Greetings Axeheads and welcome! We’re hitting the downward slope of the week and we continue our series of Member BattleCries on delayed games. Do delays irrevocably harm a game’s standing with players? Does a delay permanently derail the buzz train? Or do delays make better games? Guaranteeing a better experience for players by giving more precious time for devs to tweak and perfect their work?
Today’s MBC comes from Gun_Metal_Tiger and he’s sounding off on one of the most anticipated and delayed titles in this (and possibly any other) generation. After years of waiting, countless delays, Gran Turismo 5 has reached true infamy at this point. However, through the release of GT5 Prologue and the more recent Time Trial demo, we’ve also seen how the additional time has affected the game. Lets turn things over to Gun_Metal_Tiger to make the case…
Gun_Metal_Tiger says:
My Epic Battle Cry goes out to Gran Turismo 5 for it’s epic amount of delays. This is not a question of whether this game will be better because of the delays, of course it will, this is about Polyphony Digital simply abusing the status they have obtained over the years. It’s possible that with the 5th official entry in the series, over such a long stretch of time, the series has become way overrated.
Case in point Gran Turismo 5 Prologe. I know it’s been a long time since it’s release, but that’s exactly the point. This demo was supposed to give fans a taste of the final product. But now GT5P and the final game look nothing alike, the improvements have been massive. By selling consumers the demo they were able to continue development for years because they had that source of income. I want to know how you guys feel about this, should consumers have to cover the development costs, and then buy the game all over again. I think it’s bullshit!!!
Last generation a prologe version and selling demos was acceptable because there was no suck thing as an online demo or beta for console games. You bought demos in magazines and so selling a larger demo like prologe to previous Gran Turismo games was fine. Now things have changed, you don’t have to sell the demo of GT5 on a disc or digitally, it should come as the beta. Because they want consumers to try their product and give them feedback. Put that effort into finishing the game and getting it to your user base.
And calm down PS3 fanboys, I’m only calling Polyphony out because like you, I’ve wanted this game for a long time.
End
Some excellent points raised there. GT5 is a unique footnote in the delay discussion in that we’ve had the chance to play two different ‘builds’ of the game from different stages in its development cycle. The general feeling is that the game has certainly improved as a result of the extra time, the question is: do gamers still care? Let us know what you think about this great MBC in the comments below and if you have something else entirely that you’d like to sound off on, then feel free to do that over on this week’s topics starter post where you can SUBMIT A NEW TOPIC:
SUBMIT YOUR MEMBER BATTLECRY IN THE COMMENTS SECTION HERE.
Alright everyone, that’s gonna do it for now, but we hope you have an awesome week and keep your rants, raves, and recommendations coming here on EpicBattleAxe.com!
Stay Brutal,
Viking Brent
Yeah, I had no trouble staying away from the whole Prologue nonsense, as much as I want to play GT5. I agree with Gun Metal Tiger, the concept is pretty ridiculous.
As far as GT5, personally, I feel like they are taking all this time to make the best game they can make. I don’t know why, it just feels to me that way. Of course, we’ll never know until it actually comes out.
I couldn’t care less about GT5. It’s going to be flat out terrible. Look at their PSP entry. Yawnsville USA. They’ve been out of the game too long and relied on their “brand” name too much. This is the Duke Nukem Forever of racing. When it does come out eventually it’ll be like something from four years ago with nicer graphics and everyone will write it off.
I feel GT5 will be a great game because of the length of time and effort being poured into the game. The game is said to feature interior and exterior damage as well as the option to swap out any part of the car you like. I believe this game will be a car enthusiasts dream.
Firstly, Gran Turismo 5 had only one delay and it applied only to Japan release [march 2010]. EU and US releases still was unknown.
Secondly, Gran Turismo 1 was in development also 5 years just like Gran Turismo 5 is right now.
Thirdly, no one force You to buy a Prologue, it was only Your call and lets be honest, Prologue was not a demo, it has about half content of a normal game [not GT like franchise] – 70 cars, 6 tracks with variation, 4 championships modes and drifting/TT, online, tuning, online and GTTV – quite much content for a half-priced game. And what its most important it has very high replayability, especially when we’ll consider single player games that was full-priced or even other racing games like Motorstorm [which is great game btw].
