It had more platforms to sell to. But I think if I'm being honest, you were forced to buy HB1 back in the day. Buying was trying. It doesn't mean you liked it enough to make a purchase for a sequel.
Market/business performance of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 *spawn
- Thread starter XboxKING
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L
there was a demo and also it released on a competing platform with more than double the install base first compared to what Xbox has now
That's true. Honestly, I bought the first HB because of the pitch Ninja Theory made, when they talked about double A, and it launched on GOG. So I bought the game to support a studio I like, on a storefront that I like, without DRM that I don't like. The game was also cheaper than a normal game. $29.99 or 39.99 IIRC. I ended up liking the game quite a bit, so that's great as well. If Hellblade 2 gets released on GOG, I'll buy that as well. If not, I'm happy to have played it on Gamepass.
Again, not debating expected market performance where I stated all this here - only challenging the assertion that HB2 is niche and couldn't be expected to sell well. Its direct comparator in terms of niche-ness was its precursor and that did sell well.
I think we've got different perspectives on what niche and success is. Generally speaking, like Pillars of Eternity is niche, and it sold terribly, despite having rave reviews. But in the same vein Baldur's Gate is also niche, but is a complete standout exceptions to the rule. These types of games during development are never expected to hit the numbers that Monster Hunter is hitting, or Assassin's Creed, even the bad ones. Avowed is niche, you're going to see similar response to this title as well - doesn't matter how much MS markets Avowed, people are going to say it's just not for them.
That's what I mean by, 'niche'. The TAM is just smaller for that specific type of game, setting, subject matter etc. Just because it's a first party game with a lot of money invested into it, doesn't mean it's going to be a 'breakout' title like Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate are. These type of break through titles don't come around often.
Hate to be the guy that says it, RTS games are niche now. Once upon a time, they were totally mainstream and all the rage. If MS greenlight another Starcraft, despite how amazing the potential could be, it's unlikely to sell more than your run of the mill mainstream title.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
No. Metacritic scores are either something we can talk about or not. Now you're inserting your tastes into it. Hellblade 2 received good reviews overall.
You're not a free market capitalist, I get it, but I'll defend profit driven capitalism to my dying breath as the ONLY system that has ever alleviated poverty and human suffering in the history of our planet and I realize that this is getting into political talk, but so is the statement about greed. So I'll agree to stop defending capitalism in the game forum as long as you agree to stop tearing it down.
Of course, but that doesn't change the fact that MS has 30 studios and from the games showcase they have a SHIT TON of games coming and decided they didn't need 2000 of their 22,000 devs. Probably a wise decision, but we don't know enough about behind the scenes to know. It didn't surprise me after seeing the firehose of content coming that MS didn't think Hi Fi Rush 2 was a priority anymore.
I bought the first, couldn’t finish it, and I just see a much deeper HB in HB2 over 1. And I’m fairly convinced I won’t like it. I’ll give it another shot due to GP, but we can review a game on its merits and give it scores it’s deserves and not necessarily be a super seller. A lot of niche titles are given 90s that are never bought for instance.
Flight simulator 2024 is the most realistic game out there. Super technologically advanced. Incredible reviews, best in class for its genre. Very few people play it. that is what niche is to me. I view HB2 to be like Flight simulator. It’s a game, but not really a game.
I’m not even political here about it. I’m close to people that have made those decisions, it’s ultimately just trying to achieve forecast and keeping shareholders happy. That’s all, I’m not going to deep dive into this. Obviously there are many reasons why cuts do happen, but not all of it is performance based. And we are currently in a cycle of removing labour before it’s absolutely necessary.
I think Satya put it eloquently, I wish we weren’t so hasty in terminating windows phone.
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake
Nadella, Gates, and Ballmer have all admitted to Microsoft’s mobile mistakes.
www.theverge.com
Having said that. There is a country that isn’t capitalist, that under 50 years has gone from mud huts to being one of the most technologically advanced society. So I would disagree with you on that statement that it is the only system. I don’t want this to get political, but you go back 50 years ago and see what some of these cities looked like.
I don’t know why they the closed the studios, but I’m just saying it’s a very big trend right now (in all industries) to layoff prematurely for shareholder benefit.
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One would also need to go back to pre-money to evaluate 'poverty' and quality of life. Kinda hard to be poor when there's no such thing as money and you have as much as you can make/harvest/catch/build with your own two hands.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
That wasn't what you argued though. I said it reviewed poorly and it didn't.
Yes, but keeping shareholders happy about their ROI is a good thing, not a bad thing. It is THEIR money after all.
You're making a political argument in the game forums. I disagree with your statement, but you can't have it both ways. Either allow the debate here, or stop making political arguments in the game forums.
The "noble savage" is a myth long since debunked by anthropologists. Life was BRUTAL before capitalism. Of the last 100,000 years about 99,700 were absolute dog shit. The main reason people are anti-capitalist is because they are ignorant of this fact.
I agree that this isn't the place for politics so I'm going to stop, as long as everyone else, including those who disagree with me, can't make political statements either.
Frenetic Pony
Veteran
A ton of Hi-Fi Rushe's "3 million players" were on Gamepass, and didn't play much of the game. The completion rate, which we can judge from achievement % (14% of players beat the last boss), is half that of even an average game.
That's, in a way, good for players. They could, theoretically, deliver only money to developers of games they actually end up playing, instead of buying just because the PR campaign was good.
