Cyberpunkd
Member
Does the math really make sense though? Let's say out of 10 games you will have one huge success, each costs $100mln to make - can you outside mobile really cound on your game bringing more than $1bln in profit?
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Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Highguard Debuts on Steam with a peak CCU of 97k and 21% positive reviews
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TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Yes. That's NeoGAF math. NeoGAF math is when you distort the numbers to make it look like traditional single player games are the smarter investment. NeoGAF math occurs when people who have a strong bias for single player distort the numbers in that direction.
Nobody at the top of these companies plays games or has a preference. They just want the numbers to go up.
They're all still chasing GAAS because the risk is worth it.
If you look at the top 20 largest videogame companies of 2025, you'll see a number of GAAS centric companies on that list. You won't won't find the opposite.
diffusionx
Gold Member
No, NeoGAF math is companies playing to their strengths and making calculated risks.
Sony has successful gaashit games. They are games like MLB and Gran Turismo, games they've been making forever. They "converted" those to ongoing revenue in a very smart way.
Sony has no successful gaashit FPS games, so releasing one with no understanding of the genre was a very bad idea. It was much dumber to put those hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars into those games than other games they are good at, which are often singleplayer.
Fake
Member
Profit, by Morgan Park.
Kikorin
Member
The most entertaining thing about GAAS at this point is watching it collapse few days (weeks if they're lucky) after launch.
Anyway I see why companies still want to waste money on this shit, is the same reason why people play the lottery. Chances of winning are very low, but you just need one win to make the day for a very long time.
Anyway I see why companies still want to waste money on this shit, is the same reason why people play the lottery. Chances of winning are very low, but you just need one win to make the day for a very long time.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Nobodies strength is making GAAS games. Everybody made traditional single player game from 1980 - 2017. Every major player in the industry stopped playing to their strengths in order to try this new GAAS thing.
Sony also had no experience making successful TPS GAAS games until Helldivers 2 became the fastest selling game in PlayStation Studio history.
diffusionx
Gold Member
huh? Epic was making multiplayer focused games since the late 1990s. Even Gears of War had pretty big multiplayer modes.
Call of Duty as a live game is not that different from Call of Duty as a more traditional multiplayer game where they sold maps and stuff.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
When I say everybody I do not mean literally everybody. This is how people talk.
Everybody just means 94.8% of the industry.
diffusionx
Gold Member
I just named 2 of the most successful gaas games and showed they had a pedigree in multiplayer. The sports games as live games obviously have long pedigrees.
Even something like Helldivers 2, as the name implies, is a sequel and the sequel, despite changing perspective, is an iteration of what was a successful if low-stakes game.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Now compare the 2 games you listed to what the industry was pumping out from 1980 - 2017.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Multiplayer games existed well before 2017
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I corrected you on this statement...
"No, NeoGAF math is companies playing to their strengths and making calculated risks."
GAAS investment and development is not the games industry playing to its strengths because 94.7% of the games industry output from 1980 - 2017 has been traditional single player games.
Sonys supposed "strength" was making linear, narrative focused single player games.
I'm just taking issue with that one sentence there (then a whole bunch after)
diffusionx
Gold Member
It's just wrong to think of the industry as a monolith in this way. Companies did different things, obviously.
As I pointed out, even Sony, who I would say was strong on singleplayer, had games they were making in this period which were prime targets for converting into live, like Gran Turismo. So even if 99.99999% of their output was singleplayer, they still had Gran Turismo.
The problem was thinking they could throw billions of dollars into live games in genres they didn't understand like FPS. But obviously, the Call of Duty people had a keen understanding of multiplayer FPS.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
All I'm saying is that most of NeoGAF was certain the GAAS bubble had popped with the failure of Concord.
Time has proven otherwise.
kruis
Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
The math only makes sense for companies with a lot of money to burn who can withstand multiple 100 million failures while chasing a billion dollar GAAS success.
The math makes no sense at all for companies that will immediately go bankrupt when their only chance at success fails miserably.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
BigBeauford
Member
Nah don't sweat it. There might be 2 more people just like you!
