We Happy Few scores a 4/10 on Gamespot; did MS make a mistake?

Yea, Nintendo suck.

would not surprise me but to be honest I dont know much about Nintendo.

It however, case in point exactly why developers of so many great games went to Kickstarters. Because publishers wanted something different. and because of kickstarter and early access many gamers like me are back to playing games again.

This video sums up the problem

I was being sarcastic. Nintendo consistently make the best games in the world and no one is even close.

not really true.

but again, what I said just above (which you seemed to ignore) is why large publishers are not always a good thing.

Feel free to tell me why i'm wrong.

they only make kids games so maybe they are the best in childerns gaming? I dont know. (and yes as my sister said 'dont they just make kids games')

however I will say this, ONE EXAMPLE doesnt make my point not 100% valid. you need more than just one example

Agreed. This seems like a creative studio great at world building, they just need better polish. Great news for Microsoft because in this case it's better to have a creative person that you need to polish, versus a clean and polished person that you need to make creative.

I agree, but I still think they're a good purchase. They are creative, but they need someone to polish them up.

Hopefully Microsoft gets to the root of their issues next gen and stop thinking like third party developers. You know how third party developers make games but then add in an online multiplayer mode, chase after trends, and do anything to attract a large audience in a short amount of time only to repeat it like a year or 2 later. They need that Sony and Nintendo polish AND personality.

Lol, you lot whine about MS having nothing but Halo/Gears/Forza/Fable and whine twice as hard when they expand their games lineup.

We Happy Few reminds me of a Suda 51 game: messy and glitchy and poor reviews and still a must play for sheer unique weirdness of it. It's even on PS4 so you don't have to pretend to hate it ;)

to be fair there are literally thousands of equally strange games on Steam Early Access. Some better, some worse.

As a big fan of Bioshock I will admit videogame dystopian futures intrigue me. I'll get it when the price drops.

I will be frank here.

1. There are literally thousands if not tens of thousands of equally creative games in Steam Early Access of wide variety of quality, some better than this one some worse, some more creative, some less. This game in no way is super special in that respect. Its only on the radar because MS bought them and is spending money on marketing

2. As in 'The Long Dark' which was a good game that was completely destroyed so that it would appeal to a marketed console demographic just shows that a large publisher getting involved in a project does NOT mean that by default said game will not turn out worse then it was originally.

Yeah, that is fair. To be honest this game probably just got the right mix of luck and skill to get "buzz" on forums and YouTube etc, but I'd still rather MS take risks on developers and games like this (I'm assuming their next project will be equally unique) than just announce Halo/Gears/Forza/Fable until the end of time.

Hi Frank.

WHF was on peoples radar WAY before MS got involved. It was the initial teaser trailer at E3 that got people hyped for it. Although at that point nobody had any idea it would be crammed full of crafting and survival nonsense.

Shame it ended up the way it did.

no it was not luck and skill.

its marketing.

look the way marketing works is not restricted to just traditional advertising. they CREATE the buzz,. they pay marketers to reach out to youtubers, game journalist sites etc.

its not by chance that it happens like this EVERY SINGLE TIME...a large publisher buys a small firm. EVERY time

nope absolutely not true.

I am tied in deep with early access community and this game was NOT hyped more than others. Not until MS bought them

new about MS buying them was on Jun 10th which means the agreement happend well before that

E3 was on Jun 12th

Marketing, which requires luck and skill.

We Happy Few had buzz for literally years before MS came along to buy the dev. They bought them BECAUSE of the buzz.

I know nothing about Early Access games (I don't want to get hyped for unfinished games that might never be) but I saw this years ago.

I don't care how deep you are with any community. The fact is WHF had a cracking trailer at E3 2016 and off the back of that a lot of people got interested in it. Until it hit early access and people realized it was a crafting/survival game.

MS's buying them had nothing to do with it.

