Doom: The Dark Ages is a flop

Sorry if asked and answered but if games designed to pull people to gamepass, or retain them, and the game does that, is that success or a failure? I'm not trying to start shit at all, I'm definitely interested in how success is determined with a subscription service game.

Not worried about platforms, just what "success" is.
 
Trogdor1123 said:
Sorry if asked and answered but if games designed to pull people to gamepass, or retain them, and the game does that, is that success or a failure? I'm not trying to start shit at all, I'm definitely interested in how success is determined with a subscription service game.

Not worried about platforms, just what "success" is.
Click to expand...

That would be one reasonable criterion of success - among others, such as sales. The difficulty is ascertaining whether those criteria have been met (i.e., whether a game has brought in new subscribers, who have then stuck around) and whether that subscription revenue would offset losses in sales.

The main problem is that MS does not share those numbers, so we have no way of knowing.

Another problem is that determining whether a game attracts new subscribers, whether those subscribers stick around, and whether that sub money compensates for lost sales - that is a complicated calculation. For instance, a game rarely releases in a vacuum - other games are coming out as well. Even assuming you can isolate a temporary bump in subscription rates, it can be hard to know what to attribute that to. Further, in a subscription system like GP, which has a churn rate higher than any other, how do you know if the people who joined have stuck around? Also, how do you account for the sales you have lost because of those subscriptions - not just for that game, but for any others they might have bought?

There are no doubt other factors I'm overlooking. My point is that it's a complicated calculation. I assume MS has their own charts and figures to try to assess all of this, but we aren't privy to that.
 
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Trogdor1123 said:
Sorry if asked and answered but if games designed to pull people to gamepass, or retain them, and the game does that, is that success or a failure? I'm not trying to start shit at all, I'm definitely interested in how success is determined with a subscription service game.

Not worried about platforms, just what "success" is.
Click to expand...
My understanding is the overall amount of player activity and the engagement on gamepass and the game itself is what merits the game a success or not. With them saying they had 3 million players, it's pretty clear that a lot of those players were on game pass. Which I'm sure they were prepared for, if not expecting to some degree.
 
Finally got around to playing it. Around 3 hours in, chapter 4 or 5. I hate to add to the pile but this is extremely boring so far and a huge disappointment. I belong to the "2016 is better!!!!!!!" camp, as I really did not like Eternal at all. But even for me Eternal is miles ahead of this. And you can really feel Mick's absence way too hard. It saddens me that, atleast for me, id has been super disappointing after 2016's release. Now whether or not it's a flop I don't know obviously, but I just have no hopes for Doom anymore at this point :/
 
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Kurotri said:
Finally got around to playing it. Around 3 hours in, chapter 4 or 5. I hate to add to the pile but this is extremely boring so far and a huge disappointment. I belong to the "2016 is better!!!!!!!" camp, as I really did not like Eternal at all. But even for me Eternal is miles ahead of this. And you can really feel Mick's absence way too hard. It saddens me that, atleast for me, id has been super disappointing after 2016's release. Now whether or not it's a flop I don't know obviously, but I just have no hopes for Doom anymore at this point :/
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I'm not going to lie, it has a slow start, but CH6 is where I started feeling the intensity. I'm also one that likes to play on nightmare and 100% all the levels and you can tell the first few chapters are more of a tutorial to get used to the combat. At CH6 I felt that "BRING IT ON" moment where I'm hooked and ready to dive into a hoard. Don't get me wrong, I love each one for what they are. My favorite was Doom Eternal as I loved the platforming, but I'm finding them all to be enjoyable for their own reasons.
 
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I bought it day one! Are not these the games we keep asking for on NeoGaf?
Non live service,
Single player,
non woke,
Focus on the core male gamer
From reviews very solid game

I think we should all take a long look in the mirror and see if we have been lying to ourselves.
 
wipeout364 said:
I bought it day one! Are not these the games we keep asking for on NeoGaf?
Non live service,
Single player,
non woke,
Focus on the core male gamer
From reviews very solid game

I think we should all take a long look in the mirror and see if we have been lying to ourselves.
Click to expand...
Yep, it's something i don't understand. It checks all the boxes but it still flopped kind of.
Or the asking price was just too high. I don't really know.
I can only hope it will be a success later down the road when it gets cheaper.
 
