this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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Personally I would not call Immortals of Aveum an AAA game. πŸ˜…

And I mean, that's maybe where the problems lie. This game is all jank and all generics, with no specific thing to present except "OMG LOOK AT OUR GRAPHICS!!!!". Which are also pretty unoptimized, so you end up with:

  • Only a tiny tiny fraction of players can even play it.
  • Then, the game is utterly generic. Despite how it might look to someone not knowing about it, DOOM 2016 and Eternal are quite unique games and have a very well-designed gameplay flow that even differs divisively between the two.
  • The writing is horrible and would make even an MCU movie/series writer question their decisions in life.
  • The magic is still just guns with replaced graphics. They didn't lean into the very premise of the game at all. And all they had to do is play Lichdom Battlemage from 2014 to get some ideas and that game already struggled with the concept. But at least it pulled it off.

Can't really say I'm surprised the game flopped hard. But unlike the dev I would call the underlying idea solid, just not anything about the execution.

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[–] technomad@slrpnk.net 181 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Trying to act like it flopped because it's single player... What a joke.

[–] FMT99@lemmy.world 89 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think BG3 showed conclusively that no one will ever play single player games no matter how great they are. /s

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

but that was like 6 whole months ago. the market is totally different now. /s

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[–] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 134 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The development cost was around $85 million, and I think EA kicked in $40 million for marketing and distribution.

Apparently, $40 million doesn't buy you much in today's market, because I've literally never heard of this game until now.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 58 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably spent it all on cable TV ads, where their audience ain't at.

Or just blow and hookers.

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[–] twoface_99@feddit.de 117 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The issue is not the genre "single player (shooter)" itself, but that these big companies just churn out the same generic bullshit and then act surprised when no-one plays it.

AAA studios just don't have the balls anymore to take a risk and develop something unique. And this is their downfall.

Titanfall 2, Metro Exodus, Ghostwire Tokyo, Doom (to name a few) are all excellent first person shooters. All of them have something unique about them that makes them worthwhile.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 42 points 1 year ago

Goes to show that making a good game is still more art than science.

Hell, make a broken or buggy game, if it has the special something it'll still likely become a classic.

Eg. Fallout New Vegas or Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Titanfall 2

Titanfall 2 had one of the most acclaimed single-player campaigns, with it being only a few hours long and mostly a showcase to get people on multiplayer, and it was still enough.

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[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 109 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I would eat up a single player story driven fps no problem.

[–] Archelon@lemmy.world 72 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Doom (2016) and Wolfenstein TNO both proved that AAA single player story-driven fps can be hugely successful.

They just need to, y’know, not be shit.

Doom eternal was amazing.

I never even heard of this, but I wouldn't buy it anyways because EA.

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These studios can't quite wrap their heads around that last part.

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[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

exactly. maybe you guys just made a shitty game and can't accept that.

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[–] TIMMAY@lemmy.world 90 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I play a lot of games but Ive never heard of this game before this post

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 69 points 1 year ago (6 children)

"Nobody bought our game we didn't market. Guess we'll stop making an entire genre of games."

[–] Damage@feddit.it 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I mean, it's my favorite genre, so if EA can stay the fuck away from it, that's not a bad outcome

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[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

They claim to have spent 40 million usd marketing it, I saw some people on twitch playing it when it first came out but it looked meh and was priced way too high so I didn’t watch much

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[–] FontMasterFlex@lemmy.world 77 points 1 year ago (16 children)

I think EA makes games like this to reinforce THEIR notion that single player games are dead so they can use that as leverage to make more "games as a service". If they made things people actually wanted to play, they'd find that single player (yes even shooter) games are still just as popular as they ever were and poorly thought out, poorly executed, and poorly marketed games still suck.

[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Case in point. Baldurs gate 3.

Single player (with optional co op multiplayer) but massively successful.

Not to beat a dead horse. Its just the first example that came to mind.

A huge amount of very successful indie games are single-player and even other AAA games.

They talk about the genre being dead but they forget that most games dont charge you to play them anymore. They make money through in game purchases selling cosmetics and battle pasees.

These game genres could be described as dead by the same criteria if they cost actual money.

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[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 73 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 59 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Literally the first I've heard about it as well. Maybe should have tossed a bit of that money at the marketing department.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They did, 40million of the budget went to marketing

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

What did they do with the two bags of chips after someone pocketed 39,999,990 dollars?

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Disagree. The fact that I'm only hearing about it now that it's flopped is a good thing because I might have given it attention before. Well, probably not because it's EA.

I just hope that companies that aren't EA don't take what they say about single player games at face value. EA games probably need friend group hype to succeed at this point. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking that there are many others like me who want to avoid anything from that company and thus would only play when pressured by friends.

