Gaming The Making of Frictional Games

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/10/21/the-making-of-frictional-games/1

 

Amnesia is a fantastic game. At the beginning I wasn't so impressed but after playing for a wile I couldn't stop playing. I didn't finish it yet but I am close to the end. It is simply awesome, disturbing at times and totally immersive and frightening.

 

Okay, I have much sympathy for small studios making weird indie games, but I just find it odd that even after selling more than expected, they still manage to complain about piracy. Why spend time fighting file sharing if your games are outselling your anticipations anyway? And who's to say exposure in P2P-channels doesn't just make your games better known to the larger public, who in the future might be more willing to buy your games now that they've tried one out for free?

I haven't tried out any of Frictional's games, but I am intrigued. I guess I should get around installing Steam.

 

i've played a lot of games over the years and can safely say nothing has scared me in the way Amnesia did. good to hear the devs are doing well. keep it up.

 

Because their expectations were low to start with and, even though they were exceeded, it's common sense that without piracy they could have sold more.

Besides, I don't think that section comes across as "Piracy, boo!", but more like "Why are reviewers leaking our stuff anyway?" The fact that it was a review copy that was leaked only adds insult to the injuries against a small developer who only want to pay themselves a reasonable wage.

 

Haven't yet purchased Amnesia, but will rectify this at a later moment, though. I do have their Penumbra games (courtesy of STEAM) and they're very well done.

I really hope Frictional Games stays around for a long time and continues to put out such great games!

On a side note, I might be off, but I'm pretty sure their engine is named after Howard Philips Lovecraft. Would make sense...

 

All their games are incredible, and worth more than what I've paid for them (£10 or so for the penumbra series, £12 for amnesia i think).

I hope to see many more games from them in the future

 

You reminded me that I haven't yet played Penumbra yet I have it from the Humble Indie Bundle (which I confess, I most bought for World of Goo to be honest).
Time to install and see what it's all about.

 

happy owner of all of Penumbra and Amnesia, fantastic games!

 

Good luck to them, their attitude sounds spot on!

 

Because they spend all day and night making the game to earn a living. Rather than getting paid for their work (which is ludicrously hard) people just bypass them and copy the game. It's the same as you doing whatever you do, but then you only get 10% of your wage. They work a lot more hours than the average Joe too, in much more skilled work. Then game devs tend to just get people complaining and moaning about the game, and other people complaining and moaning that they want to try and stop piracy .

 

The thing that is sad is not that the game got pirated, that's like being dismayed that air got breathed, but it's that it came from a review copy. I mean the journalistic sense of entitlement is a horrible, obnoxious thing, but at least it doesn't usually extend to so literally biting the hand that is feeding it. That's just lame. If you're a games journalist and you want to have a pop at the industry sabotage the toilets at the next high profile launch party, or call the Next Big Thing™ a derivative piece of crap. Don't take it out on the indy developers just because they didn't take you out on an all expenses paid drunken rampage on launch day.

For shame.

 

If only that type of thing was a regular representation of the industry in anywhere except the US...

 

This is... odd... considering last night I was thinking "who are these Frictional guys anyway?" and starting scouring Wikipedia. This seems like a pretty good overview.

On another note, I dunno why you guys keep showing screenshots of the actual monsters in Amnesia. You get a much better feel for the game if you showed one of the scenes where you see the dark silloette of one walking around the next room, THAT's what's the game about, and that's why it's a great game!

I'll probably pick up penumbra soon, because supporting these guys is 100% worth it.

 

It's a shame that with my experience of Amnesia, all I ever got was a seemingly spooky slideshow of images.
The technical faults for this game are major, and many people like me were plagued by them.

No matter what settings I used, it would fail to deliver. Even on the lowest settings there would be no change.
I'm unlucky, as I really wanted to play this game. It sounded brilliant, as I love spooking the crap out of myself.

And yes, but PC rig isn't half bad. It should be able to cope with the game easily. D:

 

the thing with the piracy is, a lot of people who download games for free will end up buying them, maybe for online reasons or, if like me, you just like to have an 'original' copy.

all but about 3 games on my steam games list (legit, paid for games) i have, at some point or another, downloaded for free and played and, in most cases, completed.

when i first started playing pc games i did pirate loads, but as my steam list has grown, my 'ripped off ISOs' folder has shrunk.

needless to say, if i'd not downloaded any pirate copies, i'd be hugely out of pocket and have a plethora of sh*t games which maybe had decent demos but dropped off soon after. And it'd only encourage EA to bring out more half baked crap than they do.

 

I don't think it's a good idea to turn this thread into a justify/nullify piracy one. The issue isn't that it was pirated, the issue is that it was a journalist that leaked it. Anyone should be able to admit that is a complete asshole move to do to a studio this size. Even if you do like to try before you buy, it's definitely not appropriate to do before the game is released.

Anyway, I'm quite interested in what Frictional Games produces, but being particularly short of time and money right now has prevented me from picking Amnesia up. As soon as that rectifies itself I'll do so. I won't bother waiting for a sale either, it sounds like they deserve my $20.

 

Greetings!

Nah. The majority just goes for the next big AAA hyped game.