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Biggest crow a developer has served this past gen?

Kinyou said:
Yep, still hoping that we'll eventually see a sequel. But currently People Can Fly is stuck with that weird Fortnite game.... :/
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And they're not even called People Can Fly, anymore.

http://epicgames.com/careers/locations/epic-games-poland/
Established in 2002, Epic Games Poland, formerly known as People Can Fly, is known for recent titles such as Gears of War: Judgment and Bulletstorm (an original, Unreal Engine 3-powered onslaught of ‘kill with skill’ gameplay and blockbuster moments published in 2011.) The studio made its mark on the shooter genre with its award-winning Painkiller series of games for PC and Xbox prior to shipping Epic’s Gears of War for PC. Epic Games Poland is currently working in conjunction with Epic Games headquarters as part of the team developing Epic’s next big blockbuster: Fortnite.
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I remember ps4's 8GB GDDR5 being a huge deal, no-one expected 8gb. everyone thought that was crazy and all rumours had it pinned at 4gb.
 
Exploratory said:
Setimes when news hits the wire we don't react all that positively. Often we immediately jump to a conclusion (like X game is ruined). In reality that isn't always the case and I think a lot of crow has been served this past generation. I remember when people heard about Mass Effect 3's multiplayer they freaked out but when it came out everyone loved it. That just got me thinking what's the biggest and best Crow you've seen served this past generation?
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The last of us multiplayer comes to mind. Every one screamed how basic it looked and "omg lawllll no infected". Then when people played it they realize it provided some of the most intense multi player of this generation.
 
Raonak said:
I remember ps4's 8GB GDDR5 being a huge deal, no-one expected 8gb. everyone thought that was crazy and all rumours had it pinned at 4gb.
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Man, I still remember the Playstation Meeting thread of last year to this day. People went WILD when 8GB GDDR5 was announced.
 
kunonabi said:
huh? Tomb Raider ended up being just as shitty as we expected if not a little worse. None of the concerns people had going into it were proven wrong in any way. It selling well and appealing to game reviewers was never in doubt.
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I didn't like ME3 multiplayer and I was basically on a blackout about that game before it released so it isn't exactly a case of wanting to hate it beforehand. I also didn't like the rest of that game. Did everyone else seriously like ME3 multiplayer?
 
I remember people dismissing Demons Souls as a generic oblivion rip off and questioning Sonys first party choices. Never was more crow served it became basically the most loved franchise that gen
 
The Wii's sales might be the biggest instance of this happening since like, the fifth generation. All of those naysayers pre-release.
 
I think i'll just go with the flow here and say yeah, Batman was probably the biggest, best surprise last gen we've had. NOBODY expected a batman game to be good, especially not that good (for the time).

I think one of my personal one is FF XIV, the "reboot" that is. Everybody was already ready to yuck it up, after how disastrous the original release of XIV went. But 'lo and behold it's one of the more popular recently MMOs released recently. Even I was completely surprised. And actually kudos to Square enix to sticking to their games at least this once
 
I'd go with Far Cry 3. Ubisoft definitely brought franchise back to its knees after such a disappointing release of Far Cry 2. And no one expected it to be GOTY 2012 material.
 
chadboban said:
Dude, don't bother. I've seen him do this already, if he's in a thread and he sees Xenoblade mentioned in some sort of positive light, he will make sure to express how much he dislikes the game. It's no use trying to argue because he already has his mind made up. The game just isn't for him.
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Nah, I was going to leave the argument there. I even agree with him that the combat in terms of actual depth and the writing is pretty average so far, and the sidequests are MMO-tier (which is why I'm ignoring them so they don't affect my experience). However to call it supremely shitty based on that, ignoring the good voice acting, huge beautiful areas you can freely explore, the soundtrack, unique setting, etc... clearly there is still a lot to like. I just can't help calling people out on their shitty hyperbole. Sadly, usually people just double down on their emotionally charged, black and white, me-vs-the world opinion and swear up and down the entire game is trash, at which point I just leave them be like that.
 
