EA flop Immortals of Aveum reportedly cost around $125 million, former dev says "a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Carighan@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.gamesradar.com/ea-flop-immortals-of-aveum-reportedly-cost-around-dollar125-million-former-dev-says-a-aaa-single-player-shooter-in-todays-market-was-a-truly-awful-idea/

Personally I would not call Immortals of Aveum an AAA game. 😅

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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Badeendje@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Also EA has to understand more and more people have experienced their garbage launches and will skip their gold plated launch prices because of the risk you end up buying a lemon that is subsequently abandoned.

Making sure the gameplay loop is interesting and the game performs properly is important. Focussing on all the latest engine features that requires people to have top tier hardware is only good for marketing. Marketing then eats up a tremendous amount of budget without adding anything to the offer they make.

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- ampersandrew@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The last EA game I bought was Jedi: Fallen Order for $4, and I still felt ripped off, because EA adds a mandatory online connection check to every game they release now, including Immortals.
  
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rainynight65@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Unlike many people in this thread, I actually have heard of the game. The makers of a podcast I follow loved it, and had the head of the studio on their show for a pretty frank interview, too. When I learned that there was a free demo, I decided I would give the game a try some time.

And in light of the overwhelming negativity in this thread, I did so last night. And what can I say? I spent an hour and change going through the prologue, the training and the first battle sequence, and I really enjoyed it. Movement and ~~shooting~~ slinging magic are great fun, with a diversity of spells available pretty much from the get-go. Just shoot, or throw a massive armor-breaking spell at a wave of enemies, or use a lash to pull a remote enemy close and whack them. I wouldn’t have know what to expect from the ‘CoD with magic’ premise but it’s really enjoyable so far.

The voice acting is very good, and while the facial animations are a bit uncanny valley, I am enjoying the snarky dialogues and matching facial expressions. Gina Torres has presence, and the rest of the cast so far blends in fine.

I will definitely spend some more time with the demo, and if it doesn’t annoy me too much, I might just buy this. And that seems to be the feedback the devs got from many people - once players actually get their hands on it, they actually enjoy it. According ton the studio head, sales have picked up towards Christmas, and they’ve been getting a lot of conversions from the free demo.

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- hswolf@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think the problem is just that, the game is… okay, not bad or good, just okay, unremarkable and forgettable.
  
  If you want good sales you need to do something innovative and interesting, or something cliché but really well done.
  
  Taking a look at Doom 2016 (also a single player shooter) we can see the core gameplay: Shoot demons, Pick up ammo, Shoot more demons. But it’s crafted so masterfully that you spend dozens or hundreds of hours doing just that.
  
  Now with this game that I actually forgot the name mid comment, It’s… well you get the ideia.
  
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  - rainynight65@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    If you want good sales you need to do something innovative and interesting, or something cliché but really well done.
    
    Or a recognisable brand. Starfield got panned and still sold oodles.
    
    Taking a look at Doom 2016 (also a single player shooter)
    
    Case in point. Doom has a lot riding on its name and legacy, and many people will buy it just because of that.
    
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raptir@lemdro.id ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why does a game cost that much to make? I’m not saying every game should be an indie, but given what indies can accomplish it’s a little ridiculous to spend $125 million.

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- Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  If I had to guess, texture quality and graphical fidelity is really high, plus this was one of the first games to run in UE5. A mix of extreme amounts of manhours invested into graphics coupled with slow progress due to having to get used to everything.
  
  And rampant corruption at EA, I bet. 40 million marketing my ass, the game barely had any marketing!
  
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  - space@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Wait, didn’t EA had their in-house engine Frostbite? They botched Mass Effect Andromeda because they moved from UE to frostbite (not the only reason) .
    
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  - dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Also Unreal Engine has 24/7 support from the engineers at epic through Unreal Development Network which costs quite a bit of money.
    
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  - Paradachshund@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You’re right about all that.
    
