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[SimTourist]

Games like Handball 17, some Fishing games, all those yearly motorcycle games like MotoGP and others, some Tour de France games, the endless Simulator games where you drive forklifts or harvesters or whatever, etc. Games where some effort was put in by the developers but I just can't picture a person who seriously buys these games and in amounts that justify continued development and new installments. You never see these games discussed or referenced online, there is no active community, not even as a meme.
What kind of person buys Handball, and more importantly what kind of person pursues a career in game development and wants to make a Handball game? It doesn't even look particularly cheap or badly made but just why? This question keeps me up at night sometimes.

An open world fishing game that looks fairly high quality, but again why? You can fish in Red Dead, Far Cry and many others but you get the rest of the game as well, not just fishing.

Maybe we have some fans here?

 

[JPSLotus97T]

I actually buy the MotoGP games when they are dirt cheap. Huge fan of the sport which is why I buy.

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

One persons meat is another person’s poison.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Honestly and this is not some paid advertisement but I have done that under the gamepass section and 90% of the crap I have tried has indeed still been crap but found a few games I actually enjoyed that I would have never have purchased for myself.

 

[BouncyFrag]

The fuck is handball?
Looks it up…

 

[SimTourist]

I actually buy the MotoGP games when they are dirt cheap. Huge fan of the sport which is why I buy.

I actually wanted to enjoy MotoGP as it seems pretty decent but I just can't wrap my head around bike controls in videogames, just can't get on with simply riding a bike, leaning, etc.

 

[engstra]

Not that I would buy the handball game for example, but it's cool that it exists. The developers are probably pretty passionate about the sport. It's a shame that a company like EA etc doesn't put out games in some of the slightly smaller sports like say rugby for example any longer.

 

[ManaByte]

I’m amazed that the obvious clones now. There’s a Rocket League clone, a Fall Guys clone, a StarFox clone, etc.

 

[Dr_Ifto]

Didnt we get a Handball game for PS+ a few years ago?

 

[SimTourist]

Not that I would buy the handball game for example, but it's cool that it exists. The developers are probably pretty passionate about the sport. It's a shame that a company like EA etc doesn't put out games in some of the slightly smaller sports like say rugby for example any longer.

Seriously, we don't even have any tennis games or fifa street/nba street. Those were cool back in the day.

 

[SimTourist]

 

[engstra]

Seriously, we don't even have any tennis games or fifa street/nba street. Those were cool back in the day.

Exactly! Not even arcady or stylized versions of the sports like street or ssx

 

[JPSLotus97T]

I actually wanted to enjoy MotoGP as it seems pretty decent but I just can't wrap my head around bike controls in videogames, just can't get on with simply riding a bike, leaning, etc.

It's a little different when you have to lean the bike as opposed to a car having that extra grip from the obvious 4 wheels. I actually find riding a motorcycle in real life easier than in the video games.

 

[Rbk_3]

I used to play Farming Simulator religiously

 

[Zuzu]

Yeah they mustn't sell in high amounts but I don't think a lot of those games cost a huge amount of money to make anyway. I could see games like handball selling a decent amount in countries where the sport is somewhat popular (perhaps some European countries?) A lot of people are into motorbikes and fishing so I think a lot of casuals would buy those games fairly regularly. The yearly releases of these types of sports games doesn't seem to detract from their sales it seems (e.g. EA FC & NBA 2K). One reason may be that every year theres millions of children getting old enough to start motorcross/fishing/soccer/basketball so a new untapped market comes around every year.

Simulator games are boring to me but I've read that some people play them as a form of relaxation (like Powerwash simulator). It's weird but something like Forklift Simulator probably doesn't cost much to make and there's enough people out there who are curious in something weird or looking for a way to chill out etc. that it sells enough to justify its existence.

 

[mitch1971]

The fuck is handball?
Looks it up…

Why do people who post goal comps waste half the run time showing the goal again in slow mo, on a site that the watcher can literaly slow the footage down or repeat the goal as many times as they want?

 

[SimTourist]

I used to play Farming Simulator religiously

Farming Simulator actually seems incredibly popular.

Giants Software has announced that its latest game, Farming Simulator 22, sold more than 1.5 million copies in its first week alone. This sets a new first-week sales record for the series.

Like Alan Wake 2 will not sell nearly as much.

 

[SimTourist]

 

[CeeJay]

I played that fishing game for a bit as it was on Gamepass, bored the carp out of me.

