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[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Don't linger in the Vatican City, it grinds the game to a halt for many hours. Just focus on the main objectives there and push on; you can return later and mop up if you're wanting to.

I'm surprised more people apparently didn't break away from the game early on, due to the game introducing that large hub so early on. It's an okay location, but it sucks out much of the momentum in the plot.

Yea, I made it out of the underground part and trying to ignore side stuff. ha! I find myself just walking around with my journal open trying to get to the main objectives as fast as I can. Which even that I'm terrible at, at times.

 

[diffusionx]

Hey guys, it’s a total mystery whether this game was a commercial success or failure. I’m sure MS has some top secret methodology for determining this. Maybe Gamepass saw a major spike in engagement and new subscribers even though it was met with total apathy on Steam. We just don’t know!

all those people who bought a month of GamePass on Black Friday sale for $10 will surely make up for the lack of actual sales at $70. All I know is that when Aaron Greenberg says that they are happy with the performance of this game, believe him.

 

[Seiryu21]

I think it's super fair to use steam numbers as an indicator of success for Xbox games. Hi fi rush had an abysmal CCU while being on gamepass and we know what happened to that studio.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Hey guys, it’s a total mystery whether this game was a commercial success or failure. I’m sure MS has some top secret methodology for determining this. Maybe Gamepass saw a major spike in engagement and new subscribers even though it was met with total apathy on Steam. We just don’t know!

Its currently showing in most played games on Xbox app. Very few games pop in there. Only game that upset that list was Starfield last year. It also was only SP title in most played games list.

Though, we don’t have numbers. Game is certainly being played on xbox by many players.

 

[mdkirby]

I think Starfield had a massive CCU count. But the interest and expectations for that game were on a different planet.

I mean, whilst perhaps not so high, and whilst the indie IP isn’t what it once was, it’s still indie, and those numbers are exceedingly low.

 

[diffusionx]

I mean, whilst perhaps not so high, and whilst the indie IP isn’t what it once was, it’s still indie, and those numbers are exceedingly low.

Indy has absolutely no pull with anyone under 40 years old. It's just totally irrelevant. No zoomer gives a shit about Indy. This isn't the game's fault obviously, it is more the fault of those awful movies.

 

[Sooner]

Scrutinizing Steam player numbers for games that release on Game Pass on day one is fucking stupid

There are a LOT more gamers on Steam than those subscribed to GamePass on PC.

 

[Sooner]

Indy has absolutely no pull with anyone under 40 years old. It's just totally irrelevant. No zoomer gives a shit about Indy. This isn't the game's fault obviously, it is more the fault of those awful movies.

No one gave a shit about Nathan Drake when Uncharted released either. The quality of the games made them care.

 

[diffusionx]

No one gave a shit about Nathan Drake when Uncharted released either. The quality of the games made them care.

well the idea of making a game with a license is that you use the pull of the license to attract people. It is how companies like Acclaim and Ocean lasted so long lol even though 90% of their games were drek. If your license has no pull, there's no point.

 

[mdkirby]

Indy has absolutely no pull with anyone under 40 years old. It's just totally irrelevant. No zoomer gives a shit about Indy. This isn't the game's fault obviously, it is more the fault of those awful movies.

Fair…shame…they should have had him necking bottles of prime as health packs, with a guest appearance from the YouTuber, that you get to play fisticuffs with in a bar fight.

 

[mayham2199]

People need to realize how colossal this failure is turning out to be. I think the extent of this commercial failure is being slightly overshadowed by good reviews.

For reference, this game has a smaller Steam CCU count than Forspoken (studio shut down), Suicide Squad (game abandoned), and The Callisto Protocol (team laid off).

And it's worth noting that none of these 3 (failed) games had a licensed IP royalty fees attached to it. And none of them launched on Game Pass or PS+, so they must have sold a lot more copies on console that Indiana Jones would be selling on Xbox.

This is a big commercial failure whichever way anyone cuts it.

The royalty fees are the real killer here + GP are the real issue here. Phil already said licensed games like this just don't make sense for them because of GP and he knew that the issue would be that a game that doesn't do very well (outside of GP) takes an even bigger hit because of the license fees.

 

[DirtInUrEye]

Indy has absolutely no pull with anyone under 40 years old. It's just totally irrelevant. No zoomer gives a shit about Indy.

