Housemarque will no longer make arcade shooters

[BurlyHeart]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... oot-em-ups

Posted in the Nex Machina thread, but probably deserves a thread of its own. A lack of commercial success for Nex Machina and Matterfall was cited as the main reason. Terrible news for fans of the genre.

[antron]

Coincidentally (?) Matterfall is $15 today in NA (PSN) $5 off.

[HydrogLox]

If the explosion of product on digital platforms has taught us anything, it's that a great many people are happy to settle for a hamburger when the alternative is a $25 steak.

That about sums it up.
Housemarque: Arcade is Dead
Ari Pulkkinen - Let Me Save You (Feat Sami 'Haxx' Hakala)

I wonder if "free with PSN+" that happened pretty quickly with Resogun actually devalued their product in the eye of the "consumer".

[MathU]

I don't think you were ever going to find their games in arcades.

[KAI]

Who?

[Jeneki]

I thoroughly enjoyed Resogun and Nex Machina. To be honest this is the first I have ever heard of Matterfall, and after looking it up, I'm the target audience for that kind of game.

[qmish]

Who?

Housemarque were making fun games since 90s or smth, man

[Necronom]

I don't think you were ever going to find their games in arcades.

Raw Thrills is still working on a kick ass cab of Nex Machina.
The title of the thread should be "Housemarque will no longer make arcadeSTYLE shooters"...
I'll miss them. Love Nex Machina.

[d0s]

Who?

[guigui]

Who?

Come on, Nex Machina is awesome : is to the twin-stick genre what Sin & Punishment is to the to on rail shooter genre.

EDITED : how could I write this, thank you qmish

[qmish]

Come on, Nex Machina is awesome : is to the twin-stick genre what Sin & Punishment is to the to run & gun genre.

S&P is crosshair shooter.

Games in genre:

Cop-Out - 1986, ZX Spectrum
Cabal - 1988, Arcade
Dead Angle - 1988, Arcade
Dynamite Duke - 1989, Arcade
AquaJack - 1990, Arcade
Blood Bros. - 1990, Arcade
Double Hawk - 1990, Sega Master System
NAM-1975 - 1990, Neo Geo
The Punisher - 1990, NES
Spinal Breakers - 1990, Arcade
Kuwait Assault - 1991, PC
Riot - 1992, Arcade
Alligator Hunt - 1994, Arcade
The Untouchables - 1994, SNES
Wild Guns - 1994, SNES
Binyu Hunter - 1995, PC-98
Time Circle - 1995, PC
Charge 'n Blast - 1999, Arcade
Sin & Punishment - 2000, Nintendo 64
Gamshara - 2002, Arcade
Iwanaga - 2007, PC
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor - 2009, Nintendo Wii
Zombie Panic in Wonderland - 2010, Nintendo Wii

[Despatche]

Multiple people in this thread unironically going Who? over the developer of two of the most important games in the last few years of this genre. Right. Also clarifies something in another thread.

[Sumez]

What's the other that's not Nex Machina?
Resogun?


I get why those games maybe don't click well with the general audience around here, but that doesn't mean they aren't good score-oriented shooters with genuine arcade-like qualities.

[HydrogLox]

Multiple people in this thread unironically going Who?

I simply assumed that some people are only interested in games from Japanese developers - their choice I guess.

FYI: Nex Machina was only released in Japan on Oct. 4.

the industry is moving more toward multiplayer experiences with strong, robust communities, and it’s time for Housemarque to move forward with the industry.

A business decision if I've ever seen one. Meanwhile in a recent interview with Mikael Haveri (Housemarque’s head of publishing) ...

I will add, however, that I love my Switch and I’ve been playing it more than my PS4.

Maybe the universe is trying to tell you something?

Lackluster sales of Nex Machina have led us to the thinking that it is time to bring our longstanding commitment to the arcade genre to an end.

OK, so trying to escape into the PC space didn't work. Again trying to go into the mass market is a valid business choice because bills have to be paid. Especially if you are hoping to get bought out - though unfortunately fading away is another possibility.