But if EA does fail, there likely will be a period where they try to talk about it like experts and will just say, "oh, gamers must not like x genre anymore", when gamers really just don't like overproduced garbage games that are clearly tuned to sell MTX rather than be fun.

[–] Toneswirly@lemmy.world 59 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Peak player count was less than 800 players on steam... Flop is an understatement.

Those 100 workers EA laid off dont deserve to be thrown in the trash; why dont the execs take a nice paycut instead?

[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think companies that make profits should not be allowed to lay off people. Youβ€˜re welcome.

Edit: without cause

[–] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 57 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Single player shooter's aren't bad or even unpopular right now. But I think people are beginning to realize that anything that has EA's name attached to it is trash and just avoid it on principal.

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[–] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Orrrr it was a mid game with almost no marketing.

[–] peak_dunning_krueger@feddit.de 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2009100/Immortals_of_Aveum/

1.1k reviews 75% positive

https://store.steampowered.com/app/379720/DOOM/ (2016)

125k reviews 95%

Git gud, EA, and make an actually competing product.

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[–] _sideffect@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Of course, Doom doesn't exist right

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[–] SteefLem@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is this a single player shooter? I thought it was multi player? And theres nothing wrong with single player shooters β€œin todays market” look at jedi fallen order great game and singlr player. But a shit game is a shit game single or multi.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

It's worse than shit, it's mediocre.

At least people talk about shit games, which means some people buy a copy just because they're curious.

Mediocre stuff? No one's interested.

[–] Aielman15@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll go counter-current here and say that it was a fun game. IGN review sells it really well, and I had fun while playing it. I'd say the main problem of the game was releasing in a year already full of big-name releases, and a marketing campaign that was too quiet - I'm honestly surprised it cost $40 million, because I only heard of the game by pure chance.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Yeah I will say, it's painfully generic and I hate the MCU-style humor, but it's not a bad game per se. It's just in no way shape or form triple-A, except for looking rather snazzy.

The worst offense to me though is how there's no magic in the game. Just guns with weird graphics. They managed to not make the magic feel like, well, magic. That's the big flaw of it to me. Everything else is minor by comparison. Still, not a bad game, just not a good one either. At least for me.

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"a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

Fucking what? Why? What in the actual fuck?

[–] Defaced@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I tried the demo, it has a lot of problems outside of it being a AAA single player shooter. The "magic" system is just reskinned guns, the story is nonsensical at times, and the movement is stiff and slow. It's like they never play tested the game and just said it was done one day. That's not even mentioning the almost ten minute walk around the city at the beginning doing nothing but following what I will assume is a non critical character to the plot.

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[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I play a lot of single player shooters. One thing they all have in common is that I know they exist, which I'm thinking could potentially be part of the problem with this one. Based on reactions in this thread it seems like a lot of people are in the same position I'm in, where the first they hear of the game is when it's being pronounced a flop. I'm getting big The Producers vibes.

[–] Talaraine@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago

Someone stole $40 million of EA's money and didn't advertise another horrible cashgrab?

"I'm not even mad, I'm.. impressed!"

[–] mrfriki@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

I'm very into shooters and this was a hard pass because it looked like a generic and boring Call of Duty re-skin and I'm not into that game.

Maybe the problem is not the current AAA or shooters landscape. Maybe it is more about the quality and the fun your games are.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Because EA games is weak. It’s all retreads of ancient franchises or bloated games with no risks taken.

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[–] JCreazy@midwest.social 16 points 1 year ago

This is the first time I've ever even heard of it.

[–] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 year ago

I would love an AAA single player shooter. If it is done well and fun. So no chance EA could do it

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 year ago

And I mean, that's maybe where the problems lie. This game is all jank and all generics, with no specific thing to present except "OMG LOOK AT OUR GRAPHICS!!!!".

This is exactly what AAA gaming is. Some guys in suits dictate projects to make money. There's no passion behind them. They can't do anything unique or interesting because it may not make money. They just make safe games, and they're generic and boring as hell.

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This game was the most AA shit I've ever seen. In the PS2 days it would have got a 7.5 average from most reviewers then it would have had a not-insignificant number of people pick it up.

They are delusional for thinking a UE5 asset flip is a AAA game.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Not at that price point, of course. Ultrakill has a sub 2 million USD budget, its one of the most critically praised games on Steam, and its not even finished yet. I can't look up Steamcharts at work but I have good reason to believe its more than made back its production budget.

Live service games are starting to turn into a very expensive scam and if you can't make a good single player game, you need to cut costs somewhere. AAA production budgets are just too huge and the product isn't good.

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