With Halo being so popular, why aren't arena shooters?

UT3 was released a few months too early but was a great game. Also had mods on PS3 which it never got credit for.
 
SapientWolf said:
Arena shooters aren't all that popular on the PC anymore either. I would argue that Batlefield and Counter Strike were the beginning of the end for that sub genre on the PC platform. The mainstream prefers weapons and movement that are grounded in reality and CoD and Gears just rode that wave onto the consoles.
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UT2004 did great in a post CS/BF world. UT2003 didn't do nearly as good so it obviously depends on the game. I think Shootmania has the potential to do great but we'll see how they handle it, Trackmania 2 didn't exactly become as good as people hoped. But yeah, in general people don't make such games anymore and when they do they aren't as good as playing Quake 3 or whatever else fans of the genre still play. Or they play one of the good free ones that focus on gameplay instead of graphics, like Warsow.
 
XT Vengeance said:
I believe I read somewhere that Epic decided to wait to make the next UT until the next generation. Not sure where though.
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They only make one UT per generation and it's better that way. I would rather see that than making sequels every few years like they did with Gears of War.
 
Fugu said:
It definitely makes a difference when you say "the latest Quake game didn't make money" versus "the latest Quake game -- which was actually a free browser re-release of a thirteen year-old game -- didn't make money". Publishers are capable of reading past the seventh word in the sentence.
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I didn't specify the latest, I just said it's name. Would you care to name an arena shooter on PC that was a major hit in the last five years?
 
Harder sell tyring to be number 2 to a 8-10 million franchise than number 5 to a 20 million+ one maybe? Same reason theres more gangster/crime open world games than bethesda style open worls rpg's.

Will be interesting to see what hits big next year and the year after though, we had alot of Halo (end of last -beginningof this), Gears (early), COD (mid - late) and Uncharted (late) cloning going on this gen. H4 might spark a new wave of this type of game for next gen too.
 
StuBurns said:
I didn't specify the latest, I just said it's name. Would you care to name an arena shooter on PC that was a major hit in the last five years?
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We're going in circles. UT3 did poorly because it's a poor game. Basing the viability of a genre on a poor game and a web browser re-release remains so obviously incomplete that I can't believe we're arguing about it.
 
Halo is such a success because it took the arena shooter genre and adapted it specifically for consoles. Quake doesn't translate directly to consoles, both tech and control wise.

And anyway, there have been toooons of games that are Halo clones, remember how every shooter coming out was claimed to be a "Halo killer"? It's the same shit with Doom clones, Quake/UT clones, even some Goldeneye clones, and now CoD clones. The clones flop and the original succeeds, easy as that, people want the real deal.

So, in short, arena shooters aren't popular on consoles because they never have been popular on consoles. Halo is distant enough as to be its own thing.
 
Pretty obvious really, back in the day of wolf3d.exe and doom.exe it was all processor driven (an co-prossesor if you where lucky) and consoles just couldn't run these without the aid of a chip in the cart.

Then 3D acceleration cards came about and they got more complex, the half-life, etc. etc.

Gamers are always wanting to be impressed, so cut-scene turned to real-time cut-scene, then budgets got big and actors where highered. Then we where allowed to swear lots, so games thought they were grown up. Its a solly tale of how mainstream one and lost it's game :(
 
Arena shooters with high skill ceilings don't make everyone feel like a badass. They're quite humbling in that regard. Anyone who plays a first person grinding shooter can earn some decent equipment and dominant a new player, even if that new player is more skilled by them. You can busy work your way to feeling like a badass, which makes it much more likely to catch on with lots of people.

Shootmania is a great new arena shooter that embodies a lot of what made those games good fun. everyone spawns with the same weapon. the person likely to win is the best player, not the person who has put the most time in.

it almost feels novel these days.
 
Mechazawa said:
Because gamepads, to put it bluntly. You could probably make an arena shooter around the limitations of console controls, but no one probably cares enough to bother.
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They did....Shadowrun....it does suffer a bit by not being 60hz.
 
CrispyXUK said:
Pretty obvious really, back in the day of wolf3d.exe and doom.exe it was all processor driven (an co-prossesor if you where lucky) and consoles just couldn't run these without the aid of a chip in the cart.

Then 3D acceleration cards came about and they got more complex, the half-life, etc. etc.

Gamers are always wanting to be impressed, so cut-scene turned to real-time cut-scene, then budgets got big and actors where highered. Then we where allowed to swear lots, so games thought they were grown up. Its a solly tale of how mainstream one and lost it's game :(
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...what?

Really though, fast-paced twitch shooters just don't play very well with analogue sticks, so that's why they aren't very popular on consoles. Why they aren't doing better on PC, now that I admittedly have no idea about.
 
Alextended said:
UT2004 did great in a post CS/BF world. UT2003 didn't do nearly as good so it obviously depends on the game. I think Shootmania has the potential to do great but we'll see how they handle it, Trackmania 2 didn't exactly become as good as people hoped. But yeah, in general people don't make such games anymore and when they do they aren't as good as playing Quake 3 or whatever else fans of the genre still play. Or they play one of the good free ones that focus on gameplay instead of graphics, like Warsow.
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I was an avid UT2k4 player at its peak and I basically watched that game's fanbase desert to BF and CS in real time. A lot of arena shooter players must have retired their keyboards for gamepads as well. Otherwise, the numbers just don't make sense. Where did all those players go?

