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Vipsu, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell
@Vipsu@lemmy.world avatar

The title is a bit missleading considering that the actual article mentions a lot other problems that plagued the development.

Project 8 faced both progress and challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic made team stability difficult, but some quality improvements were achieved. However, critical issues persisted, causing delays and budget increases. The latest review revealed unresolved problems needing more time and money, along with revised sales forecasts, raising doubts about the project’s profitability.
– TLDR by Microsoft copilot

While there’s still demand for “narrative-driven story-rich games” one should keep realistic expectations. For this genre I feel smaller scope and indie developers work much better.

MajorHavoc,

Oof.

“The COVID-19 pandemic made team stability difficult,”

Makes me suspect they were woefully behind the rest of the field in development practices. My team, and many others, gained productivity when all the wasteful manager ego stroking in-person meetings stopped.

Alternately, it tells us they rely on a weird dev kit with a lot of esoteric hardware. Though I would still call that out as being super out of date. Nothing is particularly hard to emulate today, for teams that prioritize having rebuildable test environmenta.

Just wild.

Bummer about the layoffs. Probably won’t fix their agility problem, though.

erraticunicorn,

I think it’s probably true though. I pitched my game to them and they graciously responded and said they are looking into publishing narrative driven games but rather mechanically complex games.

GhiLA, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell
@GhiLA@sh.itjust.works avatar

man who normally buys “narrative-driven, story-rich games” forced to put his money back into his wallet

viking,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

Anything good you can recommend? Haven’t seen much good since Witcher 3… And before that, maybe Gothic 2 or Oblivion.

logos,

Baldurs gate 3? One of the best games I ever played.

GhiLA,
@GhiLA@sh.itjust.works avatar

This man is spitting straight fire.

frezik,

I haven’t played it, but based on everything I’ve read about it, that alone puts the headline to shame.

GelatinGeorge,

I’ve a love/hate relationship with Rogue Trader 40k. I fucking love it, literally everything about it, but I also hate it because it will end at some point.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2, if you haven’t played already. Think of them as the stepping stones for BG3.

Spec Ops: The Line is a 3rd person shooter with an incredible story, I think it takes 4-6 hours to go through the campaign. Short when compared to RPGs, but worth the time. People also talk about Titanfall 2’s campaign being great, I haven’t played it yet.

Mass Effect trilogy is also very good, mainly the 2nd game. The first game is the jankiest of the bunch and the 3rd is much better after all the DLC, though I still don’t like how the optional Paragon/Renegade prompts from 2 became obligatory QTE in 3.

Ellvix,
@Ellvix@lemmy.world avatar

Currently sucked into Kingdom Come Deliverance, which is similar to TW3 in that it’s a first person story driven game, but set in IRL 1403 Bohemia instead of the fantasy setting. Very good historical storytelling, I think.

Earflap,

TW3 is third person

Ashtear,

Since The Witcher 3 came out, my favorite video game stories have been Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk 2077, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Alan Wake 2, Citizen Sleeper, and Metaphor: ReFantazio. I also really liked Death Stranding, but Kojima’s not for everyone.

Mr_Dr_Oink,

You know, maybe i dont know enough about games as i am a casual these days, aside from baldurs gate 3 which is a fucking masterpiece, i really like the 2 (soon to be 3) star wars jedi games outcast and survivour. They are like a much easier souls mixed with the 3d prince of persia (sands of time, warrior within, two thrones) games but are very story driven. I am very excited to see what will happen in the final game in the trilogy qhen it comes out.

GhiLA,
@GhiLA@sh.itjust.works avatar

…Yakuza

Bros being bros forever.

KnowledgeableNip,
@KnowledgeableNip@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’ve been loving Metaphor recently

Earflap, (edited )

If you liked the story driven elements of TW3 you might like Cyberpunk 2077. Its very similar story and engine wise since they’re both made by CDPR, but obviously very different thematically. God of War is another story driven narrative driven game I enjoyed.

ours,

The new Indiana Jones game is really fun.

SpiceDealer,
@SpiceDealer@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve been playing Outer Worlds lately. It’s made by Obsidian so it’s gameplay is similar to F:NV.

Damage,

Control? Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West.

dustyData, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Typical infantile C-suite logic “I didn’t do X well, therefore X is impossible and no one can do X! It’s not my fault, I swear!”