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I fucking loved Doom 2016, so I bought Eternal on day 1 assuming it was a no brainer.

I learned from that mistake and decided not to repeat it. I might buy Dark Ages at some point, haven't looked into it yet to determine whether it leans more toward 2016 or Eternal.
 
Hero of Spielberg said:
Yeah, I think people were into it when 2016 came out as it was seen as a bit of return to form (TM) But after mixed response on Eternal it was always going to have a tough time.

Be a good opportunity to look at a new IP for Bethesda.
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I played through Quake 1 for the first time this week.

They need to do a new quake game. Rage sucks, and Doom needs a lot more to pass from dark ages before they revisit it.

A new IP? Nah. They have failed twice with Rage.
 
I doubt it wil be considered a flop in the long run, but it definitely isn't as good as Eternal or 2016.

That still means it's better than 99% of the dog shit that gets released these days, but it could have been better.
 
wipeout364 said:
I bought it day one! Are not these the games we keep asking for on NeoGaf?
Non live service,
Single player,
non woke,
Focus on the core male gamer
From reviews very solid game

I think we should all take a long look in the mirror and see if we have been lying to ourselves.
Click to expand...
I am not sure have not played it yet, but high price, subscription service one day 1, and maybe it is checking those boxes to check those boxes and perhaps too many people were burned by Eternal… you want a divisive game? Fine, but it might cast somewhat of a shadow for a bit.

Soundtrack sounds meh (great job ruining the professional relationship with Mick Gordon), the kind of story focus sounds meh to some, and people were worried it had another massive divisive gameplay shift and felt burned by Eternal…
 
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Panajev2001a said:
I am not sure have not played it yet, but high price, subscription service one day 1, and maybe it is checking those boxes to check those boxes and perhaps too many people were burned by Eternal… you want a divisive game? Fine, but it might cast somewhat of a shadow for a bit.

Soundtrack sounds meh (great job ruining the professional relationship with Mick Gordon), the kind of story focus sounds meh to some, and people were worried it had another massive divisive gameplay shift and felt burned by Eternal…
Click to expand...
I have no idea why people did not like eternal it is one of the best pure FPS I have played, very complicated mechanics that feel like a puzzle. Doom 2016 had a better cohesive world but eternal mechanics were on a whole new level.
 
amigastar said:
Yep, it's something i don't understand. It checks all the boxes but it still flopped kind of.
Or the asking price was just too high. I don't really know.
I can only hope it will be a success later down the road when it gets cheaper.
Click to expand...
It doesnt check the most important box which is being good. It's not bad. It's okay. But it's 10x worse than 2016 and 100x worse than eternal. All while being the most expensive game ever in a lot of countries. Okay not ever ever but the most expensive game in the last 20 years or something.
 
wipeout364 said:
I bought it day one! Are not these the games we keep asking for on NeoGaf?
Non live service,
Single player,
non woke,
Focus on the core male gamer
From reviews very solid game

I think we should all take a long look in the mirror and see if we have been lying to ourselves.
Click to expand...
You're starting to see what some people here have seen all along.
 
I think there is a bigger picture here: Games are starting to not being the "current hot thing". The boom of the 2010s (and late 2000s) is starting to stall and market is getting shrinked. Games are being changed by streams/tiktoks/mass social media, this goes in line with the huge drops in player counts: a game does big in the stream market, everyone buys it, plays it for a weekend and drop it. Maybe DooM didnt make it enough as a streaming sensation like OP data suggest.

And it is normal, games are not going to break "all time sales" every year.

Is Dark Ages a slop? idk, I think we are beyond "sales" comparison to now look at the hidden data of "Did MS make money or no?", and they probably dont have that data.
 
That's a big shame.
I just finished the game and I can understand why is it flopping in some ways as I also have mixed feelings.

The main problem is the lack of innovation.

The game is awesome, it's Doom from id, of course it is. If you love the franchise, you will love this as well.

