Other than Call of Duty and Battlefield anyway...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-02-free-radical-founder-pretty-much-every-fps-loses-money

This just reeks of bullshit, frankly. FPSes wouldn't be the most popular genre in console and PC gaming for 7 years now if they didn't make money. Singling out Crysis 2 as a loser right after then announce Crysis 3 is kind of silly as well. Are all these companies charities? Why have they been making games that lose money for 7 years straight?

Now if he said a lot of them lose money and none of them make the billions CoD does, THEN I would have believed him. And that's probably what he meant, he just got stupidly dramatic about it and went with hyperbole.

I actually played Haze during a weekend or so where I borrowed a friend's PS3. Played Haze, Infamous and the first Uncharted.

I thought Haze seemed okay really, I enjoyed my time with it. I only played until the drug freakout section though. In any event I have played MUCH worse FPS games, like say... anything made by Radical.

He do have a point. Many that make FPS games fall in the MMORPG trap. World of Warcraft is huge so most that make MMORPGs try to make them after that general mould. What they don't realise is that this in fact decrease their chances to succeed.
It's the same with FPS games. Too many are too afraid to do something radically new or out of the ordinary.

That being said FPS still sell lots of copies.

Indeed, but he is making stupid and likely untrue statements about things he doesn't know to do so. Makes him look silly and jaded. To his credit Timesplitters was fairly unique, but yes I agree. I think a lot of publishers would love that IP and to make another one though, honestly. The problem is likely his terms, and the fact the last game he headed-up was panned and bombed.

Crysis 2 probably did lose money even if it did meet sales projections. A lot of times, companies will develop an IP and will launch extensive marketing campaigns for the first couple of titles in the series, expecting to lose money. Also, "losing money" isn't always what you think. It's growing an IP. Did you know all the major consoles except for the Wii were loss leaders? EA has been bleeding money for years. Activision is the only one I can think of besides Konami and Majesico that's even profitable.

Fwiw, Timesplitters games were legitimately fantastic multiplayer FPSs. They just never caught on for whatever reason. TS2 was the best multiplayer shooter since Goldeneye and had many more modes than Halo. TS3 was flat-out fantastic. It had a good single-player campaign too. Haze, well, was Haze.

A lot of good games never catch on because they never get the push. If Goldeneye wasn't tied to the James Bond brand, it wouldn't have gotten so much press. It's tough to do original IP, esp without book/movie/graphic novel tie-ins.

The Timesplitters franchise really was something different, and it was fantastic.

To be fair, he said 'Almost' all FPS these days lose money.

But that aside, I do question his argument, as it seems to me it makes no sense that if a genre loses money that publishers/devs would be reluctant to try something new and different. If you're not making money at what you're doing, wouldn't it make more sense to try something new?

Not for the suits with the money. More DRM is their answer because they think the games aren't profitable any more because of piracy.

You generally bleed money the first couple of years in business. Sunk costs are another reason. Once you create an engine and level editor that does what you want, making a sequel costs a whole lot less. Super Mario Bros 2 (aka lost levels), KOTOR2, FFX-2, Fallout 2, Bioshock 2 and Fallout New Vegas are classic examples of this. The engine was barely modified for any of those sequels. In fact they all border on glorified expansion packs.

Innovative shooters can also not sell spectacularly, but make money licensing their engine e.g. Unreal, Source, Cry, IdTech, etc.

Thats plain BS. Nowadays FPS is the genre thats makes the most money. Saying that everything except COD loses money is nonsese. Of course no FPS makes as much money as COD, but i can point a lot of FPSes out there that do make money. Even those budget titles from City Interactive make money, which makes them one of the fastest growing publishers out there.

If it didnt make money, they wouldnt be making FPSes anymore. I cant imagine a situation where people will keep producing something that they know wont make a profit. Developer:"Hey, lets make another FPS so we can lose money", publisher:"Yeah, sounds like a great idea".

I'm pretty sure every Halo installment has made fist-fulls of cash, so add that one to the list of money making FPS games.

You know EA and most of the videogame industry isn't even profitable right? Activision is only profitable because of Warcraft

They're profitable, the fact that they show they aren't is mostly tax games and other shit really big industries like this seem to be fond of.

You can tell they're profitable because they've had sustained growth for years, sustained growth doesn't happen over time with no profit.

Now if you claimed they didn't have the huge chests of money or Scrooge McDuck vaults of gold coins, like so many believe, yeah, you'd be right.

Oh, wait, so games come from charity? Interesting.

When they spend more on Advertising and Marketing than the actual game development itself, the game is bound to sell at least a million or two...