Thread 715528995

>5.5 million copies sold
>lose money
What's wrong with the AAA industry and how do we fix it?

>5.5 million copies sold
maybe read your image again

Reminds me of this.

Should have asked Microsoft and Sony for more gamepass/ps plus money

>>715528995 (OP)
I'm more pissed that the big devs have abandoned smaller lower budget games.

Dead Space 1 and 2 both sold around 2 million copies each at release and made a profit but EA wanted DS3 to sell at least 5 million copies and killed the franchise when it obviously didn't. Then they spend huge budgets on trash games like Anthem that fail.

Small, quickly made, and low cost games are profitable. Sure you won't make CoD money but at least you won't lose hundreds of millions of dollars when your shitty live service game fails

>>715528995 (OP)
is this any gud?

>>715529456
Slight above average. Below Lies of P.

Unironically lower the stakes and budget.
Do smaller projects, don't invest to much on publicity, don't go around making projects with a budget bigger than 6 digits that would take your projected customers entire chunk of their lifespan to develop.
If you keep doing projects with large amounts of people involved, lots of experimental hitech on the hands of retards that barely even know how to use it with licences that costs as much as a the game they are selling, then pay several publishers to promote your shit for overpriced ads and having the publish your games trailer in their youtube channel, you are going to have a bad time.
Having budgets on the millions expecting it to regain everything back in a couple of years feels like a mistake.

where do most of the budget go to? Dev or marketing?

>>715529456
It’s fun for a single play through. This game is like dark souls 2, the maps are always harder than the bosses

>>715528995 (OP)
Publishers still believe that if you waste one gorillion dollars in a game you will get two gorillion dollars in a year or so.
And if it fails, the CEO can blame the developers (and replace them with underpaid interns and/or AI) and say some stupid shit like "our next game will be bigger than Star Wars" to keep the shareholders distracted for the next five years.

>>715528995 (OP)
spend too much money and time developing muh graphics

>>715529440
Investors want the CoD money though

because of game pass
/thread

>>715529456
It's a neat little 20-hour Soulslike experience with Fromsoft-level production value. I beat most of the bosses first try, but there's a handful of decently tough but fun ones. There's some really frustrating things too though (like getting mogged by an excessive amount of enemies sometimes)

>>715528995 (OP)
>how do we fix it?
By using AI and hiring jeets to reduce costs

>>715530325
ill consider it.

>players
Probab just got put on gamepass, played by a few million people for an hour or less, then forgotten about. For their next project, they'll probably get pressured by investors for this kind of player count and the profits to match it as if it were a purchase count, and when they fail to meet expectations, they'll get gutted. I honestly don't have any sympathy; these guys have made the same game multiple times and it's been ass each time.

>>715528995 (OP)
>you know that shitty game that flopped and we had to sell it for a dollar? yeah lets call our brand new game that has nothing to do with it that same name so people will think its the same shit

genius idea

>>715530325
I'm still waiting for the update they promised with more mutators. The bosses are kind of pathetic as they are.

>>715528995 (OP)
>5.5 million copies sold
your image says PLAYERS, you dummy

>>715529127
this

>>715530325
one thing i appreciated was that it actually managed to make a slightly interesting giant boss fight. fromsoft has never managed to do this, for some reason

>>715530325
>with Fromsoft-level production value
lol no

>>715529456
Above average for Souls clones.
Really easy. REALLY easy. The main thing that kills you is the wither mechanic that makes you misjudge how much health you actually have.
AI Limit is another fairly fun short one. Also easy, though not quite as much as LotF.

>>715529440
On otherhand. Skyrim has sold over 60million copies.
Yet nobody has tried to make skyrim like game. Not even makers of skyrim.
Game devs are retarded

>>715530461
I think they slapped the title on some random game they had on hand for trademark renewal reasons. If you renew on the 10th year, you get it for another decade.

>>715529839
its not really like ds2, i'd say. more like a DeS and DS1 hybrid

>>715530827
There was that uhh Tainted Grail game that came out recently?

>>715529456
It's mediocre. Devs think appealing to culture-war retards is a substitute for a good game. Just play Lies of P.

>>715530827
>Yet nobody has tried to make skyrim like game
Kingdom Come Deliverance and that indie game about King Arthur that came out recently came to my mind immediately.

>>715530949
Still very much unfinished, and not really open like Skyrim.
Could be a good game in 2 years if they keep working on it though.

>>715528995 (OP)
that is because lords of the fallen is a shitty game.
I played it many years ago, select a lance as my weapon and the character used it like a fucking knife. I know it had a remaster of sorts but I ain't spending money on that.

>>715530880
probably

>>715528995 (OP)
>What's wrong with the AAA industry
Throwing good money after bad
>and how do we fix it?
Fucking stop yo. Just stop.

>>715530827
hard to Bethesda like Bethesda. same with Rockastar games.

