That sucks. The game itself was great and its Steam numbers are Concord-bad.
I’d put a lot more weight on “Ubisoft games suck because of all the MTX and games as a service stuff” if people hadn’t ghosted the legitimately great zero-MTX traditional mid-sized game.
Xalavier Nelson Jr talked about this a few times over on Remap Radio.
Strange Scaffold (and many other indie studios) are literally doing what people are asking for. They are making “complete” games with no early access period and no DLC with shockingly high production values for the budget. And people are ignoring them until there is a massive sale AND still going full culture war over the stupidest of shit*. Which means it is increasingly difficult for them to secure any kind of funding even though they have an incredibly solid track record for both development and sales.
And… that is the sad reality. It has been true for decades at this point but it feels increasingly more true now. Games can’t just release “done” because people will forget they exist by the time they are willing to buy them. Look at your steam wishlist and (please don’t actually) tell me if you even remember what all of those are. Instead, people see that Caves of Qud is finally going to hit 1.0 or that Pathfinder 2 has a new DLC or that Fortnite has fucking Goku and that simultaneously reminds them that game exists AND has “new content” so that they can feel justified in being a “patient gamer”.
I can’t speak to this PoP. I know that it is a games media darling and is INCREDIBLY well done but I also tend to not want to give ubi money until yves is gone due to his role in enabling and protecting sexual misconduct which continues to this day. But it is a solid reminder of why so many major publishers refuse to do anything that is not a major franchise (and apparently Prince of Persia no longer is) or has high enough production values that it bypasses the “I’ll wait for a sale” mindset.
So… Yeah, as consumers it is not our job or responsibility to protect the people trying to sell us shit. But, if you can afford it, consider buying fewer games overall but prioritizing newer ones that actively do things you think are awesome. From a selfish standpoint, you are more likely to actually play it rather than one of the five games you got for a dollar in a fanatical bundle. But it also REALLY helps those studios to be able to report solid first quarter (or even day one) sales and many games are already launching in the 20-30 USD range anyway.
Like, I don’t know if “really well done metroidvania” is a particularly solid reason. But there is a reason all of us squad tactics sickos went crazy buying nu-xcom and the like back in the day. Because we had gone from such a lack of games that even frigging UFO: Afterlight was worth playing (it isn’t. But Aftermath or whatever the first one in that series is is the best SG-1 game ever made) to suddenly having options. And, a decade later, we have enough options that… paradox fucking murdered HBS because they weren’t pulling projected nu-xcom numbers.
*: Paraphrasing since it has been the better part of a year, but Xalavier was joking that he caught so much hell for basically parroting Swen’s stance that Larian’s BG3 was atypical and can’t be reproduced. Yet people ignored all his VERY leftist takes on economics and social justice. Although, I assume that has shifted if he is still on twitter.
I don’t know the guy, but all of that sounds reasonable to me.
BG3 can be replicated, if you have a massive dormant IP that is part of a furiously resurgent franchise and have several hundred million dollars to burn in a years-long development cycle by a studio that has already done pretty much the exact same thing without a license successfully twice.
I wouldn’t model my business on aligning that set of circumstances, but I sure am glad Larian did.
To be clear, there’s a bunch of other AAA stuff that is also doing quite well with pretty clean, finished games. But for midsize stuff like PoP… woof, yeah, it’s so hard to break through.
And you’re right, it’s a miserable set of incentives that if you launch broken you kinda have a built-in marketing hit because suddenly you’re doing live support and adding features. No Man’s Sky was a fun one for that. Cyberpunk. But those games did great at launch, so they had the built-in base to keep growing while they fixed the game. PoP launched pretty clean, was small and nobody cared, so it’s no wonder Ubi has decided it can make those super talented devs do stuff on the next massive AssCreed or whatever is left of Beyond Good and Evil 2 or The Division or whatever.
I just refuse to support Ubisoft. I don’t like their practices, or most of their games. I don’t feel I’m missing much by skipping whatever they make. Hopefully they go out of business and a better company can pick up their IPs and make good games, for a decent price, without crazy micro-transactions, 30 different special packs, and a required secondary launcher
Okay, but there was none of that here (except perhaps the launcher), and there was no suggestion in the results that anybody wants to encourage that. So that’s definitely not the lesson being learned here.