PKrockin said:
Nah, I was going to leave the argument there. I even agree with him that the combat in terms of actual depth and the writing is pretty average so far, and the sidequests are MMO-tier (which is why I'm ignoring them so they don't affect my experience). However to call it supremely shitty based on that, ignoring the good voice acting, huge beautiful areas you can freely explore, the soundtrack, unique setting, etc... clearly there is still a lot to like. I just can't help calling people out on their shitty hyperbole. Sadly, usually people just double down on their emotionally charged black and white, me-vs-the world opinion and swear up and down the entire game is trash, at which point I just leave them be like that.
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You're so right about that, I've seen it WAY to many times here, and on the internet in general. I'm glad I know how to accept if someone likes a game that I don't and vice versa, otherwise I would make a fool of myself pretty much all the time.
 
The biggest crow serving last generation was the Wii. Before it launched, everyone was predicting it would fail. Here's a sampling of articles:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2003/08/01/346319/

Is Nintendo Playing The Wrong Game? Its competitors are turning their consoles into home entertainment centers. But Nintendo is sticking to games, a play-it-safe strategy that threatens to reduce the once-mighty company to irrelevance.
(Business 2.0)
By Geoff Keighley
August 1, 2003

If you want to see the future of videogames, there's no place like the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo. Each May the industry's heavyweights roll out their latest marvels, displaying their visions for the next year and beyond. This year's E3 was no exception. In one corner, J Allard, vice president for Xbox, took the wraps off Xbox Music Mixer, a karaoke system for Microsoft's game console. In another corner, Sony entertained the crowd with its new EyeToy, a camera that will add videoconferencing to the PlayStation 2. But that was just the beginning for Sony. Videogames chief Ken Kutaragi soon dropped the real bomb: Sony will take on Nintendo's mighty Game Boy with a new handheld. Finally, with anticipation at a crescendo, Nintendo CEO and president Satoru Iwata faced the crowd to meet his rivals' news with some of his own: Nintendo would soon release a four-way version of the arcade classic Pac-Man.

You could almost hear the air being sucked out of the room. This was a moment for vision and drama, a chance for Nintendo to dazzle the industry with its genius. Instead, Iwata served up four-way Pac-Man. The idea struck everyone as breathtakingly backward.
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If ever there was a time for audacity, this is it. Nintendo once owned the videogame business. It was reputedly Japan's single most profitable company in 1991, with its game console in one of every three American homes. In fact, a 1994 book about the company was titled Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World. Now the company is on the ropes. In just a decade, its share of the U.S. console market has shriveled from 90 percent to just 15--nowhere near striking distance of Sony's dominant PlayStation 2. Though Nintendo is still profitable, nearly half of its earnings now come from the handheld Game Boy (see "Another Crisis on His Hands," page 114). And those earnings have taken a nosedive, plunging 37 percent from 2002 to 2003. The worst part? Nintendo managed all this in the midst of a videogame explosion--in the past seven years, worldwide sales have doubled, to $27 billion. In the United States, about half of all homes now have a videogame console; 30 percent of those have at least two.

How could Nintendo have let Sony devour its lunch? The short answer is that it stopped paying attention. The videogame business has changed, but Nintendo hasn't. In 1990, two-thirds of console players were younger than 18; today the opposite is true, and the average player is 29. Yet Nintendo has continued to serve kiddie fare almost exclusively. It resisted the transition from cartridges to CD-ROMs, which are far cheaper to produce and fatten the bottom line much faster. (Nintendo's GameCube now uses minidiscs.) And while its hardware competitors were making nice with third-party developers in order to expand their all-important game libraries, Nintendo continued to treat the developers as rivals. Now Sony and Microsoft are expanding the scope of the entire videogame business, morphing their consoles into all-in-one home entertainment devices in their battle to dominate the long-trumpeted but slow-to-arrive world of PC/TV convergence. Nintendo, meanwhile, is still a game company--and only a game company. Which is precisely the problem, according to most people in the industry. "The battle is over entertainment. Period," declares Jack Tretton, executive vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment America. "If you don't have that vision, you are forever going to be a niche player."
...
Some of Iwata's resolve to stay the course may come from the cautionary tale of Sega, the gamemaker that posed such a threat to Nintendo a decade ago. After a protracted period in third place in the console market behind Nintendo and Sony, Sega shut down its hardware division altogether in 2001 to focus solely on software. It has steadily lost market share ever since. Haunted by that specter, Iwata repeatedly vows he'll never give up the console business.

