Has Titanfall been successful?

[BrotherRool]

Titanfall was meant to be an absolute game changer. I'm pretty sure Infinity Ward and EA were expecting this game to be the next Call of Duty, or at least a serious contender. It probably wasn't going to sell 15 million because of the place in the console cycle, but I expect Microsoft were hoping it would be a Halo level crowd puller.

So did it work? I haven't heard nearly as much about it recently as I thought I would (especially since we've had hardly any big releases in the past 6 months). I almost never see it highly ranked on Twitch, it's 38th right now. It clearly didn't make the impact on Xbox One sales that Microsoft hoped for. The PC version is cutting map modes because the wait times were too long (first non-MMO 'server' merger?)

But I do hang around the sort of people who wouldn't be playing this game, and maybe Titanfall players aren't into streaming as much. So do you think Titanfall has been as successful as it was expected to be?

If it has, do you think Titanfall deserves that success?
If it hasn't, why wasn't it a success?

 

[purf]

I don't know what you're talking about in the first paragraph. I missed the hype if there was any. Really, no clue. I think I got aware of Titanfall by reviews on this very site here, so take my opinion with whatever you need to put it in context.

I believe Titanfall deserves success. It deserves a success that any quite very alright game deserves. And, that's pretty much all I can comment on here.

 

[shrekfan246]

While I can't speak for how successful it is on the Xbox One, it certainly seems that on PC most people played it for a bit after it was released and then felt that they were satisfied and done with it. Across the board it doesn't seem like it's been talked about that much since the launch, but I might just have the same problem of not hanging out where people would talk about it. Maybe it's still huge on Xbox One.

I would be surprised if it wasn't a successful game, by which I mean made more money than it cost to develop and market, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't have the longevity Microsoft and EA and Respawn were hoping for, and as such wouldn't be classified as a "success" in the business world.

 

[BrotherRool]

I don't know what you're talking about in the first paragraph. I missed the hype if there was any. Really, no clue. I think I got aware of Titanfall by reviews on this very site here, so take my opinion with whatever you need to put it in context.

It won 60 awards at E3 2013 [http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/21/4643152/titanfall-best-of-gamescom-2013]. Including Best in Show, Best Original Game, Best Console Game, Best PC Game, Best Action Game, and Best Online Multiplayer. And this was before it was released, so entirely off marketing hype and demos. Microsoft kept pushing it as their system seller. To be fair, it was from the people who made Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, so it wasn't a completely unreasonable expectation for the company either. Titanfall was interesting just as a test of whether CoD4 was a fluke or creative genius

 

[krazykidd]

I think it was sucessful in the number of copies sold, but it failed at the job it was given. What i mean by that is, it sold pretty well, above average even, but that wasn't it's job. Usually a games job , is to sell as many copies as possible, but titanfall was not only tasked to sell itself, but the xbone also. Which imo it didnt.

 

[Eve Charm]

It was an success alright, It sold millions, even if it was the lower 1-3 million, which considering pack in, still considered "if your going next gen this is the game to get" even with infamous out already and nothing to contend with it till destiny for the online broshooter casuals, all wrapped up in a bow that probably cost 1/4 a call of duty to make, and 1/16 a battlefield.

For an online only game, budget games have had more maps and a real campaign, and the campaign was only 9 normal Multiplayer maps. Not to say the game wasn't great but there just wasn't enough content to keep people playing as long as people would have hoped.

I'm sure next time they'll have more money and time and not tons of BS lawsuits to deal with from activision to do more with their game. They earned that much.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

One of the big problems with Titanfall is that it isn't fun to watch people play it. If you're watching a titanfall stream 80% of what the player is doing is killing bots, so it just isn't interesting. It's not that the game isn't fun, it is, but a big part of competitive games isn't just that they're fun to play but also fun to watch, especially in a competitive setting, and Titanfall doesn't have any of that because of the bots.

The devs focused on making the game really accessable and fun even to people who aren't very good at it by putting in bots who are easy to kill and make everyone feel like they're contributing, but this very feature is the reason that Titanfall gameplay is basically unwatchable and anti-competitive, which is why no one is really all that excited about the game anymore now that it's out.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Titanfall was interesting just as a test of whether CoD4 was a fluke or creative genius

I don't think there should be any question whether or not CoD4 was a fluke, regardless of how Titanfall did. Both CoD1 and CoD2 were fantastically well-received, with both still often making the top WWII shooters lists even with releasing during the time when people were calling for a move from WWII games. They were also largely responsible for Allied Assault, which is still held up as the best game in the Medal of Honor series, and it is very unlikely to ever be dethroned given that EA no longer has plans to continue the franchise. Even MW2 was reasonably well-received until people figured out a bunch of exploits that Activision wouldn't allow them to fix. By this point, I'd say the only thing unusual for these people is to see a failure from them.