Kbobabob,

Maybe the people are just out of touch? I’m sure that’s it.

SweatyFireBalls, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Obviously this is just me, but here is a list of the last 5 games I purchased that were not smaller indie titles:

Stalker 2, Elden ring, remnant 2, bg3, dragon’s dogma 2

You could argue that remnant is intended for multiplayer and you could argue that maybe only bg3 and stalker and really narrative driven but the truth is, anymore I tend to buy single player and stream to my friends than I do actually play mp games. The only mp game i was tempted by was Helldivers and I was just too busy at the time.

Anything else are steam deck friendly indie games. I buy a lot of those, and bought a lot even before I had a deck.

In my anecdotal experience, when I see x game is multiplayer, or live service, or just not an experience I can enjoy on my own time I tune it out. For example, I always bought Diablo games but I don’t own 4.

I also immediately think of some other big ones that I opted out of, like Wukong. People fucking love single player games when they are good games. I think the real issue is developing a good game is hard. Developing a game with dark practices and otherwise addicting (but not necessarily fun) gameplay is a much easier way to make uninspired games made by committee.

It’s just easier to point the blame at the market than actually admit that upon self reflection you realized it is best to avoid the hard part of game development.

KeenFlame, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Ah, so managerial problems again who would have thought but that’s OK we that make the things can suffer a little more

MarcomachtKuchen, (edited ) do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Ok guys valid points from everyone here. But who here has bought the latest 11bit Studios games? And I’m not talking about Frostpunk 2. I’m taking about Indika, The alters (not out yet, my bad) , The Traumathurge, Creatures of Ava ,… all of these games seemed like really cool things to me, sadly I could not afford them.

CaptPretentious,

The Alters isn’t out yet. Expected release Q1 2025. It’s on my wish list because I love the demo.

Indika they were just the publisher. On top of which, maybe has a story that not everyone is interested in. I watched these guys play it, youtu.be/MuiHtAYOqgI and while it’s creative and it’s overall a fantastic game, is not one I’m going to play myself.

The Thaumaturge, again they are just the publisher. I hadn’t even heard of this one which means as the publisher they did a terrible job marketing it.

MarcomachtKuchen,

Thank you for the correction. The alters is indeed not out yet.

In my opinion for the other I doesn’t matter whether they are just publishing or actually developing. The games are not bar but apparently don’t sell well. Maybe their not the greatest at marketing but I enjoy the vibes they are going for

Mandy, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Thats the studio head talking bullahit.
Not the actual creators

finitebanjo, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

NGL the title always seemed like it wanted to be a mobile game so the studio saying this doesn’t surprise me.

Cornelius_Wangenheim, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

I’m going to guess they mean narrative-driven “games” like Hellblade or Indika, which were all narrative and almost no game.

pyre,

even so they both were extremely well received

random_character_a, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell
@random_character_a@lemmy.world avatar

Not agreeing, but if I look at my own purchases for the last few years, there aren’t many story driven games there. God of War and Starfield. Didn’t play much either one.

Fades, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Sony has been screaming the exact opposite of this and it continues to garner them a fuck ton of cash. You don’t even need Sony money to do it, as per Baldurs gate that many are also referencing here in the comments.

There’s no way they actually believe that, the C-suite simply can’t stop salivating over the potential money a live service game can potentially provide

Bosht,

This is exactly it. They don’t like their profit margin.

AwesomeLowlander, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

If Frostpunk is their idea of a “narrative-driven, story-rich game”, I can see why they have concerns.

_cryptagion,

That’s not how anyone describes that game, and if they did, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been canceled. Frostpunk did pretty well.

Nastybutler, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell
brucethemoose,

To be fair, BG3 is like bottled lightning, and I think it’s unreasonable to expect many (if any) other studios to produce something like that.

Even the Divinity games were way above par, with a much more lukewarm (but not unsuccessful, I guess?) reception.

Lesrid,

Shit I loved Divinity Original Sin and the sequel, but even I don’t think Larian could match or exceed BG3

hperrin, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Bad ones, sure. Wait, no, even bad ones sell. They’re just wrong.

PushButton, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

It’s not the customers like stories or not; it’s customers want good stories.

If that guy’s aiming is that bad at reading the market, it might be just a good thing he is not going the story path.

It sucks for the people being layoff though.

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