7mo ago

Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

www.rockpapershotgun.com

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7mo ago

Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

www.rockpapershotgun.com /frostpunk-creators-cancel-project-8-and-lay-off-staff-amid-concerns-that-narrative-driven-story-rich-games-dont-sell

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7mo ago

Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

www.rockpapershotgun.com /frostpunk-creators-cancel-project-8-and-lay-off-staff-amid-concerns-that-narrative-driven-story-rich-games-dont-sell

21 comments

Ummmm......Baldur's Gate 3, anyone? How about Dragon Age: Veilguard? Those are just off the top of my head.
- Don't forget that everyone has a hard-on for Witcher 4.
  
  Dude my GPU is so hard for Witcher 4 the fans started to hum "the bad touch" ever since the trailer ran!
  
  Except for those neets complaining that Ciri isn't "hot" for some reason.
- BG3, yes. Massive success.
  Veilguard is a massive flop. It sold a lot compared to other games, sure, but based on the amount of money they spent and time in development, that was a shit investment. They were expecting like 10m sales, doing 1.5 instead according to whistleblowers.
  
  I'm sure it saved time starting from the template from Hogwarts legacy. The real problem is veilguard isnt an RPG. Divinity original sin 2 is a better game IMO.
- Yeeah.. this sounds the usual "Why, why aren't these games selling?" fans screaming, explaining what's wrong, begging "Guess this kind of games just don't sell"
- Dragon age isn't a particularly good example. It was a massive flop.
- Why are you citing mechanically rich games that happen to have a story?
That's a shame. "Narrative-driven, story-rich games" are mostly all I play. Just because people spend more time in strategy or MOBA games doesn't mean they're more popular, just that they take more time and don't have a designated end point, so people come back to play more often. But we still enjoy story-rich games and they'll still sell.
This is why Call of Duty has turned to garbage. Because they realized they could get more gameplay out of the multiplayer mode, so they stopped making good campaign modes and focused all their energy on multiplayer and pushing microtransactions. It's literally prioritizing money over quality gaming.
And I know, they're a business and the goal is to make money, but who can remember a fun multiplayer level? What even is the point in getting invested long-term in multiplayer when they're releasing a new game every 1-2 years? Counter-Strike has been mostly the same for decades and was extremely popular because it was so well-known and hardly changed. It only recently released a sequel, which was basically just a huge patch to the original game. Meanwhile, my memory of Call of Duty multiplayer games is fuzzy because I've played so many over the years and none really stand out to me.
- Do they consider frostpunk a “story rich game”? If that’s what all story rich games were like, I’d play more of them - most of them feel like cereal box toys, and I’d generally prefer just reading a book so the subpar gameplay isn’t all I’ll remember.
  
  Both Frostpunk 1 and 2 had fans requesting a sandbox mode and endless modes without victory conditions. They finally did it for 1 and made it a part of 2... but it was clear the drive of the fans (open ended sandboxing) was at odds with the devs wanting to using narrative and story to govern game mechanics.
- Are they publicly traded? Being publicly traded is just the death of game companies, some decisions have to be based on more than profit.
  They also have a really good universe in Frostpunk they could explore through other game-styles.
  
  In the article they do post about "investor concerns"
You can’t sell endless in-game micro transactions in a single player game. Gotta get to work on League of Fortnight: Apex of Duty
Disco Elysium refutes this take.
Aren't they 99% of AAA games?
No, it's because frost punk 2 sucked on every level. People are screaming for narrative driven story Rich games, and what you provided was a bare minimum politics simulator with a minor aspect of City build survival with very little story, and a extremely difficult game to actually balance
And all of this is disregarding the fact that frostpunk one was already fairly steep in price for what you got, and then frostpunk 2 released at and even higher price for even less game.
This is them seeing their failure that is frostpunk 2 and not being able to build on any of the constructive feedback that they've gotten from any of their bad reviews, and saying oh well we can't be the problem people must not like story anymore.

21 comments