But if your motivation is to make arcade-style games one has to accept that right now there is a limited audience and cope with it somehow. And right now small games and indies are congregating around the Switch - and so far it has way more momentum than the Vita could have ever hoped to have. Move focus away from GPU hungry graphics and more towards getting the most out low spec but standardized hardware (Shin'en style). Seems people are getting around to the "big game on the go" mindset - maybe there is also room for the "small game on the big screen (when the opportunity presents itself)" mindset.

[Sumez]

I think Housemarque are already well aware of that, after all that's how they have been operating pretty much their entire existance. Apparently it's not working for them.

Personally I think a better solution would be sticking with their existing gameplay focus, while instead working on the appearance and marketability of their games. Look at a game like Cuphead. The game could have sucked butt and still be a huge success due to how well it was able to market itself, and the immediate appeal of its graphics - it didn't need an online multiplayer focus. Nex Machina is boring and drab to look at, and a ton of people who are already huge fans of most of Eugine Jarvis' games still haven't even heard about it.

But yeah, it's easy to be a backseat driver.

[BurlyHeart]

Yeah I'd agree with that. Even some art or something, there was very little to grab people's attention.

As stupid and finicky as it is, I always wished they had make their games arcade stick compatible. I get the whole twin-stick shooting is their thing, and I'm sure having a more flexible control system wouldn't have led to more sales, but still it would've been nice...

Sad to see them leave their niche.

[qmish]

Who?

They also made this Zaxxon-alike

The Reap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWwfuwMvhtQ

[gray117]

hmm ... I think they've smarty clipped themselves a headline. This is a company who have consistently failed when trying to adopt and re-present other games' good ideas with their own twist. The reap is an apt reminder of this.

In business terms I think they've often failed to attach themselves to their target audiences, and would like to blame anyone else than themselves for this. Even their titles were too abstract-hard-sci-fi for their own good.

Resogun was not failure and was their best pitched, and conceived game in recent memory, but probably benefited most from it's good timing and fortune that little was around on ps4 launch.

Nex machina was fun, but it was never constructed in a way that grab the helldiver/alien swarm, or resurrect geometry wars crowd ... or turn the attention of the destiny(?)/diablo crowds.... it had no online play.... And just trod a middle ground between all those games. There was some character but frankly paled in comparison to it's claimed influences, despite trying to over the screen in geometry wars-ish glowing rainbows...

Matterfall although not mechanically bad, but never really felt like it was anything other than some ideas vaguely connect, and was basically souless and utterly forgettable.


... This all being said I wish them all the best trying to make warframe-loot-box-survival ...

[Durandal]

The arcade mentality is too dead in both the West and East for developers to be able to expect reasonable profits for high-production value arcade-style game releases. You simply need to make some concessions to make arcade-style games palatable to the home gaming audience in order to not be swamped with complaints about the game being too short or too easy because they're able to creditfeed their way through, complaints which actually hold no weight at all but will impact the imago of your game simply because of the nature of the audience you're presenting your game for. There's too many people out there who will look at you with disdain if you expect them to finish a fifty-minute game with no continues and charge them more than ten bucks for it. The game isn't inherently better or worse for being so quick to finish and being expensive, the road towards 1cc'ing an arcade game can take over fifty hours, but that much effort being expected is what gets most people to start posting their favourite autism-related reaction images.

For example, had Cuphead expected you to beat all bosses in one single run, that would simply be too much for the modern gaming audience, even for the ones who tried their damndest to finish Dark Souls for gamer cred. To beat all bosses in Cuphead in one single go takes around 30-40 minutes. The average completion time of Cuphead is around 6 to 8 hours because of how difficult those bosses are to defeat. The average time to obtain an 1cc for most arcade games would be even higher, but whereas Cuphead lets you retry at the start of each boss which only has you lose about under two minutes of time, for most arcade games you need to replay the entire 30-50 minute stretch depending on how far you got, which might annoy a lot of people. That's why home ports of arcade games usually have a practice mode so you can practice individual stages without having to replay everything before which you can beat with ease, but again the act of having to practice a game and having to work for their fun is what gets most people to start posting their favourite autism-related reaction images.

