are a different story.

Originally Posted by jeffd

Part of the problem I think is that game developers can't risk tinkering. Everyone knows all you need is a straight up port of X-Com gameplay to a modern 3D engine and you'll sell like hotcakes. But developers are engineers, and engineers can't help but tinker. So we've had all these spiritual remakes (like that latest one that went around qt3 a few weeks back) that change minor stuff that end up totally diverging from XCom.

I think there IS room for tinkering, though. It just has to be tinkering with things that need improving, not radically changing gameplay just to change it. They should stand on the shoulders of giants, not replace their hips.

There are a (very) few things that UFO:ET did well - for example, I liked how they made the scientists and engineers attached to the labs and workshops. It streamlined things a bit. Also, I liked how they messed around with the fighter vs UFO combat - not perfect by any means, but it was different from X-COM without being objectionable.

Originally Posted by ElGuapo

It wouldn't sell. People SAY they love X-COM. They SAY they'd love a remake. But it's all nostalgia. If the formula is changed even a sliver of an iota, people will bitch. Even if it's a strict remake with better (more high res) graphics, it won't sell because people will bitch they didn't improve it.

A remake of X-COM doing well is the greatest hoax perpetuated by gamers there is. It won't sell.

UFO: Extraterrestrials proved it.

I'd buy it, and I'd give it a great review. So would everyone who put X-COM on their top 10 games of all time list. There's a ton of free advertising for you right there - you'd think that'd move a few copies.

Oh, and I'd be willing to bet that UFO:ET has sold better than most games Matrix has sold online. And, as [edit]davef[/edit] said, it's not in stores yet AND the presentation blows. You may not need super-awesome graphics, but shit graphics are going to sink you.

[davidf]

Oh, and I'd be willing to bet that UFO:ET has sold better than most games Matrix has sold online. And, as Kunikos said, it's not in stores yet AND the presentation blows. You may not need super-awesome graphics, but shit graphics are going to sink you.

Hey I said that! Well the first part anyway :)

[Alan Au]

I wouldn't mind all these new X-Com clones that try to "enhance" the gameplay, except that these "enhancements" generally detract from the core experience. I just want a high-tension turn-based squad-tactical game with opportunity-fire, destructable terrain, and meta-game components like base-building and research.

For all the misgivings towards TFTD, it did a couple of things right: no ammo-less weapons, and the ability to open doors without stepping through. as mentioned, there are a handful of other changes that would make the game better, but they'd mostly be aesthetic changes like introducing more civilian-types during terror missions, etc.

As for aesthetics, I'm all in favor of high-res graphics, but I'm a bit annoyed by the retro-future type graphics of X-Com Apocalypse. I guess I'm hoping for something a bit more near-futurish, with guns and uniforms that don't look like props out of a B-movie.

- Alan

[Kunikos]

Originally Posted by Alan Au

For all the misgivings towards TFTD, it did a couple of things right: no ammo-less weapons, and the ability to open doors without stepping through. as mentioned, there are a handful of other changes that would make the game better, but they'd mostly be aesthetic changes like introducing more civilian-types during terror missions, etc

The only thing I didn't like about TFTD was that some of the missions were ridiculously long to finish the bug-hunt, where a single panicked alien just ran around the decks of the cruise ship all day.

The whole underwater/above-water deal was kinda cool, except it sometimes sucked when you forgot to re-equip your squaddies with appropriate weapons.

[deccan]

Anyone know if anyone sells UFO:ET via digital distribution internationally?

[Hanacker]

Originally Posted by NowhereDan

I'd buy it, and I'd give it a great review. So would everyone who put X-COM on their top 10 games of all time list. There's a ton of free advertising for you right there - you'd think that'd move a few copies.

Maybe. There's also a good chance that it would get panned for being too much like the original or for deviating too much from the original. There's a realy fine line you'd have to walk between too much and too little innovation to keep fans happy.

[JeffL]

You know, over the years I've had discussions with other writers, developers, etc. in the industry on the topic of just what is the essence of XCom that makes it so much more than the sum of its feature list. That probably is another thread, but it fascinates me. If you just look at the feature list, there have been numerous games that should have far surpassed it. So what's the "soul" of XCom that lifts a relatively simple turn based strategy game over all that followed (including its own two sequels - perhaps that's the best example of XCom the original having something unique - or did it? Are we making it more than it was?)

[spiffy]

I think it's because we can relate to it. Contemporary setting, military units we identify with, soldiers we can name. Every "sequel" has either drastically changed the setting (underwater, outer space, alien planet, what have you), ruined the art direction (ugly soldiers and faces), and generally lost that aspect of feeling you're a part of the world you recognize.

[Thrag]

There have of course been games that got the tactical combat right and done it even better than x-com. The Jagged Alliance series being my personal favorite.

What hasn't been done right is the base building/research half of the game, and that's the half that really made x-com shine. I think the most important factor there is not the specific mechanics, but balancing the game so that part remains fun and interesting all through the game. In X-Com it was great to discover new techs and whole branches of technology, they managed to keep it interesting through the whole game. It's something really hard to get right. TFTD didn't do this quite as well in my opinion. It may have been sheer dumb luck that made the original work so well. Hopefully a team like Firaxis, BHG, Blizzard, etc. which understands the value of really polishing the gameplay will one day put in the effort to recapture the x-com experience.

[Kaigen]

Originally Posted by spiffy

I think it's because we can relate to it.

Yeah, that whole thing with the alien invasion. It's like I'm playing my own life!

Edit: Yes, I know I'm taking your quote grossly out of context, but it amused me to do so.

