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[Ziglax]

The reveal trailer looked like shit which means there was a 95% chance of the game being shit (which it was) so I'm not really sure why they're surprised by the reception. They put an even bigger target on their back by being the final reveal of The Game Awards so they should except the stronger blow-back.

I threw up in my mouth a little when I saw that trailer. It summed up everything that has gone wrong in the games industry: a generic multiplayer shooter, a generic setting, generic art, generic everything. It is probably the product of AI slop and PowerPoint dashboard design.

 

[SHAKEZ]

Ironic, the content they created just wasn't that great, so I do agree. Content creators are the problem.

 

[Generic]

He's right.

 

[Avid Reading Horse]

The content creator/VGA stuff likely just helped speedrun what was going to happen regardless.

 

[Odinnii]

I remember looking at all the Game awards trailers a few hours after the show ended and the Highguard trailer had almost 90% downvotes on IGN's YT with around 80k veiws.

Everyone hated this dogshit game even before any youtubers made content on it.

 

[Interfectum]

Bottom line: They enjoyed the smell of their own farts and was shocked when people said it smelled like shit.

 

[T-0800]

I didn't even finish the mandatory tutorial. It should never be mandatory. I just wanted to jump into a game and check it out and if it grabbed my attention and I felt I needed to I would have returned to the tutorial. Old games didn't force you to read the instruction manual before you were allowed to insert the cartridge.

 

[Toots]

According to Sobel, the period leading up to The Game Awards 2025 was one of the most exciting times of his life.

Huge "i'll be voted prom queen even tho no one likes me at school" vibes from this poor soul.

 

[Felessan]

I thought that it's part of a job to work with content providers for spotlight of the game

But given how things went (no community testing, almost shadowdrop, no work with content creators) - they really understood nothing about live service games

 

[falling into hell]

After more than two years of work on Highguard, the team believed they had something special.

Lol that is what they always think I'm special and every thing I do is wonderful. Too bad bro but the people who played your game didn't think so.

Sobel also claimed he received heavy backlash on social media, due to which he had to make his account private to protect his mental health.

If you actually made a better game you wouldn't need to do that. It's funny these people always have some mental problems if people state opinions they don't like to hear.

 

[Bert Big Balls]

Highguard dev blames content creators for the game's failure - "It was dead on arrival"

Highguard turned out to be a failure for Wildlight Entertainment, and according to the former Lead Tech Artist at Wildlight, the game was labeled a failure before it ever had a fair chance.

www.notebookcheck.net

Bro that's a lot of words. End of the day, your game sucked. The trailer was overhyped and the game didn't look good enough for people to get excited. Of course the numbers were going to be good initially because the game was free, but it soon became apparent that all those youtubers were right the whole time. It's not their fault your game bombed. You just didn't make an appealing enough game. End of story.

 

[NuclearDiarrhea]

When games like Ghost of Yotei don't bomb, these blue haired devs and retard journos like to brag and use it as proof that content creators (specifically ragebaiters) don't have any actual influence and that their views don't align with real gamers, but as soon as a game like HighGuard shits the bed they soon like to blame content creators when its convenient for them to do so all to avoid accountability.

 

[bighugeguns]

When games like Ghost of Yotei don't bomb, these blue haired devs and retard journos like to brag and use it as proof that content creators (specifically ragebaiters) don't have any actual influence and that their views don't align with real gamers but as soon as a game like HighGuard shits the bed they soon like to blame content creators when its convenient for them to do so all to avoid accountability.

I think Ghost of Yotei generated more ragebait money than Sony actually made.

Wonder if some internal people got cut into some of that sweet action.

 

[darrylgorn]

 

[Kokoloko85]

Tbh "content creators" are just becoming sensationalists and worst then media itself.
Peoppe do make way more effort to try and kill a game

 

[GHG]

This is an interesting take from math teacher (and GPU reviewer):



Looks like investors does't give a fuck, they throw shit (invest in games) on the wall and hope that some of it sticks (Fortnite level of success). In the meantime developers of those games are fucked...