>>715528995 (OP)
They paid for licensing to get Fear of the Dark in a trailer so I'm guessing there were other things they spent way more than necessary on as well.

>>715529456
It's the cooler roll slop

Goddamn was the license that expensive or does gamepass really fuck it up that bad?

>>715528995 (OP)
They had the whole friend pass thingy going, of course their player number gets bloated
>>715529456
It's very okay especially for a western soulslike
I like some of the armor and boss designs
The dual world concept isn't exactly good but it's something I guess
Worth it if you get it on deep sale

>>715531090
It's a completely new game by an unrelated dev, probably using the name for >>715530880

>>715528995 (OP)
>players

>>715532652
i honestly liked it more than nu-fromsofts souls catalogue "ds2, ds3, ER, etc.) as it felt like a nice return to form to the demon's souls and dark souls 1 world design. very refreshing to experience again. art direction is definitely worse than DeS and DS1 though

>>715529456
dogshit
imagine ds2, but everything that makes ds2 unpleasant to play is turned up by 10
thats lotf

>>715529456
It is decent. A solid 7/10 game I'd say. I like that it has some weapons and things that the Souls games don't, like flails. Level design is pretty good. Bosses and enemies are mostly forgettable.

Lords of the Fallen 2.0 update has vastly improved the game for me, I give it an 8/10

>>715528995 (OP)
The best thing about that game was the giant hammers. They all gave a really satisfying *BONGgggg* when you hit shit.

>>715532662
and is it good?

>>715534415
Not really. It isn't bad, but there are so many soulslike games nowadays. It has decent graphics, I guess. The bosses suck, they just put 10,000 enemies everywhere to try to create difficulty, and the devs are retarded. I don't know if it got fixed, but upon release the game had really, really bad combat animations that would slide you forward like 10 feet with every swing.

>>715534868
kinda gives me a darksiders 3 vibes so ill pass, thjanks anyways

>>715534943
I'd heavily recommend Lies of P, Nioh 1/2, or First Berserker over Lords of the Fallen. Lords of the Fallen is what you play when you're desperate for a souslike experience and have played everything else.

>>715530640
I was being generous. It actually looks higher budget than any Fromsoft game.

>>715528995 (OP)
>300 million is not enough for profit
I doubt this very much

>>715535104
cool, thanks for the recs

>>715535104
Lords of the Fallen is good if you like coop games

>>715530880
Nah it’s not some random game, it’s actually a direct sequel (despite everything saying it was franchise reboot, it’s not, it’s a very direct sequel with multiple returning characters). The title is just weird. Lotf2 was in development since original game launched, but went through dev hell and swapped developer at least twice. I have no idea why they called it exact same name and lied in marketing that it was a reboot though.

I sincerely hope third game is also just called “Lords of the Fallen” despite also being a direct sequel, just to make it stupidest naming convention for a trilogy in history.

>>715535560
I guess they thought giving the number 2 will alienate the people who didn't play the previous game
Speaking of western soulslike the number 2 definitely didn't hinder Remnant 2 as it became more popular than the first game

>Hmm should we improve bosses? Fix enemy placement? Improve combat animations?
>NO, WE SHALL CHANGE BODYTYPE 1/2 TO MALE/FEMALE AND MAKE A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT AND TRY TO GET CULTURE WAR BUX!!
>AND WE'LL HAVE THE CEO GO ON A WEIRD RANT ON LINKEDIN ABOUT FEMALE CHARACTERS NOT BEING SEXY IN GAMES ANYMORE
>W-What do you mean our game is still not profitable?!?
Lords of the Fallen is a game with 0 identity that was in development hell leading to a bloated budget and sheer desperation from the CEO to try to turn a profit. He even laid off a chunk of his staff.
>inb4 TRANNY YOU JUST HATE MALE/FEMALE
No, actually it is the opposite: If he felt so strongly about it then it should have been in the game from the start, not added like 1.5 years after the game released and done based on a fucking twitter poll. It is the sheer desperation that gets me. As if the reason the game has mixed reviews and has yet to turn a profit is because of body type 1/2 (or a/b) instead of male/female. The priorities are fucked up. Again, it isn't like they just changed the text in a patch and didn't say anything, he went out of his way to make a huge deal out of it hoping to capture some culture war attention.

>>715536083
I didn't play the 1.0 version but didn't they made a big deal about 2.0 being more balanced and polished?

>>715528995 (OP)
>LoTF has 5.5mil PLAYER
>hasn't made a profit
doesn't it have smaller cost production than the other AAA games that also use millions of PLAYERS?
Also are you sure this is not some gotcha, cause the dev go anti-woke? If this is their gotcha, then the millions of PLAYERS for ACS mean they in deeper shit than this game.

>>715536367
I am pretty sure they introduced a friend pass system where you can play with a friend for free if they own the game. I do not know if it is on gamepass or anything like that.

