“Starting with Studios, the $400 million+ year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart’s Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) during the first quarter,” CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said during the investor call after the report was published.
This doesn't line up at all with what Insider Gaming wrote. I don't think they know how to interpret company financials.
Costing revenue itself is a questionable phrase. A game can miss its revenue target, but that's not the same thing. Here it looks like earnings were lower by $200M due in part to more than $400M lower revenue comparing to a Q1 2023, which had the Hogwarts Legacy release.
So basically the single player offline game made bank, but they keep pushing this live service crap thinking it’s going to be the next GTA online and not what 90% of the live service crap ends up being.
This is a very good point. It also shows the delusion of the executives, thinking that their next shitty looter shooter will become the new Fortnite, not understanding the oversaturation of the market. People have limited hours to play per day, the only way they can play your game is if they stop playing something else.
That’s the thought process, and it’s also what’s going to bring a lot of these companies down. Their shitty game isn’t going to beat the odds when all the other shitty games are also being pushed. Their chance of success and potential return figures are likely off by a large margin.
Edit: For example, Overwatch, which has actually hit the mainstream and has a fairly large player base, I think still isn’t profitable.
Yeah, I think the first few years were profitable (excluding Overwatch League), but OW2 for sure hasn’t been. I don’t think OW1 was by the end either. They had no way to make more money and it was a one time purchase. The switch to OW2 sucks, and it was exploitative as fuck and full of lies, but they did need some form of continuous revenue stream. It just wasn’t the greedy way they went about it, pushing everyone away.
Good demonstration of the current quality of journalism. “Cost X in revenue” doesn’t make any sense, as cost and revenue are the exact opposite things, the difference of which (if I simplify) make up the EBITDA that the quote from the company actually referenced for the 200 M USD negative impact.
I’m not expecting a game journalist be an ACCA certified accountant, but should be at least able to write an accurate title based on the available quotes and information.
Well, artifact was dead from the start and underlords was more of a spinoff chasing a fad. What we know about Deadlock is that they’re putting a lot of resources into it, and it sounds like it would be really popular with the MOBA crowd.
Pouring resources does not equate quality, there’s no new idea here. They try a overwatch like game when their IP contains the most successful hero shooter out there.
really popular with the MOBA crowd
They tend to play non shooter mobas, you know, like dota. Why try to compete with your own ip?
It reeks of poor design choice, jus like artifact, and no amount of money will fix that.
I keep seeing everyone comparing this to overwatch, how is this like overwatch at all? Just because you pick a character and they have unique abilities?
I’ve been playing dota for over a decade and couldn’t get into any other moba I’ve ever tried, but I think this sounds like it could be fun and I’d give it a chance at least.
Edit: I take that back, I’ve played exactly one other game I’d classify as a moba extensively, and it was Monday Night Combat, which was really similar to this concept. Super Monday Night Combat killed it and sucked though.
I loved that game. If Valve wants to take a crack at making Super Monday Night Combat but done well I’m here for it, and I think they could pull it off.
There were many factors that went into the failure of artifact, gameplay was not one of them and is still solid to this day. The biggest problem was the monetization, and not really the monetization itself, but the timing of monetization. Hearthstone conditioned people to want free cards and earn free rewards by playing the game, artifact was a digital representation of a physical card game where you could literally build decks for like $10 and enjoy it, the allure of free low quality shit will always overshadow high quality paid content and it’s just fucking sad. Now look at hearthstone, a shit husk of a game it once was.
Apparently valve doesn’t really assign teams to certain projects. People can work on what projects they like and things organically get people behind them if they are looking good or interesting.
This means games that do get completed are often really good and ones that weren’t looking good fizzle out.
It’s an interesting approach for sure. I think it makes sense rather than steaming ahead with a bad game. On the flip side what could be an interesting product may die out.
It’s happened several times to half life 3 apparently.
Just personally they arent my type of game. Single player games are my forte
I think so too on the Overwatch DOTA hybrid, it makes sense they are making MOBA/Royale style games since that's what's popular (esp internationally) and what makes money. But again, not my genre.
Ah, I see now that you said “as a non moba player”. I missed that. I thought you meant that for someone who likes MOBAs, it was disappointing, so I was curious as to why.
But yeah, I don’t like them either, so it’s disappointing to me too. Too many heroes for me, give me a multiplayer game with character customization or 5 classes, but not 100 heroes, that drives me nuts.
You should take anything from the screenshots, and that should be obvious. It’s in early alpha, nothing is finished. It’s weird how anyone could not understand any of this.
I feel like I’m the only one excited for this game. Every post about it is getting shit on for absolutely stupid reasons. We have 4 low res screenshots and no videos of gameplay with a few details on the gameplay loop. This is what icefrog was working on for years when he stopped working on DotA 2, the man damn near created the entire moba genre, he’s taking liberties with the gameplay and incorporating overwatch gameplay with moba mechanics that sounds like it’s handled in a more meaningful way instead of just copy/paste mechanics from other mobas and move the camera to 3rd person like smite. As someone who’s older and loves mobas but struggles to keep up with the pace of them, this game sounds like it will be right up my alley and for the record I love the art style, fuck me right?
I'm right here with you, friend! I'm pumped as hell for a new Valve team game, and I didn't know Icefrog was behind this. Guaranteed gold, so let's let the man cook
I don’t mean any offense, but if you’re saying traditional mobas are too fast paced for you, how do you expect to keep up in a moba style arena shooter? I’ve got tons of experience in both Dota and overwatch and without a doubt, overwatch is so much more taxing. As I get older, I’ve had to stray away from shooters altogether because I simply can’t operate fast enough, yet I still have no issues with the most hectic Dota teamfights. It doesn’t seem to be in the same ballpark to me
My issue with games like LoL is that they start making changes and adding so many new heroes to it, that eventually, unless you’re playing it several times a week, you fall way behind on gameplay. I never like taking a couple months off to play some other things and then feeling completely swamped on new content or having to recognize 150 different heroes.
That one’s Indiana Jones and the staff of kings, which has nothing to do with this title. This one was in pre-production in 2021, announced the same year, and revealed in early 2024 to be released later the same year.
insider-gaming.com
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