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House of Games #70 — Collector’s Edition

Otto Wretling
38 min readMay 14, 2024

In this episode, we delve into the world of collectors’ editions in the games industry and discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly, how we would design our own collector’s editions, and much, much more!

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/house-of-games/message

Chapters

00:00 Episode Intro
00:33 Episode Starts
05:34 Rune’s Experience and Dreams of Collector’s Editions
12:52 Collector’s Editions Gone Wrong
13:36 Grand Theft Auto IV: Collector’s Edition
14:43 Fallout 4 & Fallout 76
30:38 Are Preorders Harmful to the Games Industry?
50:18 Sunset Moon and Prototyping
55:47 Episode Outro

Your Hosts and Their Games

Games and Game Companies

Other Links

Transcript

[00:00:00] Episode Intro

[00:00:00] Rune: Hello everyone and welcome to the most collectible podcast in the world, House of Games. I’m your co-host Rune, and today I’m joined by a man who ain’t much of a collectible item at all. He’s mass produced, used by many, fungible as fuck, always on sale, but he is an absolute treasure if you ask his wife, and that’s what matters. One wife’s husband is another man’s host. My host, Otto! But before we head down that collectible rabbit hole, let’s dive in to today’s episode of House of Games.

[00:00:33] Episode Starts

[00:00:33] Otto: Welcome to today’s episode of House of Games, and today, this week, to continue the theme from last week, I’m thinking to do something like we did last week, something related to monetization and [00:01:00] that whole thing. So, we talked a little bit before starting the, starting to record this episode, so I’m thinking to talk a little bit about, perhaps, collectibles and stuff like that, about, preorders, about collector’s edition, stuff like that. So I think, the venue to start with, the thing that I think is the most, what I have the most experience with is collector’s editions.

[00:01:30] So, that’s something that I, you know, I guess you could say that, living in your 20s, being single, and having no responsibilities, you could buy collector’s editions for this and that game, and, that was sort of a big part of your life.

[00:01:47] But anyhow, it was a, a great time, and I really remember some of the collector’s editions that I bought that was really, it made the whole experience, special.

[00:01:58] Yeah?

[00:01:59] Rune: You said in [00:02:00] your 20s that you were single and could spend money on these things and then you sort of talked about them as if they don’t exist anymore. Have your wife made sure they never see the light of day again? Like most of us?

[00:02:13] Otto: No, no, no, of course, they, I have them still, little scattered around the house, but you know, it’s, there’s no, no, it’s not the same as it were in the day, so I remember, for example, when, Skyrim came out, I worked, worked at a call center at the time and, during those days I remember that there were a handful of people in my team and people all over the, the company that, somehow took a sick leave on the 11th of November 2011.

[00:02:50] Rune: Heh heh.

[00:02:51] Otto: …conveniently, and everybody knew what is what’s about. And it was sort of a big thing for, for me as well, I had preordered [00:03:00] the, I think the biggest collector’s edition you can, could, I still have the thing, so it’s basically a, it came with an art book, which is like this thick, 200 pages of like art and stuff from, from making the game, and then you have like this huge, like this big of a box, and it came with a statue of one of the dragons in the game, which was really cool. And, I really like those.

[00:03:32] Also, I think Uncharted is also one of those collector’s editions I really really remember, and it’s sort of, the point of doing the collector’s edition isn’t that it’s just a bunch of junk that you, you know, have no use for, but rather that it’s something that sort of makes the game come alive, almost.

[00:03:56] For example, I remember in, it’s probably a cheap thing to [00:04:00] manufacture, but at least in, I think, Uncharted 3, I bought the collector’s edition for that, so it came in a chest, it was sort of a small, like, chest esque replica, yeah, so you open it and in it you had like a statue of Drake, the main character, but also you had like a a, a, small, I think it’s plastic or really cheap metal or something, but, the ring that the main character has in the same leather strap, you could, so you could wear it and like, you know, cosplay him if you want to.

[00:04:34] But, you know, that’s sort of a, attention to detail, something that I really think it’s, it’s not that common that big games do it nowadays, especially when we get, have gotten to this, everything is online world and everything is just a download, or in some cases you even download the game before it’s out, and then you can actually click [00:05:00] play when the actual time comes for the release of the game.

[00:05:04] So it’s not the same as, it’s sort of, as it always is with us two, I think, it’s, we’re just longing for the good old days, like some grandparents or something.

[00:05:17] Rune: Mm.

[00:05:19] Otto: That was really cool, something that I, that would be, like, the height of doing a game release that you would make it yourself is that you make a physical release, make it as a product, and then release some amazing merchandise along with it.

[00:05:34] Rune’s Experience and Dreams of Collector’s Editions

[00:05:34] Rune: I was just thinking about that as you were talking, like, uh, I think when you start out as a game developer, your first goal or dream is to get a game out, especially on the consoles that you loved playing on as a child.

[00:05:50] When I released mine on Nintendo Switch, it was just like, I can’t fucking believe this and then two years later or something, the Red [00:06:00] Colony trilogy, a physical copy of the game, and that was just, that was on par with having a child and then, now I’m like when we start talking about this topic, or you mentioned it before the show, I just have all these ideas for collectible editions I want for my games.

[00:06:18] Now granted, the Red Colony on the game is a collectible edition thing, but it’s not the same because there is no statue, and that’s sort of, I guess, you know, you become greedy, but that’s what I would like, to release a game and then have this sort of amazing collectible edition where you get a statue or something that is not just, the the game.