    Marketing and payroll are always the two biggest, and yes they can get to those numbers easily at AAA scale. AAA games are as big of productions as big budget movies these days. Hundreds of people involved. Graphics of that level are also extremely expensive and time consuming. Everything has to be motion captured, and the fidelity just takes a long time. Every single piece of trash on the ground has to have a full PBR material stack.
    
    With graphics it’s kind of an exponential thing. The closer you get to absolute realism the more time it takes exponentially. That’s why so many indies are embracing retro graphics these days. It lets you spend a lot more time on the gameplay and content. AAAs are expected to look this good as a baseline, and that already pigeon holes a lot of design choices with the deadlines they’re working with. A truly innovative game that looks AAA quality would take more years to make than these studios are willing to devote to them.
    
    And finally there’s the marketing. Mainstream casual gamers, which are who these companies are usually targeting, is the most expensive group to market to by a long shot. They can really only be reached by huge marketing campaigns on TV, social media, and physical signage. Those types of campaigns can easily get into the millions. They’re also probably spending a large amount on having influencers play the game on stream. The big guys I’m sure cost hundreds of thousands, though I have no idea the actual numbers.
    
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- dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Well you see managers need to be paid more than everyone else and theirs lots of managers
  
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FunnyUsername@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This guy’s a tool, Atomic Heart was fantastic and I’d love getting more games of that calibur every year

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- WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  do you reccomend atomic heart? I haven’t played it due to the supposed russian propaganda (about the war)
  
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  - dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There’s no propaganda, the studio is in Russia and the game was released shortly before the special military operation by coincidence. They wanted to release it on Defender of the Fatherland day since that’s a pretty patriotic day which fits the game pretty well but Putin also wanted to release revenge on that day so now it’s all muddled.
    
    I’ve played it and the game feels more like a parady similar to Fallout so if you count fallout as propaganda then Atomic Heart is also propaganda
    
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  - FunnyUsername@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Without any spoilers, i thought the overall message of the game was VERY anti-russia. But you really need both ends to get the full picture.
    
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Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I had to look up a video to realise this wasn’t the “I guess that’s something I do now” game.

Looks like a confusing mess of a game tbh. When a game’s failure is blamed on it being released close to fucking Starfield, you know it never had much going for it.

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yamanii@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It was flawed from the start, clearly people that love COD and magic aren’t that big of an intersection, also like people said already the magic acted more like guns and they had a pretty dumb system of calling it by their colors.

Still looked fun though, but I would never pay the asking price for it.

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Draegur@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
“(…) AAA (…) was a truly awful idea”
ftfy dev

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guacupado@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
EA is a truly awful idea. I’m curious if their sports games are the only thing keeping them in business.

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- HawlSera@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Well that, The Sims and the Star Wars license…
  
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Tarogar@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
“potential customer hears about product for the first time after it’s announced a flop”

I mean, a single player FPS… Oh it’s an EA game we are talking about! NEVERMIND.

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Mango@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Image

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caut_R@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Whenever I saw that game it looked like a generic, soulless, made-by-committee shooter… All footage had strong tech demo vibes. The only thing I can remember about it is „the guns looked kinda weird.“

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switches@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
a streamer i enjoy played it and it wasn’t even fun tk watch honestly

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Ilflish@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve been hearing rumblings of people complaining about current game advertisement cycles being too long. Immortals, is a great example of one too short. Announced at Summer Game Fest and released in August(?). We don’t need long Ad campaigns for old brands but if you want to market a new IP as Triple A you have to put in the work to reach unplugged gamers, and it barely reached plugged in gamers.

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- sunbytes@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I also don’t want to be marketed at. If it’s good I’ll find out organically.
  
  And I don’t want to find out about it at/before release-time. Because then I’ll want to buy it on release.
  
  That’s the time the game is most buggy and least optimised (maybe also unbalanced too).
  
  Complaining it didn’t sell well enough on release is some real crybaby stuff as well.
  
  “It didn’t go exactly the best way I wanted it to go 😭😭”
  
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WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Even the name is so generic, It is no duprise that it flopped

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