![10 game company decisions that backfired badly [pt 3]](https://i3.ytimg.com/vi/E2TH3Wd8Yxs/maxresdefault.jpg)
10 game company decisions that backfired badly [pt 3]
video description
If you are in doubt and can't make up your mind just do everything that's an option.
They could had made one game with everything in but that is difficult and can blow up in their faces. But making several smaller games each with their own direction and approach should still be doable.
Like instead of 1000 people working on a single game just make teams of 100 and make 10 games and spend exactly the same. Easier to manage those projects and chances to bring out something special, something new and interesting, are far more probable.
Date: 2023-10-03
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Comments and reviews: 19
Doomerang01
The issue with Diablo 4 is that most players won't give D4 the same chance as D3. Diablo 3 had the excuse of it being done by a different dev team from the first two with a lot of the unpopular stuff partially being the result of the obnoxious auction house that was forced on it. It did not have any stable foundation to work off of that would satisfy both players and the Activision-Blizzard board, so from what I saw players were willing to give D3 a chance to work through these growing pains once they realized the changes were largely positive.
D4 really doesn't have that growing-pains excuse though, because they had an established formula that is known to work thanks to D3. They also should have been able to understand what players wanted because of how fans reacted to the changes in D3, and the fact that they made such a tone-deaf patch shows that they really didn't take any of the lessons from D3 to heart. If anything, the patch felt so corporate in making things artificially difficult for players that it made the team's lack of focus on player demand crystal clear. I've seen so many people point out the whole thing with D3 in the past as being a reason why they're angry with D4, so D4 will have a much more difficult time recovering from their screwups than D3 - and D3 itself took ages to recover.
Also, even successful live service games are starting to show cracks. A lot of people are getting burned out on Destiny - right when their climactic final DLC is coming out even - because of how half-hearted the bungie higher-ups are being, such as trying to justify lowering the number of free armor being developed despite not showing any slowdown in making armor for Eververse. Their fireside chats make it clear that they've been focused only on player metrics rather than trying to understand WHY the metrics are the way they are (such as Gambit not being popular because Bungie hasn't put any effort into it for a while. which means people won't play Gambit) and only started to backtrack when people started to quit the game.
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The issue with Diablo 4 is that most players won't give D4 the same chance as D3. Diablo 3 had the excuse of it being done by a different dev team from the first two with a lot of the unpopular stuff partially being the result of the obnoxious auction house that was forced on it. It did not have any stable foundation to work off of that would satisfy both players and the Activision-Blizzard board, so from what I saw players were willing to give D3 a chance to work through these growing pains once they realized the changes were largely positive.
D4 really doesn't have that growing-pains excuse though, because they had an established formula that is known to work thanks to D3. They also should have been able to understand what players wanted because of how fans reacted to the changes in D3, and the fact that they made such a tone-deaf patch shows that they really didn't take any of the lessons from D3 to heart. If anything, the patch felt so corporate in making things artificially difficult for players that it made the team's lack of focus on player demand crystal clear. I've seen so many people point out the whole thing with D3 in the past as being a reason why they're angry with D4, so D4 will have a much more difficult time recovering from their screwups than D3 - and D3 itself took ages to recover.
Also, even successful live service games are starting to show cracks. A lot of people are getting burned out on Destiny - right when their climactic final DLC is coming out even - because of how half-hearted the bungie higher-ups are being, such as trying to justify lowering the number of free armor being developed despite not showing any slowdown in making armor for Eververse. Their fireside chats make it clear that they've been focused only on player metrics rather than trying to understand WHY the metrics are the way they are (such as Gambit not being popular because Bungie hasn't put any effort into it for a while. which means people won't play Gambit) and only started to backtrack when people started to quit the game.
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fanjoy
Most gaming companies are run by zombies who are simply not gamers. The more you try and push your microtransactions in our face, the less likely you are to get us to pay. If I load up a game and am instantly met with like 4 pages of BUY THIS, BUY THAT, they've created a bad impression immediately when all I wanted to do was play. If I arrive at the item shop naturally, I'm more likely to check it out because it's not invasive, especially if the game is good enough to keep me playing long enough to do so. Basic psychology! These days, companies are that desperate shady salesman who bothers you on the street or door to door begging for money while your just trying to go about your day. If I want to buy something, I'll go to the store.
