Double fine's new game "Keeper" has launched with under 200 players on steam.

I always appreciate that Double Fine rarely rest on their laurels and are always willing to try something new. Marketing for this game has been abysmal, but even if it hadn't, the concept might be too out there for any type of successful marketing push. They are what I wish other development studios were like and exactly the reason why they aren't.
 
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They made a game where you play as a fucking lighthouse
 
Looks ok but $30 for a short walking sim seems steep.

We bemoan AAA going up to $80, but smaller scoped projects have been steadily rising in price for years now which is why everyone was surprised at Silksong's pricing. I do think Keeper would be an easier pill to swallow at say $15-20, but I don't think that changes its' fate much when you look at that concurrent user chart.
 
Easily one of the best experiences of the year. Shades of the glory days of That Game Company. Just wonderful.
Journey is a 92 on MC. This massively blows away Journey.

Longer, more creative, more interaction and puzzles. If we grade it among other walking sim style games, its among the best of all time. Oh and its possibly the 2nd best looking game ever made behind Hellblade 2. The visual design is absolutely masterpiece level.

My only true complaints are that it starts a little slow, and I just wanted more.
 
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Being serious? Lol?
I think so, if you're a marketing company for instance once in a blue moon you'll run a single ad at a loss simply to enter ad awards so you can farm cred.

It's usually high concept shit meant to bag awards. Requirements would be that the ad ran at least once, so that said the game's commercial success won't be important, the awards games like these bags for Sony/MS/Nintendo etc would matter more.
 
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arrested-development-david-cross.gif

Literally this meme.

Probably deserves better but it's a case of game being too weird and artistic.
They could have put the time and money on making a waifu shooter and it would have launched with 100k CCU instead.
MS needs an adult in the room telling people what to do.



... and one more time for the crowd claiming 1000's, nay 100.000s of thousands play it Game Pass.

arrested-development-david-cross.gif
 
Well they're fucked. Not that it wasn't obvious
Personally I think both DF and Ninja Theory are fine. They run small teams and both have put out possibly the best looking Unreal 5 content ever made. Minimal investment could lead to massive success someday for both of them.

XGS were all purchased individually, not in bulk like Bethesda or Activision. And I think both are working on multiple projects.
 
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arrested-development-david-cross.gif

Literally this meme.

Probably deserves better but it's a case of game being too weird and artistic.
They could have put the time and money on making a waifu shooter and it would have launched with 100k CCU instead.
MS needs an adult in the room telling people what to do.



... and one more time for the crowd claiming 1000's, nay 100.000s of thousands play it Game Pass.

arrested-development-david-cross.gif

Not everyone can be a runaway success on Steam like Banana. Double Fine does not need Microsoft's suits telling them what to do and those same suits should have nixed the acquisition in the first place.
 
Personally I think both DF and Ninja Theory are fine. They run small teams and both have put out possibly the best looking Unreal 5 content ever made. Minimal investment could lead to massive success someday for both of them.

XGS were all purchased individually, not in bulk like Bethesda or Activision.
My gut tells me you will hear about DF layoffs in the next month. And my gut is driven simply by the tweet Phil put out about the game yesterday. It was as benign and basic as you could get which isn't really fitting for a game as special as this.
Au41dyhVtcMAnsAN.png

it tells me they know they are gonna gut the studio or shut it down completely because otherwise the praise would be effusive and much more celebratory. And the game deserves that sort of praise but to do that when you KNOW you are about to close the doors in the next few weeks would come back to bite them in the ass PR wise.

All that said, it's just a gut feeling and I hope I'm wrong.
 
By all accounts an extraordinary game. I hope most people are playing it on GamePass. Is it even on there at launch with the new tiers?
 
My gut tells me you will hear about DF layoffs in the next month. And my gut is driven simply by the tweet Phil put out about the game yesterday. It was as benign and basic as you could get which isn't really fitting for a game as special as this.
Au41dyhVtcMAnsAN.png

it tells me they know they are gonna gut the studio or shut it down completely because otherwise the praise would be effusive and much more celebratory. And the game deserves that sort of praise but to do that when you KNOW you are about to close the doors in the next few weeks would come back to bite them in the ass PR wise.

All that said, it's just a gut feeling and I hope I'm wrong.

Pray for them purchasing their independence or being sold to someone else instead.
 
Might be a controversial take, but the advent of things like GamePass means that basically small, arty games like this have fuck all chance of selling anymore in my opinion.

Very few are going to buy a game like this when they know it'll end up on one of the susbcription services in a short amount of time, if it isn't day #1.
 
Gonna go with what others said here. Silksong is under 20 bucks for some high-quality stuff(and it aint just the only low priced great indie) and they want 30 bucks for a 2 hour lighthouse walking sim that is extremely niche? They pretty much murdered their own creation. Good luck to these dumdums.

EDIT: Xbox Games publisher. nvm, I know now why its priced like that. Xbox killed them.

Austin Pour One Out GIF by Pixel Bandits
 
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200 players here doesn't mean "total number of players", but "200 concurrent players". But yeah, it's a really low number.

I bought it earlier this evening because I was curious but it's kinda expensive without any discounts or offers from key stores. The game should have cost $20.
 
Price is bad.

And DoubleFine still has my good will forever, but they're not what they used to be.

If you watch the complete PsychOdyssey documentary on the making of psychonauts 2, there was a clear shift in the company that's impossible to ignore. Prior projects like the original game were passion led by small teams centered around Schafer himself. For Psy2, they built a traditional, lumbering setup with different teams working independently on various layers, a straight up industry director/manager Zak McClendon to set it up in that fashion, Tim only working on story bits on the sideline while the game came into being, and obvious 9-5 types staffing everything, who complained about crunch time and acted like the typical, immature young devs you'd imagine seeing at an Ubisoft or whatever.
 
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My gut tells me you will hear about DF layoffs in the next month. And my gut is driven simply by the tweet Phil put out about the game yesterday. It was as benign and basic as you could get which isn't really fitting for a game as special as this.
Au41dyhVtcMAnsAN.png

it tells me they know they are gonna gut the studio or shut it down completely because otherwise the praise would be effusive and much more celebratory. And the game deserves that sort of praise but to do that when you KNOW you are about to close the doors in the next few weeks would come back to bite them in the ass PR wise.

All that said, it's just a gut feeling and I hope I'm wrong.
This is some take on a congratulations from Spencer to a Studio who just released a new game 😂 I don't mean to be rude but are you on some form of medication?
 
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