It's possible that convergence could backfire and create an opportunity for Nintendo. Consumers could get turned off by rising console prices as Sony and Microsoft pack more functions into their boxes. Or consumers might not really want an all-in-one entertainment machine. "Name all the hybrid consumer-electronics devices that have been successful," notes Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "There's just one: the clock radio."

But that's a minority view. Most in the videogame industry agree that Sony and Microsoft are on the right track. "I'm not sure there's room for a stand-alone game machine," says Brian Farrell, CEO and president of THQ, the independent publishing giant responsible for such hits as SpongeBob SquarePants and WWE Wrestling. Jeff Lapin, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, which created the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto franchise, agrees. "I think Nintendo is going to have to redefine its hardware if it wants to compete," he says. "The simple fact is that people are looking for extra features."

Iwata is betting that the rest of the industry is wrong. But that doesn't mean he isn't willing to hedge. "Another company could certainly take our game platform and use it in their products," he hints. In other words, Nintendo is willing to consider the TiVo model, building a stand-alone machine while making its technology available for incorporation in other kinds of hardware.

That opens up a world of possibilities. There are plenty of companies that want a piece of the convergence business and don't want to cede the living room to Microsoft and Sony; they include consumer-electronics giants such as Panasonic, Samsung, and Sanyo, as well as PC manufacturers like Dell and Apple. If Apple, flying high on its success with the iPod, wanted to introduce a set-top box, gaming technology from Nintendo would give the machine a fighting chance against the PlayStation.

There's already some precedent. In Japan, Panasonic sells a device called the Q, which combines a DVD player with a GameCube. Could there be a Q in the offing for the U.S. market? "Panasonic is one partner we would definitely be interested in working with again," Iwata says, cryptically. Panasonic admits that it has a "strong relationship" with Nintendo, but refuses to say anything more.

A joint venture or partnership may be Nintendo's only hope of reversing its decline. But all hinting aside, Iwata couldn't pull off a dramatic rescue without fundamentally shifting the company's values. Nintendo isn't likely to take any genuine risks that could jeopardize its existing business (it's still the world's second-largest game publisher) or dramatically deplete its reserves. So no matter what kind of partnership Nintendo forms, its main business will likely be videogames--still profitable, but shrinking in relation to competitors. A humbling fate, indeed, for a company that once conquered the world.

Geoff Keighley is a contributing writer for Business 2.0.
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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_1/6-The-Contrarian.3

The Contrarian
John Scott Tynes | 12 July 2005 5:06 am
...
Nintendo's hardware is doomed. The Game Boy? Drowning. Gamecube? Buried. Revolution? Dead on arrival. Sony and Microsoft have begun the process of cleaning their clock, and there's just a bit of dust on the minute hand still left to go.
...
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news040505ps3towin
Sony to win next-gen - analyst

Wednesday, 4 May 2005

"In 2010, Sony's going to have 55 per cent, Microsoft's going to have 35 per cent and Nintendo 10 per cent, with all three of those having plus or minus five per cent" -Michael Pachter
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Even GAF threads were generally negative:
Revolution Controller Revealed: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63251
Final Revolution Name Announced: Wii http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97127
IGN reveals SOME Revolution specs!: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92612
 
Nintendo, in the recent months.

"Nintendo will ditch the gamepad!"
"Nintendo will abandon Wii U development!"
"Nobody will pay attention to Nintendo at E3!"
"Iwata will be forced out by investors!"

These were all widely held beliefs and Nintendo proved all of them wrong.
 
chadboban said:
You're so right about that, I've seen it WAY to many times here, and on the internet in general. I'm glad I know how to accept if someone likes a game that I don't and vice versa, otherwise I would make a fool of myself pretty much all the time.
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It's not like it helps their cause at all. Going into a thread where everyone is loving a game and just straight up calling it shit isn't going to convince anyone. They would be a lot more receptive to criticism if they started off by acknowledging what it does right, establishing some common ground and assuring people you're not just a crazed fanboy before going into detail about why the game didn't appeal to them at all or why the game design is seriously flawed. I guess you can't do that if you think the whole game is pure garbage, but if so many people love it there must be a reason for it, and identifying what that is is important before just calling it shit IMO.