But this is mostly the same game from 2016, from almost 10 years ago, with reused animations, gameplay mechanics, etc. At that time that game was (and still is) one of the best games ever. Insane nextgen visuals, with top of the industry animations, it felt new and unique gameplay wise. A huge jump from lastgen games in every sense. Eternal was also awesome and they went even further on the same console gen but I hated the immersion breaking floating gamey looking powerups, secrets etc. And I thought they got enough criticsm for this but no, they doubled down with this bullshit in Dark Ages and the crazy contrasting colors are insanely immersion breaking for the ammo, the enemy projectiles, etc., they look horrible with the otherwise awesome artstyle a design. I don't know why couldn't they have at least provided an option to tone these down…

So here we have Dark Ages which is a current gen exclusive game, yet it barely if it even looks better than the previous game from 5 years ago. This f'n raytracing feels like one of the biggest gimmicks ever and it should have been left to nextgen because we are not there yet and it is laughable what it provides for such a huge performance cost. I don't care how big an achievement it is for developers because I'm a gamer who is just looking at the visuals and not checking the code behind them.

id could have been the dev team who could have melted our faces and provide a real jump in visuals but like others before them, they went this way resulting in visuals that could pass as a ps4 game on pics. Yes, the physics are cool, that's true. But it was not worth it. This is not what we expect from id.
They should have used the available resources in other ways and blow away the industry with a similar game that Doom 2016 was at its time. This is no different than for example CoD or Assassin's Creed. But they don't take 5 years between instalments. The formula is a bit tired now and it also lacks the technical jump that we expect from id. It also lacks the polish the previous games had, I remember reading from others that it's a bit like it was made by the B team and this is what I felt sometimes as well.

And for all the above, the game became maybe one of most expensive games ever to buy. With almost nothing on the physical disc at all. And making it available on gamepass day one, basically making sure it flops. Yes, I know all these are on Microsoft and how much they suck, but I'm sad they did this with one of my favorite devs.

Despite all the above, as I said, the game is awesome, most of the levels are really cool, except a couple of levels (like the forest) that seemed like filler, but there are some insanely good ones, like the last one. I hope this is not the end for id but Doom should go for a rest and they should reinvent it to have the deserved acclaim again. Until then they should reboot Quake because the snippets we saw from that in this game were really cool.

I want to highlight again, that the game is awesome despite all this, but I wanted more from it.
 
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Developers under Bethesda umbrella, were mid as fuck, they were struggling and that's why they wanted to be bought. I was amazed when MS bought them.
 
Brakum said:
It doesnt check the most important box which is being good. It's not bad. It's okay. But it's 10x worse than 2016 and 100x worse than eternal. All while being the most expensive game ever in a lot of countries. Okay not ever ever but the most expensive game in the last 20 years or something.
Click to expand...
And in this point we are different my friend so no need to talk further, case closed.
 
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To be expected after Doom Eternal; game was a huge let down, especially after Doom 2016.

Sounds like this game fixed some of the issues in Eternal, but the damage has already been done and it's too late to salvage.

Brakum said:
You know what i do with threads about things i don't care? I don't click on them
Click to expand...

But replying to individual posts [to virtue signal] are the exception...

Makes perfect sense.
 
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The_Observer said:
That's a big shame.
I just finished the game and I can understand why is it flopping in some ways as I also have mixed feelings.

The main problem is the lack of innovation.

The game is awesome, it's Doom from id, of course it is. If you love the franchise, you will love this as well.

But this is mostly the same game from 2016, from almost 10 years ago, with reused animations, gameplay mechanics, etc. At that time that game was (and still is) one of the best games ever. Insane nextgen visuals, with top of the industry animations, it felt new and unique gameplay wise. A huge jump from lastgen games in every sense. Eternal was also awesome and they went even further on the same console gen but I hated the immersion breaking floating gamey looking powerups, secrets etc. And I thought they got enough criticsm for this but no, they doubled down with this bullshit in Dark Ages and the crazy contrasting colors are insanely immersion breaking for the ammo, the enemy projectiles, etc., they look horrible with the otherwise awesome artstyle a design. I don't know why couldn't they have at least provided an option to tone these down…

So here we have Dark Ages which is a current gen exclusive game, yet it barely if it even looks better than the previous game from 5 years ago. This f'n raytracing feels like one of the biggest gimmicks ever and it should have been left to nextgen because we are not there yet and it is laughable what it provides for such a huge performance cost. I don't care how big an achievement it is for developers because I'm a gamer who is just looking at the visuals and not checking the code behind them.

id could have been the dev team who could have melted our faces and provide a real jump in visuals but like others before them, they went this way resulting in visuals that could pass as a ps4 game on pics. Yes, the physics are cool, that's true. But it was not worth it. This is not what we expect from id.
They should have used the available resources in other ways and blow away the industry with a similar game that Doom 2016 was at its time. This is no different than for example CoD or Assassin's Creed. But they don't take 5 years between instalments. The formula is a bit tired now and it also lacks the technical jump that we expect from id. It also lacks the polish the previous games had, I remember reading from others that it's a bit like it was made by the B team and this is what I felt sometimes as well.