With that said, Titanfall at least seemed to show that there was interest in the concept. I'd imagine the sequel will be more of a test of how well it can actually do, provided they don't make the console version exclusive to the weaker of the two major ones again.

 

[Wasted]

I missed the hype if there was any. Really, no clue.

I curious how much you frequent any gaming site. The lead-up hype to Titanfall was pretty ridiculous. It was after all the next big project from the creators of CoD and heralded as XBOs killer app. Whether legitimate or not, almost every gaming publication stated that it will blow you away. Previews and Beta feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Microsoft confirmed that the XBO controller was specifically designed with feedback for Titanfall optimization. There were high quality prime time commercials that showcased the game to the general public.

The game came out, it got good reviews, and it quietly slipped into the background.

I'm also curious how well the game is currently doing. I bought it on launch at a discount from GMG plus the season pass. I had fun with the game but feel that there are a lot of nitpicks with the game that is stopping me from loving it. Guess that is why I haven't played the game in weeks.

 

[RJ 17]

Titanfall was meant to be an absolute game changer. I'm pretty sure Infinity Ward Respawn and EA were expecting this game to be the next Call of Duty, or at least a serious contender. It probably wasn't going to sell 15 million because of the place in the console cycle, but I expect Microsoft were hoping it would be a Halo level crowd puller.

Fixed the error.

OT: Well according to this article:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134555-PS4-Bestselling-Console-In-April-But-Titanfall-Still-Bestselling-Game
it was still the best selling game as of April. So yeah, I'd imagine you could consider that successful.

Other than what I've heard around on this site, my only frame of reference would be a coworker of mine who has it. He said he played it for about a week but it got pretty old pretty fast. To be fair, though, he's mainly an RPG player and so he's not huge into shooters. He plays them, just not very much.

From what he says one of the problems with the game is that it apparently doesn't have a good party system. Like how in CoD you could form a group in a party lobby then take that entire group to a game. Apparently that's not the case with Titanfall.

 

[jamesworkshop]

honestly i think the game is selling largely because its competition is pretty minimal

I don't think its shifting hardware units like what a zelda or mario kart does for Nintendo hardware



Again honestly i don't think Twitch numbers account for all that much, what sold the public on the Wii, Good morning america or E3, aside from twitch being less famous than people think, the xbox one presence on twitch is minimal

 

[purf]

I missed the hype if there was any. Really, no clue.

I curious how much you frequent any gaming site. [...]

I'm also curious how well the game is currently doing. I bought it on launch at a discount from GMG plus the season pass. I had fun with the game but feel that there are a lot of nitpicks with the game that is stopping me from loving it. Guess that is why I haven't played the game in weeks.

Heh, not much I hang around here on/off and I sometimes buy Edge and follow that on twitter. But, yeah, my experience is much like yours. Whereas I don't have nitpicks[footnote]aside from that non-existent "campaign" which ironically could have used some good looking at BRINK[/footnote] - what Titanfall does, it does really well. But, at the end of the day, I: *shrug*. Which might not be Titanfall's fault actually. More like: state of the industry. A well executed mp-only game? Yeah, good job, appreciated, whatever[footnote]But then again, I'm not exactly an expert on MP stuff[/footnote].

 

[SeventhSigil]

In terms of sales numbers? Yeah, sure, it seems to have done very well, and the delayed release of the 360 version insured a steady stream of purchases.

In terms of being a huge system seller? Not so much, but to be fair it wasn't exactly exclusive to that one console, so it's potential as a system seller was pretty handicapped from the get-go. It's kind of odd that Microsoft was really sinking so much of the marketing and hype around the title, especially if EA decides to make the sequel multi platform, which would mean that Microsoft went through all that trouble to build up the brand-name of a product whose bigger and better successor won't even be exclusive to them.

In terms of cost versus reward? For EA, I'm sure that they've made back whatever money they sunk into it, and then some. But for Microsoft, I'm actually kind of curious. Factoring in what they paid for the permanent exclusivity in the first place, as well as the extra they must have paid to bundle the game with the console, PLUS all dat marketing... Well, I sincerely doubt that the Xbox One sales alone recouped their financial investment. 360 sales as well might have tipped the scale over into profitability.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I think it was sucessful in the number of copies sold, but it failed at the job it was given. What i mean by that is, it sold pretty well, above average even, but that wasn't it's job. Usually a games job , is to sell as many copies as possible, but titanfall was not only tasked to sell itself, but the xbone also. Which imo it didnt.