If I had to guess at a reason, it's because the shooting in those types of games is a lot more visceral. You generally hit what you're aiming at and when you do they go down quickly. When you get older you don't have the reflexes to be at the top of the scoreboard in an arena shooter anymore, but those skills still transfer over to more methodical shooters.
 
The dual analog gamepad is the major impediment. As long as designers feel the need to attract the widest possible audience - i.e. making it multiplatform - we're not going to see arena shooters as significant as Quake and UT.

That's why it has been and will continue to be reliant on indie devs to get it done - those who are willing to go PC-only because the style of game would suffer with every version if it had to be geared towards the lowest common denominator.

Skill-based matchmaking has also created an environment where people are deathly afraid of getting their asses kicked, which makes it tougher for games with high learning curves to gain much traction.
 
plagiarize said:
Arena shooters with high skill ceilings don't make everyone feel like a badass. They're quite humbling in that regard. Anyone who plays a first person grinding shooter can earn some decent equipment and dominant a new player, even if that new player is more skilled by them. You can busy work your way to feeling like a badass, which makes it much more likely to catch on with lots of people.

Shootmania is a great new arena shooter that embodies a lot of what made those games good fun. everyone spawns with the same weapon. the person likely to win is the best player, not the person who has put the most time in.

it almost feels novel these days.
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Bingo. Everyone wants to feel like a winner, even when they're not winning.
 
SapientWolf said:
If I had to guess at a reason, it's because the shooting in those types of games is a lot more visceral. You generally hit what you're aiming at and when you do they go down quickly. When you get older you don't have the reflexes to be at the top of the scoreboard in an arena shooter anymore, but those skills still transfer over to more methodical shooters.
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Anecdotal, but I used to be pretty good at Quake 3/UT99 back in their heyday. I played Quake 3 Arena online not too long ago and I was a complete scrub >_< I never felt so old, and I'm only 22! I had to relearn strafe jumping and everything.
 
SapientWolf said:
I was an avid UT2k4 player at its peak and I basically watched that game's fanbase desert to BF and CS in real time. A lot of arena shooter players must have retired their keyboards for gamepads as well. Otherwise, the numbers just don't make sense. Where did all those players go?

If I had to guess at a reason, it's because the shooting in those types of games is a lot more visceral. You generally hit what you're aiming at and when you do they go down quickly. When you get older you don't have the reflexes to be at the top of the scoreboard in an arena shooter anymore, but those skills still transfer over to more methodical shooters.
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UT and Quake required skill on a level that is unheard of in FPS games these days. It's just not very marketable to the masses
 
Are there really any Halo clones though? I mean sure tons of games stole parts of it, like the two weapon limit, and dedicated grenade melee buttons, and recharging health, but none of them actually played anything like Halo, in terms of what actually makes Halo a fun game.
 
I don't even think Halo is much of an arena shooter anymore. You can pick your spawning weapon now (which I support) and it seems like in H4 that there are more bigger sized maps than small arena style stuff.
 
Khezu said:
Are there really any Halo clones though? I mean sure tons of games stole parts of it, like the two weapon limit, and dedicated grenade melee buttons, and recharging health, but none of them actually played anything like Halo, in terms of what actually makes Halo a fun game.
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I would rather see games copy Halo, than see every game including Halo copying COD.
 
Khezu said:
Are there really any Halo clones though? I mean sure tons of games stole parts of it, like the two weapon limit, and dedicated grenade melee buttons, and recharging health, but none of them actually played anything like Halo, in terms of what actually makes Halo a fun game.
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I don't know of any, the 'Halo Killers', Killzone, etc, weren't really similar in terms of design. Brute Force was a more transparent clone, but it was third person.
 
I think the real question is the arena shooter, or 1v1 stuff become super popular again on PC with a new IP? Was painkiller the last real stab at it?
 
animlboogy said:
UT3 is such an odd situation. It threw everything at the wall and sort of undermined the hardcore crowd. But that bad word of mouth seemed to keep away people (like me) who probably would have loved the game. If we got that exact game today, it would seem like a gift from God.
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I loved UT3 too.
 
It seems like people want perks and progression instead of just learning how to one shot with a rail gun. I guess it's also harder to make a decent single player around one, but I grew up playing them and I'd say quake 3 was one of the first games I really played online a lot
 
twitch shooters died hard and fast around the time Half Life 2, Unreal Tournament 2004 launched. Even today twitch classes like the scout in TF2 aren't that popular.
 
Quake Live needs to be repackaged.

Standalone (Non-Browser)
4.99/9.99.
Server Browser
Menu UI Like DOTA 2. Quake TV.
Steam & Steam Workshop

People will buy.
 
They made a new unreal game (unreal 3) and quake (quake 4) this gen but they both flopped hard

I think gamers just see the idea of arena shooters outdated. Keep in mind halo is a much slower more console friendly experience then unreal or quake.

And OP made the grave mistake of thinking people don't buy halo for the SP
 
Can't make a good deathmatch game on gamepad.

We might get some good movement based games if Brink/ME movement is used more though.
 
"UT3 is such an odd situation. It threw everything at the wall and sort of undermined the hardcore crowd. But that bad word of mouth seemed to keep away people (like me) who probably would have loved the game. If we got that exact game today, it would seem like a gift from God."


Especially during that dark era of 1-2 years when dedicated servers weren't quite guaranteed in an FPS for some reason.
 
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