from the vault: freedom force

[gengoro]

  I want another Freedom Force game.

[BentonGrey]

Ha, ditto.  We all do.  I wish Irrational would try to get FFIII off of the ground with a kickstarter.  I'd shovel money at them with both hands for that.

[Cyber Burn]

Ditto.

[ShawDAMAN]

Double ditto.   

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Unfortunately they are no longer an independent studio and can no longer do any such thing.  If they were and they could though, I would promptly tell them to shut up and take my money.

[BentonGrey]

True Cat, but you never know what the future holds, I suppose.

[Outcast]

I tried looking for some actual data in vgchartz  on how much sales  or  was able to acquire? But there doesn't seem to be any data recorded there.

Yeah, it's too bad  didn't do that well for them. Still,i hope they will have the desire/opportunity to try and make another Freedom Force sequel in the future.

[oldmanwinters]

I'm a Johnny-Come-Lately, but I just discovered this article today!  Those are some very cool looking concept art pieces.  So glad to know that Irrational Games hasn't completely forgotten about their late, great franchise.

[RTTingle]

I always wondered why, rather than a full game... just do downloadable content packs or "issues" with a new scenario with a map or two and some new characters.  In this day and age where people are much more interested in micro markets for MMO's than full subscriptions, its something they should consider. 

-RTT

[Epimethee]

That's basically the model for most successful iOS games: get the basic game free (or for a small fee) and sell add-ons.

[Cyber Burn]

I would buy add-ons for  or  . Of course, I'd still pay for an FF3 as well.

[detourne_me]

Actually the Rts genre has really been improving over the last few months for iOS.  For example, the Walking Dead: Assault game has a perfect engine for a freedom force game. 

[seraglio]

6 months late to this thread but FFvTR sales were actually respectable 12 months in. I seem to recall 180k units or so shipped around the time the were bought. They also didn't need to make as much since they self-published. The real unspoken problem with FFvTR was Piracy. It was one of the earliest warez I've seen, full playable version was available at least 7 days before it shipped. This killed critical early sales momentum, forcing retailers to discount it far earlier than they should have.
Piracy is killing the game industry, and part of why there has been such a pronounced move to consoles and MMO's.

[BentonGrey]

Ohh, that's heartbreaking!  If there was ever a game that truly deserved to be bought at full price, FF is it!

[Epimethee]

While piracy is always an issue, I strongly doubt that it was the main factor in IG's woes. The lack of ambition and the quasi-absence of any proper marketing meant that the game couldn't generate much buzz. Combined with a lack of liquidities, they weren't able to wait for word-of-mouth success.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Also the idea that piracy = lost sales is an unproven and even doubtful assertion.  Certainly it doesn't help, but many pirates would never pay for games anyway, or they pirate the game in order to try it out and often buy the full version if they like it (particularly if it has no copyright protection.  Games with a lot of intrusive DRM are often cracked and pirated as a form of protest) or they do it to replace a copy they've already purchase.  I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt the industry, but I am saying that blaming piracy for a game not doing well is usually pointing the finger in the wrong direction.

[Symon]

Got agree that the reason the game never had the same impact was a cumulation of issues.

* The game didn't actually have much that was new. There are new powers and attacks (such as cones) but as Dr Mike once said, they weren't compelling. Drivable vehicles was perhaps the main advance but you only get to do it once. They didn't even finish implementing ladders, which I've always presumed were a 'not quite enough time' feature of FF that couldn't have needed much to complete.

* The Campaign was way too short AND seemed shorter because it was presented as three, very different arcs.

* In light of the former, the actual campaign structure supported could have benefited from some work. Random filler missions in a campaign surely wouldn't have needed much work and would have helped Irrational with the length of the main campaign.

* The chosen art style (even more cartoony) was a mistake, and actually failed to leverage the advances available in the 10.x.x.x Nif format. To me, the graphics engine appears MORE primitive, although I know it isn't.

* Changes to the way combat worked (the energy system, naturally) were ill conceived.

* The choice of Digital Jesters, with their 'lets use our install paths and copy protection to make the game un-moddable in Europe' as distributors was disastrous. I suspect that poor European sales were 50% DG's fault. I imported a US edition when I realized how bad it was. I was then unable to give my DG copy away, even to people who had really enjoyed FF!!!

* Nazi villains was always a questionable choice. Maybe they play well in the US still, but in the UK the reaction was a shrug and in Europe its always seemed tricky to me. There is much about that period that many in France and Germany prefer to forget. I think there was an inability to remember that the US is not the rest of the world here. This is very likely the other 50% of poor European sales.

In hind-sight, one of the other planned directions would have been a better choice. The 70's characters released by Irrational and the concept art that's been shown show what might have been quite well.