Also, and I will keep repeating this forever, companies don’t make games, people make games.
Also, also, good luck with that. Don’t look now, but that’s not how major companies going out of business and fire-selling their IPs tends to go.
Look, I’m not sure why it’s Ubisoft’s turn in the hot seat after EA and Activision, but none of that is a productive outlook or leads to a better outcome, as this one really good, really wholesome game bombing hard goes to show.
As a company pushes people away it gets harder to pull them back, so that doesnt take away from their complaints. Also, I’m not sure that the same crowd who plays other ubisoft titles is the crowd that’s interested in a 2d platformer.
Well, it’s the same crowd that plays a bunch of games that did better. The game is on the same platforms, Ubisoft or not. And all their GaaS games did much, much better on those same platforms, so yeah, it absolutely takes away from their complaints.
Outlaws may have been a bit of a disappointment and Mirage may have struggled, but Mirage had 5x the player count on its Steam relaunch than Lost Crown did. People want AssCreed and they’re gonna get AssCreed forever.
I think there is some confusion here. The game genre is “2d platformer,” I wasn’t referring to where people can play it. It isn’t the most popular genre of gaming, and it’s quite different from ubisofts’ other titles.
Yeah, no, I understood it. I’m saying that there are similar 2d platformers on those same platforms (look, it’s not my fault language recycles words for things) that did much, much better.
Right. So you didn’t make a difference here, since that’s also true of all the Ubi games that did better than this, then.
But this doesn’t have any of the other crap people are blaming for Ubi doing poorly. So you’d expect if the outrage was making a dent whatsoever their one game that is relatively clean of that stuff would have done better, not worse, than the other stuff they are putting out.
But nope, the opposite is true.
So hey, not saying you’re lying, but I think the collective at least looked at the nice, small 2D metroidvania with no MTX and went “nah”, but they were much more willing to give the GaaS-y stuff a try.
Although if I WAS saying you’re not being all the way honest, I may guess that you just weren’t on board for this anyway and now are performatively feigning outrage for something else after the fact to pretend other people’s motivations are aligned with your opinions. But I’m not. So we’re good.
So, one, I’m pretty sure in most cases that’s not why, for the same reasons we all shared memes of people “boycotting Call of Duty” while appearing online playing Call of Duty.
But even taking everyone at their word, I’m saying the group as a whole is not working by those parameters. Directly, demonstrably in apples to apples comparisons they didn’t buy the Ubisoft game that doesn’t do the stuff people claim to be mad about and bought other Ubisoft games in larger numbers.
The thing with obstinance is that it’s hard to make reality change its mind. Remarkably stubborn, reality.
There was also a little too much game. Instead of putting in every platforming challenge that they could think of for a given set of mechanics, it would have been paced much better if they just picked their two or three best. I’ll bet it doesn’t help that it requires the Ubisoft launcher on Steam either.
Could have said that of Ori and Hollow Knight and people seem to have showed up for those. I don’t think this is any worse than they are, FWIW. In any case to even notice that kind of nuance you have to play it. If that was the conversation we’re having they’d be making a sequel.
The fact that it initially launched on Epic certainly didn’t help its Steam numbers, but it also did much worse than Outlaws and other Ubisoft exclusives there, so the “it’s the MTX/GaaS” argument doesn’t hold.
Hah. Did you hear about Concord before or after it left a crater visible from space?
In any case, there are two of them, in fact, and they’re both good. You may be in time to help save The Rogue Prince of Persia, which is doing even worse, but if you don’t mess with Early Access, Lost Crown is still up for sale and it’s pretty great.
That sucks. The game itself was great and its Steam numbers are Concord-bad.
I’d put a lot more weight on “Ubisoft games suck because of all the MTX and games as a service stuff” if people hadn’t ghosted the legitimately great zero-MTX traditional mid-sized game.
Xalavier Nelson Jr talked about this a few times over on Remap Radio.