[00:06:38] So, for example, the Red Colony Collector’s Edition, it’s it’s the game, it’s a poster and like a small art book, and a CD with the music, which is, you know, it’s all, and all is very cool, but it’s not like, that I was involved in what it was gonna be [00:07:00] and, and all that. I was somewhat involved in it, but it was mainly eastasiasoft that sort of, I guess that’s how the deals goes.

[00:07:07] This was through my publisher, so I was not very much in touch with any of this to be honest and I was so busy making KnifeBoy by the time this was happening, so I was quite grateful that I didn’t have to be more involved.

[00:07:21] But anyway, my point is that it, there, it’s a cool thing of course, it’s amazing and it is technically speaking a collector’s edition because there’s two versions, one with just the game and this one with the collector’s edition stuff but if I were to make like I talked about it on the show before, I would love to go back and make like a triology version of Red Colony for PlayStation but maybe change the graphics completely, just to make it more fun for me to work on the game.

[00:07:50] And then I like to imagine, oh, how cool would it be if you had like this, a statue, what I imagine is this, plate, like a round plate, and then you have [00:08:00] Maria, Nicole, and, Mina, the main characters from each game, and they’re sort of like posing with the guns aiming outwards if you, if that makes sense.

[00:08:10] So imagine this round statue, so that means no matter, from all directions you walk, you will have one main character aiming at you or looking towards you, and then sort of behind them there’s like this velociraptor and a robot and a zombie. So anyway, that’s what I was thinking and then I was thinking, ah, it would be so cool to have like, imagine the zombie sitting down and then he have a, he’s sliced from head down and that’s where you inject the CD, so imagine the PlayStation 5 CD so you can sort of insert that into the zombie so when you don’t play the game, it’s it’s all a part of this statue so it’s all in one sort of…

[00:08:50] And then I was thinking, ah, how cool would it be if you, if this plate was rotating as well. So it’s rotating and then, because tech-, normally when you have these [00:09:00] collectible editions in, out, in your room or whatever, you put them in a glass case or a bookshelf.

[00:09:06] So I was thinking that would be so cool if it was spinning. So, you, it keeps spinning and then you have that CD, you can sort of inject that in the zombie and then of course I thought, well, what if I could make this for the Nintendo Switch? Well, then it will, the zombie will have like a, a slot in its face or something where you insert the, the Switch cartridges or whatever and it’s like blood and stuff like that. So anyway, all these ideas on what to do with a collector’s edition and that would be so cool.

[00:09:35] But yeah, that’s I guess next goal one one of these days make a collector’s edition. And I think that like as a developer, I wouldn’t give a fuck if I didn’t make money off this, all I would care about is having this thing. And if I…

[00:09:53] Otto: Yeah.

[00:09:54] Rune: …plus minus zero, that would be fine. Probably minus a couple of thousand [00:10:00] dollars, I would be fine with that too, just to have this thing. That would be so cool. But, yeah, so that’s a little bit about, my dreams when it comes to collector’s editions. But with that being said, like you mentioned before that, nowadays we just buy everything online and so on. Like, I am only buying physical games still, except on Steam.

[00:10:22] And I, I can tell, man, the Steam Deck, I, I have no love for the thing and I really think it’s because I don’t buy the games physically. I, I, think, we haven’t talked about this, but the original Xbox, back then, my brother and I, we hacked it, or chipped it, whatever you call it, flashed it and we only have two games for the original Xbox, and that was Halo, the, it came with it, and Morrowind, Halo, amazing, Morrowind is my, maybe one of my favorite games of all times but all the other games we played on that system we just downloaded and printed out on DVDs and chucked them in [00:11:00] and there was like no, I felt like no value, no point in it, they, nothing stuck and I really think there’s something to this, buying a, I sound like an old person, but buying a physical game, full price especially and then you take it home and you play it, I still do that, and especially, I always buy the collector’s editions if they exist, but you know, like you said, you bought the insane, Skyrim one, which I really want to see. I’m gonna, maybe we have to Google some pictures after this, but, those are extremely expensive, obviously, something you can only do in your 20s when you’re single and have a job and all that stuff, but I like to buy this sort of semi collector edition sort of what I described Red Colony as and they’re just maybe instead of 70 bucks, they might be $99 so it’s only a 20, $20 difference and they come with a couple of things or like [00:12:00] a steel case if that’s the thing that’s out I like to buy those. So I, I always buy the collector’s editions if they exist on Nintendo, they have, they have these the official Nintendo games, like, Yoshi’s Woolly World, Mario, and so on, you can, on Amazon, you can buy them with a keyring that comes with, I, I just noticed that, so I, I never bought them like that, and, and also I, I, don’t like to buy everything on Amazon. I want to go to real stores, like an old fashioned man. But I guess, that was just like, my nostalgia for collector’s editions.

[00:12:43] I’m curious where we take the conversation from now on, are we just gonna talk and compare collector’s editions, or…?

[00:12:52] Collector’s Editions Gone Wrong

[00:12:52] Otto: Yeah, so I’m thinking the way to take it actually is to take other examples [00:13:00] actually that I didn’t buy myself, but, so we talked about, you know, what is the ideal, what is, what makes collector’s editions fun? But I’m thinking to bring up, examples where they’re, they weren’t fun, and where they, there was a lot of problems and then, that, usually when that happens, it usually goes to the discussion of should people preorder games or not? Should you wait until it’s, it’s ready or, or should you preorder it?

