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Life is Strange 2 debuts with ~1/4th the Steam player concurrency of LiS:BTS

Nirolak

Nirolak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,660
So, now that Telltale collapsed, I thought we might want to watch the health of this genre and how new entries do in general. A lot of people were very surprised when people reporting on Telltale's collapse said that only The Walking Dead Season 1, Minecraft, and their console publishing agreement for 7 Days To Die made money for the company, with the rest of their games losing money.

Life is Strange: Before The Storm's Debut: 16,127 (launch day)
Life is Strange 2's Debut: 4,316 (launch day)

The original game's debut was 6,785 at launch with a $25 price, though obviously it was a brand new series then instead of a follow-up to a multimillion selling game.

Factors to consider:
  • This game (Life is Strange 2) is $40 versus $17
  • This game has a new cast instead of following up on the previous popular one
  • This game was released in the middle of major release season (September 26th), whereas Before The Storm released at the beginning of it (August 31st)
  • This game is a full sequel instead of a spin-off
  • This game is by the main developer instead of another developer
Quick questions:
  1. Do you feel these results are good given the situation?
  2. If not, do you feel Square Enix made any poor business decisions surrounding this title (timing, pricing, other factors)? Which of these would you have changed?
 
JCHandsom

JCHandsom

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
4,218
The switch in cast probably has a lot to do with it (in spite of all the Chloe hate memes). I know my sisters were bummed it wasn't going to be a follow-up to the events of 1. Will still probably pick it up when it's all released, I can imagine many are waiting for that too.
 
Hektor

Hektor

Community Resettler
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,884
Deutschland
The game is twice as expensive, so no surprise.

There'a also an argument to be had that BTS had a bigger built-in fanbase, due to returning characters, compared to LiS2, which has a new cast.
 
Creamium

Creamium

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,691
Belgium
Yikes that is pretty bad. Could be that people are holding out til more (or all) episodes are out. After playing the first episode I'd say that this game has a shot of being just as good if not better than the original so I hope it does well enough...
 
Benji

Benji

Self Requested Ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,114
$40 seemed a mistake from the moment it was announced. $30 probably would have struck a better balance of increasing the price but not going too high

The playerbase being smaller than BtS at launch doesnt surprise me too much though as that featured characters from the previous popular game
 
Bigkrev

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,305
If it was $20 I would have bought it and let it sit on my HDD while I am playing other stuff, but it's now a "wait for more episodes AND a sale"
My ideal time to pick it up will be a month or so before the final episode
 
Velocity:Design:Comfort

Velocity:Design:Comfort

Banned
Nov 23, 2017
4,302
JCHandsom said:
The switch in cast probably has a lot to do with it (in spite of all the Chloe hate memes). I know my sisters were bummed it wasn't going to be a follow-up to the events of 1. Will still probably pick it up when it's all released, I can imagine many are waiting for that too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
But anthology series are super popular right now. I can see why they wanted to try it.
 
Flandy

Flandy

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,445
I wonder how many people didn't buy it because of TWD getting cancelled? Could have shattered some peoples faith in episodic games?
 
chobel

chobel

Attempting to circumvent ban with an alt-account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,493
  1. Nope
  2. They should have continued with the story of Max and/or Chloe, because most people weren't interested in IP itself, they were interested in the characters.
 
Get_crazy

Get_crazy

Member
Oct 28, 2017
657
Even though I bought LiS back when episode 2 was about to release (I decided to buy it because I wanted to support a dev studio from my country and heard they had issues with people hacking the game or stuff like that), but I'm not really feeling this one, so I'm not going to dive in blindly and I'll wait when all episodes are available to know if it's worth it.
 
SnatcherHunter

SnatcherHunter

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
13,476
Many don't care for the story and characters.

Personally, I wanted more Chloe and Max. I really felt attached to them. Is like watching a TV show, and they change everything in the sophomore year.
 
NeonBlack

NeonBlack

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,508
Well it did come out right after another episodic game's chance of being completed became unknown.
 
Anno

Anno

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,950
Columbus, Ohio
It's tough to expect much more at that price point to my mind. Also, as much as I think Max and Chloe has a great story and didn't need anymore, I suspect many people were more invested in them than the general style of the game or whatever is driving interest in this.
 
Kolx

Kolx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,505
There seems to be barely any buzz around the game. Price and release date was a mistake.
 