And for all the above, the game became maybe one of most expensive games ever to buy. With almost nothing on the physical disc at all. And making it available on gamepass day one, basically making sure it flops. Yes, I know all these are on Microsoft and how much they suck, but I'm sad they did this with one of my favorite devs.

Despite all the above, as I said, the game is awesome, most of the levels are really cool, except a couple of levels (like the forest) that seemed like filler, but there are some insanely good ones, like the last one. I hope this is not the end for id but Doom should go for a rest and they should reinvent it to have the deserved acclaim again. Until then they should reboot Quake because the snippets we saw from that in this game were really cool.

I want to highlight again, that the game is awesome despite all this, but I wanted more from it.
Click to expand...
After writing this post, I wanted to check out how it feels playing Doom 2016 after Dark Ages, and wtf, I'm speechless. First of all, I honestly think it looks better than Dark Ages. The graphics are clean, this shitty noisiness and flickering everywhere in Dark Ages is nowhere to be found in Doom 2016. And this is not even a native PS5 game, it only got a PS4 Pro patch (higher res). Sorry, raytracing in its current form is a big scam from a user standpoint.

But the gameplay is also somehow better, it's more "up close and personal" fighting with the demons, all of them are an enemy you have to fight, not just some cannon fodder that fall into pieces just by looking at them. I don't know, the whole game is just more immersive. And despite this, you still feel like a demon killing machine.

Somehow the levels also feel like more handcrafted than in Dark Ages. Everything feels insanely coherent.

It's still a 10/10 game for me after all these years. And based on this, Dark Ages can't be more than an 8 if I'm generous.
 
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Dark Ages is great. The amount of negative takes around this game online is like everyone is just parroting things they've read without playing the game. Like have your opinion I guess but there's a huge disconnect here from how good the game is.
 
I've noticed that all of the comments about the graphics being bad in Doom The Dark Ages are playing on consoles. On my PC with everything cranked up, this game looks awesome and far better than any FPS game on the market right now, ID Tech 8 shines on the PC with a good graphics card as it should….ID is a PC developer first and foremost and had to squeeze this sucker into a weak console and the graphics took a major hit for it to run at a decent frame rate. I'd say it's probably low to medium settings because of the raytracing on AMD hardware that never was good at raytracing in the first place. There is AMD Raytracing 😂 and there is real Raytracing on NVIDIA. The consoles are practically low end PCs nowadays with blown out prices so they can make money on hardware. Even the PS5 pro is low end with an overinflated pricetag. It should be called a PS5 Low.
 
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Dev1lXYZ said:
I've noticed that all of the comments about the graphics being bad in Doom The Dark Ages are playing on consoles. On my PC with everything cranked up, this game looks awesome and far better than any FPS game on the market right now, ID Tech 8 shines on the PC with a good graphics card as it should….ID is a PC developer first and foremost and had to squeeze this sucker into a weak console and the graphics took a major hit for it to run at a decent frame rate. I'd say it's probably low to medium settings because of the raytracing on AMD hardware that never was good at raytracing in the first place. There is AMD Raytracing 😂 and there is real Raytracing on NVIDIA. The consoles are practically low end PCs nowadays with blown out prices so they can make money on hardware. Even the PS5 pro is low end with an overinflated pricetag. It should be called a PS5 Low.
Click to expand...

It doesn't look great on PC either.
 
Duping even the console players with some 85 MB on the blu ray disc for a 80 buckaroos… "You get what you deserve."
 
CompleteGlobalSaturation said:
Doom is the first game I've seen priced at £70.

Every other new title on steam ranges from £40 to £60.

70 USD is cheap. That's like low £50s.
Click to expand...
Every major AAA game this generation has been $69.99, that's the standard price in America for PS5, Xbox Series games. So I'm trying to ascertain if the price you're saying is higher than normal for that currency or not.
 
kiphalfton said:
To be expected after Doom Eternal; game was a huge let down, especially after Doom 2016.