[00:13:36] Grand Theft Auto IV: Collector’s Edition

[00:13:36] Otto: So, I remember when I was a kid when GTA IV came out, I remember that, that was actually, I didn’t buy the collector’s edition because I wasn’t old enough to buy a Grand Theft Auto at the time. But, I heard at, that they had a really cool collector’s edition for [00:14:00] GTA IV where they had, where they shipped it with knuckle irons made out of bronze with the game, which is kind of funny, because it goes sort of in line with the game. However, in Sweden, that’s illegal to ship weapons to people. So you can’t sell that, so when those things arrived in Sweden, as far as I’ve heard, the rumor at least, is that all of them got confiscated and, like, destroyed or something, so you know, that’s sort of something that they didn’t think about, but something that, it was a really cool idea, but it really didn’t pan out, I think, the way they hoped it would.

[00:14:42] Rune: Mm.

[00:14:43] Fallout 4 & Fallout 76

[00:14:43] Otto: Something else that I really remember is Fallout 76. That’s been a, you know, a clusterfuck of problems, you know, on every level, I think. But something I remember was the Collector’s Edition that [00:15:00] sounded like a really, really cool thing. To go back a little bit, the Fallout 4 Collector’s Edition had a really, I didn’t buy it, but I really wanted to do that, but it was in part a power armor helmet, so sort of a helmet, like, from the game, which was really cool. And then you had, they built an app for your smartphone, so you could have the Pip-Boy, the, basically the menu system in the game, on your smartphone. So you could actually interact with the game. yeah,

[00:15:37] I’ll just, continue on.

[00:15:39] Rune: I gotta show something. Keep going.

[00:15:41] Otto: Yeah, so, and something they sold, I think it was in that same collector’s edition as the, the, the helmet was the, a Pip-Boy, like a physical bracelet where you could fit your smartphone in and have like a, a [00:16:00] Pip-Boy as you were playing the game.

[00:16:01] And then, you would just, you know, click on something on your actual arm, instead of doing it in game, and it would work the same way, which I thought also was really, really cool and now I’m really curious to see what you’re gonna bring up from your magic box.

[00:16:20] Holy shit, do you have it? Oh my god, exactly, yes! Exactly, that’s the one! Holy shit, so does it work the way I thought it would?

[00:16:33] Rune: Well, I don’t It’s sort of like, I haven’t tried it. I…

[00:16:39] went to you have it, holy shit!

[00:16:42] And this if my brother watched this, he’s not gonna watch this episode. He doesn’t even know we make a podcast, but I bought this for my brother, he’s a huge Fallout fan and I found this in one of those flea markets. It’s really cool and it’s gonna take out half of my…

[00:16:56] Otto: Mint condition.

[00:16:58] Rune: Yeah, yeah, I mean, oh, [00:17:00] that’s the beauty of all these flea market things in Japan. Everything is mint condition. I think it has something to do with this Japanese buddhist culture where they take care of things. There is not a single scratch on this thing. It’s…

[00:17:13] Otto: Wow. So how much was that?

[00:17:15] Rune: I bought it for a hundred bucks.

[00:17:18] Otto: Damn. I mean, that’s, I think it’s good…

[00:17:22] Rune: Yeah, I think you can find them, and, online for about that price, so if you really want one…

[00:17:28] Otto: Yeah, that’s, I didn’t expect, perfect, I didn’t expect this at all, that you would have the actual thing I was talking about. Amazing, yes!

[00:17:38] Rune: When you talked about the, the power helmet, I was like, oh, I really hope it goes the Pip-Boy direction, because I was just gonna mention the Pip-Boy just but then you went there and I was like I have to show this.

[00:17:51] Otto: Yeah, absolutely perfect. Okay, dear viewers, so now you’ve seen exactly that thing. Really amazing, really cool [00:18:00] collector’s edition.

[00:18:01] The way to do it, basically. It’s like, you can bring the game out into the real world and…

[00:18:07] Rune: I also this stand you can, if…

[00:18:10] Otto: Yeah.

[00:18:10] Rune: ….you don’t to have it in the box.

[00:18:13] Otto: Very, very cool.

[00:18:15] So, yeah, someday, if I, when we meet in real life, I have to take a look at that.

[00:18:22] It’s, I’m, I’m fanboying already.

[00:18:27] Rune: Yeah, it’s really cool, I can imagine my brother is just gonna walk around with it like a clock just to be annoying.

[00:18:34] But, but yeah, that’s, I agree that’s, the way to do it. I don’t know the Fallout, what was the problem with Fallout 76?

[00:18:46] Otto: Yeah, so they first released Fallout 4, great game, great product, everything went well. And after that, they released Fallout 76, so, famously, Todd Howard did a [00:19:00] presentation on this game, as he usually does, and as usually he sort of, either he exaggerates, or he you know, tells the world the plan that currently is, but then, couple months down the line, things have changed, budgets have changed, and so on.

[00:19:18] Don’t know what it is, I, I don’t really care whichever, but people seem to be so frustrated with it. Anyhow, he said something like with 76 that it would have 16 times the detail of Fallout 4, for example, which turned out not to be the case. It was basically the same and in many cases worse.

[00:19:41] Rune: Mm.

[00:19:42] Otto: So anyhow, they released the, the game. It’s an online game only and, of course the online part didn’t work at all and it was so much, many glitches and people found bugs and they found like the test room, which is, you know, where you could just spawn all of the enemies, all of the [00:20:00] weapons, everything, and people got banned, and, yeah, all kinds of things.

[00:20:04] We can go through you know, the actual game part in another video. But, what went wrong with the Collector’s Edition?

[00:20:13] So, I think the highest tier of the Collector’s Edition was two things I remember in particular was, in part a, or it was a a canvas bag. So imagine canvas like, really sturdy, like, fabric that you have for, like, army clothes and so on.

[00:20:38] So basically a duffel bag, like a sports bag, in that material that was sort of branded with the Fallout brand. And then, also, beyond that, the other thing I remember was a whiskey bottle, that was with whiskey in it, of course, that would be branded as the in [00:21:00] game soda, so Nuka Cola, I think.