That seems to nicely summarize Titanfall actually. The pre-release hype was off the scale for what it was. It was obviously meant to be the first must have Xbone FPS and, it was meant to sell the XBone in general. It wasn't a failure by the normal standards and was the best selling game last month but it didn't sell the XBone. I wonder if Titanfall not being as strong of a system seller was a factor in Microsoft finally breaking down when it came to making Kinect optional...

 

[Chris Tian]

Titanfall was meant to be an absolute game changer. I'm pretty sure Infinity Ward and EA were expecting this game to be the next Call of Duty, or at least a serious contender. It probably wasn't going to sell 15 million because of the place in the console cycle, but I expect Microsoft were hoping it would be a Halo level crowd puller.

So did it work? I haven't heard nearly as much about it recently as I thought I would (especially since we've had hardly any big releases in the past 6 months). I almost never see it highly ranked on Twitch, it's 38th right now. It clearly didn't make the impact on Xbox One sales that Microsoft hoped for. The PC version is cutting map modes because the wait times were too long (first non-MMO 'server' merger?)

But I do hang around the sort of people who wouldn't be playing this game, and maybe Titanfall players aren't into streaming as much. So do you think Titanfall has been as successful as it was expected to be?

If it has, do you think Titanfall deserves that success?
If it hasn't, why wasn't it a success?

I didn't notice the hype. They seriously belived it to be a contender for the "most successfull game of all time"-title?

The reviews I watched said it was pretty good, but i don't know sales figures.

 

[Windcaler]

In terms of sales I think it was successful but as far as starting a strong franchise, no not really. The game didnt sell Xbox ones as it was hoped and the PC audience has had mixed feelings about it. For me and most of my friends the game feels pretty forgetable. We'll go play battlefield or warframe all the time but no one I know really thinks about playing Titanfall or is chomping at the bit to get on and play it.

For me I think its the fact that the gameplay was just to simplistic and lacked variety. You couldnt really do massively different builds in that game to create your own playstyle. Everyone and everything was just kind of the same. It also doesnt help that there are just better games out there. I like what they were going for with nice robot stompy action mixed with speedy run and gun fps gameplay but they went to generic with it. Apealing to the widest audience may get you sales but it doesnt tend to keep players coming back

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Daily Titanfall player on PC here.

As far as I'm concerned it has been very successful, clearly it sold more than enough copies to justify a sequel, which will appear on both consoles I hope.

The game itself is excellent fun, once you get the hang of the movement system, it becomes the most intense and fast paced shooter there has ever been as far as I'm concerned. Not even Unreal Tournament comes close to matching the pace of gameplay in Titanfall. It's a crazy adrenalin rush.

As for why you don't hear about it, simple. 99% of the talk about it on the internet was simply to hate on it, now that the game has released, those people have stopped talking about it, while those of us who are happy with the game are content to play it.

The game itself has quite a sizable community on PC. Playing in Australia I never have trouble finding a match. The community is entirely centred on playing Attrition though, which is fine by me as it's the most enjoyable game mode by far. Playing Capture the Flag was an exercise in playing the waiting game though, so I'm not surprised that they removed that mode.

Now it doesn't surprise me if many players have dropped off the game. Playing Titanfall is completely different to playing games like Battlefield or COD, you have to be fast and aggressive, you can't play this game on the ground like other games. You need to use the movement system to your full advantage and attack while moving across walls and moving through the air. The gameplay is very vertical. Most players during the first few weeks played it like they would play Call of Duty, they would camp or stand still while shooting. These players would find themselves getting absolutely destroyed. So they likely quit the game. I think a lot of players simply couldn't adapt well to the gameplay in Titanfall.

From what he says one of the problems with the game is that it apparently doesn't have a good party system. Like how in CoD you could form a group in a party lobby then take that entire group to a game. Apparently that's not the case with Titanfall.

This isn't true. You form a team of six quite easily in the pre game lobby, then go find a game.

 

[Elfgore]

I do think it failed to live up to the hype, but as Jim said (I think) "nothing could live up to this amount of hype". I've only heard two people at work talking about it. Even around college, people still talked BF and COD. I think the game just gets boring a little too quickly. I was bored after two hours of playing. It's not a bad game, just gets old really fast.

I would say it sold well, due the hype. I can't vouch for sever populations either. I think the game was successful, just not as much as people expected.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I don't really hear about it much, the only thing players tell me is that there isn't enough content to keep you engaged for long.

 

[seditary]

Let me put it this way, before Titanfall came out, Microsoft didn't put out a single statement about just about anything without mentioning the word Titanfall somewhere.

Now after coming out, I haven't heard a damn thing from either Microsoft or EA about the game unless its about updates/DLC.

That tells me they don't consider it a success.