This is getting a little off-topic... the Wii is truly some amazing crow. Reading the GAF thread of the Wiimote and Wii name reveal was absolutely full of mockery, Nintendo was dead, etc. It's pretty hilarious.
 
Hsieh said:
The biggest crow serving last generation was the Wii. Before it launched, everyone was predicting it would fail. Here's a sampling of articles:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2003/08/01/346319/



http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_1/6-The-Contrarian.3



http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news040505ps3towin


Even GAF threads were generally negative:
Revolution Controller Revealed: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63251
Final Revolution Name Announced: Wii http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97127
IGN reveals SOME Revolution specs!: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92612
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Thing is that all stuff wasn't all that wrong.
The Wii was a success because they found a new market, but now that the casual market is gone for the most part, Nintendo is left with nothing, while Sony and Microsoft established fanbases among gamers.

So the Wii might have been a success, but Nintendo missed a lot of other important trains while riding that Wii train.
 
1.21Gigawatts said:
Thing is that all stuff wasn't all that wrong.
The Wii was a success because they found a new market, but now that the casual market is gone for the most part, Nintendo is left with nothing, while Sony and Microsoft established fanbases among gamers.

So the Wii might have been a success, but Nintendo missed a lot of other important trains while riding that Wii train.
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I have to say, the initial assumptions about how feasible the Wii would be (from almost all directions) followed by its market success is a perfect example of eating crow, from where I'm sitting. If you're trying to construct other metrics to characterize it was anything other than a dramatic success, it's a pointless justification. Its inclusion in the convo here makes sense.
 
I know this isn't this past gen, but Super Mario 3D World served so much crow that Nintendo opened a new chain of buffets.
 
is it really considered "serving crow" when people are like "meh" or uninterested in something like Wolfenstein and it turns out being good? don't recall that game getting negative press...unless indifference falls under negative press
 
Rapstah said:
That thread only shows that the people who liked the MP liked the MP. "Crow eating" implies a lot of people who thought it would be terrible ended up liking it. People not being overly negative about it could easily just be saying that is was okay compared to the rest of the game. Which it kind of was, I guess.
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I don't want to do the detective work for you. If you read the GAF thread on the original announcement of multiplayer people heavily disliked Mass Effect would have multi. If you read the demo impressions plenty of people changed their tune and they ended up liking it quite a bit. If you read the Multiplayer OT it was very well liked. Also the multiplayer was very successful from what I've read. It also reviewed well.

I don't know what else it takes to prove that. I think it may be more likely that you missed out on something great and that you don't want to recognize that.
 
Exploratory said:
I remember when people heard about Mass Effect 3's multiplayer they freaked out but when it came out everyone loved it.
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Yup, thread done! The outcry at the "audacity" of BioWare putting MP into the Mass Effect series was laughable, and the fact that it was so goddamn fun was a nice spitball in the face of the haters.
 
LegendofDragoonLives said:
I have a feeling after Watch Dogs, The Order is next on the list of crow to eat for this gen. Except of course, for the gamers who want certain games to be exactly what they like and any type of genre that is different, will be shitted on over and over again because in their mind, they think that every game developer in the world must appease them, and them only. Good thing has no crazy, entitled gamers like that here.. none. 0. Nada.

Last generation, I would say Demons Souls. To a degree Halo 4, the quality wasn't that big of a drop off considering Bungie left even though the multiplayer unfortunately lacked a decent amount of staying power.
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You mean after Super Mario 3DWorld

that October trailer thread was amazing, general consensus changed in one day
 
Gestault said:
I'm not familiar with anyone who assumed the game would be bad or wouldn't be completed.
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Freezie KO and Spieler Eins wouldn't shut up about it from the E3 reveal through the game's release, and still talk about it sometimes in vaguely related threads.

