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Dustborn sees disastrous launch on Steam

Draugoth

Gold Member
The launch of Dustborn seems to have gone rather badly, at least as far as Steam data is concerned. Released on August 20, it's a single-player action-adventure game that tells a story about hope, love, friendship and robots. In it, players explore the stunning landscapes of the new-west in an alternative North America and form teams, manage relationships, complete missions and face increasingly difficult challenges. Unfortunately, since its launch, the game has only seen a peak of 83 simultaneous players, with 28 playing it right now.

dustborn_eEafwEs.JPG

Dustborn has also been released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, so it's possible that the game is seeing greater uptake on those platforms.

via Eurogamer
 

yurqqa

Member
The Longest Journey from Ragnar Tornquist was such a great game! İ still love to replay it from time to time.
Dreamfall was ok, but I never tried Chapters.

But this... İ really doubt I'd like to try it from the looks of it.

P.S. Didn't know he also worked on Draugen. Tried it, but dropped for some reason.
 

ShadowNate

Member
Apparently it's made by the same people who did Dreamfall: Chapters so I'll probably pick it up when it's like $10 to support the developer.
Oh, I didn't know that.

Maybe I'll put it on wishlist to check out sometime in the future; probably once it goes DRM-free and on sale.

Dreamfall: Chapters was disappointing for me (and I was a backer), but the developers themselves were putting considerable effort to make it work. Surprisingly it was the story, the dialogue and the characters that kinda sucked, which was the one thing that no one anticipated.

Anyway, this also probably explains the heavy-on-left-politics that some reviews mention. It is what it is. They wanted to make this game, let's see how well it goes.
 

GHG

Member
Dark Souls Gamer GIF by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment


Just goes to show that the "modern audiences" people don't put their money where their mouth is.

The biggest mistake companies made is thinking those people have money in the first place.

Saw something on Harley Davidson reverting their DEI policies and the first thing I though was why did they ever think those kinds of people could (and/or would) ever buy their products anyway? It's just insanity.
 
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Yeah OP, but the context you are not explaining with this slanderous thread is that this game is on the right side of history.

It's not popular nor profitable nor logical nor a wise business decision to be.... on the right side of history.

And future generations may ponder the dev's decisions and wonder what the fuck they were even doing, but they are... on the right side of history.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
If anyone thought this game was going to do well I feel bad for them. The footage I saw alone was... very rough across the board. As much of a shame as it was, I felt like the writing was on the wall.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Dark Souls Gamer GIF by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment




The biggest mistake companies made is thinking those people have money in the first place.

Saw something on Harley Davidson reverting their DEI policies and the first thing I though was why did they ever think those kinds of people could (and/or would) ever buy their products anyway? It's just insanity.
I also read an article about Harley Davidson killing DEI earlier this week. Just another example of a company course correcting after harming their business by trying to cater to people who will never be their customers. DEI initiatives pretty much never translate to increases in revenue because the people complaining about lack of diversity don't or can't buy the products they complain about.
 

Dorfdad

Gold Member
Maybe the game doesn’t resonate with pc centric gamers I’m sure if they released it on epic games it would be worse in the numbers. I never heard of it before this either so it wasn’t marketed I assume.

These kinda games would benefit from gamepass solutions. You can’t blame steam for your sales
 

Dr.Morris79

Member
I'm starting to reconsider that physical copy now. I have a feeling this'll be worth a fortune in time..

Genre?

Failed games that tried 'social' engineering, and shit the bed royally.

I'm telling you now. Worth Millions in twenty years! :messenger_sunglasses:

🦄
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Dark Souls Gamer GIF by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment




The biggest mistake companies made is thinking those people have money in the first place.

Saw something on Harley Davidson reverting their DEI policies and the first thing I though was why did they ever think those kinds of people could (and/or would) ever buy their products anyway? It's just insanity.
I’m $150,000 in debt because I got my degree in sociology. I live with my situationship and mostly post on r/antiwork all day. But if I had money I’d definitely buy this game.

Thers a Trigger button and all. If i didnt knew better i would thought this game was a parody.



Im no longer friends with Press X for doubt. Press triangle to get triggered is my new best friend.

Oh my god, this is so stupid you can’t even parody it. It’s like if you let Resetera design a game with a bunch of diverse, queer, self inserts as the heroes and the CHUDs as evil fascist villains. It just warms my heart seeing this game bomb so bad, fuck these people.
 

BigBeauford

Gold Member
The launch of Dustborn seems to have gone rather badly, at least as far as Steam data is concerned. Released on August 20, it's a single-player action-adventure game that tells a story about hope, love, friendship and robots. In it, players explore the stunning landscapes of the new-west in an alternative North America and form teams, manage relationships, complete missions and face increasingly difficult challenges. Unfortunately, since its launch, the game has only seen a peak of 83 simultaneous players, with 28 playing it right now.

dustborn_eEafwEs.JPG

Dustborn has also been released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, so it's possible that the game is seeing greater uptake on those platforms.

via Eurogamer
Holy omission batman! That is some over the top glazing by Eurogamer.
 

simpatico

Member
We can hope and pray the Norwegian gov doesn’t bail them out or allow them to write off the losses. Investors need to lose every single cent. We need foreclosures, cars being sold, furniture auctions, the whole enchilada. All I know is, if there was a game about being a theocratic ultra-nationalist, I would buy it even if it sucked. These folx can’t even support each other.
 
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