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[HRK69]

Sure

Why not pause the project and continue when there's room?

 

[Kings Field]

The MP for the first game was amazing.

 

[Saber]

Don't buy this.
Bungie probably said that their game sucks and they need more than "great" to actually have people playing it. Something like having strong appeal.

Also, it was great for who? For internal soycucks or for the gamers? Because we all know what happens when you make game for devs, Concord sure must have being great in the eyes of devs.

 

[Jesb]

I don’t think anyone was asking for a gass version of tlou. All people wanted was an online patch. You just over complicate things.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Shame. I think the wrong game might have been axed.

 

[BlackTron]

I imagine whatever is there will ship in some shape or form with TLOU3 and just be a standard multiplayer.

There is no way a basically complete and great product from all reports just sits there and is being left untouched. There is definitely some tiny team chipping away at it still.

They're currently planning to stretch TLOU2 to two show seasons, and making Intergalactic.

Current indicators for 3 are kinda poor. Sounds like a PS6 game if it exists. Going through both a gen change and a genre change, "in some form" is right...

 

[darthkarki]

Back in the day, multiplayer was simply included with the game - whether it made perfect sense or not didn’t really matter. Uncharted 2/3 had basic Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and even a co-op mode where you could just shoot enemies with a friend. It was fun - not for weeks on end, but it definitely added value to the game.

Yeah, I think you nailed it. I think this is a victim of the tendency for everything to go bigger. Single player games used to have relatively modest multiplayer modes included to add value, but as time went on so many multiplayer games/modes got so big and impressive by themselves that everyone feels they have to "step it up" to compete. Leading to the new Factions mode growing too big to be finished in time to be included in TLOU2, so it became its own game.

But then you have a problem: do you charge for it, or is it free-to-play? Either choice becomes very hard:

• You could follow the traditional model of building a finished product and put out a paid-for game, but who buys a multiplayer game by itself, without a single player mode, and when there are free alternatives? Especially if the idea is it's a finished product that won't continue to grow and evolve, which people expect now.
• You could go free-to-play, but since you don't have the up-front cost to recoup expenses, you have to try to monetize by smaller amounts over a longer period of time, which means you have to support the game over a longer period of time - meaning it's now a live service.

So they kind of put themselves between a rock and a hard place by not planning ahead and realizing that spending all this time and money to make a big product means they essentially have to make it live service to make it worthwhile, which would prevent them from doing other things.

Of course I still feel like, with all of the effort and work put into it already, isn't it better to whip that into something to release? Even just a free multiplayer mode addon to TLOU2? But I guess that's the sunk cost fallacy. The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time and effort, and the last 10% takes the other 90% of the time and effort - without doing some big flashy live service thing, they probably won't make back whatever it cost to push it to some kind of a finished state, so they'll lose less to just drop it. Sad.

 

[Idleyes]

I think they should just release what they've already built as a "5 or 6 year anniversary fan appreciation" DLC for TLOU2 and let player engagement dictate future Factions DLC. Go the paid DLC route, low risk, high potential. It makes sense to recover some of the development costs.

 

[Perrott]

Lmaooool Bungie

As if they know what the fuck they are doing over there

Well, they ended up delivering on their 10 years Destiny storyline (unlike several other studios that made the same promise over the years), so I'd say that makes them as knowledgeable about live-services as the Final Fantasy XIV team.

 

[panda-zebra]

Don't believe this at all. They got scared when destiny started performing crappy. Neil didn't want to lower himself to multiplayer games that needed attention.

Shu's got no reason to make shit up just because, but sure, don the tinfoil apparel and feel free to believe in your own version of the truth.

Naughty dog definitely could have supported this. Helldivers 2 coming out immediately after this got canceled was further proof.

lol. If Helldivers 2 proves anything it's that you can make a game fun for a lot of people over 20 hours, then if you have a shit live service and no real idea how to make your game worth playing over the long term,it's only those who stick it out to make their own fun together in the sandbox that keep at it and continue to enjoy it. Never fell off a game as hard in my life.

Helldivers 2 is a fun £40 one and done game while there's stuff to unlock in the ship, getting all the stratagems etc.. It's a fucking dogturd of a live service after that grinding out mediocre crap and side-grades.

 

[viveks86]

Shame. I think the wrong game might have been axed.

Am I the only one that gets hyped for Intergalactic even more when someone posts this shot or a GIF version of it? Looks so good!

...

Yeah I'm probably alone in here

 

[FoxMcChief]

Am I the only one that gets hyped for Intergalactic even more when someone posts this shot or a GIF version of it? Looks so good!

...

Yeah I'm probably alone in here

 

[EverydayBeast]

Uncharted 2/3/4 MP was beautiful no doubt and years later Sony let go of multiplayer shooters all together (resistance, Warhawk, mgo, Killzone, socom, uncharted etc.) what’s the deal now with games only focusing on one aspect of a game? You need a campaign and multiplayer regardless if it’s good or not let the masses decide.

 

[Xtib81]

And they needed 4years+ of development + Bungie expertise to realise that ?

I'm convinced that it would have been a hit though. A mix of the division and pubg with ND's talent and budget would do wonders.

 

[Felessan]

If it was great Naughty Dog should let someone else finish it / maintain it. Maybe spin off a new team for it. I want this game.

The thing Bungie probably told them that they need 1000-2000 people to work full-time to properly maintain it, that means project will become the sole focus of studio for quite some time. And it was a bummer for ND who though of it as just a little bigger MP initially.

A proper GaaS requires massive dedication of resources (CoD is 3000 people, Mihoyo is about 2000 people per game, Riot is 4000 for 2 games etc). It's not a thing you can just pass to some small support studio to do.

The TLoU2 used 14 outsourcing studios.

Why couldn't they just outsource the whole thing to the studios that had already worked on the game?

The scale of real gaas is different though

 

[Topher]

They made the right choice

 

[ergem]

Agreed. Seems like a waste of so many people's effort and is one of the few Gaas game that I will probably buy day 1

It will probably come as the online component of part 3. And will be supported GaaS-lite. Micro transaction and all but not fully commit to free-to-play business scheme.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

well they do

Helldivers 2, Astroneer, No Man's Sky, Warframe, Roblox, Fornite, COD: Warzone, GTAV: Online, Genshin Impact, The First Descendent and a bunch of others prove you demonstrably incorrect on this.

You might not like them personally, but they're the most popular games right now, and for good reason.

 

[indigoSociety]

Till this day i think this wouldve been PS’s first major GAAS success if it was free to play