There were more but those two were prolific.
 
henhowc said:
is it really considered "serving crow" when people are like "meh" or uninterested in something like Wolfenstein and it turns out being good? don't recall that game getting negative press...unless indifference falls under negative press
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Yeah, I don't remember much negativity aimed at Wolfenstein, especially once people found out the pedigree of Machine Games. That it surpassed expectations doesn't mean crow was served, or maybe I just missed it.
 
henhowc said:
is it really considered "serving crow" when people are like "meh" or uninterested in something like Wolfenstein and it turns out being good? don't recall that game getting negative press...unless indifference falls under negative press
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Like I already said, there was an EDGE preview on Wolfenstein a few months ago comparing the storytelling and cutscenes to The Last of Us.

Even with the pedigree of ex-Starbreeze, which I was aware of and believed in, that's still quite a comparison. I don't think Wolfenstein reaches the same level as that game, as much as I love it.

Still, though, I think it's safe to say that Wolfenstein's story, cutscenes, writing, and characterization turned out far better than anyone ever could have hoped. BJ Blazkowicz got better than that character ever deserved, honestly.
 
Gestault said:
I have to say, the initial assumptions about how feasible the Wii would be (from almost all directions) followed by its market success is a perfect example of eating crow, from where I'm sitting. If you're trying to construct other metrics to characterize it was anything other than a dramatic success, it's a pointless justification. Its inclusion in the convo here makes sense.
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What they thought would happen to Wii obviously didn't happen because the Wii conquered a new market.(Apparantly not many people saw that coming)
But what they said would happen to Wii is now happening to WiiU.
 
Afrocious said:
I'm confused. I thought something being crow was shit.

"I'll eat crow." = "I'll eat shit."

Have I been wrong this whole time?
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Eating Crow means having to eat something difficulty to swallow. The crow represent your own words.

So when you are forced to eat crow, It means accepting being wrong about something.
 
FlashbladeGAF said:
Wonderful 101

We all thought... "What's this low poly casual kiddie shit" when images were first released.
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I don't recall the thread for the first screens, but I find it hard to believe there was a negative consensus on GAF about anything Platinum related (Ok, Bayonetta 2 to Wii U, whatever)

DmC, Wolfenstein, and Blacklist have all been mentioned, and I think are obvious ones that were met with a much better reaction than expected. Here's another, Sonic Racing Transformed. Another one I think that might not qualify for crow as much as those 3, but ended up being a far better game than most people would of expected, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. It could of been just another Mario Kart rip off, it ended up being awesome.
 
KefkaPalazzo said:
I don't recall the thread for the first screens, but I find it hard to believe there was a negative consensus on GAF about anything Platinum related (Ok, Bayonetta 2 to Wii )
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P-100, before it was announced as Wonderful101, most people were disappointed that the Director/Creator of hard hitting action games like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 2, etc.. was releasing an exclusive to the Wii-U that turned out to be a game that could only be described at first glance as "kiddie"

Out of any developer, Kamiya had the expertise to bring the hardcore to Nintendo, so seeing a game, at first glance, be the opposite of that set some people back looking for Nintendo's fortunes to turn around.

The reactions were low until we got the E3 play through and later the official W101 trailer showing off the scope of the game.
Project P-100 (Nintendo/Platinum Games) announced for WiiU [Director: Hideki Kamiya]


Remember this was during Anarchy Reigns Platinum

Even MGRising wasn't universally loved because of the switch in direction and "downgrade" in graphics. Only until both games were released did gamers start to see the consistent quality in Platinum's games regardless of the games "look"
 
antitrop said:
Like I already said, there was an EDGE preview on Wolfenstein a few months ago comparing the storytelling and cutscenes to The Last of Us.

Even with the pedigree of ex-Starbreeze, which I was aware of and believed in, that's still quite a comparison. I don't think Wolfenstein reaches the same level as that game, as much as I love it.

Still, though, I think it's safe to say that Wolfenstein's story, cutscenes, writing, and characterization turned out far better than anyone ever could have hoped. BJ Blazkowicz got better than that character ever deserved, honestly.
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I don't really see that many doubters in that thread you linked to. Expectations IMO were pretty tempered. Most seemed at the very least cautiously optimistic because developer track record and the EDGE article. The only crow eater that stood out was you lol ;)
 
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