The studio behind very nice The Demon Souls and Shadow of Collosus remakes is being shut down by PlayStation.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV
😢26😁3🌚1
Marathon free Beta gained over 140K CCU on Steam and quickly lowered to around 50K. The players are generally impressed with the polished shooting mechanics. So, a good game, right? Not quite!
The art direction is questionable and hard to use — the navigation patterns in the environment, the characters, etc. It's all over the place.
The overall gameplay loop is considered to be bland in contrast to the art direction.
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
The art direction is questionable and hard to use — the navigation patterns in the environment, the characters, etc. It's all over the place.
The overall gameplay loop is considered to be bland in contrast to the art direction.
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
🫡6❤1
GameDev Pulse
Marathon free Beta gained over 140K CCU on Steam and quickly lowered to around 50K. The players are generally impressed with the polished shooting mechanics. So, a good game, right? Not quite! The art direction is questionable and hard to use — the navigation…
The demo of Marathon is failing to retain players. And it's a free run of a generally paid game. As of now, nothing indicates that sales will be good. People have tried it — PlayStation fans, Bungie fans, but they didn't get the point.
My bet: 5-10K online upon paid release. What do you think?
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
My bet: 5-10K online upon paid release. What do you think?
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
✍4
GameDev Pulse
The demo of Marathon is failing to retain players. And it's a free run of a generally paid game. As of now, nothing indicates that sales will be good. People have tried it — PlayStation fans, Bungie fans, but they didn't get the point. My bet: 5-10K online…
The free Marathon demo is losing players daily. Unlike many other games, it failed to bounce back during the weekend and by Monday dipped to 18K (against 143K on its first day). That's 87% loss in less than a week.
The final game is planned to be paid and it doesn't look good for Bungie and Sony.
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
The final game is planned to be paid and it doesn't look good for Bungie and Sony.
#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
😁8
Bloomberg says that PlayStation is turning away from PC for the next few years to improve their own brand. They are concerned by poor sales of a few recent ports, they no longer want deals with Microsoft, and so on.
Multiplayer and Live Service games will be available on PC, but the story-driven paid games will stay exclusives.
The biggest change happened when PlayStation forced people to use PSN accounts on PC. It was their plan to move people from PC to PS5, but it backfired. Even when restrictions were lifted sales never returned.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Consoles@GameDEV
#Xbox@GameDEV
Multiplayer and Live Service games will be available on PC, but the story-driven paid games will stay exclusives.
The biggest change happened when PlayStation forced people to use PSN accounts on PC. It was their plan to move people from PC to PS5, but it backfired. Even when restrictions were lifted sales never returned.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Consoles@GameDEV
#Xbox@GameDEV
😁14🤔2
Don't blame greedy publishers and lazy developers if 80000 people decided to hop into Marathon upon release...
#Bungie@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Bungie@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
🫡3😱2🔥1
Folks, it seems like the Fortnitified Horizon game has five times more dislikes eventually.
Also the conversion rate from views to dislikes is insane. For just 800K views having 100K+ dislikes is the greatest engagement ratio.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
Also the conversion rate from views to dislikes is insane. For just 800K views having 100K+ dislikes is the greatest engagement ratio.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
😁11
According to several sources, PlayStation forced media reviews of Marathon to be delayed for several days on Metacritic. This is not a common practice and usually the embargo can't be after the release.
Out of three reviews available, two are doubtful warnings about inconsistent nature and poor UX, but the platform hid their scores: https://www.metacritic.com/game/marathon/
#PlayStation@GameDEV
Out of three reviews available, two are doubtful warnings about inconsistent nature and poor UX, but the platform hid their scores: https://www.metacritic.com/game/marathon/
#PlayStation@GameDEV
😁14
Ballistic Moon is now officially closed. The studio behind the pointless Until Dawn Remaster has been an empty shell for a while now, but now it's completely gone.
