Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Flying Dice]

I imagine, if they were real people, the pitch would be something like "I know we've got a great game, you know we've got a great game, let's launch with a limited run of units to build hype and then do a full release a couple days later with the price a little higher." Sounds like exactly the sort of shit modern game companies with a decade or so more of corruption would go for.

I mean never mind that we're talking about a fictional world where a mad scientist can pretty much singlehandedly build full near-perfect helmet VR (which means direct interception of nervous impulses), exercise total creative control over a AAA game project, and code a goddamn strong AI on the side to replace the need for human mods and admins.

As far as we can tell Kayaba had a completely unrealistic degree of control over the project. That's the fundamental conceit of the universe (well, beyond the usual haremshit stuff), that the eccentric mad scientist could do all of this prep work.

OH, right. Probably also wanted to limit it because it would be sorta medically unfeasible for millions of suddenly comatose people to be saved and taken care of. He didn't really seem to want any more out-of-game casualties than were necessary to warn people of his seriousness.

[Neonivek]

Some of this I could just assume that in this universe development costs have plummeted due to development software being able to do more work cheaper and faster than anything else. That sure would be something that would be interesting to establish...

A lot like how in Star Trek most videogames are no longer handled by game programmers, though some are, but rather just artists with a background in narration because the AI systems are so advanced that you can literally just feed it a novel and it can create a program based off of it and even make alterations on the fly if you desire it to limited success.

Mind you if I was writing it and had to keep the actual player numbers low I'd do one of two things
1) The players who were trapped are part of a stress test or an early adoption incentive that would give you a 24 hour head start on all the other players.
2) The game really is doing as badly as the numbers would suggest and the VR, while amazing, has a REALLY slow adoption.
-HONESTLY the second would just about SAVE the series given how it later progresses... in that it handwaves away a lot of the stupid that occurs later. It also gives the villain more incentive.

As for everyone arguing "Digital man digital!"... I should state that... That is kind of the state for games as we know them now. It is not impossible that storage devices for games just inflated out of control until you had to go back to going to the store... OR that you had to for this particular hardware... It sure is going to suck for people wanting to get into Immersion Games.

The Sales being so low makes no sense for such a polished device.

[Flying Dice]

Again, it was stated in-universe that people were lucky to get copies on launch, that doing so was difficult, &c. There were exactly 1000 beta testers and 10000 launch-day players. That's not "didn't sell well", that's same old same old limited edition bullshit.

[Neonivek]

Again, it was stated in-universe that people were lucky to get copies on launch, that doing so was difficult, &c. There were exactly 1000 beta testers and 10000 launch-day players. That's not "didn't sell well", that's same old same old limited edition bullshit.

That is the excuse it makes. But typically you don't intentionally under produce a product by only selling less than 1% of the demand.

Usually you sell at minimum 20% of the demand, maybe 50% (Preferably higher... the higher is better)... and typically before Christmas or some major gift giving holiday, that way everyone who tries to get the product is essentially beholden to buy it later.

That is how it works if you want more sales overtime by creating that effect.

I'll put it this way... The PS2 sold 500,000 consoles DAY ONE!

Now the VR device sold 200,000 devices over quite a few months (It sold relatively bad... But I let that slide that maybe it is a long sell because it is remarkably expensive... though apparently it still sold really poorly in the end)... and this game is the system seller so the vast majority of the 200,000 users would buy this game.

And they sold 10,000 copies intentionally... which is 5% of the demand and were planning on releasing newer copies very slowly (Which honestly I wish the excuse they made were manufacturing limitations)... Which would eventually kill the hype.

BETTER YET!!! the SAO which is a SYSTEM SELLER as in... The entire reason to get the VR Headset is just to play SAO... and while they are selling the VR Console (or PC attachment, I honestly can't tell) freely... They are giving the actual game a VERY limited release.

Meaning... That this device which has almost no games whatsoever's only game is nearly impossible to get.

