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Gamepass boosts sales
That's not it. Both games have huge problems and they were addressed in reviews. That's it, nothing else. Just accept it
The only problem I see with GP is that the whole second party model where you can hire talent to make exclusives is dying. There are already less independent studios capable of making an AAA than when gen started. Funny thing Microsoft themselves are partially part of that problem. They bought Obsidian and PG, and would buy Insomniac if they could.
They should focus Gp in Japan and getting really excellent indies and AA exclusive games imho.
They should focus Gp in Japan and getting really excellent indies and AA exclusive games imho.
Could a traversal-centered Captain America (or Daredevil) work? The original Mirror's Edge was never served well by its limited and forgettable use of guns. A game set in a complex and interconnected urban playground could be a perfect way to make a grounded game still fun. I think Cap's hand to hand combat could still be super fun. He could fit a stylish action template or something more grounded and punchy along the lines of Batman. As long as we're not saddling him with stamina mechanics, then yes, I think hand to hand combat could be lots of fun. My love for Sleeping Dogs lies not in the merely-decent gunplay, but in the fun of smooth and impactful melee.
I don't think that's entirely fair. You can't just hand wave away the fact that many games just don't appeal to every person. If you make someone who hates horror games review RE:2, they're going to hate it. They're not going to enjoy their time playing it, and every other problem will be magnified along with that. Does that mean the review is inherently invalid? Not necessarily, but you can't just say it's not a factor. I don't think there is systematic intentional MS bias in professional reviews, but I do think SOT and SOD are both games that the creators KNEW were never going to appeal to every person.
I think there's a legitimate criticism that MS allowed them to go forward with those projects, rather than forcing them to create less systems-based games that appeal to more people. But, hey, I don't really hear people who want MS to manage devs MORE, even though it seems they're generally pretty hands off already.
First of all, Halo 4 don't suck.
And "had issues"=/=not a great game.
Taste absolutely plays a factor. If you like a genre, you're more likely to enjoy yourself and look past flaws. If you don't, the flaws will be magnified and exasperated. Also if Doom, Cuphead, and Quantum Break showed anything, it's that reviewers suck at games.
I don't see the issues being so severe that they're a 60 on Metacritic. SoD's biggest issue was its buggyness, but it's no more buggy than any other open-world game. Hell, Fallout New Vegas was unplayable for most, and it got 83. Halo MCC got 85, and that was unbelievably buggy. BF4 81. Ridiculous.
Crackdown's main problem would arguably be repetition, but again, no more repetitive than your average Ubisoft game. They're flawed, but I don't think they deserve the rating they got.
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While this is true Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, Quantum Break, Alan Wake and others were global publishing as well and they were all big expensive projects at the time, on par with the best AAAs from any publisher.
3 of them just so happened to see me play it, what's a bit concerning is they originally thought they could get it on Playstation (which they did have but more as a netflix/hulu machine).
What's the difference between cult and niche in this instance? Of the casual, borderline non-gamers I know, most of them are more familiar with State of Decay than they are Gears of War.
Thats definately not the norm. I have never met someone who is not a gamer who knows what State of Decay is.
Gears of War a lot of randoms at least know the Mad World Commercial
Popularity, I guess. A game can be trying to appeal to the general mainstream and not sell well or gain much traction, but maintain a dedicated, hardcore fandom. Sunset Overdrive and Alan Wake are examples. State of Decay sits in the middle with a hardcore fandom, and a genre that could be mainstream if better funded.
That's unusual. Are those people big fans of zombie media in general?
A few updates on growth.
- LinkedIn now lists 240 people for Rare Ltd. Their offices are getting pretty full. Still lots of open positions, too. Second project full steam ahead (actually it's the third project since they are helping on Battletoads)
- Undead Labs lists 70 people. They are opening a lot of positions currently. Seems like they are aiming to become a circa 100 staff studio.
- Ninja Theory has grown quite a bit since the acquisition, too, now listing 140 employees compared to circa 110 back in June. Still many open positions, too.
- Obsidian now lists 187, with lots of open positions still, clearly heading towards the 200 staff count.
- inXile so far about the same, they are now searching for new people though. We know they want to grow healthy by about 20% on selected positions.
- 343, Playground Games, The Coalition and Turn10 are all searching for a lot of people.
- Compulsion Games lists 7 more employees compared to June. They started their wider search for new people three weeks ago.
- The Initiative is growing healthy, now listing 18 staff with selected open positions. Core team is coming together.
They delivered exactly what people expected: a sequel to Crackdown 1.
It just turns out a lot of the market aren't interested in a Crackdown game anymore...
Because is a zombie game, zombie games always sell. Is like Sports.
The initiative should be way past 18 developers. we already know about 10 - 12 high profile hires since June last year and Drew Murray said they were already hiring the core team members. There are definitely more devs we don't know about,
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So, I know it's probably just SOD3... but... what if their next project isn't just that (or the SOD MMO)? What else would you be interested in seeing Undead Labs produce instead/additionally? Their sim chops are well-established, but the gameplay loop could maybe use some work. Is there a different setting or gameplay style that could also utilize their unique experience? A Gears survival sim? An ODST management sim, where you control the recruitment and training and deployment of a squad of marines? A gritty base-building reboot of Banjo Kazooie wherein they collect their old, forgotten Rare brethren to ride out the IP apocalypse?