In fact unless people watched the MS E3 conference how would you even know MS now owns the devs?

no they did not.

I knew about this game LONG before E3 and there was not a lot of buzz about the game. From an early access standpoint it was about medium buzz, far less then the likes of The Forest, Subnautica etc.

They got into E3 (of which is rare for Indy early access games to do) because MS was supporting them.

Marketing is not about 'luck and skill'.

If you have thousands of games of all equal quality I assure you without any question whatsoever that if a marketing team selects one of those games randomly they will create more 'buzz' about that randomly selected game then all the other games combined.

marketing absolutely positively works.

sorry but you are flat out wrong.

yes there was interest in the game prior to MS buying it but the hype ABSOLUTLY started after MS bought it

you could not possibly be anymore wrong, I have seen early lets plays of this game...you are unbelievably wrong. it was an averaging interesting game at best

and by the way

'By E3 2016, where Microsoft presented We Happy Few as part of its press event,'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Happy_Few

The game didn't go into EA until after the trailer was shown at E3 in 2016.

It was the trailer that got people hyped not MS buying the devs.

All of which is irrelevant though as it ended up not being what people wanted and shit. People wanted another Bioshock style SP game not a survival/crafting game.

I dont think that is accurate but I will go check. never the less that E3 2016 showing was completely supported by Microsoft. Which is MARKETING. and its not JUST the trailer, its people on the floor creating 'buz'

What is this term MARKETING you keep alluding to?

did you just ask me what is this term MARKETING that I keep alluding to?

is that really your question?

again marketing pays for the following

1. reaching out to game journalists to get them hyped up about writting articles

2. sending out invites to youtubers to run videos

3. even paying people to walk the floors at conventions to covertly generate 'buzz'

Anyone actually play it? Is it that bad?

Was kind of looking forward to it, tbh, as many others were it sounds like.

Yeah, It's not a term i'd come across until you started banging on about it all the time. I've somehow managed to go 40 years without knowing what it is!

I saw a lets play of it ages ago and it was meh

I am not remotely surprised

again marketing pays for the following

1. reaching out to game journalists to get them hyped up about writting articles

2. sending out invites to youtubers to run videos

3. even paying people to walk the floors at conventions to covertly generate 'buzz'

I also noticed the game is ultra expensive for a former early access game. 60 bucks for an early access survival. Are you kidding me? This price is reserved for AAA releases.

Fascinating! Is this a new thing then?

yeah that would be unacceptable Steam Early Access price.

reminds me of Fortnite. A 'free to play' game that in their early access (not Steam) they were charging $60+ and in addition to that the game had lotboxes while in early access and it was to be a 'F2P' game!

if a indie did that, the Steam community would have rip them a new A hole

Pretty sure that's bollocks.

and in addition to that when the publisher decides to spend maybe a million dollars on a super E3 presentation with all the flashy lights and Spencer talking about how great TV is and how much you care about the Dog in COD they know it actually does affect peoples opinion.

In addition that, if you leave only knowing the games they showed you and literally ZERO of the thousands of game on Steam Early Access then yes...your perception has a specific angle to it that otherwise you would not.

marketing works

that ABSOLUTLY happened. are you kidding me? on MMORPG I ranted on this for a friggin week and got a lot of shit for it.

I was told that basically 'its ok because they game will be good'

Did you teach the guys over at MMORPG about marketing too?

I don't care what "special status" you think you have, you don't get to dictate reality dude, I know literally no Early Access games but I've heard about this one for years. Stop crying and lying about it.

Lol, yes it is, "luck and skill" covers literally everything. Marketing requires both. You need a good campaign AND it needs to hit the right notes to take off. It can be very random what works and what doesn't.

