Champ Man: strategy games make you think too much, don’t belong on consoles
A good number of games play well on both consoles and PCs, but we all know that certain games belong to one or the other. RTSs, for example, are largely for the PC. The dev of Championship Manager though, believes that strategy games don’t belong on consoles because he believes that console owners “don’t want a game you’ve got to think about too much.”
A good number of games play well on both consoles and PCs, but we all know that certain games only belong to one or the other.
Controls are usually the main factor for this. RTSs, for example, are just easier to play with a mouse and a 5-page list of hotkeys. This is the first time I’ve heard “thinking” as a reason for a game not to belong on consoles though.
Roy Meredith, dev for Championship Manager, believes that strategy games don’t belong on consoles because console owners “don’t want a game you’ve got to think about too much.” Speaking on Championship Manager:
I’d love to release a console version that would work but this is not the game. Strategy games don’t work on console and this is a strategy game.
The experience I’ve had on that, I think EA had that Lord of the Rings strategy game, I don’t like Lord of the Rings as a franchise but the game itself on PC was immense. I thought it was brilliant. They released it on Xbox 360 and it stiffed.
I don’t think people want a game you’ve got to think about too much on a console. They canned Command & Conquer on PS3, EA I think spent 5 million on it and just said no thanks, which I think is the right decision.
Controls, I’d agree with. But “too much thinking”? He just blew every Tactics and puzzle game out of the water. I guess he meant “more analysis of data than there is action,” in which case I’d agree. Anyway, he does continue, saying that he wants a console version for Championship Manager, but doesn’t know how to make it work yet:
I’m not saying no, but at the moment I haven’t got a solution for it on console. People want reactive, fast action things on console. This is a statistical game, it’s a strategy game, it’s a game you have got to put a lot of thought into as a football fan, as a football manager.
At the moment it’s not exciting enough to be warranted as a console release in terms of dynamic action. If we can get to it, it would be wonderful, but I haven’t got the solution at the moment.
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- The Gospel of Strategy Games according to consoles
Via VideoGamer
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