[00:21:03] Rune: Ah.

[00:21:04] Otto: …which, two really cool ideas, for a you know, so then you could sit there with your amazing bag and you could have your, which you could use like in your real life or, you know, going to the gym or whatever, traveling or, whatever, and then you could drink your whiskey as you’re playing the game on opening night, for example.

[00:21:24] Really neat ideas, but, so I, the way I heard it is that the canvas bag, which you expect to be, in a, you know, sturdy material and all of that.

[00:21:37] When it arrived, it was apparently in nylon. So, imagine this, it’s basically, imagine you expect this real bag and what you get is basically an IKEA bag that’s, you know, it’s just a plastic bag with a zipper on it that’s completely flat when it’s, [00:22:00] not filled with anything. So it looks like shit. And it’s not even the same thing that’s advertised on the webpage. So it’s, in many countries, it’s illegal to do that, that you advertise one thing and then you don’t deliver on that but give them something something completely different. And then also with the whiskey, thing, I, I, no idea what it was like, the actual, actual liquid, if it was good or not, but they served it in a, the bottle, or bottle was a, like a white label whiskey bottle that they had like a plastic shell on the outside to make it look like the bottle from the game.

[00:22:45] Rune: Ah.

[00:22:46] Otto: …of rocket shaped, I think, but the problem with that was like the plastic casing outside was like re- of really bad quality so what happens when you try to pour the drink is that the drink [00:23:00] didn’t go into the glass and went between the inside like the bottle and the outside plastic just to go inside like the plastic and then it drips off over the table or whatever.

[00:23:12] Rune: Hmm. That’s…

[00:23:15] Otto: Just everything went completely wrong with that.

[00:23:18] Rune: I, that’s really odd, like, if you’re, if you’re that big of a studio and almost, like I sort of alluded to earlier, if I made my own collector’s edition, I wouldn’t even care if I went plus on the whole thing. But you know it’s a big corporation and that’s what it’s all about, I suppose. In terms of B- Benesta, Beseda, Benesta, whatever, however you pronounce it.

[00:23:39] Otto: Bethesda.

[00:23:41] Rune: I never really figured it out, even though I’m a big fan.

[00:23:43] Otto: I hope somebody makes a super cut of you mispronouncing their name.

[00:23:49] Rune: Yeah. But anyway, they, if you’re that big studio and you have that much money like and also the fans are like don’t they [00:24:00] know, like, they should have made it proper quality all the way through and just adjusted the price after that. And let’s say they want to make profits for every collector, they will still get them sold. That’s the thing, like, there’s no point in cheating when you’re that big and you have that much money and you have that many fans that are willing to buy these things.

[00:24:22] So there’s no point in cheating at all. It makes no sense.

[00:24:26] Otto: Yeah, absolutely and as I, you know, I would also think the same way that if you look at Skyrim for example, that’s had a lifespan of over 10 years now, so, you know, going on 15, and it’s still you know, people complain that they rerelease Skyrim all over and over again, but, you know, it’s a really smart way of, you know, keeping a game alive and keeping it updated and keeping it, you know, and people actually do like it, people play it, people buy it, [00:25:00] and if you have something like a brand like that, like Bethesda is, then, then, you would, you know, and also the, the preorders and the collector’s edition is only for launch.

[00:25:14] That’s, I can’t even imagine that, you know, let’s say in best case scenario, they would have the collector’s edition that’s a hundred thousand units of the highest tier. I don’t even think that’s gonna be a realistic number, but say it like it would be that. Even if they would take a loss on those 100, 000 games, all of the goodwill that that makes will probably sell, like, I don’t know, five million copies or whatever down the line ten years into the future.

[00:25:48] Because you’re, as you say, that big of a company, so why not just invest in that? Because it’s not about, you know, making money on each canvas bag, because you’re not a [00:26:00] canvas bag company. It’s about creating goodwill and, you know, when it’s a game launch from this company, it’s happening, it’s an event, it’s like a, you wanna be part of a, you know, you wanna be able to say, I was there, I got the bag, like you can show off that Pip-Boy, like in real life, it’s a really cool thing.

[00:26:20] Rune: And I guess if you wanna have the cookie and eat it too, you could always, do, announce the collector’s edition and, I was thinking, you, you, because hardcore fans, they will always be there no matter what you do.

[00:26:35] So you could announce the, the collector’s stuff and say, just be honest and say, based on how many preorders, we will, the price will be from this to this or like if you don’t want to invest, let’s say you lose a lot of money on making those bags, for example, like proper quality, like wouldn’t that be a way where you could sort of announce what [00:27:00] you have planned for this collector edition and then based on the preorders, you adjust the price based on that.

[00:27:06] So if you can get a hundred thousand pre orders, let’s say, you can make the, the super quality or, oh yeah, you make it high quality and all that. You have a hundred thousand preorders.

[00:27:19] That means that the price will be 120 bucks per collector edition, or if you only get 50, 000 preorders, then the, it will be $140 per collector edition, so you can sort of like…

[00:27:33] Ah, but I guess that makes it messy. I think you’re right. Just, even if you go a little bit minus, when you’re that big of a company, you can afford it and the goodwill and all that.

[00:27:42] And I was thinking, like, maybe they can hold some of them back like this Pip-Boy glove, for example, imagine if they had, like, they kept 5, 000 of them somewhere, and then these become collector’s edition things that people really want after the fact, and then you can charge even more for them.[00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Otto: Yeah, and I’m thinking like even if, you know, it’s, it’s easy to, as I often say, it’s easy to sit here as a schmuck and say, you know, Oh, they’re so fucking stupid. Why didn’t they just do canvas bag the right way? I have no idea how to produce or even, you know, get a, supply chain to do that. But, I imagine it’s something like this.