Yes, obviously, no one argued otherwise, what the hell are you rambling about exactly?

yes in fact I did. a lot of people either A. dont know how it works or B. live in a fantasy world in which they think millions of dollars spent on marketing somehow by magic has zero effect.

why are so people so blind? hopefully I can at least educate you

the reason you have known about this for years is because Microsoft has been marketing it since 2016

marketing involves more than just advertisements, it also involves reaching out to journalists and hyping the game so that they write articles.

get a grip, this shit happens all the time. Its almost never 'the people' and its almost always very clever marketing which is them creating hype NOT just with adds sometimes in fact with ZERO adds

or C. do know what it really is and are just being sarcastic as a means of mocking you.

Lol why the hell are you repeatedly ranting about marketing, literally no one denied this game was marketed, WE KNOW IT WAS.

yes I know you know what it means I am just ignoring that comment and using the opportunity to share more information.

derp

so again.

the 'hype' was GENERATED by marketing. NOT by skill and luck of the developers..

So why does all of this only matter when a major publisher is involved? What about those indies that have demos on the show floor at E3 and other trade shows, post youtube trailers, post on message boards to create hype and hand out copies to review sites to play and hype?

Lo, that in no way contradicts my original quote: "To be honest this game probably just got the right mix of luck and skill to get "buzz" on forums and YouTube etc" so you've been arguing literally nothing, nobody is disagreeing XD

I hope you enjoyed the rambling though!

because the AMOUNT of dollars spent can directly affect hype levels.

If I have $1000 to hype my game and I have a demo over in the corner at E3 that is going to have less of an impact then if I have a million dollars to hype a game and Spincer is showing the game on a huge screen with flashy light and all. I have more money to hire people to call up game journalists, I have more money for people to walk the floor, I have more money for flyers.

I am stunned that this actually needs to be examined.

what does

luck

and

skill

have to do with the success of a game because its marketed?

NOTHING...the two are not remotely related.

(although luck is)

so I dont understand your comment about luck and skill and marketing.

Except, there's no guarantee. There have been plenty of games with large amounts spent on marketing that have failed in the market, and there have been games with minimal spent that have become huge successes. One of the biggest games of all time, Minecraft, did so without a major publisher, and one of the most funded games, Star Citizen, also got there without a major publisher pushing it. Not to mention, there's really no evidence of millions being spent on marketing We Happy Few, nor of this tremendous hype of people calling it the best thing ever like you claim.

Marketing helps, sure, but it has to be the right thing at the right time and the product has to back it up eventually. Plus, there's numerous other factors that have nothing to do with marketing. There's the history of the company, the person's experience with previous products and the individual's taste. I enjoyed this company's previous game, so I pay more attention to this one at major milestones, like early access and finished release. You keep mentioning Space Engineers, but I look and see that it's been stuck in early access for nearly 5 years and instead of completing the game, the developer has another early access game they've also released in that time. Of course I'm going to be more hyped for a studio that has actually finished their games. I'm not alone in this.

first off, it works more than fails unless....

you are suggesting that there really is no difference between spending $500,000 on marketing stradegy and me standing out front handing out the 50 hand printed flyers I made and nothing else.

let me ask you this:

What if there was a game that had the elements of We Happy Few but was twice as good right now in Steam?

Except those aren't the only options. It really doesn't cost much to post videos to youtube, send copies to gaming sites and self promote on reddit, message boards, emails, etc.

I'd ask how you're quantifying "twice as good" and what the game was. After that, I'd look for myself.

so YES.

in your mind spending $100 on marketing vs spending $100,000 has the same effect.

I am telling you it doesn't.

On my question ok fine not 'twice as good' but better in your opinion.

so what if on Steam right now there was a game in which most people who would like We Happy Fiew or would be inclided to would on average agree that said game was considerably better?

work with me here on my question please.

and its not 'uploading a video on a channel with 10 viewers' its getting major youtubers to do it. its having a dedicated staff to call up game journalists and invite them over for a viewing of game play and here the plans.

a developer has to HIRE someone to do all of this

EDIT: and finally, very rarely do people think they are affected by Marketing when in fact they are.