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Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Team Disbanded After Critically Lauded Platformer Fails to Meet Expectations - Report (www.ign.com)

submitted 9 hours ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] sushibowl@feddit.nl 1 points 44 minutes ago

The big reason I'm hearing in this thread is "Denuvo and I don't trust Ubisoft." However I doubt that is the reason the mainstream audience skipped over this game. Ubisoft franchises generally sell like hotcakes, and for the most part only nerds care about DRM (like the type of person who knows what a lemmy is).

It's hard to say why it didn't sell more units. Certainly it seems their internal expectations were sky high:

similarly to the biggest Metroidvania’s in the market, with millions of units sold in a relatively short space of time

The game is good, but metroidvania is not exactly an easy market; there's some juggernauts in that genre, and they came out with a completely new and unproven concept. Apparently it sold a million units or so still, to me that's not unimpressive.

On PC, it initially launched only on Epic afaik, which certainly doesn't help. And by the time they brought it to steam it was much too late.

What I don't really get is, why disband the team? They've proven they can produce quality stuff. Just hand them some other promising projects? I suppose that's too much of a risk for a publisher like Ubisoft.

[-] lockhart@lemmy.ml 29 points 3 hours ago

and executives expressed concerns that a sequel would cannibalize long-term sales of the first game

This is legit the most ridiculous take I've ever seen

[-] Gerudo@lemm.ee 12 points 3 hours ago

Right? Like there are 48 Assasins Creed games, sequels are their bread and butter.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 hours ago

OK but did it really flop or where they expecting it to sell a morbillion units weekly?

[-] yamanii@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

This game is technically the same price of other metroidvanias like Bloodstained, in the US maybe, because here in Brazil this game is almost the same price of a regular AAA, they didn't localize the price at all, so I wouldn't buy it until it gets a deep discount since I don't buy any overpriced AAA on release anymore either.

The price here is so high that even the 40% steam debut was still too much for it, I can buy 3 Bloodstaineds without any discount for the price of 1 Lost Crown.

[-] bread@feddit.nl 26 points 5 hours ago

I wanted to play this, but not enough to interact with their launcher and Denuvo.

[-] yamanii@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

They released on steam in august, but yeah, by then people already forgot about it.

[-] bread@feddit.nl 1 points 8 minutes ago

True, but even through Steam, you're still dealing with Ubi's launcher and Denuvo, so it's just adding another layer on top.

[-] zecg@lemmy.world 56 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Fuck you, Ubi. Apart from all your shitty practices, it's a 15-hour game that's 40€ with a 50€ complete edition and cosmetics bullshit. That shit won't fly anymore. I might get it in two years when it's 10€, but only if your kill your launcher as a requirement.

edit: also, it came out a month ago. Learn to suck on the long tail of sales before you sacrifice your employees to Chtulhu, they'll just make their own vaguely middle eastern platformers in Unity or UE and make more money than your shitty company.

[-] blackris@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 53 minutes ago

What is your problem with the price related to the length of the game?

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 0 points 46 minutes ago

I paid $8 for Titanfall 2. Worth every penny since I only play campaign (~6-8 hours). I wouldn't have bought it for more than $10.

[-] yamanii@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago

also, it came out a month ago

*on steam

[-] kemsat@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago

I would consider this game, but I’m not installing another launcher. I used to play Far Cry 3 & 4, but I haven’t touched them since the launcher became a part of it.

[-] jacksilver@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago

That's a shame to hear, I recently played this game and it's one of the best Metroidvanias I've ever played.

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 16 points 7 hours ago

I love 2D platformers. I had no idea this game was anything like that. Absolutely no one has talked about it. All I've seen is the character with the logo, and it just looks like a bad knockoff of the old sequels, so...
Maybe they should have advertised it.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 28 points 8 hours ago

That sucks. The game itself was great and its Steam numbers are Concord-bad.

I'd put a lot more weight on "Ubisoft games suck because of all the MTX and games as a service stuff" if people hadn't ghosted the legitimately great zero-MTX traditional mid-sized game.

