• tarsisurdi
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    14 days ago

    Paying for it is not the problem at all, in fact it’s preferred over a freemium model.

    The practices I mostly refer to are:

    • microtransactions in any context;
    • requiring additional software (PSN overlay) that doesn’t support all platforms;
    • PSN account requirement for a game that’s sold on Steam (have they forgotten about the shitshow that was Helldivers II?).

    EDIT: history has also told us that paying upfront for a hero shooter doesn’t work out in the long term if the game wants any shot at being popular, just look at Overwatch’s failure to capitalize on it’s momentum by not becoming free-to-play earlier (and everything else wrong with Blizzard and their management).

    • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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      14 days ago

      But those points are not the reason this game flopped. Lot of games have micro transactions and are popular. Other games require additional account (and even launcher in some cases) and are still popular. While these arguments are in fact negative, they are not the reason the game failed. If Sony comes to this conclusion too, then they will not learn anything from it. So I hope they analyze it better.

      In example the initial trailer reveal wasn’t good. Then the characters and the universe it is in isn’t very interesting, huge problem for a hero shooter. Sony completely ignored the critics from beta test phase. The marketing in general was terrible. Game is not playable on Linux either, which would have gave them some marketing push too. And the timing of the launch day was badly chosen too lot of people and news was focusing on Wukong and Deadlock.

      There are lot of reasons that are well orchestrated together to fail the game. It’s not as simple as the list you gave (in my opinion). Games with worse industry standards get more popular.