Strange Scaffold (and many other indie studios) are literally doing what people are asking for. They are making “complete” games with no early access period and no DLC with shockingly high production values for the budget. And people are ignoring them until there is a massive sale AND still going full culture war over the stupidest of shit*. Which means it is increasingly difficult for them to secure any kind of funding even though they have an incredibly solid track record for both development and sales.
And… that is the sad reality. It has been true for decades at this point but it feels increasingly more true now. Games can’t just release “done” because people will forget they exist by the time they are willing to buy them. Look at your steam wishlist and (please don’t actually) tell me if you even remember what all of those are. Instead, people see that Caves of Qud is finally going to hit 1.0 or that Pathfinder 2 has a new DLC or that Fortnite has fucking Goku and that simultaneously reminds them that game exists AND has “new content” so that they can feel justified in being a “patient gamer”.
I can’t speak to this PoP. I know that it is a games media darling and is INCREDIBLY well done but I also tend to not want to give ubi money until yves is gone due to his role in enabling and protecting sexual misconduct which continues to this day. But it is a solid reminder of why so many major publishers refuse to do anything that is not a major franchise (and apparently Prince of Persia no longer is) or has high enough production values that it bypasses the “I’ll wait for a sale” mindset.
So… Yeah, as consumers it is not our job or responsibility to protect the people trying to sell us shit. But, if you can afford it, consider buying fewer games overall but prioritizing newer ones that actively do things you think are awesome. From a selfish standpoint, you are more likely to actually play it rather than one of the five games you got for a dollar in a fanatical bundle. But it also REALLY helps those studios to be able to report solid first quarter (or even day one) sales and many games are already launching in the 20-30 USD range anyway.
Like, I don’t know if “really well done metroidvania” is a particularly solid reason. But there is a reason all of us squad tactics sickos went crazy buying nu-xcom and the like back in the day. Because we had gone from such a lack of games that even frigging UFO: Afterlight was worth playing (it isn’t. But Aftermath or whatever the first one in that series is is the best SG-1 game ever made) to suddenly having options. And, a decade later, we have enough options that… paradox fucking murdered HBS because they weren’t pulling projected nu-xcom numbers.
*: Paraphrasing since it has been the better part of a year, but Xalavier was joking that he caught so much hell for basically parroting Swen’s stance that Larian’s BG3 was atypical and can’t be reproduced. Yet people ignored all his VERY leftist takes on economics and social justice. Although, I assume that has shifted if he is still on twitter.
I don’t know the guy, but all of that sounds reasonable to me.
BG3 can be replicated, if you have a massive dormant IP that is part of a furiously resurgent franchise and have several hundred million dollars to burn in a years-long development cycle by a studio that has already done pretty much the exact same thing without a license successfully twice.
I wouldn’t model my business on aligning that set of circumstances, but I sure am glad Larian did.
To be clear, there’s a bunch of other AAA stuff that is also doing quite well with pretty clean, finished games. But for midsize stuff like PoP… woof, yeah, it’s so hard to break through.
And you’re right, it’s a miserable set of incentives that if you launch broken you kinda have a built-in marketing hit because suddenly you’re doing live support and adding features. No Man’s Sky was a fun one for that. Cyberpunk. But those games did great at launch, so they had the built-in base to keep growing while they fixed the game. PoP launched pretty clean, was small and nobody cared, so it’s no wonder Ubi has decided it can make those super talented devs do stuff on the next massive AssCreed or whatever is left of Beyond Good and Evil 2 or The Division or whatever.
I just refuse to support Ubisoft. I don’t like their practices, or most of their games. I don’t feel I’m missing much by skipping whatever they make. Hopefully they go out of business and a better company can pick up their IPs and make good games, for a decent price, without crazy micro-transactions, 30 different special packs, and a required secondary launcher
Okay, but there was none of that here (except perhaps the launcher), and there was no suggestion in the results that anybody wants to encourage that. So that’s definitely not the lesson being learned here.
Also, and I will keep repeating this forever, companies don’t make games, people make games.
Also, also, good luck with that. Don’t look now, but that’s not how major companies going out of business and fire-selling their IPs tends to go.
Look, I’m not sure why it’s Ubisoft’s turn in the hot seat after EA and Activision, but none of that is a productive outlook or leads to a better outcome, as this one really good, really wholesome game bombing hard goes to show.
