Full-Priced Multiplayer Shooters Must Change, or Die

[Steven Bogos]

Full-Priced Multiplayer Shooters Must Change, or Die

Star Wars: Battlefront is kind of a ghost town, and it's indicative of the problem faced by full-priced multiplayer shooters.

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[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Payday 2 was certainly cheaper, but more importantly it is full co-op, has a solid progression system both for equipment/skills and for difficulty and had some serious post-launch support. I played a lot of Payday 2 and the reason was that it only took 3 other people, if my sister and her boyfriend were online we could get some games in, and we felt as if we got somewhere when we moved up from single day heists to multi-day heists and finally started cranking up the difficulty for higher rewards.

Evolve and Battlefront both fail in two ways are never discussed enough:
1. Poor patch support. I played Evolve for two months, for 1,5 of those the Wraith was broken as f*ck. A mediocre Wraith player could draw a game out for 20 minutes due to its' skewed skill set that favored total avoidance (and made it a cake walk to avoid the hunters) until level 3 and then party wiping mercilessly. It was simply no fun when 8 out of 10 games had you facing a Wraith that kept teleporting out of great ambushes and just used decoy to hide when it didn't escape. Those were all 20 minute matches that were only frustrating. The same can be said about Battlefront were Walker Assault (Endor in particular) was so hilariously skewed in the Rebels favor that you'd occasionally see half the Imperial team drop out. Add to that problems with spawn killing and people abusing a few skills/heroes (Boba Fett wrist rocket sniping) and doing so for nearly two months after release and you have a frustrating experience instead of a fun one.

2. No meaningful progression. Evolve had minor stat boosts for completing challenges with weapons and skills and alternate skins when all challenges had been completed with one character/monster. Battlefield have some weapons and abilities that doesn't really change the way you play much. Compared to Payday 2 where a Ghost-specced player plays totally different from an Enforcer and the difference between level 20 and level 60 are stunningly obvious.

In the end, the most obvious difference between Payday/Left 4 Dead and Evolve/Battlefront/Titan Fall is that the former are co-operative games at heart. Get some friends and play. The latter are competitive and that puts them in a whole different category and appeals to a whole different kind of players.

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

Okay first your playing console FPS on PC which are DOA the PS4/Xone versions are doing fine for all those games.

Second the games company's don't care if people play the games they only care that people bought them in the launch week then they move focus to pushing the next game.

Ford doesn't care how much you drive your car, they don't run adverts trying to get people to drive more for the sake of selling spares and games companies do not care if people play there games as long as people buy them and people do buy them.

 

[Rommel102]

Titanfall had plenty of content to justify the price and I still play it from time to time...there are still players out there.

Rainbow Six is also doing it right...no pay to win, no real advantage (other than time) to paying for season pass or content. You get it all eventually anyway. It's a really good competitive shooter and I'm having tons of fun with it and making tons of friends through it.

Everybody is looking for the right formula, and maybe pricing structures need to be looked at.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Have to admit, I like that we are going back to the days of informative pieces, like back in the old .PDF days

OT: It's really all down to companies thinking that people will buy anything and, frankly, I see how they could believe that.
Between early access, pre-orders and kickstarter, Gamers seem to have a rep of being suckers and handing over their wallets at the mere promise of something good to come later.
Until that stops, the industry practices that make games like Battlefront 2015 and Evolve will still persist.
So say it with me: Stop pre-ordering video games X_X

 

[Zontar]

Okay first your playing console FPS on PC which are DOA the PS4/Xone versions are doing fine for all those games.

Of course they're doing fine on the PS4 and Xbone, those systems collectively have less then 20 FPS between them. Of course terrible games in the genre will do fine with that type of competition. But the PC market is the single most important one due to being larger then both combined, and for developers/publishers margins are often much higher. It's not unrealistic for a 20$ game on the PC to bring a developer more money then a 60$ game on a console.

PC is the most profitable market in gaming outside of mobile, though as a result it's also the most competitive which is why garbage like Battlefront and Evolve die quickly and lead to dependency on consoles to make games which would have in a competitive market died at a financial loss turn a profit.

Second the games company's don't care if people play the games they only care that people bought them in the launch week then they move focus to pushing the next game.