 

[NickFire]

I didn't realize it was a staggered launch. Not sure what the point was if I'm being honest. I don't see much chance that PS5 sales would reduce the gamepass engagement numbers.

 

[Nydius]

Indy has absolutely no pull with anyone under 40 years old. It's just totally irrelevant. No zoomer gives a shit about Indy. This isn't the game's fault obviously, it is more the fault of those awful movies.

Sad, but true. Isn’t just zoomers either, Indy is irrelevant for younger millennials too. See it in my own household. My 32 year old (step)son born in 1992 couldn’t care less about Indiana Jones. They’re “his parents’ movies”, and he’s said as much to both his mom and I in the past.

To him, the action/adventure genre is defined by movies like The Mummy and games like Tomb Raider. He will stop what he’s doing to watch The Mummy in the same way his mom or I will stop to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

[Sephimoth]

Could be worse...

Spoiler

 

[Astray]

Indy has absolutely no pull with anyone under 40 years old. It's just totally irrelevant. No zoomer gives a shit about Indy. This isn't the game's fault obviously, it is more the fault of those awful movies.

It's not just the movies, Lucasfilm has largely failed to keep the franchise alive with successful games comics novels etc.

There are many ways to keep a big IP relevant beyond just films.

 

[mckmas8808]

Key difference is reception. You ever heard of the term "sleeper hit"? Word of mouth has work to do and it will. There's no way this Indy game won't have a sequel greenlight. If we're being real, this is essentially Microsoft's new Halo, or the nearest thing to it.

You can't be serious......

 

[sainraja]

And this here is the exact issue with many gamers today. A fantastic single player game and yet not many people will purchase it cause it’s “only long enough to last a week so rent it on Gamepass”…. Fucking hell I really hate what Microsoft have done to gamers today. Indiana Jones is a brilliant single player game. People, buy the fucking game and show Microsoft this is more of what we want! Stop renting these fucking games and BUY THEM!

To show MS what they want, they can buy it or play it on Game Pass (this, they seem to be doing). I personally bought it but MS would be okay with Game Pass subs and engagement.

 

[BigLee74]

Fuck…

Am I the only guy in the world that didn’t actually mind the last 2 Indy films? I found them quite entertaining Maybe as a guy that remembers seeing the originals at the Cinema as a kid I was a bit more forgiving!

 

[SF Kosmo]

You misunderstood. Microsoft have to cling onto this one big critical darling IP now. It'll obviously never make Halo money or be anywhere near that level of global phenomenon (20 years ago), but Microsoft have NOTHING else as prestigious as this game to offer, so they'll surely back it.

Yeah even the prestige of a critical darling in the AAA space has to be taken as a W for Microsoft given how they have been struggling. In some ways better for the brand than a game like Starfield that sold a lot but disappointed many.

 

[poppabk]

To show MS what they want, they can buy it or play it on Game Pass (this, they seem to be doing). I personally bought it but MS would be okay with Game Pass subs and engagement.

Yeah I am not going to buy a game that I can play on gamepass - defeats the fucking point. MS still get $100 - $150 a year out of me, which is more than they likely would have without gamepass.

 

[mckmas8808]

Could be worse...

Spoiler

Now tell me what you think the budgets were for both of those games.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Don't linger in the Vatican City, it grinds the game to a halt for many hours. Just focus on the main objectives there and push on; you can return later and mop up if you're wanting to.

I'm surprised more people apparently didn't break away from the game early on, due to the game introducing that large hub so early on. It's an okay location, but it sucks out much of the momentum in the plot.

Just finished the Vatican City part. That part was a lot longer than I expected. Even without doing the side quest stuff.
I think the part bothering me about the combat is that you can't really run away or quick turn, so you have to use health when they focus on someone else or fall down or something.
Feels like you're locked into the fist fights when they start.

 

[DirtInUrEye]

Just finished the Vatican City part. That part was a lot longer than I expected. Even without doing the side quest stuff.
I think the part bothering me about the combat is that you can't really run away or quick turn, so you have to use health when they focus on someone else or fall down or something.
Feels like you're locked into the fist fights when they start.

Don't you find the combat mundanely easy though? I'm thinking I might increase the difficulty a touch, and I already raised it up one from the default.