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Most gaming companies are run by zombies who are simply not gamers. The more you try and push your microtransactions in our face, the less likely you are to get us to pay. If I load up a game and am instantly met with like 4 pages of BUY THIS, BUY THAT, they've created a bad impression immediately when all I wanted to do was play. If I arrive at the item shop naturally, I'm more likely to check it out because it's not invasive, especially if the game is good enough to keep me playing long enough to do so. Basic psychology! These days, companies are that desperate shady salesman who bothers you on the street or door to door begging for money while your just trying to go about your day. If I want to buy something, I'll go to the store.
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Max
Well, I have to say at the begining overwatch league didn't seem small, it felt like everyone was watching it, or at least a very conciderable portion of the game's playerbase and everyone in the community was discussing it. I think the real problem has started when blizzard started to seriously alienate the said playerbase with their dumb decisions and balance fails that made not only the league boring to watch but the game itself became borring to play. And by the time they decided to actually fix at least some problems (which to those who don't know took them just a FEW DAMN YEARS) half if not most of the players were gone, they stoped playing overwatch and moved on to something else.
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Well, I have to say at the begining overwatch league didn't seem small, it felt like everyone was watching it, or at least a very conciderable portion of the game's playerbase and everyone in the community was discussing it. I think the real problem has started when blizzard started to seriously alienate the said playerbase with their dumb decisions and balance fails that made not only the league boring to watch but the game itself became borring to play. And by the time they decided to actually fix at least some problems (which to those who don't know took them just a FEW DAMN YEARS) half if not most of the players were gone, they stoped playing overwatch and moved on to something else.
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DanteMasaru
It's pretty often I hear/see the lament: There's no original IPs anymore. And it's usually in the disgruntled mindset of gaming is dead, nothing is good anymore. It's all just sequels and remakes. Well, Number 8 is a huge testament as to why companies take the safe route with remakes and sequels. Apparently market research shows that people stick to what's familiar and any new IP attempt, (even from a veteran developer/publishers at times) is quite a gamble. Calisto Protocol. uh, moving on. Immortals of Aveum had a mostly positive reception and yet that wasn't reflected sales wise unfortunately.
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It's pretty often I hear/see the lament: There's no original IPs anymore. And it's usually in the disgruntled mindset of gaming is dead, nothing is good anymore. It's all just sequels and remakes. Well, Number 8 is a huge testament as to why companies take the safe route with remakes and sequels. Apparently market research shows that people stick to what's familiar and any new IP attempt, (even from a veteran developer/publishers at times) is quite a gamble. Calisto Protocol. uh, moving on. Immortals of Aveum had a mostly positive reception and yet that wasn't reflected sales wise unfortunately.
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SleepingElite4
I was actually going to buy Diablo IV because I actually was really impressed with the beta in terms of the art direction, and I even liked the Rogue gameplay of quickly switching from blades to a bow, but quickly after it came out, Blizzard started to roll back the curtain on how barebones the mmo experience of the game actually was and it only really seemed to push for those microtransactions. I think I want to at least play the campaign through once, but definitely one of those wait for a sale titles for me.
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I was actually going to buy Diablo IV because I actually was really impressed with the beta in terms of the art direction, and I even liked the Rogue gameplay of quickly switching from blades to a bow, but quickly after it came out, Blizzard started to roll back the curtain on how barebones the mmo experience of the game actually was and it only really seemed to push for those microtransactions. I think I want to at least play the campaign through once, but definitely one of those wait for a sale titles for me.
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Daniel
Glad you have put the Embracer debacle on the first position. It is a scary thing and it surely happens in so many other areas besides video games. There needs to be some way to start putting these disgusting investments scams under some legal and public scrutiny given that if affects so many employees across the world, they're livelihood, their mental health, their families, etc. All absolute pawns and just reduced to numbers for these disgustingly rich people and groups to play around without any consequences.