The problem with this price signalling is it goes through the profit seeking and largerly arbitrary intermediary of Microsoft. Gamepass contracts appear to be written out based solely on expectations of executive rather than any underlying reality whatsoever (they expected Baldur's Gate 3 to be a cheap third tier title they didn't have to pay much for, as far as I understand it if Larian had gone with Gamepass they'd have lost tens to hundreds of millions on the outside), for third parties Microsoft's motivation is to take as much profit as possible, and by making things opaque to both players and developers they gain an even bigger leverage than Steam does.
Thus Gamepass ends up being bad for developers beyond those perhaps seeking to "longtail" or rather get as much money out of already established and spent games as they can. There developers already have good information on how well the game did, how much it's worth, and have already leveraged what they can out of playerbases that aren't on Gamepass. So Gamepass ends up being like Sony porting over first party titles to PC, though probably worse than than the most successful ports, still on average just some extra $ rung out at the end of a game's relevant life.
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I agree, it's a double edged sword here for developers. If you did well but didn't expect to, MS got a great deal off of you. You didn't do well but expected to, you probably got a deal from MS.
I don't think companies go in expecting to be a breakthrough hit like BG3 was. MS probably offers what they feel the chance a game would hit it large and skew it in their favour. For many developers that struggle to find their crowd, launching day 1 for them can still be wildly profitable in the right circumstances.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Depends on the deal. EA thinks it's worth it and they're huge. Devil is in the details, as usual.
Activision avoided Xbox Game Pass — and this new report reveals why
Xbox Game Pass finds itself under intense scrutiny
According to a report from the UK's Competition and Market Authority (CMA), Activision Blizzard has avoided launching games on Xbox Game Pass because the company believes that doing so would cannibalize B2P (buy-to-play) sales. The company analyzed new releases and found that those launched through Xbox Game Pass yielded less money from direct purchases.
While Activision has not said this directly, the information comes from what Microsoft submitted to the CMA: "An important reason for Activision not offering current content on MGS is because MGS sales would cannibalise Activision’s B2P sales, which are a key source of and driver of revenue for Activision." This is surprising, considering Activision has seemed keen on being acquired by Microsoft.
The report continues, "in the rare cases where Activision has contemplated placing its content on MGS services, its ordinary course documents consistently reflect Activision’s view that MGS services, regardless of platform, severely cannibalise B2P sales, particularly in the case of newer releases."
This is no longer relevant, because putting a 3rd party AAA blockbuster game on Gamepass could obviously cannibalize B2P sales. But a first party game, and Activision is now a first party studio, those hypothetical cannibalized sales aren't just losses, because they are offset by revenue from the subscriptions.
yeah, Lumia were amazing phones at the time, and many people started to buy them 'cos of their upbringing and Windows influence. I had a Lumia phone and I absolutely LOVED it. It performed well -it was the only phone I ever played seriously, enough to complete a game using a GBA emulator-, it was from MS, and I remember that at the time Windows Phone had a 3% of the market share, which wasn't much, but in the context of phones, that's a LOT.
You can start building from that. MS has a lot of connections with telecoms companies around the world. Windows Phone was so refreshing. I am okay with Android, but I am not a big fan of Apple and it hurt losing the Windows Phone and having to switch.
Actually it still is relevant because the negative correlation/relationship between cumulative sales revenue and subscriptions are still there, while debunks the myth claimed by some that Gamepass is a good deal for AAA third party devs. In line with this relationship between AAA game costs and revenue, Gamepass doesn't show any promise that Gamepass brings enough subscriptions/money in to cover the costs of new AAA releases as the list of gamepass games increases. The only difference when it comes to covering the costs of productions for these games is that MS is absorbing all of it for themselves to be a loss leader in subscription based game services at the expense of the game project.
That correlation only exists for titles in which sales are largely known. You can't use CoD as a measuring stick when it's one of the most bought games each year. Although even then, MS is doing it. This is perhaps the greatest experiment I've ever seen. MS could very well disprove it if COD is wildly successful in driving new subs. It most certainly will drive new players to the COD platform.
When you make your arguments, I assume you are putting heavy consideration that studios are closing all the time without being on gamepass. You know this better than anyone here. I'm having a difficult time understanding your positioning here, it does heavily come across that gamepass is somehow killing the market or it's killing xbox or the studios within xbox. But I don't think you're seeing the economics of it correctly.
I had a Windows phone and it was the greatest portable media player I ever owned. The interface was snappy and intuitive, and I had one of the cheapest models available - some bargain basement prepaid model that was old enough to go on clearance. I bought the phone just to play with the OS and ended up loving it.
Do we know for sure that Microsoft is losing money on Gamepass? That would be required for it to be a loss leader.
And the fact the Microsoft is absorbing all of the profits from Gamepass is the obvious point of putting a title on Gamepass. It takes about 4.11 months of Gamepass (at $17) to match the revenue from a retail sale of a AA game (at $70). And that makes a whole lot more sense if you are Microsoft as the provider of Gamepass than it did for Activision as a 3rd party.
Yes. From the information available, there is nothing that shows that Gamepass growth can offset the costs of AAA production projects. MS has the luxury to negotiate a compensation for third parties and let the third party take the risk of opportunity cost or the risk of loss. With first party AAA titles though? All the costs are MS's to handle.
MS's wording and transparency regarding it's profitability in total and in relations to AAA games has been shady. Profitable? Maybe as a total. With a big question mark. Profitable as per costs as per first party AAA production? Highly unlikely. AA is in line exactly with what I stated earlier. It is more suitable for smaller projects and smaller length games.
The closures of studios even for titles that were considered suitable and successful, Gamepass subscription growth show a business model that doesn't seem like it can support AAA titles.
Forbes observes very similar issues with Gamepass as a business model
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...hange-and-call-of-duty-can-help-pave-the-way/