[Michael Fitch]

Originally Posted by NowhereDan

As a PCG editor, I know something about games in development and plenty about finished games, but I know very little about the process of getting one off the ground. I'm particularly curious about why no one has had the [brains? balls? initiative? gumption? pixie dust? hookers and blow?] to make either an X-COM 2 (TFTD was a glorified expansion, and I choose to pretend none of the other games bearing the name ever happened) or a decent clone by a name of their choosing. You know, one that the fans don't have to finish for them.

<snip>

So what am I missing here? What's stopping this from happening?

Greetings:
Okay, rant #2 for today. Don't stop me, I'm on a roll.

First off, as other people pointed out, it's a hard sell to convince people in marketing and sales that an X-Com remake would be profitable. You can point to Civ all you want, but show me a turn-based PC RPG/Strategy game that's even in the same ballpark. HoMM? Don't think so. GalCiv? Nope. Now that's just a straight "can we make a profit off this" question. Now, for bonus points, convince them that they'll make more money off of doing this than doing another game for the same money, say a console racing game, or a God of War style beat-em-up, or a futuristic shooter, you know, things they can concretely point to as being popular with today's audience.

Like many other niche audiences, the X-Com folks are fanatical about their love for the game and see limitless potential in updating it, but it's a very, very niche audience. A lot of people know what X-Com is, but that doesn't mean they've played it, and that doesn't mean they'd pony up $50 for a new version. And to anybody who doesn't know what it is, it just isn't sexy. I can demo God of War in five minutes and get people hyped about it. What are you going to show in five minutes of X-Com?

If Irrational has really convinced folks to fund this, then bully for them. That's one hell of a hill to climb.

Originally Posted by NowhereDan

I may be wrong about this part, and if so please fill me in, but wouldn't a game like X-COM be relatively cheap to produce, even after a respectable level of polish, if you just licensed a half decent engine? There would be a lot of art to do, I suppose, but if you stick to the original design concept of randomly generated maps, you get a ton of replayability out of relatively little. And if you went with an anime-inspired art style, maybe even cel shaded (kind of an homage to the original game's opening cinematic) you could get around a lot of the expensive and time-consuming process of making things look realistic.

Bzzzt. Wrong again. For one, realistic can actually be cheaper than stylized; with textures, for example, you can modify reference rather than inventing each one out of whole cloth. But, if you went too far away from the original look, all those fanatical niche folks would ride you to death for having done so.

Two, licensing a half-decent engine is going to run you 250-750K. That's before you do a lick of actual game logic programming.

Three, random maps are actually much easier to do in 2D. Tiling is always harder than generating specific content, but it's a bitch in 3D. What's that, you say, you're going to do it in 2D? Bzzzzzt. Sorry, you've just lost the part of your potential audience who believes it would look/play/feel better in 3D. Oh, and you'd better figure in the costs not just in producing higher-res models and textures, but also animations, effects, lighting, and physics. You are going to have physics, right?

Four, your costs for testing, balancing, and tuning programattically generated content are at least as much as, if not more than, doing the same work on pre-generated maps.

Originally Posted by Rob_Merritt

The second problem is no one seems to have got what made Xcom so good in the first place. Even the original creators seem to have missed the boat. They have put out two games in the Xcom model only to miss the target.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner, folks. What's the secret sauce, you say? What's that elusive spirit of X-Com that's been missing all these years? It's the experience of discovery, of gradually unfolding the mechanics, the dynamics, the progression, the events. When you played X-Com back in the day, it was new, it was fresh, it was a revelation. That's why you're so fanatical about it, right?

Even the most faithful recreation can never capture that experience. Only a game that's as new, as fresh, as dynamic can do that, and even then, it will probably never compare to how you felt about games back when they were wonders of infinite imagination. That's nostalgia for you.

Or, as Mr. Hot Tub put it,

Originally Posted by ElGuapo

It wouldn't sell. People SAY they love X-COM. They SAY they'd love a remake. But it's all nostalgia.

Originally Posted by NowhereDan

I'd buy it, and I'd give it a great review. So would everyone who put X-COM on their top 10 games of all time list. There's a ton of free advertising for you right there - you'd think that'd move a few copies.

You lie. You lie like a dog. Or, maybe you're just mistaken.

First, you wouldn't buy it, you'd take your review copy home.

Second, when's the last time you reviewed a game that was essentially a re-hash of a pre-existing game and gave it a 90+ rating? You see this in reviews all the time. It's "while fun, this game felt old, like I'd already played it before" or "I give them credit for capturing the feel of game X, but surely they could have improved on the formula after all these years" or "Developer Y should be sued for shamelessly copying a pre-existing game, and it's not even as good".

Even if it's not a re-hash, it still gets slammed if it's too close to someone's nostalgic sacred cow. Take Titan Quest, for example. It seemed like no one could review the game without mentioning Diablo II. Fair enough, there are a lot of similarities (although it would have been nice if people had given us credit for the things we did invent and improve on). But it's infuriating to see a reviewer say something like "The game is fun, compelling, I played for hours on end and couldn't stop, but it's completely derivative: 75%".

Reviewers are jaded, cynical bastards. You could hand them X-Com 2 on a silver platter, and if it was called Earth Defense Force and was by some unknown studio, they'd shit on it for not being X-Com 2 by the original X-Com development team (how HoMM 5 got a pass on this, I do not fully understand).

Third, great reviews did not help Psychonauts or Beyond Good and Evil to be commercially successful.

Originally Posted by Alan Au

I just want a high-tension turn-based squad-tactical game with opportunity-fire, destructable terrain, and meta-game components like base-building and research.

Yep, you me and about 10,000 other people.

It's right up there with MoM, and I'm waiting with bated breath to see how Brad & co. do with that.

[/rant]

Best,
Michael.