[00:28:24] They have a supplier that does the whole thing. They just pay the price per canvas bag and even if the price would be like, thousand bucks per canvas bag then just say that, you know, we have the fucking highest tier, it’s a fucking thousand dollars per bag, you know, we get that you’re not gonna buy it but if you really want a good bag, here it is, it’s a quality bag, it’s gonna be the best, it’s gonna be, doesn’t matter that it says Fallout on it, it’s gonna be a great product. But also you get the plus of supporting the game and [00:29:00] it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy this specific thing and so on, just do that. Rather have like a really expensive price for it, just to be sure that if, you know, profit, short term profits is that big of a concern, rather than saying it’s just a hundred bucks and then maybe, maybe you can’t deliver on it or whatever it is.

[00:29:26] Rune: Huh, I agree. I think it’s there’s it’s probably what you say, it’s just there have no, they’re not in charge of how it goes down, but when it’s the highest tiers it really feels like you can charge whatever you want, because…

[00:29:42] Otto: Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it’s gonna be, if I were a big company like Bethesda, why not just do that and, you know, say that, hey, we’re not, like Electronic Arts or Ubisoft. We’re like the, [00:30:00] the Gucci or Prada of games, you know, where the Ferrari, you know, you wanna buy our games? It costs a lot of money, but damn you get value for your money you get you know, you want to buy merchandise from us?

[00:30:12] It’s amazing merchandise. You know, anyone would recognize it, even in the fashion industry. That’s how good our merchandise is. You know, something like that.

[00:30:22] Either do that, or don’t do it. Especially when it comes to something physical, because you can’t patch a canvas bag.

[00:30:30] Rune: Mmm, ooh. You can.

[00:30:34] Otto: Ha Ha ha ha!

[00:30:38] Are Preorders Harmful to the Games Industry?

[00:30:38] Otto: Anyhow, so, that leads into when this whole thing with Fallout 76 happened, people said a lot about preorders in general, that preorders are sort of harmful for the industry in the same way that microtransaction and [00:31:00] games as a service and that whole thing is harmful to the industry, so I’d love to hear your take on it, but the premise is basically like this, that people say that if you preorder a game, you basically pay them before the game is released.

[00:31:17] So then, the consequence from that is that it doesn’t really matter if on launch day the game works as it should, or if everything is broken. They already have your money, and then they can use that money maybe to fix the game, but maybe they don’t for example, but then you have just rewarded them with hundreds of millions of dollars aggregate to create something that is just broken.

[00:31:47] And then they can release earlier because they already got the money from their investment. So they wanna maybe start working on their next project or something or making a DLC instead.

[00:31:57] So, and the argument [00:32:00] then is that if you don’t preorder, there are zero preorders, hypothetically, so then instead it would be like, shit, we don’t know if this is gonna sell or not, we better make it the best game we could do and, fix all of the bugs, test it thoroughly, and make sure that on launch day and, you know, immediately that the game is great. That’s basically the premise, so I’d love to hear your thoughts, should people preorder or not, or, you know, what’s the effect of it?

[00:32:35] Rune: No. I honestly like, I know I mentioned earlier that they should just ask people to preorder these physical things. I was thinking like, huh, like I have never pre-ordered a game myself, never and I don’t think I will ever do that and then as we’re talking about collector’s editions, I suppose that’s the only time I would want to preorder but not for the game but for the collector item that [00:33:00] comes with the game but at the same time with your, the way the stuff you just said there, that I would still probably send the wrong signals, because I, one thing I tend to do is not buy games at launch at all nowadays because they are so broken all the time. I prefer to use wait a couple of months.

[00:33:22] I know Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I’m gonna get that when we move back to Sweden and get a new TV and all that stuff, but they had like a big nice patch the other day. I would like to, I mean i’m so anti this sort of online updating stuff, even though I have to use it myself for my own games, but I, I think that, like, even when they print discs, sometimes they will use the latest version of the game to print the disc, if I understand things correctly.

[00:33:56] So, when I buy these, like, Game of the Year editions, for example, then I want [00:34:00] the late, like, the proper version that works on a disc. I believe I went to my summer house one summer, to play a game, and it was just so broken, but then I had to go back to the city, download the latest patch for the game and then it was, like, working fine.

[00:34:17] That’s so frustrating, like, even on physical disks, you don’t get the latest or a working thing, which is very frustrating. So they basically just print these disks before the game is done, send them out, and then you buy them, day one, and then the first thing you do is download some bullshit patch. So I’m anti all of that, and I think you’re right that it sends the wrong signals when you preorder stuff, I would like to make a small, different, like, when it comes to these collector’s editions, I suppose I could maybe break my own sort of rule here to go out and preorder them if there is something that was really cool and I had the money, but, [00:35:00] yeah, let’s see, you were, I forgot the question.

[00:35:06] Otto: So the, the question I think is, so what’s the aggregate effect on the games industry, I guess, from preorders? Is it a net positive or a net negative?

[00:35:21] Rune: Net negative, I think anything that where you try to cheat and cut, cheat the system or, or take shortcuts, all of that shit, no matter what, if it’s the gaming industry, if it’s your health or your own body, like it’s never good long term, nothing is good long term when you’re trying to find shortcuts and, and, and cheat the system or whatever it is. Just do it properly, always. I remember, a podcast long time ago, this, David Jaffe, the guy who made Twisted Metal, he said something like, developers should only have three extra [00:36:00] lives, so you can only update your game three times after release and I thought that was a quite neat idea and then he was sort of shut down by the hosts of the show or maybe it was a new story and then whatever but people then make the argument that it’s great that developers can keep updating their games after release because it turns them into the best product they could be but if you go back in time before internet and all that stuff, games were the best products they could be when they came out because they fucking did it properly.