LegendarySkitch

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,158
I mean... I loved Life is Strange but nothing about LiS2 really interested me. It seems like a "buy on sale after the game is complete" type of game for me
 
Selphie

Selphie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,713
The Netherlands
Honestly I only bought the game because LiS 1 is one of my favourite games ever. I thought the around 40% price hike was a bit steep but I still went for it because I loved it so much, I think that most people who "just liked" LiS will get it down the line when it's on sale.
Sad situation because I think that this will be a pretty important game.
 
Kalor

Kalor

Resettlement Advisor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,625
I imagine the higher price didn't help it. That'll have more people waiting until it gets discounted. Although I feel like the awareness about the release wasn't really out there as much. I only realized it was coming out on the day that it did.
 
Kuro

Kuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,581
More expensive, new cast featuring 2 boys which might be less interesting to their audience, the screenshots on the steam page look really boring with 2 regular kids just hangin out in the woods, the setting not being in high school.
 
Braaier

Braaier

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
13,237
More than twice as much as the first game? What the hell!? SE setting this up to fail.
 
adj_noun

adj_noun

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
17,161
I think forty bucks for this kinda game screams wait for the sale to lots of people.

Black Friday isn't that far away.
 
broncobuster

broncobuster

Member
Oct 26, 2017
8,139
Speaking for myself, I already bought it but am waiting until episode 3 to get started. At least BTS was only three episodes so the gaps weren't as "felt," if that makes sense.
 
NeoRaider

NeoRaider

Member
Feb 7, 2018
7,325
- Expensive.
- New cast.
- Bad release date.

I mean who releases 3 of their big games in one month? With just one week between them?? Yup... SE.

I pre-ordered it and have it in my Steam library but it's still not even installed because i am playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
 
gig

gig

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,268
I respect them for what they're doing with the series but, yeah, it's going to sell less at that price point and without the characters from the first game.

Not too late to rope them in somehow, though, and depending on how sales continues to shape I could see them adjusting some things for that. Benefit of episodic releases.
 
CloseTalker

CloseTalker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,545
It'll find an audience. First episode is really good, and going to a new cast was exactly the right move.
 
TheFireman

TheFireman

Banned
Dec 22, 2017
3,918
I'm not buying it until the full thing is out, and I don't have too much interest in this one's story yet.
 
Eumi

Eumi

Member
Nov 3, 2017
3,518
I'm not sure I've actually seen any marketing for this. Had no idea it was even out.
 
iiicon

iiicon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,917
Canada
The price definitely put me off. It's $50 up here in Canada. I'd hesitate even if I was a huge fan of the other two games.
 
Rika

Rika

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,546
USA
Bigkrev said:
If it was $20 I would have bought it and let it sit on my HDD while I am playing other stuff, but it's now a "wait for more episodes AND a sale"
My ideal time to pick it up will be a month or so before the final episode
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Click to shrink...
Agreeing with this. I would have bought it and installed it while playing other games as episodes release. I'm waiting for a sale mostly, and probably til episode 2 or 3.
 
Jamrock User

Jamrock User

Member
Jan 24, 2018
3,161
Decided to wait. I was not expecting the $40 price, but that's not why I'm waiting.
Just wanna see more.
 
DSP

DSP

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,120
The price might be high for a game you typically play once but it's not a huge deal, story focused games can sell being more expensive than this already, it's acceptable. They're not looking to sell 5 millions of this, they have a limited but dedicated audience so maybe charging that audience more is a good idea.

The first game sold on word of mouth and gradually became popular and this is a new start and people that liked the first one are not necessarily interested in this one so it has to do it all over again. It might or might not happen. It's a risk they probably were aware when making this game hence that prequel thing being made in parallel to begin with.

I think LiS idea is risky game to make period so, no it wasn't a good business decision. It was a creative risk, somebody gotta do it.
 
mreddie

mreddie

Member
Oct 26, 2017
44,004
I'm waiting til all episodes are out because I'm weird like that.

But yeah, this game has a lot against it at the moment.
 
Kongroo

Kongroo

Avenger
Oct 31, 2017
2,939
Ottawa, Ontario, CA
I don't like these kinds of threads. I remember how talk of how badly Lawbreakers was doing actively hurt Lawbreakers. Not that the game would have done well otherwise but it certainly didn't help.

I'd rather see a retrospective of the sales a few years later before it can affect someone's purchasing decisions.
 
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