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Glad you have put the Embracer debacle on the first position. It is a scary thing and it surely happens in so many other areas besides video games. There needs to be some way to start putting these disgusting investments scams under some legal and public scrutiny given that if affects so many employees across the world, they're livelihood, their mental health, their families, etc. All absolute pawns and just reduced to numbers for these disgustingly rich people and groups to play around without any consequences.
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stefan
2: 00 call of duty did exactly the same thing with warzone 2. 0. Same company, Activision/blizzard. Doing the opposite of what the players asked for, trolling the players effectively. I honestly think it is something either about activism within the company in regard to pay or workplace misconduct. Or more interestingly, about reducing the popularity/influence of their titles in hope of deflating the perceived market value of the publishing company to allow regulatory approval of the Microsoft acquisition.
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2: 00 call of duty did exactly the same thing with warzone 2. 0. Same company, Activision/blizzard. Doing the opposite of what the players asked for, trolling the players effectively. I honestly think it is something either about activism within the company in regard to pay or workplace misconduct. Or more interestingly, about reducing the popularity/influence of their titles in hope of deflating the perceived market value of the publishing company to allow regulatory approval of the Microsoft acquisition.
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gamermanPS3
I love especially #9. Destiny wasn't set to be live service in the beginning. It would be just a game that's multiplayer with some DLC's. Since it became such a huge succes bungie just build forth on it. And if it's one thing bungie is good at it's making fenominal games (Halo (nuff said.
So having it naturally join the live service world is how it works.
I could say the same as fortnite and warzone with their battle royale settings
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I love especially #9. Destiny wasn't set to be live service in the beginning. It would be just a game that's multiplayer with some DLC's. Since it became such a huge succes bungie just build forth on it. And if it's one thing bungie is good at it's making fenominal games (Halo (nuff said.
So having it naturally join the live service world is how it works.
I could say the same as fortnite and warzone with their battle royale settings
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Immudzen
I still don't see how Ubisoft screwed up the pirate game so badly. They could have just made a game with only the pirate stuff and none of the assassin stuff and added a bit more content to flesh it out and kept the game engine and it would have been a good game. If they had added coop so you could play with a couple friends it would have been great. Somewhere along the line they needed someone to seriously put their foot down on scope creep.
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I still don't see how Ubisoft screwed up the pirate game so badly. They could have just made a game with only the pirate stuff and none of the assassin stuff and added a bit more content to flesh it out and kept the game engine and it would have been a good game. If they had added coop so you could play with a couple friends it would have been great. Somewhere along the line they needed someone to seriously put their foot down on scope creep.
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Ethan
Skull and Bones could've been the greatest adventure/action game of all time, with all the ideas and implementations already done before, with only needing a reskin and not much more. But corporate business mismanagement (and abusing gov policy) got in the way so much for so long. It really makes you wonder about the missed potential, especially when you have games like Starfield having a modder fix the UI literally DAY ONE of release.
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Skull and Bones could've been the greatest adventure/action game of all time, with all the ideas and implementations already done before, with only needing a reskin and not much more. But corporate business mismanagement (and abusing gov policy) got in the way so much for so long. It really makes you wonder about the missed potential, especially when you have games like Starfield having a modder fix the UI literally DAY ONE of release.
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Anna
For your inevitable 4th part to this series, you should talk about the main reason the Dreamcast failed. They wanted it to play music videos and instead of using the regular game CDs for that, they made an antire new format. This format didn't have the same protections the games had, which lead to piracy being the only way Dreamcast owners played games. SEGA doomed their console because they wanted it to be a video music player.
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For your inevitable 4th part to this series, you should talk about the main reason the Dreamcast failed. They wanted it to play music videos and instead of using the regular game CDs for that, they made an antire new format. This format didn't have the same protections the games had, which lead to piracy being the only way Dreamcast owners played games. SEGA doomed their console because they wanted it to be a video music player.