Another difference to note here is that in Cuphead you work towards completion, whereas in Nex Machina you work towards an 1cc, which is an entirely self-imposed challenge. I hate self-imposed challenges as much as anyone else (should), but that's simply the kind of playstyle arcade games are built around and by what Nex Machina is built around. It makes the consequences of creditfeeding rather obvious by resetting your score and depriving you of your power-ups which causes you to die more often to the point where it's easier to win if you restart the game, but not a lot of people actually get that. Though if there's one thing that goes over the heads over a lot of developers on these kinds of games, is that people don't want to play for high score rankings and scoreplay off the bat. They just want to survive the game and win despite having a shitty score, like how first-time players in Bayonetta will get Stone Awards all around. One method to encourage scoreplay is to interweave survival with scoring, where it's simply easier to survive if you play for score, like getting HP bonuses for every few million points. Or the Platinum method of having Normal mode be more of a tutorial mode with higher difficulties expecting much more out of you, but that will fall apart if the player doesn't feel like replaying the game on a higher difficulty to begin with.

Part of Cuphead's success is just that, having a checkpoint system so players can alleviate their frustrations by being able to restart quickly, and a high enough difficulty so most players will spend enough time on what is essentially a rather short game to the point where they feel they got their money's worth with just one playthrough. On top of being a good game and a good-looking and a good-sounding game. And for the more experienced players you have Expert mode where you can S+-rank everything to your heart's content. You can only get S-ranks on Expert, so completionists will be driven to play it again on Expert. And I think having a grading system of some sorts is just a good design habit because you can clearly divide good players from even better players through encouraging speedkills and no damage runs, which in turns amps the competition and acts as a guideline for players to know how they can become better.

I think there's a lesson to be learned here. Home gamers (be it on PC or consoles) expect at least 6-to-8 hours of gameplay for about twenty bucks, and you can't expect all of them to spend that time on their own volition to get better at the game, because everyone's time is precious. You want them to at the very least have a good time with what little you have and have them react with positive reviews after finishing it, which in turn spreads through word of mouth to other people who might try your game and do invest more time into it. For short amounts of content you should rely on high difficulty and replay value through scoring systems or just fun gameplay to 'pad' out the game's length while still being able to offer an arcade-like experience for the purists who in turn make superplay videos highlighting how your game is played at a very high level. Personally I would offer a STANDARD difficulty setting which includes about 80-90% of the game and lets you quicksave a limited amount of times/has a checkpoint system for people who just want to complete the game, and then an ARCADE mode for people who want to play the game the way it's meant to be played, maybe an ARCADE LIGHT and an ARCADE MAX setting to ease out the difficulty curve.

Nex Machina OTOH takes the more pure approach, with no tutorials to speak of and allowing you to creditfeed. I still don't know why you're even allowed to creditfeed in these games as otherwise players would be forced to restart and play the game like it's meant to, otherwise they're just going to complain it's too easy and too short anyways. It works very well for the niche it appealed to, but outside that niche it just didn't stick with people. Platinum games at least have the cinematic experience to create a proper experience, but Nex Machina doesn't have that either. While the visuals do look very dynamic, Housemarque's particle fetish alienated a lot of people with toasters which in turn generated less sales, which I guess is an oversight after having predominantly worked on consoles. My rig is decent and yet I still had to lower the settings to get a decent framerate. People say the visuals are cluttered, even though I think that's only the case when you're looking at gameplay footage, the visuals are surprisingly clear when you actually play the game and focus on what's important.

I think these arcade-style games should at least manage to have dynamic graphics, not necessarily technically good-looking graphics. People fondly remember Einhänder and G-Darius because they remember the cool giant robot fishes and robots and backgrounds with tons of animation and life to them with unique artstyles, kind of like with Cuphead, even if the former have jittery PS1 graphics. People will overlook outdated-looking models and textures if the game moves at a fast pace and has some life to its animations, and if it has a consistent artstyle which doesn't look cheap. Nex Machina kind of blundered here with its seemingly generic sci-fi artstyle. Perhaps they could have profited a bit more if they went with an artstyle that wasn't so expensive to develop and to get running on your PC while being more attractive.

I still think Nex Machina is the best game from Housemarque and a genuine GOTY contender which I'd rate above even Cuphead, but it is unfortunately more of an acquired taste. If you really want your arcade-style game to be successful, then I think this can be done without sacrificing the integrity of your gameplay through presentation and difficulty settings, and making your game more presentable as both a home system game and an arcade game. You might not receive the same amount of success as Cuphead without yuge amounts of marketing, but if word gets around and the game's good it should be good enough.

