Link: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/highguard-is-closing-next-week-despite-the-passion-and-hard-work-of-our-team-we-have-not-been-able-to-build-a-sustainable-player-base-to-support-the-game-long-term/

What a cluster.

Sad Geoff noises

The pitiable coughs of the GaaS market slowly realising the audience doesn't have time for 1500 'forever games'.

Yup. And now due to GaaS only on the company owned server, this game will never be preserved and playable for those few that would like to play it.

Forget other “forever games,” isn’t TikTok like the biggest competition for gamers time, attention, and money these days?

But gamers...

lol

Stop killing games?
Hard to believe that StarCraft had this issue solved and we still can't figure it out for newer games

The market is saturated with PVP shooters. Give me small, unique games, suitable for a more casual playerbase (not meaning dumbed down but just with less time investment needed). Feel free to keep them low budget to minimise risk for the studio.

I guess that would require actual creativity. And I get it, that is not an easy thing to get by, especially when so many games already exist.

It's been a great couple years to release your indie game out of early access.

Never heard of it. That's part of the problem I guess.

Newer games rely a lot more on online features than StarCraft did. You could play that without access to the internet when it came out.

Your comment is structured like a statement of disagreement but you are really just summarizing the problem that the person you responded to outlined.

Not this gamer. I don't know what the rest of you savages are up to though

What I'm saying is that StarCraft didn't so much "have that issue solved" as it just didn't create that issue for itself. It's also a lot easier to do things offline when your game is designed to be sold once instead of the micro transactions hellscape and constant "events" you see nowadays.

The Second Wind folks just out out a video about MMOs being a dying genre

https://youtu.be/L7tzcL4X2_s

rip bozo

So StarCraft had it figured out. Then companies unfigured it by adding things that maximize profit. Funnily enough very little of what they added real prevents self hosted multiplayer. It's just more convenient the way they do it.

Wait, isn't this the game where the company owner said "we don't need a lot of players to keep us going" or am I misattributing the paraphrase?

Small, unique games suitable for a more casual player base made with a lower budget release on Steam every day, isn't that also a saturated market?

Oh look, another shitty live service game getting scuttled after people gave their money to the corporation.

I can't wait for the next shitty live service game release.

But no indication of making it selfhostable. Another brick to this fate they built for themselves.

I know, I've seen it. JM8 already said ages back on Windbreaker that the MMO market is only sustainable for a limited number of games. The amount of games that have flooded the market over the past half decade or so speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the market potential.

Same can be said for any entertainment media in a way. Tiktok (for those people) YT or even films. They're all ways to spend one's time, even if they aren't direct competitors. For those who choose a balanced approached between all of them, there's really only time left in a person's day for one or two of these kinds of games, let alone their dwindling funds for everything else that is increasing in price.

Yeah, it all smells of them never having cared about the players in the first place.

I wonder whose decision it was to make a bunch of former Titanfall 2 devs make yet another live service game.

Because that person probably put all of those TF2 devs out of a job.

Got me thinking of Atlyss . feel like it is more simple with no need for huge time investment.

No, you're pretty much spot on.

They also spoke a lot about CAGRs (Compound Annual Growth Rate) and MAUs, demonstrating how passionate they were about making cash a great game.

I wouldn't call it small at this point but I really like Warframe. You can basically play it at your own pace, there's micro transactions but it's not required and you can even sell shit from the game for the real money currency so you're not even locked out of that if you don't pay, most of the grindy stuff you can knock out in like a week of playing an hour or two after work, it's just really well set up for people to be casual.

Warframe is huge and it grew into this size over many years and iterations. Digital Extremes earned this, they're doing a lot right.

It's kind of funny that I've heard of this game all of 3 times. All three were because of articles saying they didn't have a strong enough player base.