Fourthly, there’s no other game with so many content and that was made only by 110 staff. For comparition Forza 3 [also excellent game] had 300+ staff members with outsourcing, with assets and engine from Forza 2 and still was made 2.5 years, while having about 2.5-3 times less content that Gran Turismo 5 will have. Additionally PD as a company is not only making games now. They have own racing team, they cooperate with many cars manufactures [Nissan, Citroen, Ferrari] and research technologies for racing teams [like Data Logging].
I’m really tired of hate that Polyphony and Gran Turismo series gets, especially from people who dont know much about games companies and game production process.
Ps. Sorry for my english, I’m a little exhausted and not native english speaker.
Regards,
KKRT
well said
Glad to see my Battlecry was heard. Hopefully the Axe Heads will use it for the audio show this week so we can hear there opinion. And of course so I can get some sweet ass GOG action!!!
and to KKRT, all your points are relevant, however I just have different opinions about them.
1. I know only japan had an official release date, but it’s still a long time coming. It’s like people complaining about hearing SWOTOR news now, when the game isn’t coming for a long time.
2. GT1 was understandable because Polyphony wasn’t as big as they are now, it think with this generation of hardware you need to force a game out there to get the hang of things. My suggestion would have been for Polyphony to make a Tourist Trophy 2 (since it is all bikes it should be quicker to make) then move on to the beast that is GT5. Naughty Dog did something like that, where by putting Uncharted 1 out there, they had the basis to build Uncharted 2 in only 2 years.
3. Whether the content on GT5P is worth $40 is up to you (as is a lot of games these days that are short), but what makes it a rip off to me is that it’s content you will rebuy in the final version of the game. But if you’ve enjoyed GT5P to hell since it’s launch, more power to you.
4. The Forza GT comparison is fair, I also enjoy me some Forza, it’s a great competitor and without it nothing would really push Polyphony to add things like damage, online, customization, ect. I feel like if Turn 10 was also given more time to make the next Forza Motorsports game we’d see an equal or even more impressive game. What they did in 2.5 years is still very impressive given how much content is in Forza 3.
5. Your english is great. And we need counter arguements like yours to get out there
KKRT,
1) GT5 HAS had more than 1 delay because originally, it was called Gran Turismo HD…which was delayed several times. PD then turned GT-HD into a prologue type demo and THEN CANCELED GT-HD altogether and announced GT5. Now, if you want to believe that GT-HD was really “canceled” and that GT-5 is not really GT-HD’s core programming, you go right ahead…but I don’t.
2) GT1 was in development for 5 years, but nobody knew that the game was in development during those 5 years until AFTER the game came out. You can’t miss something that you didn’t know existed in the first place and talking about it in hindsight is an unfair comparison.
3) Gun-Metal didn’t say that anybody forced anyone to buy anything. He said that GT-Prologue was advertised as providing a taste of what GT-5 was going to be and so much time has passed, that is no longer true. In essence, he was sold a false bill of goods for a future product that is now completely different. The point is that this game has been in development for 5 years with push backs, name changes, delays, and nebulous release dates. Consider…Turn-10 not only developed, but released two (2) Forza games in the same time-span that it has taken Polyphony-D to release two glorified demos. The sad part is that Forza 2 and definitely Forza 3 were greater innovative leaps than all of the GT games except for GT-1, which set the initial standard.
4) Dude…I don’t care how few staff members Polyphony-D has. Don’t not sit here and try to float the idea that a company that has sold 55 MILLION copies of its game, can’t hire more staff or outsource the menial work to 3rd party development.
http://www.vg247.com/2010/02/06/gran-turismo-psp-sales-top-1-8-million-full-ip-figures-released/
FIFTY FIVE MILLION!!!!!
Even if Poly-D made a profit of $1 US Dollar per game, they have the cash to hire people to get this product out.
Finally, the Forza 3 engine was completely new. It was not a revised Forza 2 engine. Not to mention, they had to create all new assets as well, including over 100 track variations.
In all honestly, I believe this game has taken as long as it has because Kazunori Yamauchi is a perfectionist and that is sometimes a bad quality to have. I have a special place in my heart for the series and WILL be getting GT-5, but wow does it has a lot to do to catch up to Forza 3, which in my mind is almost as innovative as GT-1 was. GT2 through GT4 were all practically the same game. Just different tracks with the same flaws and no online play.
I am sure that GT5 will deliver, but the issue is if it will ever GET delivered…to its fans.
dude im expecting gt5 to blow my mind when I get to play it because of all the delays. Mean while ill just play fora 3 and nfs. Hope it comes out this year. I just hope it doesn’t disappoint like it did gt for psp.