I believe Housemarque should downsize and focus more on accessibility without sacrifice rather than abandoning their niche, but I guess that boat sailed after the middling sales of their magnum opus. Hopefully they don't jump on the latest indie trends like roguelike multiplayer procedurally generated online card games and the like. The sole reason I bought Nex Machina on a whim is because I heard the levels were handcrafted. Too many 'arcade' games on the market I've seen are compromised with unnecessary upgrade systems and narrative cancer, especially when looking at new releases. Indie games of this level of confident minimalism, replayability, and production value are a dime a fucking dozen, and I hate to see Housemarque go out like this.

[qmish]

The reap is an apt reminder of this.

Is it "style over substance" game? As i know those who gave 9/10 to it, but they are not arcade-minded.

They just want to survive the game and win despite having a shitty score, like how first-time players in Bayonetta will get Stone Awards all around.

Well. I pretty much suck, i play shmups for 3 years now and still haven't 1CC anything. So i can relate About distance between you, people, who milk insanely awesome scores, and us who usually never get past Stage 2 or Stage 3 on one credit (in Cave examples)

p.s.

Too bad my friend shitposts on both Platinum and Cuphead (well, he believes what he says actually):

Cuphead is hipster trash that people only love because it has a shitty art style that nobody gave a fuck about until the Cuphead retro hipsters saw it fit to revive oldschool Disney toons back when Kike Mouse was a fucking mute. It tries hard to be like Contra Hardcorps & Alien Soldier but like most hipsters, they never heard of this concept called game balance so the bosses take forever to fucking kill whereas you can kill most bosses in Alien Soldier or Dark Souls/Bloodborne in only two minutes. Even the final boss goes down quickly if you know what you're doing

I bought Okami earlier this year for PS3. I thought it was AfuckingMazing at first until I realized how boring it was since you do nothing but constantly backtrack and the combat is just a bunch of skilless button mashing like most Platinum games. Weird how Ys looks far more simpler but actually has a far higher skill ceiling than the likes of Nier Automata, Metal Gear Rising, Anarchy Reigns, etc. due to the precise timing you need to execute guards & free dashs against Bullet Hell patterned bosses & enemies.

[MJR]

Housemarque could and would NEVER make a game like Cuphead, just talking about it is a waste of time. This is because their aesthetic choices have always been reflected around the taste and knowledge of their creative director, who has always been interested in 3D graphics technology at the foremost. And why not if they do it better than most other people out there.

But hand-drawn, 2D, original and quirky characters? I don't think so. I happen to have some experience of trying to push something like that, at several points during the years, to into production, but usually my attempts were not that succesful. Best way to get anything approved inside the company was to make some nice, realistically modelled 3D mecha, armorsuit marines or spaceships. It was that kind of place. They have always heavily invested in their own realtime 3D graphics tech, so it was always to be expected by us artists and designers to create something that would use it in the best possible way.

After 23 years of industry, having been in love both with hard-core arcade shooters and cartoon graphics, I watched the Cuphead with awe and deep envy, understanding that if I ever wanted to make similar game, I would have to do it by myself, on my own, with Unity. Maybe someday I will.

It also has given me kinda bittersweet feelings that HMQ is leaving arcade. On the other hand, the technical expertise there is excellent, and lead coder of Nex is a genius and good guy to boot - but at the same time, the company have traditionally lacked, at least in the past, the required atmosphere and environment, where original, memorable and creative characters - that would kickstart and drive a franchise - could have been made. It is not very likely that company like Housemarque would ever do something like that. It's employees are more engineers than artists. It is technically minded studio, not artistically minded. I am not saying this is necessarily bad, or that it is a bad studio - they just simply have their own strengths and weaknesses. And Nex is a kind of game where all their best qualities have been put into use - and I stand by my opinion; never mind the occassional anime intros and outros in that game. In any case, I wish Housemarque all the best of luck, what ever they will be pursuing in the future.

