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[Sohurmk833]

Here is Google bigAIbrain summary which matches what I actually see:
"Regarding "incel" in the context of Highguard, there are no credible reports or search results linking the game or its development to that community. One social media post mentioned it in a non-constructive way regarding player numbers, but this is not a factor in the game's official narrative. "

Ever since Concord there has been this weird attempt to merge woke with GaaS but these two things are not the same just because one big GaaS failure was hamstrung by its shitty woke character designs.
Highguard:

Concord:

Different.

Woke doesn't start with terrible character design. Woke starts with DEI hiring practices and purple haired clowns working in video game development instead of actual coders and artists. The shitty character design is just the result.

 

[TheLikou]

My barber is a huge apex guy so I had him check it out.
He dug it and bought skins. Oof. Sorry dude!

Recommend him Horizon Hunters Gathering next to make up things.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

It's extraordinary how much use this meme gets in gaming.

 

[Mengy]

Well, they gave it a shot. Tough luck, but sadly the game just wasn't very fun.

If only they had made a spiritual successor to Titanfall instead.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

The team is excited to release one final game update to enjoy in the remaining life of the game. We'll be adding a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees!

The report told us that they held back content that was ready so they could drip feed them later. If they had just gave us ALL the content all at once, maybe it wouldn't be so boring.

It reminded me of when Valve making Half-Life 1, and the game just wasn't fun. And they decided to just cram every single good idea they had that was spread out, and instead cram them all into the 1st level. And THAT worked.

Maybe all the content they made but kept for later, could have been in the base game from the beginning?

 

[Dorfdad]

 

[NickFire]

Woke doesn't start with terrible character design. Woke starts with DEI hiring practices and purple haired clowns working in video game development instead of actual coders and artists. The shitty character design is just the result.

The hiring practices are a major problem in gaming. No matter what side of the coin a dev is on the audience is the audience. And one side seems to despise the audience, which will naturally make it harder for their work to cater to the audience. Hence, why there was such a concerted push by some to create a narrative that the audience was different than reality would suggest. It was the only way possible to get major funding for games no one actually wants.

This game does not look like it was designed to cater to a phantom audience if I'm being honest. I think it's biggest issues are design flaws (maps too big for small teams) and trying to appeal to so many that it ends up appealing to no one. But the latter could have been caused by refusal to cater to the actual audience. No way to really know though. It could have been nothing to do with animosity towards the normal audience and instead based on pure greed to capture the Fortnite crowd.

 

[DonF]

I truly dont get why they have to 100% pull the plug on the thing. Why not leave it without support for like 6 months. Metas change, people find new strategies. Its not a super shitty game, it has a weird loop and when it works, its fun. I played 8 matches and thats it.

 

[Arsic]

I truly dont get why they have to 100% pull the plug on the thing. Why not leave it without support for like 6 months. Metas change, people find new strategies. Its not a super shitty game, it has a weird loop and when it works, its fun. I played 8 matches and thats it.

Because the concurrent player base is 100 people literally and this isn't a charity business?

Tencent isn't here to support a lost cause. They are scrambling with Riot to sell more Lux gooner skins now this year in league to offset this.

 

[diffusionx]

I truly dont get why they have to 100% pull the plug on the thing. Why not leave it without support for like 6 months. Metas change, people find new strategies. Its not a super shitty game, it has a weird loop and when it works, its fun. I played 8 matches and thats it.

because live games cost a lot of money to maintain. If you have say 10 people making $10k a month maintaining the game (probably much more than this), and all the infrastructure, you need people playing it and spending money. At some point you lose the critical mass of people to keep it viable. Probably well before you reach a player count of 100.

I guess theoretically they could just say no more updates we'll keep the servers on but even that is not free and they're probably going out of business anyway.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

 

[Madserb2023]

The economic model for live service is faulty. It's a lot like gambling. If you win then you can win big, but if you lose you go out of business. Unlike single player games where it can potentially bomb at launch but as with movies, you can through word of mouth potentially have sales over the long term and become a cult classic. However if a live service game fails out of the gate, they can't maintain the cost of the servers and the game just disappears from existence. Combine that with the fact that you have to complete directly for time with the competition at launch. Resident Evil doesn't have to compete witn Silent Hill for your time for example. The combination is to big a risk in my opinion.