As a company pushes people away it gets harder to pull them back, so that doesnt take away from their complaints. Also, I’m not sure that the same crowd who plays other ubisoft titles is the crowd that’s interested in a 2d platformer.
Well, it’s the same crowd that plays a bunch of games that did better. The game is on the same platforms, Ubisoft or not. And all their GaaS games did much, much better on those same platforms, so yeah, it absolutely takes away from their complaints.
Outlaws may have been a bit of a disappointment and Mirage may have struggled, but Mirage had 5x the player count on its Steam relaunch than Lost Crown did. People want AssCreed and they’re gonna get AssCreed forever.
I think there is some confusion here. The game genre is “2d platformer,” I wasn’t referring to where people can play it. It isn’t the most popular genre of gaming, and it’s quite different from ubisofts’ other titles.
Yeah, no, I understood it. I’m saying that there are similar 2d platformers on those same platforms (look, it’s not my fault language recycles words for things) that did much, much better.
The launch price is what killed it. In a genre dominated by AA games, games need to use AA pricetags.
It’s 40 bucks. 50 with the DLC. That’s the same price as Bloodstained, and that sold millions.
Also, the Steam re-release launched with a 40% discount. Nobody played it on Steam for that price, either.
This thread is full of hypotheses and retrospective rationalizations that don’t quite check out.
On PC it requires Ubi’s launcher and Denuvo. That’s enough to make me completely uninterested.
Right. So you didn’t make a difference here, since that’s also true of all the Ubi games that did better than this, then.
But this doesn’t have any of the other crap people are blaming for Ubi doing poorly. So you’d expect if the outrage was making a dent whatsoever their one game that is relatively clean of that stuff would have done better, not worse, than the other stuff they are putting out.
But nope, the opposite is true.
So hey, not saying you’re lying, but I think the collective at least looked at the nice, small 2D metroidvania with no MTX and went “nah”, but they were much more willing to give the GaaS-y stuff a try.
Although if I WAS saying you’re not being all the way honest, I may guess that you just weren’t on board for this anyway and now are performatively feigning outrage for something else after the fact to pretend other people’s motivations are aligned with your opinions. But I’m not. So we’re good.
The irony of you constantly telling people they don’t actually know why they do not pay Ubisoft…
My dude… We’re TELLING YOU why we aren’t buying it. You’re just too dumb and stubborn to accept the truth. Obstinance makes you pathetic, not correct.
Right.
So, one, I’m pretty sure in most cases that’s not why, for the same reasons we all shared memes of people “boycotting Call of Duty” while appearing online playing Call of Duty.
But even taking everyone at their word, I’m saying the group as a whole is not working by those parameters. Directly, demonstrably in apples to apples comparisons they didn’t buy the Ubisoft game that doesn’t do the stuff people claim to be mad about and bought other Ubisoft games in larger numbers.
The thing with obstinance is that it’s hard to make reality change its mind. Remarkably stubborn, reality.
There was also a little too much game. Instead of putting in every platforming challenge that they could think of for a given set of mechanics, it would have been paced much better if they just picked their two or three best. I’ll bet it doesn’t help that it requires the Ubisoft launcher on Steam either.
Could have said that of Ori and Hollow Knight and people seem to have showed up for those. I don’t think this is any worse than they are, FWIW. In any case to even notice that kind of nuance you have to play it. If that was the conversation we’re having they’d be making a sequel.
The fact that it initially launched on Epic certainly didn’t help its Steam numbers, but it also did much worse than Outlaws and other Ubisoft exclusives there, so the “it’s the MTX/GaaS” argument doesn’t hold.
Casual gamer here. I’d heard of Concord. Never knew another Prince of Persia game even existed.
Hah. Did you hear about Concord before or after it left a crater visible from space?
In any case, there are two of them, in fact, and they’re both good. You may be in time to help save The Rogue Prince of Persia, which is doing even worse, but if you don’t mess with Early Access, Lost Crown is still up for sale and it’s pretty great.
I saw a trailer before it came out, but it may have been in the context of how much of a guardians knockoff it was.
I’ll go watch some Prince of Persia gameplay this morning!