This leads to a very big problem though, as this is short term thinking leading to long term ruin. This type of thinking while logical from corporates point of view also leads to people simply not buying your next game due to learning that it will be abandoned. Call of Duty and Battlefield are both having sucessive copies sell fewer then the previous ones, WoW is more likely then not to loose its title of most subscribed to MMO by the end of this year, and despite coming in third for this console generation it is not Nintendo but instead Sony and Microsoft who have the question of whether they will continue be a realistic one to ask (and that people are asking).

This type of thinking is what kills companies. Not that EA or Activision shutting down would be a great loss in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Of course they're doing fine on the PS4 and Xbone, those systems collectively have less then 20 FPS between them. Of course terrible games in the genre will do fine with that type of competition. But the PC market is the single most important one due to being larger then both combined, and for developers/publishers margins are often much higher. It's not unrealistic for a 20$ game on the PC to bring a developer more money then a 60$ game on a console.

PC is the most profitable market in gaming outside of mobile, though as a result it's also the most competitive which is why garbage like Battlefront and Evolve die quickly and lead to dependency on consoles to make games which would have in a competitive market died at a financial loss turn a profit.

I think you might be wrong about that. For Battlefront it has been suggested [http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/22/9779682/figures-suggest-ps4s-battlefront-player-base-is-larger-than-xbox-one] that the number of players on PS4 was larger then for PC and Xbone combined. In fact, according to those numbers PC players are by far the minority, with barely half the numbers of Xbone players, who in turn trail behind the PS4 by more then 60%. Looking at Battlefront stats [http://swbstats.com/] right now reveals a 24 hour peak of 8,765 players on PC, 28,769 on Xbone and 54,238 players on PS4.

It is not exactly news that while the PC is making a comeback as a gaming platform, it is still the smallest of the four major gaming platforms.

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

Of course they're doing fine on the PS4 and Xbone, those systems collectively have less then 20 FPS between them. Of course terrible games in the genre will do fine with that type of competition. But the PC market is the single most important one due to being larger then both combined, and for developers/publishers margins are often much higher. It's not unrealistic for a 20$ game on the PC to bring a developer more money then a 60$ game on a console.

PC is the most profitable market in gaming outside of mobile, though as a result it's also the most competitive which is why garbage like Battlefront and Evolve die quickly and lead to dependency on consoles to make games which would have in a competitive market died at a financial loss turn a profit.

PC is the most profitable based on F2P games like LoL and Valve's games but pay to play games? no chance.

 

[Ukomba]

I'm part of that "well-established fan base" that bought every star wars game they made and loved most of them. That's why I refuse to buy Battlefront though. In part because it's a clear down grade from Battlefront II and part because of the DisNuking they did to all the other beloved older games. I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way, so there goes your loyal fan base. I, for one, don't have battered housewife syndrome.

 

[Something Amyss]

Do we really want to be further encouraging the model of locking content on disc and then shelling it out piece by piece as new content?

The same can be said about Battlefront were Walker Assault (Endor in particular) was so hilariously skewed in the Rebels favor that you'd occasionally see half the Imperial team drop out. Add to that problems with spawn killing and people abusing a few skills/heroes (Boba Fett wrist rocket sniping) and doing so for nearly two months after release and you have a frustrating experience instead of a fun one.

I'm inclined to agree with this as an issue, though I stayed away from Walker Assault after like five games or so. The game in general seems to be hilariously broken.

However, if I might add something:

The game launched with four planets, each restricting most game modes to four maps.

This is a serious bottleneck in terms of content, especially if the maps aren't interesting (personal opinion, yes) or the modes aren't. I could probably play the Fighter Squadron game until my hands fell off from wear and tear (that's how the human body works, right?), but it does get tiresome when there's only five current maps (or is it four? I don't remember if there's an Endor map), and I'm not sure the DLC will add enough variety to even really bother. This is a shame because there are game modes which are quite fun, but this game was pretty bare bones.

I'm also going to point out that Titanfall had some really bad marketing and that seemed to hurt it quite a bit. Battlefront had massive hype, but Titanfall not so much.

I'm part of that "well-established fan base" that bought every star wars game they made and loved most of them. That's why I refuse to buy Battlefront though. In part because it's a clear down grade from Battlefront II and part because of the DisNuking they did to all the other beloved older games. I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way, so there goes your loyal fan base. I, for one, don't have battered housewife syndrome.

He's talking about fans of the overall franchise, and apparently he's right. For all the complaining from the fans of BF1 and 2, this one is the best selling and may clear those 13 million unit estimations everyone scoffed at previously. NOt lifetime, either. Just by end of quarter.