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Danielle
The Unity runtime pricing hasn't gone away, it's just been kicked into the long grass. In a world of every increasing game sizes it has the potential to come back, in the end forcing platforms like Steam and Microsoft to have to charge the end user (i. e. gamers) a download management fee, if we want to reinstall a game that we want to go back to but have had to uninstall due to space management on the hard drive.
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The Unity runtime pricing hasn't gone away, it's just been kicked into the long grass. In a world of every increasing game sizes it has the potential to come back, in the end forcing platforms like Steam and Microsoft to have to charge the end user (i. e. gamers) a download management fee, if we want to reinstall a game that we want to go back to but have had to uninstall due to space management on the hard drive.
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Comp0
The phantom, exterior like fish eggs
interior like suicide wrist-red(rags)
I could exercise you, this could be your phys-ed
cheat on your man homie AGHHH I tried to sneak through the door man!
Can't make it, can't make it, the shit's stuck! Outta my way son! DOOR STUCK! DOOR STUCK! Please! I beg you! We're dead! You're a g-g-genuine dick sucker!
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The phantom, exterior like fish eggs
interior like suicide wrist-red(rags)
I could exercise you, this could be your phys-ed
cheat on your man homie AGHHH I tried to sneak through the door man!
Can't make it, can't make it, the shit's stuck! Outta my way son! DOOR STUCK! DOOR STUCK! Please! I beg you! We're dead! You're a g-g-genuine dick sucker!
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Momiji
RROD killed the xbox brand for me, I had a launch day pro, and it ended up having issues out of the box, but worked, ended up RROD'ing later on, and eventually had to be sent for repairs twice, and then when the HDD eventually died, I just ditched it and never even considered another xbox.
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RROD killed the xbox brand for me, I had a launch day pro, and it ended up having issues out of the box, but worked, ended up RROD'ing later on, and eventually had to be sent for repairs twice, and then when the HDD eventually died, I just ditched it and never even considered another xbox.
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GreatMewtwo
Today's Atari was once known as Infogrames, S. A. They scored the Atari name off of Hasbro, believe it or not, while the arcade division pressed on for a while as the Atari Games Corporation (they were technically not affiliated with them) until their purchase by Midway.
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Today's Atari was once known as Infogrames, S. A. They scored the Atari name off of Hasbro, believe it or not, while the arcade division pressed on for a while as the Atari Games Corporation (they were technically not affiliated with them) until their purchase by Midway.
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MeltingCubsicle
Immortals of Aveum is a great game. They problem was the release date. They were up against BG3 and Starfield, the two of the most anticipated games of the decade so far. If it had been released earlier in or later on the year it probably would've gone better.
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Immortals of Aveum is a great game. They problem was the release date. They were up against BG3 and Starfield, the two of the most anticipated games of the decade so far. If it had been released earlier in or later on the year it probably would've gone better.
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Jimmy
Probably won't be on here but Ubisoft's decision to release an Assassin's Creed game every year was a bad move. Just think about how AC Unity would be received if it was delayed and not forced into a yearly release schedule. We'd have a much different series right now.
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Probably won't be on here but Ubisoft's decision to release an Assassin's Creed game every year was a bad move. Just think about how AC Unity would be received if it was delayed and not forced into a yearly release schedule. We'd have a much different series right now.
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RickyTheWizard
Skull n Bones should've just been a Tradewinds 3D clone; AC piracy and boondoggery with fun and simple commodity trading. Customization, bells and whistles, and mtx could've been added on top and it'd be out the door. It seems so simple to make as a concept
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Skull n Bones should've just been a Tradewinds 3D clone; AC piracy and boondoggery with fun and simple commodity trading. Customization, bells and whistles, and mtx could've been added on top and it'd be out the door. It seems so simple to make as a concept
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X2yt
Unity should be number 1. They literally destroyed a decade of trust, an entire development platform, caused at least several thousand people to either lose jobs, or lose funds due to platform change, and for themselves into massive heat literally overnight.
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Unity should be number 1. They literally destroyed a decade of trust, an entire development platform, caused at least several thousand people to either lose jobs, or lose funds due to platform change, and for themselves into massive heat literally overnight.
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