The original game used to have a carefully placed fog and light flares. In the remaster they simply dropped the most basic 3D fog everywhere and called it a day (or a night, IDK)
#LayOffs@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
The original game used to have a carefully placed fog and light flares. In the remaster they simply dropped the most basic 3D fog everywhere and called it a day (or a night, IDK)
#LayOffs@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
😁9🫡6👍2
There are quite some doubts about Marathon, so let's summarise:
1. It's a generally good game with horrible UI/UX that slows it by a mile. Bungie sorted out maps, shooting, and teamplay.
2. The game was made for $250M (before marketing). And according to multiple sources is being mostly played on PC (Steam) with constantly falling CCU.
The game is paid but the initial batch of users was not meeting the quota to pay off the production budget even remotely.
PlayStation and Bungie are in superposition: they expected it to be much worse to simply cut the loss and fire everyone. But it got some attention too big to make this decision right away. But it's also not good enough to keep everyone so layoffs are imminent.
Morale: your game can't cost 2.5 GTA V budgets and aim for just a million people. Also, UI/UX fixes could be much cheaper than this outcome.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Bungie@GameDEV
#UIUX@GameDEV
1. It's a generally good game with horrible UI/UX that slows it by a mile. Bungie sorted out maps, shooting, and teamplay.
2. The game was made for $250M (before marketing). And according to multiple sources is being mostly played on PC (Steam) with constantly falling CCU.
The game is paid but the initial batch of users was not meeting the quota to pay off the production budget even remotely.
PlayStation and Bungie are in superposition: they expected it to be much worse to simply cut the loss and fire everyone. But it got some attention too big to make this decision right away. But it's also not good enough to keep everyone so layoffs are imminent.
Morale: your game can't cost 2.5 GTA V budgets and aim for just a million people. Also, UI/UX fixes could be much cheaper than this outcome.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Bungie@GameDEV
#UIUX@GameDEV
✍4👍2
The upcoming Death Stranding 2 costs €80 in Europe for the basic edition. It's €10 more than any other AAA game and KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS overestimate their fans loyalty. On a crowded market being the highest priced choice is not a selling point, it's a hiccup that will make people think twice and go to another game in most cases.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
🫡13🤔4
Sony fixed their Piss-Upscaler PSSR: it's fairly good now and I will not call it piss ever again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2j7ij9ZPDk
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Hardware@GameDEV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2j7ij9ZPDk
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Hardware@GameDEV
YouTube
Upgraded PSSR Tested: Silent Hill f, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Monster Hunter Wilds, Dragon Age!
Digital Foundry is now fully independent! Join the DF Supporter Program and support the team: https://bit.ly/3jEGjvx
A short while back, Digital Foundry had the chance to visit Sony HQ in London to go hands-on with a bunch of PlayStation 5 Pro titles running…
A short while back, Digital Foundry had the chance to visit Sony HQ in London to go hands-on with a bunch of PlayStation 5 Pro titles running…
😁2🤔1
PlayStation picked the wrong release window (in the beginning of Steam Spring Sale), set too high piece, and now losing in the battle against piracy.
Players have tons of alternatives and now can fully avoid payments for the game. But even before the leak they could literally get 5-10 games on sale instead of wasting €80 on this one.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
Players have tons of alternatives and now can fully avoid payments for the game. But even before the leak they could literally get 5-10 games on sale instead of wasting €80 on this one.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
👏17👍2
SONY removed PSN and PlayStation Network from all their descriptions. Nothing changes but the naming itself. The brand was damaged when Hermen Hulst tried to enforce it on PC. Which made regional limitations and other issues to become synonymous to PSN.
#PCMR@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
#PCMR@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
😁11😱3
Kojima and PlayStation kinda won: despite the increased price across the globe, Death Stranding 2 started at 50K CCU on Steam. And the third place among top sellers. That's less than DA Veilguard and AC Shadows, both were considered commercial failures.