Current open positions count:
Playground Games: 68
Undead Labs: 28
Rare: 16
343: 15
Mojang: 14
The Initiative: 11
InXile: 9
Turn10: 8
Obsidian: 7
Ninja Theory: 5
The Coalition: 5
Compulsion: ?
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Yes taste plays factor and reviewer skills and there are bad reviewers. Games are usually reviewed by people who play games on that genre so that argument goes there. Besides there is many many reviewers rating that game 5-6/10 so maybe you should just accept the fact, that the game isn't that good.
It's fine if you like it and would review it higher, but both games have flaws more than you listed. SoD2 buggines was on another level and there were other problems too just like Crackdown 3 have other problems besides being repetive.
Just move on. It's a flop game and that's it. Focus to the future.
MS needs to stop once for all with Crackdown. Years of development and the game got bombed by critics and first numbers seem super bad in UK.
There are so many dormant IPs that deserve a big revival and that could do way better : Amped, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker, Kung Fu Chaos, Crimson Skies, MechAssault, Blinx, Jet Force Gemini, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Kameo, Viva Pinata, Project Gotham Racing, Brute Force, Fusion Frenzy... Or even new IPs.
*searches desperately for tweet
not on launch day, the logistics behind that wouldn't make any sense.
I feel like Lost Odyssey, Kameo and some other games sold just as well as crackdown yet they get ignored... Why? What is so special about crackdown that it gets to live but other franchises die? A good question I would ask Phil.
The answer isn't that they had a developer to make it, because they had to shuffle through several different developers and the development was a nightmare.
It boosted for some games. That's not going to be the case for all games, and even the ones that did took everyone by surprise.
As he subscribers numbers grow it will undoubtedly come to a point where the number of subs eat into the games sales. Dunno if we are there yet, but they prominently prometer a deal for $2 for a month in the game's marketing.
Because MP/GAAS. Because MS wanted to show the "power of the cloud" (which Phil has said was a mistake). Crackdown 3 could have been released 2 years ago if they did not have to show off this cloud destruction tech.
Definitely. What matters is how many subscribers stay past the trial/scheme period. At 3 million regular subscribers that is 30 million dollars revenue per month which is equal to 500k physical 60$ game sales a month.
There is likely an inflection point MS has calculated for 1st party at least where the regular subscribers outweight the physical sales importance.
Accept that the game isn't very good? Maybe to those reviewers, but I love it. They're not the objective truth in gaming, so stop telling me nonsense about not voicing my opinions on them. Also, flop? SoT got terrible reviews, and it's doing just fine. Don't be so quick to label something a failure.
No, it's bugs honestly weren't. Nowhere close to Fallout New Vegas, Battlefield 4, MCC, any Bethesda game. Some of those you couldn't even play at all they were in such terrible conditions.
I just said it's fine if you like it or would review it higher. But both games have huge problems too and those were addressed in reviews.
SOD2 was buggy as hell. Fallout 76 is only game this generation with same level of buggines
AoE4 is ahead of internal expectations and schedule last I heard a few weeks ago (take this as a rumor). Which may ... Ah no. Let's not do that yet.
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People couldn't even play multiplayer on MCC or BF4 for months, would disconnect often, lose campaign progress, off hit detection, so many bugs in those 2 games. What bugs did SoD2 have in comparison?
Ok.
And in Your opinion we'll see a good rts? Any chances to have more info this year? Thanks for all, mate.
Sight... Just Google SoD2 bug or SoD2 unplayable. I remember it so clearly that people complained how their characters got bugged and died etc. The game was buggy as hell when it launched.
Yea, I think it will be great. Relic seems to be the perfect dev studio for the game / franchise. I definitely expect news on AoE4 this year.
I liked F76 more than SOD2 but for my experience F76 is in another level of bugginess. Bethesda games have it's own level of bugginess at launch.
Halo Wars 2 is also good and they're going to be providing more content updates this year!
We got the recent Maverick and Scarlett leaks, although I think they were at least partially by design to guage the reaction to 1) having a discless XBO and 2) having two hardware SKUs at launch.
Lead to a Relic joining a certain recently renamed studio portfolio...?
Edit: Relic appears to be a 7min walk and 3min drive from The Coalition offices. Just saying.
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I played a lot of State of Decay and never had that kind of bugs. There was one time where "flames were invisible" but that got patched quickly.
Also..."Just Google SoD2 bug or SoD2 unplayable" does't represnet everybody. You can find and collect bugs from different people on the internet very quickly. On video it looks very bad but no one will have nearly all of these bugs in one playthrough.
Just like all of these "Switch display" or Xbox One Disc issue videos - everyone can gather videos from 20 people but in comparison to the millions playing its not representative of the full expierence.
In honor of our fallen comrade, RumbleBones, I feel inclined to inform you all that Blackbird Interactive, the studio that he often speculated was working on Perfect Dark in conjunction with the Coalition, opened another role for a Senior Game Designer for a third-person, action-strategy hybrid. It also says that they're working on "in-game content" with "high profile gameplay, systems, features and tools."
They also have a lead programmer spot open where they're looking for someone who has shipped AAA games on multiple platforms.
They also have a lead programmer spot open where they're looking for someone who has shipped AAA games on multiple platforms.
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