[00:36:37] They didn’t just release broken ass games so in a weird way the these, us gamers as well who, who have that argument that these games can become the best versions of themselves. We’re sort of like, what is called? Running the fool’s errand or something like that. Like, we are allowing this [00:37:00] bullshittery to happen because it doesn’t have to be this way. It could really be that if you had proper rules that this is how, you can only update your game three times, for example. Then developers would think twice before they release a super broken game and another beautiful thing I suppose could happen with that rule system, or, you know, no updates at all.

[00:37:23] But let’s say you get three extra lives. Another beautiful thing that could happen by living in that world is that, developers will, make more proper games, they could still do this preorder stuff because they know they only have three extra lives after release and when those extra, when you have used those three extra lives, it’s done. Like if it’s still a broken ass game that’s gonna hurt your reputation so bad that you will do better next time. There is no incentive, “incentaments”, to [00:38:00] to do the best job you can anymore.

[00:38:02] And it’s just not with not only with the gaming industry. I think that everything is like this nowadays. It’s something sick about us people.

[00:38:10] I think about the, the pandemic, the clearest way to stay healthy, to not die from this, is just to eat healthy, move, exercise, live healthy. But it’s like, we don’t want to do that, we want to keep eating shit. We want to keep sitting home and play video games, and we just wait for the vaccine. It’s just, everything is like that nowadays. There’s no sort of, there’s no reason to do things properly, there’s never a reason to like get up and fucking work. It’s just, I don’t know, man. I’m rambling at this point, but I think that’s it’s the same with everything. There’s no reason to do things properly anymore. It’s frustrating. But I think yeah, that three strikes and you’re out rule, I really think long term that could have a really positive effect, because then it will be some sort of wake up call that we will actually [00:39:00] try harder to make our games as good as possible on release. What do you think about that? Yet again I’ve come up with some bullshit rule and you’re gonna say some philosophical Swedish thing where you nuance the shit out of it and then I’m just gonna take it back.

[00:39:15] Otto: Yeah, well, I actually, I agree with you. Let me see, so, okay, so I would say something like this, absolutely, I agree, it’s, you know, I think with also one thing, I don’t know if it’s the, the internet is necessarily the cause, or if it’s just a symptom that creates this whole shit where you don’t make the game, complete it, and then release it, but rather than you release it and then the players are the [00:40:00] testers, basically and then you have, like, the community mod it to patch it and then you just take from that. But it’s rather, I think it’s, just, people get so boxed into their, it’s like, paralysis by analysis, that making a game, I couldn’t tell you exactly how things go at Bethesda, but, I imagine it’s like this, you have a certain, like, process for how testing should go, or when things should be released, or whatever. And it’s just, okay, now it’s two weeks, now we gotta go to the next feature, now it’s two weeks, we go to the next one, and then testing is gonna be exactly this much testing, and whatever.

[00:40:53] And it’s, it feels to me at least that people get so much tunnel [00:41:00] vision, and not just looking at the whole thing. Something like, something that John, no, is it John Romero? The guy who made Doom, anyhow, he said that, I think it’s John Romero. He said at least that when he made Doom, there was no QA department, no testers. So you were responsible for your own code. So his rule was to never let anyone else see your bugs.

[00:41:32] Of course, nobody can be perfect, but I feel like people should be sort of like, everyone should be, have the same vision and have like, doesn’t matter what it takes, we just make the best game, doesn’t matter with what department you are, can you test it, and can you make it better, can you spot an issue, fix it?

[00:41:54] Whatever, there’s this, quote from, this, movie [00:42:00] called Dolomite is My Name, it’s from, it’s, Eddie Murphy plays like a real, inspired by a real story type character where they, he’s just a you know, a schmuck making a movie where he has no experience making a movie and, you know, just doing whatever it takes to, to do it, even though he knows nothing about it, he has to learn, and then when he, you know, he needs money, so he learns how to make the money, and then when he has the crew, he doesn’t know how to manage the crew, he has to learn that.

[00:42:34] And then there’s this one scene where he manages to get like a big time actor to play one of the, like, side roles and this guy acts all, you know, diva, you know, he doesn’t wanna do this or that, and somebody has to grab coffee for him and, you know, while everyone is just busting their ass and just trying to make this the best movie, it doesn’t matter who they [00:43:00] are, they just, you know.

[00:43:02] So here’s the quote at least, I can’t deliver it like Eddie Murphy, but he said this at least, here’s the quote. I know you Mr. Big Time, but the rest of us ain’t never done no shit like this before. I’m paying for this whole goddamn thing, I ain’t got no fucking ego about it. If a box needs to get moved, I will move the box and if the crew get hungry, I will go downstairs and start making sandwiches. Cause we are here to work together to make a movie. And, you know, this, again, I probably butchered it, but this quote in this movie, it’s just so beautiful. That, that’s sort of what you would like it to be, that, preorder or not, that with the game, it feels like people are, it’s too much of just, just a job, because to me and to many other people, it’s an art, games, [00:44:00] and it feels like, if you work with art, it’s, you would like it to be like, everyone has this vision, that it’s not just a 9 to 5, we’re here to make the best fucking game we can make ever, it’s gonna be quality and everything.

[00:44:16] If anyone sees anything that needs fixed, it doesn’t matter that you’re not in the QA department or it doesn’t matter that you’re not a programmer. It doesn’t matter that, you know, if you see a problem with the lighting, then it doesn’t matter that you’re the marketing guy. You see that problem, then, you know, we work together to fix that problem.