 

[Pelta88]

Taste, momentum, hype, and audience leanings changes from Country to country. Sometimes region to region with the same country. We're on a forum where some members question why Soccer games sell so well in Europe.

Different strokes...

 

[Garibaldi]

I'm quite into MotoGP. I've bought one or two of the games but it's nowt like riding an actual bike so fell off them very quickly.

I own the Angler game. It's proper chill and you can also just wander about and explore the environment, which is something I'm quite into away from the house.

 

[StereoVsn]

Games like Handball 17, some Fishing games, all those yearly motorcycle games like MotoGP and others, some Tour de France games, the endless Simulator games where you drive forklifts or harvesters or whatever, etc. Games where some effort was put in by the developers but I just can't picture a person who seriously buys these games and in amounts that justify continued development and new installments. You never see these games discussed or referenced online, there is no active community, not even as a meme.
What kind of person buys Handball, and more importantly what kind of person pursues a career in game development and wants to make a Handball game? It doesn't even look particularly cheap or badly made but just why? This question keeps me up at night sometimes.

An open world fishing game that looks fairly high quality, but again why? You can fish in Red Dead, Far Cry and many others but you get the rest of the game as well, not just fishing.

Maybe we have some fans here?

 

[Mossybrew]

Yeah OP I notice this whenever I'm browsing the latest sale. Lotta weird shit out there, somebody must be buying it.

 

[buenoblue]

I think they call it "Egg hand ball"

 

[crackajack]

I'd rather play unusual games every now and than than buying yearly reskins which must be kind of ultraboring by default. Curling, cricket, rugby... whatever, could be interesting, dive into stuff where I partially don't know much about.
The Handball game we got in Plus some time ago was bordering unplayable but still, it was interesting to try it out and play at least the career mode once.
Same with the Tennis Game, which was certainly better quality. And definitely with MotoGP/Ride/TT which are excellent games for any gamer with slight interest in any racing stuff and naturally for anyone with bike enthusiasm irl.
And if you think about it, making a Skateboard game before THPS existed is kinda the same risky lane. Who really knew that it could work and be well received before someone actually tried? There were other skateboarding games before, and skateboarding was at a high, but still not necesarilly a certain success. Similar with Wave Race and 1080 from Nintendo.

Fishing in Far Cry5 was kinda fun, but it was a obnoxious chore in RDR2, like the rest of that game... So differneces matter obviously. While it's not for me, I can totally see why some enthusiast wants some real fishing game, that might be more complicated, detailed, focused whatever.
Same with Richard Burns Rally. You could drive rally in GT, and enjoy the more arcadey Rally of Colin McRae, but someone thought a more hardcore approach might get an audience. And to this day, some people argue it still is the best rally sim, even though Dirt Rally/old WRC/new WRC aim at the same goal, being at least authentic to some degree and sim enough at least for me.
The argument, you can already do X in Y, is a bit weird. You can shoot enemies in any shooter, and there are tons of them out there, because all are a bit different. Some more similar than others, some very very close.

But I don't buy many games anyway, so I would only invest my time for this stuff if it pops up in my sub, not spending money specifically for that sometimes interesting niche. But I bought RBR.
So: whatever floats your boat.

 

[phaedrus]

Did somebody say handball?

 

[Unknown?]

I remember getting Reel Fishing on PS1 and enjoying it. Those fishing games are relaxing.

 

[ReBurn]

I don't think they sell particularly well, but they probably generate some revenue relative to the effort required to make them. Some people want to recapture the feeling they had playing a game they can't get any more and will drop 5 bucks on a look alike to see if it scratches the itch.

Last week I was itching for some Robotron 2084 kind of action and dropped 2 bucks on Death Ray Manta SE on Switch. It gave me the Robotron action and Llamasoft feel is was looking for. I played for a few hours and I was happy.

 

[VitoNotVito]

Americans buy Handegg game every year (I think it's called Madden?) so why would others not buy handball?

 

[diffusionx]

I worked at the game store in the day of Cabela's Big Game Hunter, none of this surprises me.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Games like Handball 17, some Fishing games, all those yearly motorcycle games like MotoGP and others, some Tour de France games, the endless Simulator games where you drive forklifts or harvesters or whatever, etc. Games where some effort was put in by the developers but I just can't picture a person who seriously buys these games and in amounts that justify continued development and new installments. You never see these games discussed or referenced online, there is no active community, not even as a meme.
What kind of person buys Handball, and more importantly what kind of person pursues a career in game development and wants to make a Handball game? It doesn't even look particularly cheap or badly made but just why? This question keeps me up at night sometimes.