Sakura
Member
The math only makes sense if you know what you are doing. Making a GAAS just because GAAS makes money doesn't work.
If you are someone like Mihoyo, then yes the math makes sense. They know what their fans want. They know what their strengths are. They try new things/different genres/etc.
If you are a company that has 0 income because you haven't delivered any games yet, can't be bothered to do public testing to gather feedback, and releasing a game in an already saturated market, then no, the math doesn't make sense.
Imagine if Bungie never did betas or anything for Marathon and just announced it to release it a couple months later? It would probably end up performing much worse than whatever it does end up doing.
diffusionx
Gold Member
lol this was Sony's strategy, and they seem to have changed course and imposed much stricter standards on their funding after Concord flamed out in historic manner. As nice as Helldivers 2 is, it's not enough to justify the strategy.
Will Sony die of course not but seeing billions of dollars go up in smoke is not fun and shareholders don't like it.
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Cyberpunkd
Member
Same number of players as yesterday 4pm.
Is 8K enough to sustain the game?
Is 8K enough to sustain the game?
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Imagine how bad the numbers would've been if Geoff didn't shill this for millions of people.
Timberwolf25
Member
Concord didn't
They expected perfection because of his stupid hype and then realized it was flawed.
Still the biggest mistake was to release this without a beta to get feedback
idk, I think his "endorsement" doomed the game and it would actually have more players giving it a chance.
They expected perfection because of his stupid hype and then realized it was flawed.
Still the biggest mistake was to release this without a beta to get feedback
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
I think most would've never heard of it before that day either. Morbid curiosity was the day 1 driver.
touchfuzzy
Gold Member
8-10k is not enough to sustain a free to play game anyways. Even if every single person bought $20 of cosmetics you still only paid for the boss's salary. Every day this game is out and they're paying people to keep making the planned new content, and to run the servers, it costs thousands and thousands every single day - this is why Concord got axed so fast.
asdasdasdbb
Member
Concord got axed fast because the CCU wasn't even this high and Sony had info that suggested most players were Trophy Whores (ie: would have dropped the game once they got the Plat)
MMaRsu
Member
RafterXL
Member
I think it would have been much better off. Unknown game with zero fanfare gets a chance to release and get feedback without all the negativity.
No, they just deleted a bunch of reviews. It has less reviews today than it had three days ago.
Also, let's pump the breaks, it's still sitting at 40% and there are less people playing it, so it's not like the tide has turned or anything.
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
or maybe just… people who like the game spend more time with it than people who don't?
PeteBull
Member
Ubisoft is about to explode from inside coz their workers going on strike after finally getting ordered to come back to work
And if hogwarts sequel is gaas instead of proper singleplayer game like the first one we will have genuine comparision how each sales model performs, first one we know was extremly succesful(40m+ copies sold) despite decepticons and their allies trying to cancell it
We all remember how rainbowforum and tons of liberal media acted around howarts launch:
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Better off, yeah, and you make a good point on the feedback loop.
Same numbers? Probably not, but again, no focus on it either in the negativity loop.
Antwix
Member
Exactly what I was thinking. Even if the game is "fine enough" for the current people playing, you gotta really enjoy the game to start spending money on it. And yeah, its gotta be brutal for their revenue. At least Concord had a purchase priceout of that 10k 24h peak ccu how many whales are there forking up some srs cash on mtx? 5-10 at max, and it will only go down from there
PeteBull
Member
W\e audience geoff gave them, now with 10x lower 24h peak 4 days after launch we know they lost aleady, now its a matter of 24h ccu peak staying around 10-15k making game sustainable or it going down to below 5k ccu which will indicate total fall and inevitable shutdown soon.
Its like watching baby seal trying to survive among polar bears
Its like watching baby seal trying to survive among polar bears
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Looks like HG briefly touched just under 4,000 middle of the night.