[00:44:36] No blame, it’s just, we want the best product. But it feels too much that people are, like, in this tunnel vision. You have this department, you have that department, and, you know, we have this amount of budget, and we have this sprint that is two weeks, and you know, it’s too much analysis, too much, you know, what I want is, [00:45:00] ruthless pragmatism, if it would be possible. You know, that nothing can defeat us, we can do anything, we just have to set our minds to it and, you know, it doesn’t mean that you have to work 16 hour days or anything like that. Maybe you can start to make the game small, but make that small game something real.

[00:45:24] Rune: Mm.

[00:45:25] Otto: Yeah. Sorry, I’m babbling too much.

[00:45:27] Rune: I’m, I’m, I’m starstruck. I didn’t know I was making a podcast with Eddie Murphy.

[00:45:35] Otto: ha ha!

[00:45:35] Rune: Well, I think, yeah, you’re right and, but I was thinking, cause I remember when we had a meet up with, House of, Umeå Game Hub, which, how this whole podcast started, right?

[00:45:50] We talked to this lady who sort of made an argument for instances in work. Do you remember that? And it was sort of like, [00:46:00] Ah, we were supposed to have her on this podcast and talk about that whole concept of working in instances or if it was something else, another method maybe she talked about?

[00:46:08] Otto: Sprints I think you mean.

[00:46:11] Rune: Would, uh…

[00:46:12] Otto: Because that’s the part of the agile thing that is all the rage. So basically what you do is you work in two week increments, I think, something like that, and then you have two weeks to say that we need to implement the, I don’t know, save feature, or we need to implement, multiplayer or something.

[00:46:32] We do that in two weeks and then, or we do it in two week increments. So maybe you do the login feature that takes two weeks. And then next you do the, I don’t know, maybe, community chatting functionality or something and then you sort of, after each sprint, you, I think you review, how that two weeks went and then you try to use that to improve or something like that. [00:47:00] Yeah.

[00:47:00] Rune: But would you say that, the, the way you sort of describe this tunnel vision, is that the same thing or is that different? Like, would that sprint stuff work on a game like, for example, Fallout, or…?

[00:47:18] Otto: So I haven’t worked in sprints myself. This is coming for me as an outsider, but to me at least, stuff that I’ve done, if we, you know, it’s not completely comparable, but say this podcast for example. I sort of am a very shoot from the hip kind of guy, and I think you are too, in many ways and I think it’s, I work a lot, like, I think, let me double check here, I’m just gonna not butcher his name again, one second, Yeah, it is John [00:48:00] Romero, he, the guy who made Doom.

[00:48:01] Anyhow, another thing he said was that he never prototypes. So that’s something I see a lot with game companies as well, that they have to do a, a prototype or a, you know, vertical slice, or whatever it is, and then after that they make the game. But he never does anything like that, he just makes the game from, like, the first line of code that goes into the game, and then he just makes the levels and all of it, uh, which is sort of how I work as well. Say with this podcast, I’ve heard a tip from another podcast that I listen to that you should make six episodes or something and then throw them away. Because then after six episodes you sort of get used to it and then the first episode that gets released to the public sort of sounds good. So it’s, you know, but, we released almost, I think we did one actually, one pilot episode that’s [00:49:00] not, released to the public just to Game Hub Umeå, but beyond that we just went directly, from the start and it was, we’ve never had any, like, project management. We’ve never had, like, meetings about this podcast and we’ve never had, like, a structure.

[00:49:20] We had, like, an, we, like, an Excel sheet. You know, write stuff if you want to, here’s a couple of guests. I stopped updating the guest list, long ago, and now I do it, you know, here and there sometimes and it feels better, I don’t know, to me at least, it feels better to just, instead of focusing on all the, this administration and overhead and stuff, instead just focusing on doing, and that’s, you know, what we’ve been doing with the podcast and with the little experience I have in game development, there’s no [00:50:00] meetings or plans or roadmaps or anything like that.

[00:50:05] It’s just doing the things that need to be done and I think more of that and less of this planning everything to oblivion would be better, I think.

[00:50:18] Sunset Moon and Prototyping

[00:50:18] Rune: Yeah, I was, not sure how I ended up here, but I wanted to say something regarding Sunset Moon now that I’m getting a vertical slice out, or you know, I like to just call it a demo and as I’m playing it now, oh, sorry?

[00:50:34] Otto: Yeah, I’ve actually learned a new term for this, recently that I’ve never heard before, that I think sort of describes, what’s a step before vertical slice, as you guys want to get this out there for people to know the industry talk. But, there’s apparently something called a beautiful corner, so basically what you do is you make one corner of the game, [00:51:00] like really beautiful that looks like the finished game, but it’s just one corner, so if you just turn around, you, it will look like shit or it would look like nothing at all but that’s something that people do as well Yeah, so sorry.

[00:51:13] Rune: That’s what I’m doing then, because I, I keep saying like, I, this demo area, it’s just, there are fences and you can’t walk beyond them and, if, even if you were to glitch through these fences, there are houses there. But if you walk inside them, there’s not no details or anything inside those houses and even like, the houses within the fenced area are more, are prettier than the ones outside and so on.

[00:51:38] But I, I think that I mentioned this before, as I’m trying to finalize this demo and make, finish it up, I realized that I’m, I’m, I’m finishing up the whole game, man. Like, everything in this demo is, like, the only function I can think of so far that is not in this demo is the [00:52:00] animals that you can buy and, raise animals, but pretty much everything else is inside this demo, so I feel like I’m finishing up the game and one thing I noticed when I played it the other day is something that I noticed with all my other games, and that’s maybe this Doom guy that I have the same approach as him, that I never do prototypes, I never do, I just make the game.

