BlackRedGaming

@cjduke: Lawbreaker's personality was something that went against the game, but I don't think it was the main reason for its downfall. Sure, character personality is key for a hero shooter and these characters were garbage, but I would personally consider it a smaller reason for the game's death.

Funnily enough, Lawbreakers was originally going to be free-to-play, but then decided not to. $30 is a fair price, but I agree its one chance against Overwatch was a free price tag. Unfortunately, going free meant it had to go against another game, Paladins. It actually would've been great for it to be free because I think both games would counter-balance each other instead of being competition. You can either choose the (im)mature faster-faced f2p Overwatch or you could choose the basically 1-to-1 f2p Overwatch.

As for the Titanfall 2 thing, I think it is a failure and one of gaming's biggest shames. That game is one of the best multiplayer shooter games I have played in a decade but last time I tried (about a month ago) the player count was in the hundreds and it took around 8 minutes to play in the coop mode. Honestly, I wish Respawn would add in bot pilots to the game.

@ungodly: Looking back, Radical Heights was a hail mary. But the game still going to come out anyways, and when they started development Fortnite was starting to hit huge popularity. In my trillion dolalr IP blog I did say that I could see the move as a way to grab some cash and keep the company afloat, but I also think that polished or not the game wouldn't have succeeded. It's too similar to Fortnite in its gameplay style and free price tag, but the difference between the two is that everybody and their mothers are playing Fortnite. That means that if I had to choose between the two, Fortnite would always be the choice because my friends are most likely playing that game and Fortnite has a forseeable future. As for Lawbreakers, I do believe that it wasn't a bad idea. But I also think it being a pure arena shooter would've had a much better chance at success considering Cliffy is known for arena shooters. Instead, it followed Overwatch without offering anything great (like a free price tag with Paladins).

Ultimately, I see this company trying to be David and trying to take down Goliath (Overwatch in Lawbreaker's case and Fortnite in Radical Height's case). But instead of targeting Goliath's weaknesses, they tried to imitate Goliath. And since Goliath is much bigger than David, Goliath won both times.

@thepanzini: Titanfall failed because of a poor launch window, PUBG and Fortnite are third person (or primarily third person in PUBG's case) and were the first two big battle royale games, and Paladins success can be attributed to its free price tag. While I agree that the game may not have succeeded as an arena shooter because of Quake, it certainly had a better chance and could have been the modern arena shooter Quake failed to be. Also idk if Lawnbreakers was a typo or a joke, but I would love to see a lawn-mowing arena shooter.

@notnert427: I do agree some luck is involved, but I also think Overwatch succeeded because it's a Blizzard game and Fortnite succeeded because it was free, on consoles first, and it offered an entirely different way to play battle royale with building mechanics and simpler controls. I do agree that Titanfall is a much better game, but that failure did come from a small anti-future stigma that CoD made (though that could also be said to be entirely contained into CoD) and it released weeks before BF1.

@berniesbc: That is the version I played. I heard about the game before then got the twitch version. But the lack of steam workshop support eventually got me to get the steam version.

I don't get it. Generally, I like to save money and all, but here I am with a youtube red account for a show I have started and will end in one day. This show was set up for failure (youtube, trying to go back to a classic), but somehow is good. The characters are complex, the show is cheesy in all of the right ways, the clash between the two generations and how they try to adapt to each other is entertaining, the teenagers aren't entirely annoying, and the callbacks to the movie are enough to make me feel nostalgic for the movie without it being pushed too hard. I actually laughed a little when Johnny told Miguel to wash the windows however he wanted to and I felt a little sad when Larusso cleaned out his dojo and started practicing karate again but without Miyagi. What's going on here? Was this work taken to a parallel universe where youtube created shows are great and brought back here?

@meteora3255: I don't think this is an issue for every triple A game released personally, and I am totally fine with a game being developed over a multi year life span. I just think that if you were to do it, then do it in early access at a reduced price then jack it up at release. The problem with these games were that they started at that full price tag but didn't offer that content until later. I know it's kind of weird to jack up the price on a game released years ago, but I think offering it at a cheaper price at the beginning could bring in higher reviews for the game as for the content-to-price ratio would benefit the game more than it would hurt it. When it comes to Destiny, I was actually talking about the first game, because I remember picking up the game within the first week of release, completing the campaign and trying everything the game had to offer, then being done with the game within a pretty short time range. As for Battlefront (also talking about the first game), I mainly put it in here because I remember playing the beta and thinking it was great but lacking, which was followed by the release and not adding much more. I tried to steer clear of competitive multiplayer games (other than Battlefront 1 because of experience) because it's harder to determine when a person stops a multiplayer game than a single player game, whereas a competitive game like Sea of Thieves is easier to gauge because of the single player elements in the game that ultimately drives the multiplayer elements. And when it comes to games like Battlefront 2 and Titanfall 2, I actually think their was enough content at launch.

I'm not gonna lie when I say this was one of the hardest blogs to write and is probably one of the worst (though my earlier blogs are also hot trash). I ultimately felt like I couldn't truly portray my thoughts properly and ended up with a mess that didn't clearly portray what I was thinking. I generally try to write in a way that covers every aspect, but clearly I have failed. It's times like writing this article where I question if I could ever succeed as a video game journalist.

Oh jeez, sorry for the ranting. You are right that some games do succeed at that high price point with a low content amount. I just don't want the high-cost-low-content trend to continue is all.

I don't know why, but multiple accounts are typing in gibberish into the comments of this specific blog and immediately deleting the comments.

@harry13: What about buying characters with the secondary currency or boosters packs to increase your earning rate for the primary currency?

This is weird to see come back to this article (probably my most hated blog, this or the ready player one blog). I actually thought this was older than that, but I digress. I came back to the game for a third time, and I would say that my experiences with specific aspects have changed a bit, but my overall experience hasn't been better. When I went back (granted, for not that much time), my experience was just dull. Back when I played CSGO, I remember feeling an adrenaline rush whenever I pulled off a crazy move (four kills, having the odds stacked against me, etc.) When I went back, the first round of the first match I played (granted, this is casual but I am as casual as you can get in Siege), I got four kills. I ended match with a flawless victory, seven kills, and no deaths. The second match I played was similar with six kills, high kill-per-match ratio, flawless victory, and only one death. I truly feel like that should've been the turning point for me. Those are the high adrenaline moments that I loved to have in CSGO, even if things didn't play out the way I like. I felt nothing but boredom when playing these matches. I wasn't forcing myself to be bored to keep my opinions the same on the game, I was totally open to this game sweeping me off of my feet, and it just didn't.

Still, I don't want to be a debbie downer. I think that the actions the team behind this game are making are alright. Adding in the co-op mode has no negatives to it, other than it being a timed event, They have been constantly updating the game and improving the experience for those who enjoy the game, and more. Still, their are some missteps made. I personally think the starter edition should be free-to-play, and recently the developers tried to bring the price back up to $60 while giving you very little, instead of dropping the price lower as it should be doing considering this game is over two years old (not to say they haven't been dropping the price).

Honestly, I haven't gone back to read this article and I probably won't. Their are mistakes I have made in this article that (like my math for earning currency (I cleared that up in the next entry about the game)) that are wrong and their are mistakes (like my title, which I just changed) that aren't necessarily wrong but I wish I worded differently. As for the article, I forgot what I talked about specifically and I can't say for sure if I still think about those aspects in that way, but I can still say that my overall experience with the game is still not great.