 

[Mattyp]

Now tell me what you think the budgets were for both of those games.

I really don't think Indy was 20x more expensive either.

We'll get Gamepass numbers soon on this, honestly think its healthily into the millions on xbox it's a great game.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Don't you find the combat mundanely easy though? I'm thinking I might increase the difficulty a touch, and I already raised it up one from the default.

depends how many guys you take on i guess. The block/parry and dodge aren't great imo. Not that its hard. Just feels off.

 

[Three]

Now tell me what you think the budgets were for both of those games.

If he wanted to do a fair comparison Lego Indiana Jones 2 has a peak of 137 players ~1/6th of Horizon Lego. Of course comparing to mainline Horizon games, even just on steam, would have been just as embarrassing.

 

[mckmas8808]

If he wanted to do a fair comparison Lego Indiana Jones 2 has a peak of 137 players ~1/6th of Horizon Lego. Of course comparing to mainline Horizon games, even just on steam, would have been just as embarrassing.

Oh snap.....Let me look that up.

EDITED: Oh snap! You're right.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Wait people are comparing lego indiana jones and lego horizon games in here!

This thread is delivering!

 

[mckmas8808]

I really don't think Indy was 20x more expensive either.

You don't think? Maybe not, but it was probably closer to 10-15x more. I'm assuming Indy cost over $250 million to make.

 

[Three]

Wait people are comparing lego indiana jones and lego horizon games in here!

This thread is delivering!

They were comparing mainline indiana jones to lego horizon on steam but yeah crazy comparisons that make no sense other than apple to oranges MS vs Sony comparisons, I guess to cope with these numbers.

 

[TheAtomicPile]

depends how many guys you take on i guess. The block/parry and dodge aren't great imo. Not that its hard. Just feels off.

I think my issue is that the animation / rumble / feedback or whatever on a successful block/parry isn't what I'm used to in a modern game.

I'm playing Rise of the Ronin alongside Indy and a successful parry practically ignites a supernova in that game.

In Indy, I can't always tell if I was successful or not.

 

[Mattyp]

You don't think? Maybe not, but it was probably closer to 10-15x more. I'm assuming Indy cost over $250 million to make.

No where near even 10x, if you watch the Horizon credits they had over 800 people work on this and it wasn’t Lego Studios it was Guerilla Games doing it from scratch.

So let’s assume 800 people, for a 2 year development? Even let’s just say they only worked on it half the time, they where at work so let’s say for $50,000 a year being half a yearly wage of the median income of the majority of people working on it.

I don’t even know if there’s that many in the Indy credits, machine games is pretty efficient with their titles.

$80,000,000 alone. Let alone rent, expenses, advertising. I think this bomb cost them a pretty penny more than people seem to acknowledge, I just don’t know who thought people were begging for this. It might even be a great game I’ve never played it but it was more expensive then people think.

 

[mckmas8808]

No where near even 10x, if you watch the Horizon credits they had over 800 people work on this and it wasn’t Lego Studios it was Guerilla Games doing it from scratch.

So let’s assume 800 people, for a 2 year development? Even let’s just say they only worked on it half the time, they where at work so let’s say for $50,000 a year being half a yearly wage of the median income of the majority of people working on it.

I don’t even know if there’s that many in the Indy credits, machine games is pretty efficient with their titles.

$80,000,000 alone. Let alone rent, expenses, advertising. I think this bomb cost them a pretty penny more than people seem to acknowledge, I just don’t know who thought people were begging for this. It might even be a great game I’ve never played it but it was more expensive then people think.

There's zero chance 800 people "worked" on this game for 2 years. Come on man, don't be like this. To act like the Horizon game cost over $100 million is CRAZY! Lets just stop the nonsense.

 

[Mattyp]

There's zero chance 800 people "worked" on this game for 2 years. Come on man, don't be like this. To act like the Horizon game cost over $100 million is CRAZY! Lets just stop the nonsense.

There’s 800 people in the credits, I said on average for a ‘year’ I think there’s plenty more people that worked on it for more then a year.

This game wasn’t created from scratch start to finish in 12 months we can’t possibly think that.

Even on the low end this game cost into the 10s of the millions of dollars with the studios involved wanted to do it themselves instead I shipping it off to Lego Studios to do.

