Days Gone (Sony Bend) [PS4, PC]

It's worked out so well for everyone with CyberPunk 2077...

 

It's for this reason that I own two copies of Deus Ex Human Revolution. Without knowing anything about it other than hearing of the legacy of first game, I bought the disc version for £10. Just from the intro music of the menu, I knew I was in for a treat, and as I played, the apparency of that treat grew. An hour or so in, I knew I'd underpaid. Within days, I bought the digital version.

I have a vague recollection of a PS+ version factoring into that too, so I might even, sort of, own three copies of that glorious game.

 

Outliners for the win

 

Semantics

 

I think it's a very different standing between "buy a game at launch" and "buy a game at full price". The first almost suggests for people to not wait for reviews and make impulse purchases (and it's a shitty advice nonetheless), whereas the second is just a level-headed statement (probably a fact on most AAA titles).


Here's further clarification from John Garvin on that comment:

 

It makes sense for them to want highly rated and high return games. Its just odd that a game that was pretty well recieved with a 71 metascore and a 8.3 use rrating didn't get a sequel or even DLC. I think given a second chance it could have found a larger fan base.

 

71 is fairly low by Sony 1st party standards.

 

I mean I guess , I'm not into sony games much to me. Just saying it seems odd to kill a sequel that sold decently enough and has a high fan game. I mean Knack was a 54 and knack 2 was a 69...

Maybe sony thinks the team can be better used with a different ip ? But it seems a shame since So many of sony's games are deep into sequel territory now.

 

Do we know if Days Gone sold well? And if so how many of those sales were at full price vs some type of heavy discount? I'm assuming the game must not have been that profitable to get a sequel pitch canned.

I believe the Knack games are the only 1st party games with a lower metacritic than Days Gone the entire generation.

 

Nope, but as eastmen said above it's not necessarily about how well any one title does, it's the expectation Sony had of it and whether or not Sony felt the team could sell more of another game based on a different IP. And I can't state this enough, as somebody who really liked Days Gone, the post-apocalypse zombie-esque survival games are everywhere, I'd bet most of this is because Sony wanted Bend to come up with somethings new/fresh.

 

No idea how it really did

https://twistedvoxel.com/days-gone-seventh-best-selling-game-2019/

Seems to have done decently

 

Days Gone Old Sawmill Dynamic Theme (PS4) for Free (Today Only)
https://slickdeals.net/f/14980403-days-gone-old-sawmill-dynamic-theme-ps4-for-free-today-only

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.eu...-petition-demanding-sony-approves-days-gone-2

Now 85k. That's enormously impressive for a random gaming petition.

 

I'll cry a thousand raging rivers if Sony does not do a sequel.

 

It would rate quite a bit higher if it wasn’t so buggy at launch. The fact it got 71 is quite good considering the issues it had IMHO.

 

I dont think we should blame people for buying the games on sale or relying on piracy.
The bigger the inequality gap, the more people are struggling, the less likely they are willing to pay full price.
€70 for a game is priced like a luxury item for a lot of people struggling with debt, all kinds of responsibilities and lack of time.
On one hand we have an industry that requires a lot of money and effort to produce something great, and on the other we have people wanting to enjoy them but not living in the conditions that suit such an enjoyment.
The economy doesnt help neither sides.
It actually tends to reward the easy way, frivolous entertainment, "fast food" designed products more, which will eventually sacrifice a lot of the creativity of the talented people so it will feed consumers with low quality products, who are struggling with limited budget and time. Products are designed to attract people towards this kind of consumption.
I am working as a 3D artist for mobile games, and I have to say that I am not enjoying what I am getting out there for people as lower risk products, nor the pressure that the developers of AAA products may be experiencing to meet the expectations of a very competitive, high risky industry that needs tenths of millions to break even.
The economy is putting a lot of pressure on creative expression.
And as the inequality gap increases, free to pay models, subscription based models, models exploiting wickedly behavioral economics to make people spend more time and money unconsciously are becoming more of the norm.

 

May 18, 2021

 

And neither do I, and certainly neither does John Garvin whose comments sparked all the outrage on social media.

His position is explained in the tweets posted above, and it has nothing to do with blaming the poor.
Early game sales at full price is usually the biggest indicator of how much money the game makes (especially SP titles with no MTX or DLC of course). How much money the game makes determines whether or not a sequel gets greenlit.

A bad economy just makes all companies more risk averse, not just videogames publishers. In a bad economy, the threshold of initial sales at full price that a game needs to achieve just gets higher.

 

The economy is in general problematic by design since it is profit driven. Everyone has to "cannibalize" from each other's income to get profit and thats exacerbated by the fact that growth is tight to the issue of debt, which adds even more pressure or incentive to increase profits at any costs. And the most "efficient" but destructive way to do that is to use the fast food model. Standardize to reduce cost, target urges that can be satisfied for the short term, use behavioral economics and psychological factors to dictate habitual consumption (its a myth that products/services are designed only around needs. They are designed to create or increase needs or their urges too), all at the expense of quality. The Fast Food industry grew immensely during the "good times", and they targeted on the fast access, limited time, work needs, parental insecurities due to limited time etc. They sacrificed health and the eating habits became unhealthy in many regions of the world because of that industry.
With these kind of industries the market changes to accommodate even more the "fast food" consumption. With entertainment and social media there are costs on the mental well being.
Quality and social benefit is many times "inefficient" in our economy. It requires more expensive processes, more time, more effort and when it comes to entertainment, sophistication is harder to digest, less likely to be consumed. So it is better to make people consume cheap, "brain dead" products and cultivate those habits.
You can see this becoming more and more apparent in music, games and movies.
This is why I am font of Bhutan's economic model, that focuses on Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product

 

Oh no no no no no. No. Nope.
I know better than to engage in RPSC talks in anywhere but the RPSC sub!




In the meanwhile, Sam Witwer (Deacon's Actor) did an AMA yesterday to promote the Days Gone PC port and when asked about what fans could do about a sequel he said the following: