1. Lower the production values. Modern audiences have been spoiled rotten. A good story is all that really matters.

2. Start blowing less of the budget on AAA talent. Robert Downey Jr. doesn't need >$100 million to play a comic book villain.

I know this is a pipe dream. I know there are very good financial reasons these seemingly counter-intuitive decisions keep getting made. Yet I cannot shake the feeling that Hollywood is becoming an unsustainable business model.

If nothing changes, the bottom is going to fall out sooner or later.

The idea is that kids can't really form an attachment to a franchise when their entire childhood passes in between releases.

I think there might be something to that. I also think it might extend to a lot of other media young people are not as interested in such as TV and Movies. When you take so long between seasons of a TV show, or take decades to release a sequel to a movie, I feel like the same thing can happen.

Meanwhile you can see something new in Fortnite weekly, or always play a different thing in Roblox. No wonder that's what the children play.

Intriguing thought. Thanks for sharing, Cody. Like Effortlessfury, I think it applies to more than kids. I adore the show, Pluribus, but I look at its timetable. I look at the actuararial tables and hope that Vince Gilligan makes it to the end. (I hope that *I* make it.)

There are arguably good reasons behind this--higher and higher production values, for instance. What do you think can be done about it?

While the playerbase has been gradually trending downward every day (as the barrier to entry slowly grows as well)[…]

Does the barrier to entry grow? I'm not so sure. Most of the patch notes this week were about making it an easier onboarding experience. As the more capable players have leveled up they have migrated away from Perimeter toward Dire marsh and Outpost, where they are focused on each other for PVP. Meanwhile, the inventory or starter guides and explainers is much much higher than it was at launch.

They might've goofed with the audio adjustment. The game felt harder last night. I hear that they might undo that change, though.

The idea is that kids can't really form an attachment to a franchise when their entire childhood passes in between releases.

While I agree that the issue is probably more pronounced in kids (due to their relative perception of time), I think this applies to everyone. Passion/interest can only be sustained in-between releases for so long before people start to get bored or seek out something else novel.

Despite the predatory nature of gacha, the one thing I'm thankful for is that there are studios who managed to use that funding model to actually produce episodic content. It's the modern realization of the short-lived attempt from the late 00's/early 10's.

There's something to be said about that old three-year dev cycle putting out banger after banger only two console generations ago. I think about Gears 3, Halo Reach, Dead Space 2. Games with so much more to offer than the one that came right before them... And now we get unfinished games that have been cooking for what used to be a console's entire lifespan.

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/young-gamers-in-japan-may-not-be-forming-the-same-attachment-to-final-fantasy-or-...

This article posits that the decline of a lot of modern franchises is associated with longer development cycles. The examples of Final Fantasy and Dragon quest taking seven and five years respectfully between releases. Meanwhile, Pokémon remains hugely popular while maintaining semi yearly releases.

The idea is that kids can't really form an attachment to a franchise when their entire childhood passes in between releases.

I think there might be something to that. I also think it might extend to a lot of other media young people are not as interested in such as TV and Movies. When you take so long between seasons of a TV show, or take decades to release a sequel to a movie, I feel like the same thing can happen.

Meanwhile you can see something new in Fortnite weekly, or always play a different thing in Roblox. No wonder that's what the children play.

You can't force fun, or community or engagement.

You don't just build Halo 2 and a rabid player base. It just happens. It's a lightning strike. It happens organically.

Make your game fun first. Keep the price reasonable. People will play, they'll get their friends to play. That's the best you can do.

I wish Marathon the best of luck, because that is what it mostly comes down to.

This statement makes me think about Helldivers. The first game was extremely fun, it was free for all PS+ subscribers, and it came out on PS3, PS4, and Vita simultaneously... And it was still a niche game. A commited playerbase sure, but even now, you don't hear too much chatter about it online.

Then Helldivers 2 launched at $40, and was so popular that successfully getting into a server was a whole thing for nearly a month, and people happily stood in the digital rain for hours to get in. What changed?

It may really just come down to luck and timing.

RIP Titanfall 2.

This must be a nightmare for people making games. When it takes over 6 years to make a game like Marathon, it seems like the 'timing' aspect becomes impossible since you have no idea at all how things will change in that amount of time.

Especially in the last four years, with GTA6 Looming like Melancholia in the sky, there's been immense pressure to release stuff before it consumes the marketplace entire.
Might be why so much Early Access Friendslop has poured out nonstop.

Like, the early 90s and the late 90s almost feel like totally different decades. That's the future you release a game into unless you can make it quickly.

There's something to be said about that old three-year dev cycle putting out banger after banger only two console generations ago. I think about Gears 3, Halo Reach, Dead Space 2. Games with so much more to offer than the one that came right before them... And now we get unfinished games that have been cooking for what used to be a console's entire lifespan.

But man… there were some bad choices here let's be honest. Having your story be told with ARG puzzles and talking heads between PvP matches is just so conceptually bad.

The first Titanfall should have been a huge red flag for devs. Players don't care about radio dramas being your only narrative in shooters, and they especially don't work for the target audience of extraction shooters, because they're trying to listen for footsteps at all times, and looting as quickly as possible (reading walls of text in an extraction shooter? lol). Save The World in Fortnite does the "Narrative between matches" thing, but I think it being a comedy with a focused narrative helps it go a long way in encouraging players to not just jump into the next match right away; There is actually something to head towards on the horizon.

Respawn applied the radio-drama lesson immediately in Titanfall 2 (again, RIP), and the campaign is one of the most praised FPS campaigns ever, and it was so good that it haunts Apex Legends to this day. Meanwhile, the multiplayer is so locked-in at all times, I can't imagine heads popping in on the corner with people narrating how much of an important adventure they are having.

RIP Titanfall 2.

You can't force fun, or community or engagement.

You don't just build Halo 2 and a rabid player base. It just happens. It's a lightning strike. It happens organically.

Make your game fun first. Keep the price reasonable. People will play, they'll get their friends to play. That's the best you can do.

I wish Marathon the best of luck, because that is what it mostly comes down to.

This statement makes me think about Helldivers. The first game was extremely fun, it was free for all PS+ subscribers, and it came out on PS3, PS4, and Vita simultaneously... And it was still a niche game. A commited playerbase sure, but even now, you don't hear too much chatter about it online.

Then Helldivers 2 launched at $40, and was so popular that successfully getting into a server was a whole thing for nearly a month, and people happily stood in the digital rain for hours to get in. What changed?

It may really just come down to luck and timing.

RIP Titanfall 2.

This must be a nightmare for people making games. When it takes over 6 years to make a game like Marathon, it seems like the 'timing' aspect becomes impossible since you have no idea at all how things will change in that amount of time.

Like, the early 90s and the late 90s almost feel like totally different decades. That's the future you release a game into unless you can make it quickly.

But man… there were some bad choices here let's be honest. Having your story be told with ARG puzzles and talking heads between PvP matches is just so conceptually bad.

You can't force fun, or community or engagement.

You don't just build Halo 2 and a rabid player base. It just happens. It's a lightning strike. It happens organically.

Make your game fun first. Keep the price reasonable. People will play, they'll get their friends to play. That's the best you can do.

I wish Marathon the best of luck, because that is what it mostly comes down to.

This statement makes me think about Helldivers. The first game was extremely fun, it was free for all PS+ subscribers, and it came out on PS3, PS4, and Vita simultaneously... And it was still a niche game. A commited playerbase sure, but even now, you don't hear too much chatter about it online.

Then Helldivers 2 launched at $40, and was so popular that successfully getting into a server was a whole thing for nearly a month, and people happily stood in the digital rain for hours to get in. What changed?

It may really just come down to luck and timing.

RIP Titanfall 2.

The game was reportedly refunded 500 thousand times on steam.

SteamDB doesn’t track refunds. Only developers have access to those metrics. You can’t just believe any random shit you read on Twitter.

When did I mention steamdb?

Okay but what is your source, given that such information has no public vectors?

The source is total bullshit!

Apparently that number WAS pulled from SteamDB, which is impossible.

Fake news.

The game was reportedly refunded 500 thousand times on steam.

SteamDB doesn’t track refunds. Only developers have access to those metrics. You can’t just believe any random shit you read on Twitter.

When did I mention steamdb?

Okay but what is your source, given that such information has no public vectors?

The game was reportedly refunded 500 thousand times on steam.

this is self selecting for the people who knew they were going to buy and like the game.

These are two contradicting statements, for what it's worth...

Can you review a game that you’ve refunded? I assume you can?! I know you can sort reviews by playtime, and the main display prioritizes reviews with a decent amount of playtime vs like 30 mins or something.

The game was reportedly refunded 500 thousand times on steam.

SteamDB doesn’t track refunds. Only developers have access to those metrics. You can’t just believe any random shit you read on Twitter.

When did I mention steamdb?

While the playerbase has been gradually trending downward every day (as the barrier to entry slowly grows as well)[…]

Does the barrier to entry grow? I'm not so sure. Most of the patch notes this week were about making it an easier onboarding experience. As the more capable players have leveled up they have migrated away from Perimeter toward Dire marsh and Outpost, where they are focused on each other for PVP. Meanwhile, the inventory or starter guides and explainers is much much higher than it was at launch.

The game was reportedly refunded 500 thousand times on steam.

this is self selecting for the people who knew they were going to buy and like the game.

These are two contradicting statements, for what it's worth...

The game was reportedly refunded 500 thousand times on steam.

SteamDB doesn’t track refunds. Only developers have access to those metrics. You can’t just believe any random shit you read on Twitter.

I think Marathon has indeed succeeded in being fun… for a very particular kind of audience.

Which is what Bungie should have expected. Perhaps they could have hoped that somehow the extraction shooter genre would see a boom like the battle royale genre did, but the nature of the genre made that less than likely. If their bet on Marathon hinged on extraction shooters becoming mainstream, they lost before they even launched the game, and that's that.

I haven't played it myself (as I've said before, it's just not up my alley), but user reviews are good and the player base seem to really enjoy what they've been given. In other words: It looks like it has succeeded at being fun.

The game was reportedly refunded 500 thousand times on steam. The reviews you see are from the players who liked the game from the server slam and bought in. Since steam requires you to have bought the game to leave a review, this is self selecting for the people who knew they were going to buy and like the game.

Look at the metacritic rating, It is 70 critic, 5.6 audience.

I think Marathon has indeed succeeded in being fun… for a very particular kind of audience.

It's just not for me. PvP-only is not my thing. The people who are into that sort of thing (and have actually purchased the game) are saying it's very fun, though.

You don't just build Halo 2 and a rabid player base. It just happens. It's a lightning strike. It happens organically.

Make your game fun first. Keep the price reasonable. People will play, they'll get their friends to play. That's the best you can do.

I wish Marathon the best of luck, because that is what it mostly comes down to.