>>715536083
Don’t forget having a guy do voice over in 2.0 version trailer about how character creation was improved so you could make more attractive female characters. Genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever seen. Just say you added new options and improvements to character creation, and show footage of it. Specifically saying “you can make hot chicks now” in a trailer for your dark fantasy rpg is just sad.

They also completely ruined games difficulty. Every patch made game easier and duller, to point it straight up removing a boss fight and cutscene, which means a bunch of later events in game now make zero sense.

They genuinely thought that high player drop off after tutorial was because people ragequit at a scripted death and uninstalled the game. I highly doubt anyone quit because of that, but they could not imagine anyone just quitting because game kinda feels bad to play, they must of quit due to difficulty, so remove more enemies, and lower all the bosses hp!

>>715530591
That thing's intro cutscene is solid.

>>715536695
Well what could they try differently? The games released already. That’s what their data pointed at, players leaving at the end of the tutorial.

In my personal opinion, this game received its massive drop off because of the timeline it released on. This was back when 40xx cards were over priced and hard to get, the performance on this game launch was abhorrent. I’m positive most people left because their systems couldn’t run the game after leaving the tutorial. It wasn’t clear how to enable and disable ray tracing/path tracing back then either.

If they had leant heavier into the dual realm mechanic, they could have gotten a lot further.
Or polishing the combat more, but you know... removing ice skating and then seeing if the balance could be ficed after that.

>>715530461
To be fair, the opening to LOTF1 went HARD, even if the game never delivered.
And the sequel almost goes there, its just a fucking shame its in a slavjank game.

>>715537183
Are you fucking stupid? Why are you defending them MASSIVELY nerfing difficulty and straight up removing content based off incredibly flawed and desperate attempts at gaining wider appeal?

“What could they have done differently?” gee anon, I dunno, maybe not butchered their game for no reason? All they did was piss off existing fans, I genuinely don’t think a single person in existence would hear “they removed the introduction of antagonist and boss fight you are supposed to lose” and decide that the game was suddenly worth playing.

Granted to their credit it’s still accessible if you turn on a kinda hidden setting menu. But it still just a stupid choice that makes new players experience worse because they now don’t get introduced to antagonist (so when he appears later for rematch it makes zero sense), and also completely removed intro for arguably the most important story NPC who initially saves you from that scripted death.

I bet all the budget was spent on marketing

>>715528995 (OP)
CEO here
Don't tell anyone but we are just farming pity points. We made everything back day 1. Stay tuned for more news. We will be dropping something huge in august.

I'm assuming it was on goypass

>>715538120
Hope you learned your lesson and added cute girls in the next game.

>>715528995 (OP)
>What's wrong with the AAA industry and how do we fix it?
Nothing. They probably use legal loopholes to report a loss where there isn't one to pay less taxes. Every industry dies that.

>>715528995 (OP)
*was played 5.5 million times.

>>715529440
>Small, quickly made, and low cost games are profitable.
They are literally the superior games as category.
>>715529456
Polski souls, stolen from from. For me it's the best roll slop. I in 2 years part 2 will release.

>>715530385
He doesn't know

>>715529219
Why is that?

Burn everything and start over.

>>715539319
I swear to God MS os already exploding a friend and i had more problems trying to use the xbox party in these last couple of days than we've had in these past 10 years, they should stop hiring pajeets with GPT PhDs and get some actual humans to work in this

>>715528995 (OP)
>What's wrong with the AAA industry

>>715529456
Better than Lies of P but not amazing.

>>715528995 (OP)
Go chud go *thud*

>>715528995 (OP)
>article says its probably around 2 million sold copies.
Does this imply 3.5 million people played it on gamepass??
A quick google search says the games budget was something over $66 million. They should've made that much money from sales alone inluding tax and steam cut.
Why are studios putting their game on goypass if 3.5 million players only amount to pennies?

>>715528995 (OP)
That's players. Not copies. The game was given away on a few occasions.

>>715538009
Relax you fucking nerd I played this game on release and beat it. Never returned I’m not reading all this stupid spazz out shit

>>715530949
More like Taint Infection. That's not remotely TES-like. They don't even have model variants. Every enemy is identical. It's more of an Avowed clone.
>error; you must wai-ACK!
Do userscripts just shut off at random points? Fucking retard software. It's supposed to wait until the cooldown concludes before posting. That's how 4chanx worked, that's how XT is supposed to work.

>>715530827
fuck are you talking about? it was the beginning of 'bigger world = good' logic

>>715529456
Only played after 2.0 but I thought it was excellent. Not as good as Peak From but definitely better than Elden Ring.
Difficulty is pretty low, around Demon's Souls level, so if that's a deal breaker keep that in mind. Story is pretty forgettable too, but I love the level design, lots of great encounters.

>>715528995 (OP)
Go anti-woke, go broke.

>>715540730
Concord had 700 players total