Hmm what was that handheld device that suffered from no one buying it because there were no games for it and thus game developers didn't make games for it? OHH YES!!! the PS Vita!

[Reelya]

Numbers like 10000 are used in fiction because they're "large" in terms of numbers that signify "a lot" but they're not so large you can't get a feeling for how large they are. Also note that multiples of 10000 also tend to pop up in moral panics, especially nice round numbers like 50000. (50000 Commies infiltrating the nation 1950s, 50000 satanic sacrifices per year, 1980s, 50000 pedos actively hunting for children on MySpace, 2000s). 50000 seems to be a good number to cite when trying to whip up frenzy of something nobody has much evidence of: big enough to be alarming, small enough that it's still plausible.

The problem with demanding "realism" in one area of fiction, is "which area"?  All fiction takes huge liberties with how things work in the real world, even if you don't notice it.

e.g. scene cuts. I take offense that when people want to go somewhere in a car, it cuts to them closing the car door, as if they magically teleported into the car. What the fuck is up with that? It's unrealistic because it didn't show them actually walking to the car.

[Neonivek]

I get the impression the reason the author used 10,000 (well more accurately 50,000) is because he wanted there to be a lot of people... but didn't want there to be too much... But couldn't think of a good excuse in time

[Reelya]

Hmm it's interesting that the actual SAO value was 50000.

Since that number also appears in many moral panic stories to signify "lots of people". So what I'd say is that the rules of fictional panics in the real world follow at least some of the rules of fiction itself.

for example, they were saying in the 1980s that 50000 children were sacrificed by satanic cults in America per year. if that was true, being sacrificed to the devil would be the leading cause of death of children. Yet the media just lapped this shit up without questioning it. I think if the claimed number had been much bigger than that it would have been harder to believe. Although there was the 1980s meme that 150,000 young girls die of anorexia per year as well, at the same time. Geez, between the partiarchy and satanists, 200000 young people were dying per year in America. We're talking a scale akin to the Holocaust over 3 decades.


EDIT: Ooh another one. 50000 sex slaves widely reported. US government launches a huge investigation, and finds exactly 3 people.

[Flying Dice]

Also telling that the standards of plausibility for bullshit moral panic propaganda is about even with that of haremshit LNs.

[Furtuka]

*pops in*

Forgot to tell you guys that a few days ago a live action naruto movie by Lionsgate with Kishimoto's involvement got announced along with a Boruto anime. Truly we are trapped in an endless hell.

*pops out*

[Reelya]

I was looking at that to see who's involved in making it. Looks like it's guys connected with Marvel Studios. Expect Naruto to receive the "shitty Marvel Movie" "epic pile of shit" treatment.

[Karnewarrior]

Also telling that the standards of plausibility for bullshit moral panic propaganda is about even with that of haremshit LNs.

Though not really surprising.

[Max™]

That site which kissed anime goodbye recently is back, dot arr ewe apparently, and the .io site was a hacker that stole the video servers and links and such.

[Flying Dice]

*pops in*

Forgot to tell you guys that a few days ago a live action naruto movie by Lionsgate with Kishimoto's involvement got announced along with a Boruto anime. Truly we are trapped in an endless hell.

*pops out*

It's gonna be fun watching the fan rage.

Oh, and speaking of Naruto...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Neonivek]

I so RARELY accept incest plots in anime... because typically they are handled like "Oooh we so sexy! forbidden loooove!"

Wixoss managed to pull it off...

[Hawkfrost]

I so RARELY accept incest plots in anime... because typically they are handled like "Oooh we so sexy! forbidden loooove!"

Wixoss managed to pull it off...

Yeah, but WIXOSS pulls it off well because it's the exact opposite of every other show in regards to this subject matter.
Not "I love my Onii-san sooooo much, nobody can deny our love!", but "Oh my god I'm sooooo fucked up, how could I feel this way about my BROTHER!?"