Weekend is starting. So the CCU might hold up, or even go up a bit. But next week when Steam gamers get back to normal weekday gaming, it'll drop more.
Yesterday, the range was 4,000 - 10,000. So expect next week it could drop to 2,000 - 5,000 at some point. No doubt 3,000 - 8,000 should be in the cards at minimum. The trend has been a steep -30% or so each day. But at some point it should stabilize a bit if there's enough hardcore gamers sticking around. Comes down to how many of them there are to keep the CCU up to a certain baseline.
Weekend is starting. So the CCU might hold up, or even go up a bit. But next week when Steam gamers get back to normal weekday gaming, it'll drop more.
Yesterday, the range was 4,000 - 10,000. So expect next week it could drop to 2,000 - 5,000 at some point. No doubt 3,000 - 8,000 should be in the cards at minimum. The trend has been a steep -30% or so each day. But at some point it should stabilize a bit if there's enough hardcore gamers sticking around. Comes down to how many of them there are to keep the CCU up to a certain baseline.
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SmokSmog
Member
It's the first weekend, people which couldn't play during the week will try it now, wait till Monday/Tuesday morning. It will crash.Same number of players as yesterday 4pm.
Is 8K enough to sustain the game?
ChorizoPicozo
Member
They speedrun years in the market in a matter of days. So the only thing I can think of to help maintain a consistent baseline of players is for the game to have real depth in its mechanics. The moment hardcore players solve the META and there's no strategic depth left, we could see the numbers drop to Concord levels next week
PeteBull
Member
I think next week we got real shot at hitting below 5k peak 24h ccu which would be -50% vs this weak's lowerst 24h ccu peak, at that point it will be race against time coz it will mean game is bleeding money like crazeh
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I got to admit when it comes to these kinds of thread, I'm a stat whore so I love prediction games whether I'm right or wrong. lolI think next week we got real shot at hitting below 5k peak 24h ccu which would be -50% vs this weak's lowerst 24h ccu peak, at that point it will be race against time coz it will mean game is bleeding money like crazeh
Last Hearth
Member
If the risk is so worth it, then why are we getting articles that 1 out of every 3 person working in game development lost their job last year, surely that's a sign that industry wide, firms made a miscalculation and the returns are not justifying the investment for many of them.
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kevboard
Member
ngl, I didn't expect them to react this fast to some of the issues.
they already patched in an FOV slider on console and added options for toggle and hold for aiming and crouch.
that still doesn't fix how fug ugly the game looks or the input lag it has on console, but it's a step in the right direction
they already patched in an FOV slider on console and added options for toggle and hold for aiming and crouch.
that still doesn't fix how fug ugly the game looks or the input lag it has on console, but it's a step in the right direction
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I think Ubisoft recommitting to GAAS native games in 2026 tells us all we need to know.
Last Hearth
Member
That a company whose stock price has fallen 90% has bad management?
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
They're all trying to save their sinking ship and it's not going to be with full priced single player games.
Hawk The Slayer
Member
It's reaching First Descendant level, both are free to play and not a super huge but falling off.
The difference is First Descendant took over a year to start falling while Highguard took 1 day.
And the whale/loyal fans left in First Descendant are 100% going to spend way more compared to the whale/loyal fans left in Highguard.
The difference is First Descendant took over a year to start falling while Highguard took 1 day.
And the whale/loyal fans left in First Descendant are 100% going to spend way more compared to the whale/loyal fans left in Highguard.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Why not? If Ubisoft made some GOOD single player games they wouldn't be sinking like a ship. Switching to GAAS probably won't save Ubi either, their problem is not the style of games they make, but the games themselves.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Yves Guillmont to Ubisoft employees: "Have you guys tried to make GOOD single player games?"
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Plague Doctor
Member
Hey, them Jiggle Physics for Bunny don't come cheap. The cash shop is more of a charity donation to continue a good cause. The Devs are doing god's work.
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Revolutionary
Member
It finally broke 10k CCU again
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
They made the amazing prince of Persia Lost crown and gamers didn't show up clearly