It's being sent to die. I don't have high hopes for the game being good. Or for Ninja Theory, for that matter.
What the hell is going on with Hellblade 2 on Steam? Why is it so low on charts?
- Thread starter Dust
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A lot of people don't understand that while there are random elements like going viral, a lot of marketing is a science and if all your testing beforehand shows lukewarm to no interest, the solution isn't to double down and invest even more money.
Marketing is unbelievably expensive these days and campaigns can really struggle to return their investment.
I'll use something basic like YouTube Preroll ads, which is what a lot of people think of when they think advertisements these days:
1) A whole bunch of people either pay for Premium or use Ad blockers, so they'll never see your ad to begin with
2) Of those that do see your ad, the ROI for that kind of stuff is generally pretty poor because people are there to watch a specific video (or series of videos), they don't want to click away from what they are watching to go down the rabbit hole of whatever you are selling.
Because of those two points (and many others), YouTube ads are often a waste of time and money.
And that's just that aspect.
Came to post this. I cackled when I saw it after all the bad press from the closures.
Like really? This is what you're doing?
It would be pretty grim and cruel if Microsoft closed down Ninja Theory after the launch, and blamed the game rather than themselves.
Okay, it's not lack of marketing. It's poor marketing.
Uhhhh there are plenty of games that had demos with that length. I immediately think of Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, Mirror's Edge, Resident Evil 3 Remake, Little Nightmares, etc.
I mean I didn't like the first game at all and didn't understand the love so I will be skipping this one, and if I ever do play it I'll just try it on GP more than likely.
People who say no marketing is interesting, I've seen more marketing for Hellblade 2 over Stellar Blade (literally only heard the discourse about the game and nothing more).
It saddens me that it's so low on community wishlist and what not, the first one is one of my favourite games I've ever played and I hope the sequel lives up to it.
Others have mentioned it, but the subject matter of mental health and a female lead is probably pretty major reasons why it hasn't been hyped up much
It saddens me that it's so low on community wishlist and what not, the first one is one of my favourite games I've ever played and I hope the sequel lives up to it.
Others have mentioned it, but the subject matter of mental health and a female lead is probably pretty major reasons why it hasn't been hyped up much
I think it's just that most people are going to Game Pass it. It's hard to motivate spending 49,99€ for just Hellblade II on Steam when you could instead spend 9,99€ for a month of PC Game Pass and get Hellblade II as well as a bunch of other games to play for an entire month. Doesn't help that Hellblade II is supposedly relatively short so that 9,99€ package deal just looks even better. I just hope it won't bite them in the ass like it did Hi-Fi Rush. Ninja Theory hasn't put out anything of note since Hellblade I in 2017 so I can't imagine they're in that much better a position than Tango was.
Exactly. I think a couple things here are true at once.
One, I think this game is actually receiving a fair amount of marketing relative to the level of interest.
Two, it does feel like it's not being marketed very much relative to how long the game has been in development, and how expensive it probably is.
Both of those things are true imo. The question then becomes why MS let Ninja Theory spend so much time and money on a sequel to Hellblade that isn't designed to blow the franchise open to a wider market. Finding out this is another 8 hour cinematic-heavy action puzzle game was honestly baffling.
I was coming in to say something like this.
A sequel to a game that had lukewarm purchases is not going to do that well especially when on pc the whole reason to play it is if you have a 4000+ series card to make the game look the way it should.
The player base for this is so small why put 20-40 million more dollars of spend on the back of the title they already know isnt going to recoup costs.
People might just not be interested in the game. The gameplay has been mostly hidden from trailers. That gives me the impression that it will have terrible gameplay like the first game.
That's why I feel like the commentary about lack of marketing can be kind of crazy. How many people here are currently running ad blockers? Who has Premium? Who watches Twitch but typically a certain streamer that they use their Amazon Prime sub on? Who watches cable television vs Netflix and so on?
People complain about ad plans and seeing ads and go out of their way to avoid ads by using blockers, but then wonder where the digital advertising is for digital games
It's why the random elements of going viral like you bring up are effective.. they're organic and "unskippable" or content you actually pay attention to, not skip after 5 seconds or scroll past in your unlimited feed on tiktok. But .. it's random!!
Posting new trailers on the Twitter account and hoping it drives comments, retweets, shares, etc, seems to be more effective than anything but then they're getting clowned on for posting on Twitter 'only' lol.
To all the people asking why this isn't being marketed more heavily, ask yourself "Knowing what the original Hellblade is, would I have marketed that game really heavily?" Because this is essentially the same game as that one.
fair enough, I think a demo for this game would actually result in less sales however :/
I adored Hellblade I, but I've seen so little marketing for the sequel. I feel like I also don't have a good grasp of whether the gameplay loop will be similar to the first game, outside of the distinct immersive and visceral cutscenes. Really looking forward to reviews to get a better perspective on it.
I don't really understand why people expect Hellblade 2 to set the world on fire? The first one was a very pretty walking Sim with some perspective puzzles and some barebones combat occasionally. Great presentation, but I never talked to anybody outside of heavy enthusiast circles that even knows or cares about it. Other than that, Ninja Theory has two game from over a decade ago that people generally liked (DmC hate aside) but I never understood the idea of Hellblade 2 being some big tent-pole release?
The game seems very hard to market since it probably isn't content-packed (preventing outlets or influencers from showing off too much stuff), and it's a very controlled experience which also limits Xbox/NT from showing new things over its numerous showings since they probably wanna keep lots under wraps. I mean, the fairly low amount of gameplay shown over several years is pretty telling. This leads to little interaction and organic word-of-mouth marketing like with Hades 2. Or let's say Stellar Blade, where the ungodly amount of discussions about sexualization/objectification/censorship had the added benefit of spreading the word about the game.