Yep, it's been apparent for a while now:

News  Post in thread 'Remedy Entertainment CEO Tero Virtala steps down'

Oct 22, 2025

Someone has to pay for the Firebreak mega bomba.
Seriously gaas titles shouldn't even be greenlit if you can't financially sustain the possibility of a complete failure.
The Max Payne remake might save them.

When it comes to GAAS, for some reason there's very much an "all or nothing" mentality when it comes to publishers/studios in terms of how they approach it from an accounting perspective.

The allure of potentially making Fortnite money means all logic and reason goes out the window.

• GHG

The devs that make all the failures are just collateral damage to them.

 

[Bert Big Balls]

When games like Ghost of Yotei don't bomb, these blue haired devs and retard journos like to brag and use it as proof that content creators (specifically ragebaiters) don't have any actual influence and that their views don't align with real gamers but as soon as a game like HighGuard shits the bed they soon like to blame content creators when its convenient for them to do so all to avoid accountability.

Yup. End of the day, if the game is good, it doesn't matter what backlash it gets. The game usually speaks for itself.

 

[Esquie]

Everything he's saying is spot on. There's a massive social media ragebait problem with games coverage today. If you can't see this, you've probably been baited by it. Highguard had no chance.

Although not a total failure due to how big the IP is, Black Ops 7 is a good recent example of this. It's objectively the best COD multiplayer and zombies in quite a few years, and those two modes are 99% of the playtime for 99% of people. However, the campaign was goofy. It was mediocre and had a giant Michael Rooker boss and weird monsters. Even though it's a tiny, borderline irrelevant part of the game considering 99% of the playtime is in MP and zombies, the social media ragebait machine used it for countless videos and clips for clicks and labeled the overall game terrible. Every discussion of the game online sounded like people were reading a script with how often the same phrases were being used to describe it, which they got from those clickbait videos from their favorite influencers. Vast majority of these people hadn't even played it.

Highguard got buried in the same way, except it was taken to the extreme. Was the game actually good? No, not really, but the insane amount of social media brainrot hate it instantly received was disproportionate to the game's quality. It had no chance whatsoever.

There are lots of games that have overcome "negative content creators" so I think it's bullshit to blame other people. Cyberpunk and No Man's Sky had sort of an uphill battle and passed with flying colors eventually because of the efforts made by the teams.

No there really hasn't been a lot of games that have overcome it, not to this extent, and those two aren't good examples for a number of reasons. NMS came out 10 years ago — this influencer ragebait culture wasn't as prevalent, TikTok didn't even exist back then. CP77 was a massive game that sold like 10 million right off the bat, the situations were different.

 

[ZehDon]

No, I dubbed it "Concord 2" when I the saw trailer. Then I came to GAF, and we all had basically the same initial impression. That's not our fault - that's the Dev's fault for not reading the room.

 

[nemiroff]

That's what the urinalist/reactor ecosystem is about, he's not all wrong. Also, Geoff created the start of the perfect storm.

 

[Fake]

You could also blame Geoff.

 

[Emmy Ator Best]

We were doing so good sniffing each other farts in our echo chamber. How dare you slapping us in the face with reality!

 

[Revolutionary]

 

[Sohurmk833]

Everything he's saying is spot on. There's a massive social media ragebait problem with games coverage today. If you can't see this, you've probably been baited by it. Highguard had no chance.

No there isn't. Nobody ist forced to watch this ragebait and no company is forced to give them ammunition.

 

[Signalis]

Highguard dev blames content creators for the game's failure - "It was dead on arrival"

Highguard turned out to be a failure for Wildlight Entertainment, and according to the former Lead Tech Artist at Wildlight, the game was labeled a failure before it ever had a fair chance.

www.notebookcheck.net

Men_in_Boxes please explain