[-] bradbeattie@lemmy.ca 16 points 4 hours ago

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Xalavier Nelson Jr talked about this a few times over on Remap Radio.

Strange Scaffold (and many other indie studios) are literally doing what people are asking for. They are making "complete" games with no early access period and no DLC with shockingly high production values for the budget. And people are ignoring them until there is a massive sale AND still going full culture war over the stupidest of shit*. Which means it is increasingly difficult for them to secure any kind of funding even though they have an incredibly solid track record for both development and sales.

And... that is the sad reality. It has been true for decades at this point but it feels increasingly more true now. Games can't just release "done" because people will forget they exist by the time they are willing to buy them. Look at your steam wishlist and (please don't actually) tell me if you even remember what all of those are. Instead, people see that Caves of Qud is finally going to hit 1.0 or that Pathfinder 2 has a new DLC or that Fortnite has fucking Goku and that simultaneously reminds them that game exists AND has "new content" so that they can feel justified in being a "patient gamer".

I can't speak to this PoP. I know that it is a games media darling and is INCREDIBLY well done but I also tend to not want to give ubi money until yves is gone due to his role in enabling and protecting sexual misconduct which continues to this day. But it is a solid reminder of why so many major publishers refuse to do anything that is not a major franchise (and apparently Prince of Persia no longer is) or has high enough production values that it bypasses the "I'll wait for a sale" mindset.

So... Yeah, as consumers it is not our job or responsibility to protect the people trying to sell us shit. But, if you can afford it, consider buying fewer games overall but prioritizing newer ones that actively do things you think are awesome. From a selfish standpoint, you are more likely to actually play it rather than one of the five games you got for a dollar in a fanatical bundle. But it also REALLY helps those studios to be able to report solid first quarter (or even day one) sales and many games are already launching in the 20-30 USD range anyway.

Like, I don't know if "really well done metroidvania" is a particularly solid reason. But there is a reason all of us squad tactics sickos went crazy buying nu-xcom and the like back in the day. Because we had gone from such a lack of games that even frigging UFO: Afterlight was worth playing (it isn't. But Aftermath or whatever the first one in that series is is the best SG-1 game ever made) to suddenly having options. And, a decade later, we have enough options that... paradox fucking murdered HBS because they weren't pulling projected nu-xcom numbers.

*: Paraphrasing since it has been the better part of a year, but Xalavier was joking that he caught so much hell for basically parroting Swen's stance that Larian's BG3 was atypical and can't be reproduced. Yet people ignored all his VERY leftist takes on economics and social justice. Although, I assume that has shifted if he is still on twitter.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

They are making “complete” games with no early access period and no DLC with shockingly high production values for the budget. And people are ignoring them until there is a massive sale

I can think of several other variables that may be necessary for success that aren't being tested in that statement. Like, is it a setting that resonates with people? Yes, I want more Max Payne, but not so much with vampires in it. Then when you find a game that gets acclaim and the audience is there for it, this is a good time to sequel that game, because now there's brand recognition on the game people like, and they'll be more willing to spend full price on a game where they're confident in what they're getting.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 5 hours ago

I don't know the guy, but all of that sounds reasonable to me.

BG3 can be replicated, if you have a massive dormant IP that is part of a furiously resurgent franchise and have several hundred million dollars to burn in a years-long development cycle by a studio that has already done pretty much the exact same thing without a license successfully twice.

I wouldn't model my business on aligning that set of circumstances, but I sure am glad Larian did.

To be clear, there's a bunch of other AAA stuff that is also doing quite well with pretty clean, finished games. But for midsize stuff like PoP... woof, yeah, it's so hard to break through.

And you're right, it's a miserable set of incentives that if you launch broken you kinda have a built-in marketing hit because suddenly you're doing live support and adding features. No Man's Sky was a fun one for that. Cyberpunk. But those games did great at launch, so they had the built-in base to keep growing while they fixed the game. PoP launched pretty clean, was small and nobody cared, so it's no wonder Ubi has decided it can make those super talented devs do stuff on the next massive AssCreed or whatever is left of Beyond Good and Evil 2 or The Division or whatever.