 

[winjer]

 

[Esppiral]

I feel bad for the devs

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The economic model for live service is faulty. It's a lot like gambling. If you win then you can win big, but if you lose you go out of business. Unlike single player games where it can potentially bomb at launch but as with movies, you can through word of mouth potentially have sales over the long term and become a cult classic. However if a live service game fails out of the gate, they can't maintain the cost of the servers and the game just disappears from existence. Combine that with the fact that you have to complete directly for time with the competition at launch. Resident Evil doesn't have to compete witn Silent Hill for your time for example. The combination is to big a risk in my opinion.

As long as top played games like Fortnite, CS2, COD etc.... all rule the roost I dont see game companies reducing their GAAS gambling.

Only way is if all the corporations and investor groups smarten up and heavily reduce funding hoping to score the next Fortnite Killer. That way all these studios begging for money can only get approved for modest games that dont cost $50-100M + ongoing live service maintenance costs.

 

[Esppiral]

Was this a free to play game?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Was this a free to play game?

Yup

 

[Danny22]

Marathon becoming a flop like this is highly important because that game has the highest chance of being a hit out of all of these games. It also represents everything that is wrong with modern Sony (overpaying for bungie, going crazy for GAAS, shutting down and ruining careers of hard working people who actually loved video games from Japan Studios to Bluepoint)

 

[MALpractice311]

Fairgames and the Jade Raymond game are different games. Also there is Project Gummy bears. Yeah, Sony still have a lot of thash to release or cancel.

Partially correct. Partially incorrect. Jade Raymond was the head of the studio behind Fairgames, until about 6 or 8 months ago. So it started out as Jade's game, but it's not anymore.

 

[PeteBull]

Partially correct. Partially incorrect. Jade Raymond was the head of the studio behind Fairgames, until about 6 or 8 months ago. So it started out as Jade's game, but it's not anymore.

Was so good when she finally got exposed for being DEI hire w/o even tiny bit of talent, literally every time after AC2 where she had to do something by herself and relay on her own talent she fumbled it hard
As soon as she got older/uglier she had 0 value for gaming industry, she was born in 1975 aka could be mother of half of gaffers already
On a positive side she knew her assigment even back then in 2007, smile and look pretty, none of that bossbabe bluehair attitude yet:

 

[EN250]

Marathon becoming a flop like this is highly important because that game has the highest chance of being a hit out of all of these games.

HOW? The game looked like a generic mix of everything done before in the same field, execpt for the horses, I can't think of a game featuring horses in a Hero Shooter and that in itself is not something innovative or special at all, not when you have Elder Ring's horse shitting every other form of transportation in any game


Sony getting scammed by Bungie got shit to do with this failure of a game, they got desperate when MS was buying Publishers left and right, any other sane person would have tell them to buy FROM or go big and aim for Kadokawa, but no, they thought GAAS trash was the norm going forward and now are stuck delivering flops

 

[falconhoof]

So they did launch the game because they were running out of runway and not because they thought it was complete.

That kinda makes the big announcement worse. They should have marketed the product as an early test to get feedback, improved the game to show they were listening and built up from there. Though that doesn't solve their financial state, but then that's a whole other topic. Maybe they had future funding cut that had previously been promised, so were left in a tough state. But to launch the game as complete now looks like they were trying to lie to the audience instead of being honest and that doesn't deserve any good will.

 

[Danny22]

HOW? The game looked like a generic mix of everything done before in the same field, execpt for the horses, I can't think of a game featuring horses in a Hero Shooter and that in itself is not something innovative or special at all, not when you have Elder Ring's horse shitting every other form of transportation in any game


Sony getting scammed by Bungie got shit to do with this failure of a game, they got desperate when MS was buying Publishers left and right, any other sane person would have tell them to buy FROM or go big and aim for Kadokawa, but no, they thought GAAS trash was the norm going forward and now are stuck delivering flops

Sony shouldn't buy anything Japanese, they have no respect for actual hard working devs and will probably close them down when the balance sheets indicate less dollars.

And while Marathon looks meh to me, its still the one with the hype, its still Bungie, it still has a higher chance than Concord, Fairgames or whaetever generic stuff they're making.

 

[EN250]

Sony shouldn't buy anything Japanese, they have no respect for actual hard working devs and will probably close them down when the balance sheets indicate less dollars.

And while Marathon looks meh to me, its still the one with the hype, its still Bungie, it still has a higher chance than Concord, Fairgames or whaetever generic stuff they're making.

I'm not saying they should, just that given the circumstances of your competitor buying everything under the sun like it was supposedly happening back in 2022 where MS bought Activision Blizzard and Bethesda while stating they'd keep buying publishers like if it was nothing, the best counter shouldn't have been buying Bungie, but something more in line with their work