 

[Zontar]

It is not exactly news that while the PC is making a comeback as a gaming platform, it is still the smallest of the four major gaming platforms.

That's a very odd way to look at things. PC is without dispute the largest platform for such games larger then all others combined. You seem to be mixing up "people playing Battlefront" with "people playing shooters". The reason Battlefront is dead on PC while it is thriving on the PS4 is due to the fact that there is no competition on the PS4, while there is very violent competition on the PC where games from as long as 20 years ago can have active player bases.

If the PS4 had some real competition for shooters on the PS4 it likely would have died off just as quickly, and if there was as little competition on the PC it would likely thrive just as much there. The game could have been big if it was good, but it wasn't so it isn't. A perfect example of this in action is the biggest shooter on the PC being 3 years old, with the second being 9 years old. On the Xbone and the PS4 both have that title be held by a game from 2015.

PC is the most profitable based on F2P games like LoL and Valve's games but pay to play games? no chance.

No, it's the most profitable due to being a platform for shooters and other such non-mobile games that is larger then all others combined, and the fact a 60$ game sold on PC brings in more revenue for the developer and publisher then a 60$ game for console. It has nothing to do with F2P games and everything to do with there being more consumers who spend more per-person on the corporate side of things.

 

[sXeth]

I'd chalk Evolve failing up to an incredibly bizarre poor focus on their part. The game didn't really lack content at launch. the quality of the content and implementation of their ideas had some questionable merits of course. There were clear hiccups (the Wraith being nigh uncatchable for instance, until a much later patch, despite the problem being known when Wraith was in the beta) in the formula, but the content was there.

The thing was, they shot themselves in the foot before they even launched, with all the cosmetic launch-day DLC. That clearly said in big letters that they would rather put out the fast cash junk rather then fix the current game issues, or complete the fourth monster/hunter group for the initial game. If they'd launched with some of the gameplay tweaks that later came down the pipe, and the extra set of playables, rather then a store full of tint-filtered weapon skins, they might've held onto some player goodwill.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

The only solution for this is if consumers actually wised up. These games continue to exist and "bleed us dry" because consumers willingly fork over any amount of money "because it's Star Wars" or because it's the next Battlefield/CoD or whatever. That still remains the most effective business strategy of creating enough hype to make all their money at launch.

If you think about it: they're out to make money. That at least must be clear by now. Why would you want to cut your profits by creating more content, when you can do just as well without? Launch is where they make the biggest income, not by keeping servers full which is a big case of diminishing returns. You might think, oh eventually the player base will figure it out and simply stop buying games. Yeah they might, but not at launch. Hell, that's the whole reason why pre-ordering is still a huge thing.

 

[UberPubert]

Just parroting what some other people are saying in here, but yeah, AAA publishers don't care about creating games that people can play for years and not have to buy another copy of. To all but the most successful micro-transaction markets, that's financial suicide. Money is made on pre-orders and 70$ launch day copies, not on small but dedicated fan-bases who don't jump ship to go back to their favorite MMO or the next multiplayer release after a week. I don't buy any exclusively multiplayer games for exactly this reason. Even if I have friends who also get that game, I know that they, and most of the player base, are going to leave once they've had their fill and the only way to counter that is to be the best game in their entire library with the most well-established and thriving community, and competition for that position is stupidly high, especially on PC.

It's unavoidable. You can't create content faster than players can consume it, and without a subscription service and an online store, you can't really afford to even try. The Evolve/Battlefront model of "give us all your money now in exchange for promises of patches and DLC later" and the consumer's gullibility to buy into it is the only thing that allows these bigger releases to exist.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

That's a very odd way to look at things. PC is without dispute the largest platform for such games larger then all others combined.

I'll dispute it. Here [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=crysis+3] are the sales numbers for Crysis 3. PC clocks in at some 630,000 copies, with 360 at 910k and PS3 at 890k. Advanced Warfare [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=advanced+warfare] has it even more pronounced with 380,000 PC copies sold, but over 4 million copies for 360 and PS3, 5 million for Xbone and 7.4 million for PS4. For Evolve [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=evolve] we have 160,000 copies for PC, 550,000 for the Xbone and 830,000 for the PS4. Battlefront [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefront] shows similar numbers with 470,000 PC copies, 2.94 million Xbone copies and 6.69 million PS4 copies. The trend can also be seen with Fallout 4 [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=fallout+4] where the PC clocks in at 920k, Xbone at 3.45 million and PS4 at 5.93 million. RPG wise The Witcher 3 [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=the+witcher+3] sold some 530k PC copies, 1.1 million Xbone copies and 3.19 million PS4 copies.