[00:52:24] And one thing I’ve thought about the other day when I was playing it, it, on the Steam Deck, it’s like, it doesn’t really feel the way I want it to and had I, and this, is like maybe something that you would do early on to make it feel right in terms of controller, but you know, it’s a top down game, so it, it shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t, there’s only like one way of doing that but I feel like it’s a little bit too sloppy, the controller, but I don’t know if it’s the [00:53:00] cross on the Steam Deck or when I use the joystick that makes it feel like that, but I feel like these games, typically you can only walk like straight lines and I think that’s something I might want to implement later on, at least for the NPCs, I want them to walk straight lines. They can sort of like take curves and so on, and I know that’s, takes more CPU power, for example, so I’m, program later so they only walk straight lines when they go to wherever they want to go, but my point is this, that this late into development, I am trying to fix the game to feel right. That’s maybe something you would have done earlier on if you were that sort of prototype person, but I still not sure if that would have helped because if I were to try to control it in a prototype stage and that stage is not going into the game, it would still maybe feel weird later on in the game.

[00:53:54] For example, if I were to prototype this game, maybe I would just have a gray [00:54:00] scene and like white blocks as walls, and then I run around there and try the controller, but there’s no, like, what would you say, because there’s no world there and there’s no details and so on, it might feel fine, but once you slap in the details, you realize, like, hold on, when I go from here to here, that’s like a whole block in the game. So then you would have to adjust this after the fact anyway, so I, I really don’t believe in this sort of prototyping stuff. I just think that you should do it, and then you can adjust it as you go on until it feels right. Not sure how I ended up there, but, yeah, the, the demo is basically a beautiful corner of the game and it’s very much a full game, in the game.

[00:54:50] I think the whole demo is going to be like, maybe 6 hours to play, so it’s, it’s like a yeah, but you know it drags out on the time [00:55:00] because you for example, if you want to do the side quests, you need to find resources and so on, so you can’t just take all the resources in one day because you have this energy bar that goes down, so you would have to keep going tomorrow and get more resources and so on, but if I have balanced the game badly, you might finish it very fast, but I, I, hope I…

[00:55:22] Otto: very slow.

[00:55:24] …or very slow, I guess.

[00:55:26] Rune: そう, そう, そう, I hope I can balance it somewhat right and I think it’s going to be a quite hefty demo.

[00:55:37] Well, yeah, I don’t, fuck I don’t remember how we ended up here.

[00:55:42] Otto: Yeah, well, I guess, not sure either.

[00:55:47] Episode Outro

[00:55:47] Otto: Anyhow, I think that’s a good, place to wrap it up. So, yeah, well, do you have any conclusion? Preorders, collectibles. [00:56:00]

[00:56:00] Rune: Yeah. One bad collector edition story I wanted to mention before. The, Catherine, it came with a real thong. Did you know that?

[00:56:10] Otto: Did it?

[00:56:12] Rune: And, I bought that one.

[00:56:14] Otto: Did it fit?

[00:56:16] Rune: I forgot it in the bed and then my ex-wife came home and saw it, so it ended up in a divorce, so that’s how it can go. No, I’m just kidding. No, I didn’t have, I didn’t buy that one but I know it came in a thong and I thought that was quite fun. I have no stories. No, no, nothing else. I love collector’s editions, especially the statue ones, when they’re looking really cool and sleek. I even want to pop them on my shelves and so on.

[00:56:45] So fun episode. Thank you, Otto. Have you Yeah, words?

[00:56:53] Otto: Yeah, I guess, don’t buy games on sale. Buy them physical. Don’t [00:57:00] preorder, something like that. Produce real canvas bags if you can. Think that’s it. Something I thought about, now that we sort of got stuck on how to think about making games is next episode, or some episode, I want to do the id Software Principle, id Software Programming Principles by John Romero.

[00:57:26] So, I think there’s a, I have to get, there’s a different list, but, I think it’s something like 10, 11, different principles, so yeah, so, I, think that would be fun to sort of just list them and then talk about each one, because I think it’s, somehow they click with, at least they sound so amazing to me, so that would be really fun to, to do and see what people think about it and what you think about it. I think it will click with you as [00:58:00] well.

[00:58:04] Nice, yeah, I think that’s it for the episode. Don’t forget to leave a voice message if you have anything to say about this. Do you have comments in text? That’s fine too. So, please leave those as well. Oh, actually, I think we have, let me double check here, but I think we have a new comment actually. Woo! Let’s see here. So this is, let’s see. Perfect. Oh my god, I think, sorry, it was a spam comment, goddammit. Oh, I just saw an email that we had, like, Oh, you have a new comment, and then I thought, Oh, I’m gonna save this for the episode, it’s [00:59:00] gonna be so amazing.

[00:59:01] And it’s just like this, oh hey, here’s a link for betting, blah blah blah, and ugh, sorry. Sorry people for keep you waiting, yeah. Anyhow, hope you enjoyed the episode, don’t know if we have an actual theme or if it’s just rambling bullshit, but I enjoyed it at least, it was really fun, I got to see the real Pip-Boy, that’s amazing in and of itself.

[00:59:32] Thank you so much for being my amazing co-host. I look forward to next week. What else? Thank you so much for listening and, I’m doing this in the middle of the night, so I really hope you appreciate it. Have a good one. See you next week.

Podcast
Interview
Game Development
Indie Game
Collectors Edition

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Otto Wretling

Written by Otto Wretling

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Writing about my podcast, game development, technology, language learning, and whatever else comes to my mind!

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