[-] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 20 points 7 hours ago

As a company pushes people away it gets harder to pull them back, so that doesnt take away from their complaints. Also, I'm not sure that the same crowd who plays other ubisoft titles is the crowd that's interested in a 2d platformer.

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[-] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

I just refuse to support Ubisoft. I don’t like their practices, or most of their games. I don’t feel I’m missing much by skipping whatever they make. Hopefully they go out of business and a better company can pick up their IPs and make good games, for a decent price, without crazy micro-transactions, 30 different special packs, and a required secondary launcher

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 3 points 4 hours ago

Okay, but there was none of that here (except perhaps the launcher), and there was no suggestion in the results that anybody wants to encourage that. So that's definitely not the lesson being learned here.

Also, and I will keep repeating this forever, companies don't make games, people make games.

Also, also, good luck with that. Don't look now, but that's not how major companies going out of business and fire-selling their IPs tends to go.

Look, I'm not sure why it's Ubisoft's turn in the hot seat after EA and Activision, but none of that is a productive outlook or leads to a better outcome, as this one really good, really wholesome game bombing hard goes to show.

[-] bradbeattie@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago

Denuvo is a deal-breaker for me.

[-] Stromatose@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Ubisoft is in the hotseat because they let their suits have too much power over the games they produce.

I am a fan of the prince of persia series and based on the reviews I'd seen I was really interested in this title. But their absolute refusal to participate in the steam ecosystem and insistence on pushing their launcher means that I, as someone who values my own time, am not going to bother with their nonsense.

They don't understand their customers anymore. Not well enough to shift the direction of their company's initiatives. They deserve to fail even when they do manage to produce fun and interesting games because they are bad at the business aspects of being a game publisher/developer.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 2 hours ago

Well, they're back on Steam, this game included, so there's that shift. Does that count or nah?

[-] Stromatose@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

They are making progress by not delaying all of their releases on steam but man that launcher is a nuiscance.

I was too hostile to the company in my last message, honestly I used to enjoy their games. And in general I enjoy the types of games they produce. I'm a sucker for open world stuff but I stopped buying their games when they started trying to emulate the EA strategy of remaking the same game every year and inflating dlc.

I'll happily welcome them back into my library when they drop the launcher component and lean in to steams networking features for easy coop and such.

Just the other day my buddy and I were looking for a coop open world action game with decent combat, he stumbled onto ghost recon wildlands or maybe it was the sequel but either way once we saw it was ubisoft we moved on to look for other title and ended up choosing an entirely different genre despite that being what we were looking for

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, I fully agree that they've stuck to a template far too closely for far too long. That's part of why I'm frustrated that this one went as poorly as it did, since it very much isn't that.

I think the hostility to any non-Steam platform is unwarranted, although annoyance is annoyance. That said, the Ubi launcher on Steam right now is just a pop-up, I don't think it makes you log in each time if you have everything linked.

[-] bob_lemon@feddit.org 8 points 7 hours ago

The launch price is what killed it. In a genre dominated by AA games, games need to use AA pricetags.

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[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 10 points 7 hours ago

There was also a little too much game. Instead of putting in every platforming challenge that they could think of for a given set of mechanics, it would have been paced much better if they just picked their two or three best. I'll bet it doesn't help that it requires the Ubisoft launcher on Steam either.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 7 hours ago

Could have said that of Ori and Hollow Knight and people seem to have showed up for those. I don't think this is any worse than they are, FWIW. In any case to even notice that kind of nuance you have to play it. If that was the conversation we're having they'd be making a sequel.

The fact that it initially launched on Epic certainly didn't help its Steam numbers, but it also did much worse than Outlaws and other Ubisoft exclusives there, so the "it's the MTX/GaaS" argument doesn't hold.