So no, the PC is not larger. In fact, it is quite noticeably smaller, even when it comes to shooters.

 

[Steven Bogos]

That's a very odd way to look at things. PC is without dispute the largest platform for such games larger then all others combined.

I'll dispute it. Here [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=crysis+3] are the sales numbers for Crysis 3. PC clocks in at some 630,000 copies, with 360 at 910k and PS3 at 890k. Advanced Warfare [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=advanced+warfare] has it even more pronounced with 380,000 PC copies sold, but over 4 million copies for 360 and PS3, 5 million for Xbone and 7.4 million for PS4. For Evolve [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=evolve] we have 160,000 copies for PC, 550,000 for the Xbone and 830,000 for the PS4. Battlefront [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefront] shows similar numbers with 470,000 PC copies, 2.94 million Xbone copies and 6.69 million PS4 copies. The trend can also be seen with Fallout 4 [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=fallout+4] where the PC clocks in at 920k, Xbone at 3.45 million and PS4 at 5.93 million. RPG wise The Witcher 3 [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=the+witcher+3] sold some 530k PC copies, 1.1 million Xbone copies and 3.19 million PS4 copies.

So no, the PC is not larger. In fact, it is quite noticeably smaller, even when it comes to shooters.

All of those charts are for physical copies only. The vast majority of PC purchases are digital downloads.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

All of those charts are for physical copies only. The vast majority of PC purchases are digital downloads.

I am well aware of that, but considering that the PS4 alone regularly beat physical PC copies by an order of magnitude and the some, I find it hard to believe that digital downloads for PC are 10 times higher then physical sales. Even if we triple or quadruple PC numbers they still fall short of both Xbone and PS4 physical sales. On top of that the numbers for Battlefront and Evolve are consistent with roughly the relative number of peak players. I know VGchartz reports low, especially for PC, but the massive gaps are what I wanted to show.

 

[Something Amyss]

All of those charts are for physical copies only. The vast majority of PC purchases are digital downloads.

With stories like this [http://gamerant.com/the-witcher-3-sales-pc-consoles-125/], it seems to blow a hole in that logic.

And we're talking CD Projekt, a company with a focus on PC gaming that pushes digital distribution.

 

[Piflik]

These games didn't fail, the performed just as intended. Game Publishers don't want people to play their game for years, they want them to buy the game, and then like it just well enough to get their friends to also buy it, so they can play together for a bit, until they simply forget to play, because the experience ist just so mediocre and bland. These games are trying to hit that sweet spot of mediocrity, where players don't play for long, but also are not angry about how bad the game is, so they still buy the sequel that is released the following year, just to repeat the cycle.

Gamers actually playing the game cost the company money, since they have to invest in infrastructure. People buying the game and then not playing it, is exactly what they want.

 

[chadachada123]

All of those charts are for physical copies only. The vast majority of PC purchases are digital downloads.

I am well aware of that, but considering that the PS4 alone regularly beat physical PC copies by an order of magnitude and the some, I find it hard to believe that digital downloads for PC are 10 times higher then physical sales. Even if we triple or quadruple PC numbers they still fall short of both Xbone and PS4 physical sales. On top of that the numbers for Battlefront and Evolve are consistent with roughly the relative number of peak players. I know VGchartz reports low, especially for PC, but the massive gaps are what I wanted to show.

You should note that Zontar didn't say that individual AAA games sell more on PC, but that the PC market is much bigger than the console market. Given the absolutely fuckhuge number of PC exclusive games (compared to the pitiful number of PS4 and Xbone exclusives), along with frequent re-releases/ports of otherwise discontinued console games, I'm inclined to believe that there's more players playing on PC than on console.

OT: First thing I thought when reading the headline was, "what, like Splatoon?" And it shows, since the servers STILL go down every time the Japanese players get an event and some (supposedly) one million Nihonjin all start playing at once.

Edit: It's also incredibly refreshing to have a rank that's based on skill, reminiscent of the ranks from Halo 2 multiplayer. I'm at A+, and think I might just be able to get to S with a few more weeks/months of playing.