[Bananamatic]

Too bad my friend shitposts on both Platinum and Cuphead (well, he believes what he says actually):

Cuphead is hipster trash that people only love because it has a shitty art style that nobody gave a fuck about until the Cuphead retro hipsters saw it fit to revive oldschool Disney toons back when Kike Mouse was a fucking mute. It tries hard to be like Contra Hardcorps & Alien Soldier but like most hipsters, they never heard of this concept called game balance so the bosses take forever to fucking kill whereas you can kill most bosses in Alien Soldier or Dark Souls/Bloodborne in only two minutes. Even the final boss goes down quickly if you know what you're doing

I bought Okami earlier this year for PS3. I thought it was AfuckingMazing at first until I realized how boring it was since you do nothing but constantly backtrack and the combat is just a bunch of skilless button mashing like most Platinum games. Weird how Ys looks far more simpler but actually has a far higher skill ceiling than the likes of Nier Automata, Metal Gear Rising, Anarchy Reigns, etc. due to the precise timing you need to execute guards & free dashs against Bullet Hell patterned bosses & enemies.

he's right about platinum, a lot of their games don't really have that much depth despite all the hype the studio gets (MGR especially, it's essentially a button masher, nothing interesting to do with Raiden), haven't played madworld or anarchy reigns but they look even more simple and more boring
they're definitely no bayonetta which is by far their best game

[qmish]

I just played MGRR actually. Do you call it button masher because you can spam "parries"? But they require, eh, timing (or it still work if you randomly push them you d say?).

Other combos and "skills" are fun but they are just to reduce HP of enemy until you can one-hit kill them with zandatsu.

Anyway my friend prefers Ninja Gaiden by Itagaki and i believe him.

Bayonetta, i'd better replay Killer is Dead honestly. Or DMC3-4.

[Shepardus]

In MGR:R you can spam W+leftclick (PC controls) and parry everything in front of you, no timing required. If there's nothing to parry you just do a normal slash, which doesn't stop you from parrying an attack when it comes. I enjoyed the game a lot (more than the other Platinum games I've played, Bayonetta and Vanquish), but the parry mechanic is kind of lame as it stands.

[qmish]

Shepardus, you need timing (do it right before the moment they hit your body) to do "perfect parry" - parry that leads you to counterattack which instantly makes you able to zandatsu their spinbrain/heart/whatever. If you "just parry" it's blocking only

though of course maybe it's my noob skillz lol

As for "depth", i m not very fond of those "cuhrazy action depth: advanced techniques" where everything revolves around shit like jump cancel, evade cancel, blade fucking cancel, what else you can cancel?!

I believe games like DMC and Bayonetta are more about "oh shit i can do this and that" at bulletsponge enemies while in Ninja Gaiden for example its more about "kill it quick and clean" without "mad combo style SSS" bullshit.

[Bananamatic]

I just played MGRR actually. Do you call it button masher because you can spam "parries"? But they require, eh, timing (or it still work if you randomly push them you d say?).

You can S rank the Sam fight on Revengeance difficulty just by repeatedly mashing square and the left stick towards him, the game automatically blocks everything when it needs to and attacks otherwise (I guess you would call this an option select in fighters?)
I managed to do it while not even looking at the screen

also you can play bayonetta or DMC without the cancels and stuff just fine but the options are there for repeated playthroughs or players interested in them

[qmish]

I see. Maybe because i tried playing it "more honestly", parrying relatively rarely, that was harder

p.s.
Speaking of Housemarque, how was Alienation commercially?

[Durandal]

I just played MGRR actually. Do you call it button masher because you can spam "parries"? But they require, eh, timing (or it still work if you randomly push them you d say?).

You can S rank the Sam fight on Revengeance difficulty just by repeatedly mashing square and the left stick towards him, the game automatically blocks everything when it needs to and attacks otherwise (I guess you would call this an option select in fighters?)
I managed to do it while not even looking at the screen

also you can play bayonetta or DMC without the cancels and stuff just fine but the options are there for repeated playthroughs or players interested in them

don't forget the box you need to run towards away from Sam to cut open and get the ration inside so you can meet the BP requirement for the S-rank

[Sumez]

Great write-up, Durandal. A lot of it has been said over and over on this forum, but I think you compiled it nicely, hitting the nail on the head with the point I was trying to make myself, when comparing the game to the vastly more succesful Cuphead.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Kike Mouse

I thought the popular edgy thing to do was say Walt Disney was an ANTI-Semite...