I brought this up in another thread but:
Hellblade 2 is going to be a complex tale about the inner workings of mental health, which goes against the escapism that a lot of the "mainstream" play games for.
Adding to that is the fact that Hellblade 2 was unveiled FIVE years ago.
If it had any momentum from that announcement, it would have lost it by now and nothing they've done since has really re-ignited the momentum.
Hellblade 2 is going to be a complex tale about the inner workings of mental health, which goes against the escapism that a lot of the "mainstream" play games for.
Adding to that is the fact that Hellblade 2 was unveiled FIVE years ago.
If it had any momentum from that announcement, it would have lost it by now and nothing they've done since has really re-ignited the momentum.
Kinda nuts that there's zero marketing at the final stretch when it feels like Xbox has shown it off at every Keighley event the past four years. I recall it was even the headliner for the Series X announcement.
It's like Xbox team greenlit it expecting it would be their new God of War and then the final product turned out to not be what they wanted.
It's like Xbox team greenlit it expecting it would be their new God of War and then the final product turned out to not be what they wanted.
Because Microsoft has been positioning it as a big tentpole release.
View: https://youtu.be/tCnNKrd9hpw?si=iZm2Nvwatd27yPjS
The thing is, it should be totally fine that Hellblade 2 doesn't have mass appeal. Even at this scale, games should take bold swings and (as many said with Helldivers 2) try not to be everything for everyone. Pick a lane and do something really interesting there. Where this falls apart is in regards to all this current discussion around Tango and Arkane Austin - if Hellblade isn't posting Call of Duty numbers, what then, Microsoft?
Why spend $50 on Steam when you can join game pass for as little as $1 if your sub lapsed or $10-11 for non-ultimate access on either Console or PC, OR $17 for Ultimate. As short as Hellblade 2 is claimed to be you could easily beat it during that 14-day trial period and probably a complete a few other games on top of it. Even if you decide to pay the full amount for GPU you still come out of it spending less than half retail price plus get access to other games. Even if you forget to cancel the sub before your card gets charged you'd still pay less overall while getting more content than just a single game.
Right but I never understood how they could think a niche walking Sim with whispering would be a subscription mover
Look at my post on the previous page. There is marketing across social media and streaming platforms and even Smart TVs. It is not "zero marketing".
Comes out on my bday. I enjoyed the first and ill play it on gamepass pc but im not hyped for it lol.
I definitely agree with you on that haha. I think it got to a point where it just became the only AAA-looking game Microsoft had to show, so they started showing it a lot and backed themselves into a corner. It's not like Hellblade was taking attention away from all the other games that weren't even close to releasing.
Can't say I remembered it was coming out so soon until this thread, so...
And to be honest, I don't think the first one or the prospect of a sequel is all that exciting to general audiences, plus the fact it's been announced for so long hasn't helped excitement levels.
And to be honest, I don't think the first one or the prospect of a sequel is all that exciting to general audiences, plus the fact it's been announced for so long hasn't helped excitement levels.
?? Horizon had a massive marketing campaign. I think one of the reasons the series sold so well as the marketing, besides the game's quality of course.
Yeah, wtf lol. Both Horizon games had gargantuan marketing campaigns (and sold well to show for it)
It ending up as a short game like the first one made me lost interest in it.
The allure of HB2 when it was announced is that MS will make the game larger.
That they took so long to release. Any trailer they had was not interesting to me save for the face scans.
I will wait for reviews to seeIf it even is really worth playing, its on game pass anyway.
I realize that those are a lot of points that is hit by failings of xbox mismanagement.
The allure of HB2 when it was announced is that MS will make the game larger.
That they took so long to release. Any trailer they had was not interesting to me save for the face scans.
I will wait for reviews to seeIf it even is really worth playing, its on game pass anyway.
I realize that those are a lot of points that is hit by failings of xbox mismanagement.
Something has gone seriously wrong with the handling of this game when people who spend so many hours daily talking about/viewing gaming content aren't aware that a huge game from a first party studio is releasing in two weeks.
My guess is because they have very little else in terms of games that are actually coming out
Hellblade was pretty well received and decently popular game, this being a direct sequel with the fact of being publishing by the god damn Microsoft.
Look at the Steam placing, this isn't Big Frog Adventure 6 by Bingo Dingo Studios. It's a new game from the makers of Enslaved and DmC. It's coming out in eleven days!
What the fuck? Are people waiting for reviews? I doubt Steam users are that into PC Game Pass, so I just don't know. I feel another tragedy is coming.
Someone explain it to me. Am I missing something? It's even cheaper than the usual releases.
Honestly I think the answer here is that Hellblade 1 was "fine" for what it was (81 MC) but did not exactly light the world on fire when it released 7 years ago.
Hellblade 2 is honestly known more for being an exclusive technical showpiece for the series X before it launched, but the game is so wildly late at this point that it really isn't notable even for that anymore.
That MS hasn't bothered to do any marketing for this really drives that point home. It's arriving too late for the purpose it was intended for. The industry has moved past it, so has the interest of Xbox leadership, and the player base doesn't really have a reason to be very excited for this.
It should be a good thing HB2 has gotten the attention it has from Xbox proper all these years. It's let down by general gamer expectations who are looking for a more typical AAA action game experience and the reality that for many, Xbox has missed out on the AAA single player train for too long so expectations on it are very much out of proportion.
It's not really fair to the game or devs but that's secondary to the discourse!