Sounds like this game fixed some of the issues in Eternal, but the damage has already been done and it's too late to salvage.



But replying to individual posts [to virtue signal] are the exception...

Makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...

This game fixed nothing. Doom Eternal was great. That game sold well, if it was doing any "damage" it wouldn't have sold. Dark Ages is the game that is going to do damage because it is far more divisive than Eternal was.
 
I used the Microsoft app and they offered me another 1 dollar trial and I finished it. I can't complain


id buy that for a dollar GIF
 
Gaming prices need to come down or we'll see more of this, I feel the same way about Nintendo's misstep on going up in price.

They are holding the wrong thing constant as high-end costs go up.

current conventional wisdom:
"Expected-game-size / hours of gameplay should be held constant; as higher end graphics require more cash and larger teams, this means overall cost goes up, and therefore sticker prices to match."

reality:
"Max-consumer-price should be the constant. If a genre or level of graphics goes up in cost, the overall scope of games should go down to retain this max price constant no matter what. Or, games with high scope should reduce their graphical targets, eg like TOTK. But not high scope and high level of cost, because $60 is absolute upper max for sticker price no matter what."

there's a certain max commitment people will make up front to a game. Over $60 breaks it (60 is cutting it close already), and something else has to give because individual game commitments simply are not worth it above that and it isn't going to change in consumer minds.

EDIT: that said, AI will replace multiple layers of the game dev machinery soon, with much smaller teams able to churn out high scope games, so this problem is likely temporary.
 
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KenaiPhoenix said:
I think there is a bigger picture here: Games are starting to not being the "current hot thing". The boom of the 2010s (and late 2000s) is starting to stall and market is getting shrinked. Games are being changed by streams/tiktoks/mass social media, this goes in line with the huge drops in player counts: a game does big in the stream market, everyone buys it, plays it for a weekend and drop it. Maybe DooM didnt make it enough as a streaming sensation like OP data suggest.

And it is normal, games are not going to break "all time sales" every year.

Is Dark Ages a slop? idk, I think we are beyond "sales" comparison to now look at the hidden data of "Did MS make money or no?", and they probably dont have that data.
Click to expand...

But that's not the case with other big hit video games. So what's up with that?
 
Bulletzen72 said:
That's a straight up fucking lie or at best a delusion! Look again!
Click to expand...

You must be very easily impressed.

Maybe once it gets path tracing it'll look better, but for now it's extremely average.

Edit - Just throwing some native 4k images of both games in here.
GqKhTjV.jpeg
BAz4khc.jpeg
 
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Dev1lXYZ said:
I've noticed that all of the comments about the graphics being bad in Doom The Dark Ages are playing on consoles. On my PC with everything cranked up, this game looks awesome and far better than any FPS game on the market right now, ID Tech 8 shines on the PC with a good graphics card as it should….ID is a PC developer first and foremost and had to squeeze this sucker into a weak console and the graphics took a major hit for it to run at a decent frame rate. I'd say it's probably low to medium settings because of the raytracing on AMD hardware that never was good at raytracing in the first place. There is AMD Raytracing 😂 and there is real Raytracing on NVIDIA. The consoles are practically low end PCs nowadays with blown out prices so they can make money on hardware. Even the PS5 pro is low end with an overinflated pricetag. It should be called a PS5 Low.
Click to expand...
god bunch of pcmrn drivel, while game looks barely better than eternal on pc maxed out, not to mention with a completely fucked up hdr, an issue they haven't even acknowledged yet.
 
damidu said:
god bunch of pcmrn drivel, while game looks barely better than eternal on pc maxed out, not to mention with a completely fucked up hdr, an issue they haven't even acknowledged yet.
Click to expand...
HDR likes fine to me on PC. Blacks are black. Have you played it on maxed out settings? And is PCMR. 😂
 
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Steve Holt said:
Tried this again yesterday and it's just doesn't feel like Doom to me. Has loss the sense of power and the feeling of being indestructible imo.
Click to expand...
Not sure what you mean by this.

Game is ultimate power fantasy.

And properly epic.

You go against massive hoards of demons and you have OP ability in shield throw, shield bash, and a mace. If you play your cards right, demon hoard doesn't stand a chance even on higher difficulties.
 
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