Reviews are 93% positive so far but aren't detailed in most cases. There may be some issues on Radeon graphics cards causing crashes a few hours into the game ("Error Device Hung"). And Linux is not supported well.
Fun fact: the game supports Pico Upscale technology, which is a port of PSSR made for PC. We may see some reviews of this, but that's not the only extra upscaling on PC, for example, the Qualcomm SGSR one is also present in some games and Lossless Scaling App. But it's unexpected to see a SONY tech on PC.
By the way, Crimson Desert is on the first spot among top sellers and will definitely outperform the competitor.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
Reviews are 93% positive so far but aren't detailed in most cases. There may be some issues on Radeon graphics cards causing crashes a few hours into the game ("Error Device Hung"). And Linux is not supported well.
Fun fact: the game supports Pico Upscale technology, which is a port of PSSR made for PC. We may see some reviews of this, but that's not the only extra upscaling on PC, for example, the Qualcomm SGSR one is also present in some games and Lossless Scaling App. But it's unexpected to see a SONY tech on PC.
By the way, Crimson Desert is on the first spot among top sellers and will definitely outperform the competitor.
#PlayStation@GameDEV
❤7😱3
And PlayStation is shutting down Dark Outlaw Games. The company they founded with ex-Treyarch veteran and co-creator of Call of Duty Zombies franchise Jason Blundell.
The craziest part? The company was established last March and lived just about a year. Do they know that to succeed in game industry you have to MAKE GAMES and not simply shut down every studio you have?
Jason is also a curious person: in 2022 he announced the creation of Deviation Games that was also focused on PlayStation exclusives. Then he left his own company in 2023, and then Deviation Games was eventually shut down in 2024. In total way over 100 people worked there, famous motion capture actors were there, and it was all gone without a trace.
#LayOffs@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
The craziest part? The company was established last March and lived just about a year. Do they know that to succeed in game industry you have to MAKE GAMES and not simply shut down every studio you have?
Jason is also a curious person: in 2022 he announced the creation of Deviation Games that was also focused on PlayStation exclusives. Then he left his own company in 2023, and then Deviation Games was eventually shut down in 2024. In total way over 100 people worked there, famous motion capture actors were there, and it was all gone without a trace.
#LayOffs@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
🫡14🔥1😱1
Marathon is getting "content tasks" from bot farms to boost activity around the game. Most of the people are from India and SEA, where even a few $ per day is a good financial support.
Fact: it's not that uncommon but usually these boosting nets are active upon the release and to increase the organic and real activity. It's not a good solution if the game drops to 12K CCU on Steam. The game is currently at 77th position by last week revenue.
UPD: Most of the screenshots are from the release window of the game, so it's more or less in line with industry practices.
#Bungie@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
Fact: it's not that uncommon but usually these boosting nets are active upon the release and to increase the organic and real activity. It's not a good solution if the game drops to 12K CCU on Steam. The game is currently at 77th position by last week revenue.
UPD: Most of the screenshots are from the release window of the game, so it's more or less in line with industry practices.
#Bungie@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
😁13🤔3😱2
GameDev Pulse
Photo
Several analytical agencies suggested that marathon revenue is just about $55M, compared to the budget of over $250M (before marketing and support).
Most of the people are playing on Steam, there was a small boost about 2 weeks after the release when people got curious and bought more premium upgrades. But since then the revenue plummeted.
Analytics noted that despite the support from PlayStation, the game is simply too hard for consoles. It makes people leave much earlier (at about 16 hours for active players on PS5, compared to 28 hours on PC).
#Bungie@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
Most of the people are playing on Steam, there was a small boost about 2 weeks after the release when people got curious and bought more premium upgrades. But since then the revenue plummeted.
Analytics noted that despite the support from PlayStation, the game is simply too hard for consoles. It makes people leave much earlier (at about 16 hours for active players on PS5, compared to 28 hours on PC).
#Bungie@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV
🫡7😱1