An open world fishing game that looks fairly high quality, but again why? You can fish in Red Dead, Far Cry and many others but you get the rest of the game as well, not just fishing.

Maybe we have some fans here?

Imagine people spending millions to develop and then buy a game about American Football - a sport so shitty it’s only played principally in one country, where you spend more time getting into position than playing all in order to prolong the game so you can sell more ad slots.

 

[Giallo Corsa]

It's a little different when you have to lean the bike as opposed to a car having that extra grip from the obvious 4 wheels. I actually find riding a motorcycle in real life easier than in the video games.

Here's the problem : not 1 game in existence has truly nailed the gameplay and physics of properly riding a motorcycle.

- Game too realistic (like the MotoGP/Ride/RIM ones when you turn assists off) ?
Game becomes frustrating/almost unplayable due to getting off/crashing every 2 seconds.

- Game takes the arcade-y route (GTA/Days Gone/every arcade racer in existence) ?
It doesn't feel like you're riding a bike/motorcycle since you can go through lamp posts/bushes and in some cases even trees without crashing in the name of "accessibility" and "fun".

It's really a double edged sword friend, to this day, i still haven't found a motorcycle game that feels "right" or fun.

Source : personal opinion, been riding since the age of 16.

 

[Phil-NeoGAF]

I used to ask myself the same question, until I realized Achievement/Trophy hunters need to eat. I've seen countless profiles littered with these games. You don't make it to 1M Gamerscore or Level 999 without them.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

If these are 'shovelware' then you should try eShop, OP.

 

[Warablo]

I really wanted them to add fishing into their hunting game, but instead they made a whole new game with The Angler. So doubtful I will play it.

 

[Crayon]

Every game is someone's favorite game.

 

[JPSLotus97T]

Here's the problem : not 1 game in existence has truly nailed the gameplay and physics of properly riding a motorcycle.

- Game too realistic (like the MotoGP/Ride/RIM ones when you turn assists off) ?
Game becomes frustrating/almost unplayable due to getting off/crashing every 2 seconds.

- Game takes the arcade-y route (GTA/Days Gone/every arcade racer in existence) ?
It doesn't feel like you're riding a bike/motorcycle since you can go through lamp posts/bushes and in some cases even trees without crashing in the name of "accessibility" and "fun".

It's really a double edged sword friend, to this day, i still haven't found a motorcycle game that feels "right" or fun.

Source : personal opinion, been riding since the age of 16.

I haven't seen a game either that replicates the physics and feel of riding a bike. It's way too easy to wind up off the circuit. I find the braking a pain in the ass, and leaning the bike over to be a bit jerky. Like you said, turning off the assists just makes the games more difficult to play due to those things. Milestone seems to have cornered the market for the most part on motorcycle racing games. While the graphics have improved, the handling model has not. Maybe they'll get there one day.

 

[Danjin44]

I dont browse same reason I dont browse in my local EBgames store, already know I want and I buy it and get out....I dont really do window shopping when it comes to games.

 

[delfrickintree]

Every new weekly sale I browse psprices and sort by lowest price and/or greatest discount (90% off). If something happens to modestly attract my attention then I might add it to my cart. Ive gotten bundles of around 5 games and pay less than $10 every time, some of which I still have yet to even boot up after a year or so. But sometime a cheapass game turns out to be actually decent for the price of 1.75. Off the top of my head, a game called roombo - first blood was hilarious and I achieved the platinum trophy after about 2 hours. Well worth the price. Kind of like flea market shopping I suppose.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Taste, momentum, hype, and audience leanings changes from Country to country. Sometimes region to region with the same country. We're on a forum where some members question why Soccer games sell so well in Europe.

Different strokes...

True. This board, for instance, focuses on aaa mainstream titles and sales, corpo talk aka business strategy, and reviews. Another board I have perused likes to talk about retro gaming, nich aa titles and such (gamefaqs).

 

[tylrdiablos]

I'd love to see the sales metrics for titles such as "Life of Black Tiger". Number of purchases, number of refunds, age of buyer, average time played etc.
How the fuck do they even get approval or past the QA process?

 

[rofif]

No idea. These games probably dont sell at all. It’s just clutter to me