Nothing against the game but it cost sizeable amount more then people think. What do we think the development time was, at least two years?

 

[Mortisfacio]

I really don't think Indy was 20x more expensive either.

We'll get Gamepass numbers soon on this, honestly think its healthily into the millions on xbox it's a great game.

I would love to see player numbers. This game is quickly becoming a top 3 GOTY for me when I expected to not like it to begin with. I don't think it's going to end up being this smashing success given Indiana Jones isn't a strong IP since the last two movies were terrible. Also I didn't personally see much advertising for this and personally the trailers I saw initially looked like this would be some super forgettable game, but that hasn't been my experience at all. If it weren't for GamePass, I don't think I'd even play this. I wouldn't have spent full price on it because it didn't look good in the lead up to me, but now that I'm playing it, I'm loving it.

 

[Topher]

I really don't think Indy was 20x more expensive either.

We'll get Gamepass numbers soon on this, honestly think its healthily into the millions on xbox it's a great game.

Game Pass numbers for Indy? I don't recall MS ever giving those numbers out before.

I would love to see player numbers. This game is quickly becoming a top 3 GOTY for me when I expected to not like it to begin with. I don't think it's going to end up being this smashing success given Indiana Jones isn't a strong IP since the last two movies were terrible. Also I didn't personally see much advertising for this and personally the trailers I saw initially looked like this would be some super forgettable game, but that hasn't been my experience at all. If it weren't for GamePass, I don't think I'd even play this. I wouldn't have spent full price on it because it didn't look good in the lead up to me, but now that I'm playing it, I'm loving it.

Pretty much agree. Indy is in my top four this year behind Metaphor, Space Marines 2 and Astro Bot. But I wouldn't have played it either had it not been for Game Pass. Perhaps on PS5 when I could rent it from Gamefly. As it is, I put 33 hours in and probably could have gone another 10 if I were going completionist. Lots of fun.

 

[Ronin_7]

People trying to downplay Indiana's failure by bringing up Lego Horizon is one of the craziest copes I've ever witnessed, lmao.

Indiana is a massive failure across the board, and the budget was enormous too.

 

[Mattyp]

Game Pass numbers for Indy? I don't recall MS ever giving those numbers out before.

They do, just typically in tweets by said companies just some of the quickest examples.

Sea of Thieves - 40 million players
Starfield - 15 Million players
Grounded - 20 million players
Flight Sim - 15 million players
Forza Horizon 5 - 40 million players

They may wait for PlayStation release but, they usually wait a year or so to release the figures.

 

[Astray]

Fuck…

Am I the only guy in the world that didn’t actually mind the last 2 Indy films? I found them quite entertaining Maybe as a guy that remembers seeing the originals at the Cinema as a kid I was a bit more forgiving!

The last one was honestly not bad imo, I saw that in theaters. Though it was super weird seeing young Harrison Ford CGI'd on some other dude during the prologue sequence.

 

[DenchDeckard]

People trying to downplay Indiana's failure by bringing up Lego Horizon is one of the craziest copes I've ever witnessed, lmao.

Indiana is a massive failure across the board, and the budget was enormous too.

But its not a failure across the board because it is an absolutely incredible game.

 

[Ronin_7]

But its not a failure across the board because it is an absolutely incredible game.

Oh yeah absolutely.

 

[Topher]

They do, just typically in tweets by said companies just some of the quickest examples.

Sea of Thieves - 40 million players
Starfield - 15 Million players
Grounded - 20 million players
Flight Sim - 15 million players
Forza Horizon 5 - 40 million players

They may wait for PlayStation release but, they usually wait a year or so to release the figures.

Alright, but aren't those total numbers across all platforms?

 

[Beechos]

It's a shame the game is a mighty good game its one of the 1st games in a long time that i wanted to explore the world to find its secrets. I guess things like this is why we see the gaas push for everything.

 

[Mattyp]

Indiana is a massive failure across the board, and the budget was enormous too.

How is it a failure across the board? It’s in the top charts of played games on xbox being beaten out by just the free games, reviewing 9/10, the vast majority of people who play it say it’s up there for GOTY for them, what am I missing? Because a SP adventure game doesn’t have 100,000 concurrent players on steam?

 

[AtomicStarving]

This game kinda Zzazaz. The end is worst than Uncharted 3... omg