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[Cakeboxer]

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

Frostpunk developers 11 bit studios have cancelled a new, console-oriented game in response to both "shifting market tr…

www.rockpapershotgun.com

 

[March Climber]

I haven’t played Frostpunk, so does he mean Telltale-esque games?

 

[Cakeboxer]

I haven’t played Frostpunk, so does he mean Telltale-esque games?

Good question, no idea if he means point & click adventures, interactive movie games or Sonylike cinematics.

 

[TheDreadBaron]

Frostpunk is like a city builder survival strategy kind of thing, it's pretty niche.

 

[winjer]

The problem is not "narrative-driven, story-rich games".
The real problem is propaganda-driven games.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Plague Tale 2 from 2022 was a success, Yakuza games keep getting made... you just have to deliver what players want & enjoy, not what your "consultants" are telling you to do. You don't have to be a genius to predict that a game like Unknown 9 fill flop hard.

 

[The Pleasure]

Isn’t Project 8 a Tony Hawk game?

 

[kevboard]

"narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Christmas came early this year. I haven't read a sentence this beautiful in years.

 

[Astray]

Plague Tale 2 from 2022 was a success, Yakuza games keep getting made... you just have to deliver what players want & enjoy, not what your "consultants" are telling you to do. You don't have to be a genius to predict that a game like Unknown 9 fill flop hard.

Lots of games without controversial consultants fail.

There's far too much focus on things like Sweetbaby and far too little on the fact that people who want storytelling are becoming a minority in the gaming scene.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

It began development in early 2018, with total development costs of about 48.4 million zloties - around 9.4 million pounds or 11.8 million dollars - by this September.

2018, that's a long time to sit on that kind of game.

 

[The Pleasure]

Lots of games without controversial consultants fail.

There's far too much focus on things like Sweetbaby and far too little on the fact that people who want storytelling are becoming a minority in the gaming scene.

I want a video game about a day in the life of DragoonKain and his neighbors from hell. That's a narrative story driven game I'm sure most of Gaf would play.

 

[Filben]

Every genre sells if your game is good. Just because something is in trend, doesn't mean it sells, too. See all those F2P games that get demolished. See Concord.

It's about quality.

What they say seems like an excuse, but then again they suggest (as per article) there were other issues, too. So who knows. But don't blame it on a genre.

 

[SHA]

"narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Christmas came early this year. I haven't read a sentence this beautiful in years.

If it's factual then who cares? It's like saying math is useless unless you are dealing with real numbers.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Lots of games without controversial consultants fail.

There's far too much focus on things like Sweetbaby and far too little on the fact that people who want storytelling are becoming a minority in the gaming scene.

Hiring consultants is just one of many potential obstacles, you can bury your game easily with unappealing presentation, poor writing or non-existing marketing. There are also way too many games being made without listening to what the players want. It's like the devs have their vision (or being forced to adopt one) of what's cool and interesting and they don't put the player's needs in the spotlight.

At the end of the day it's an easy decision from my perspective - do I really want to spend money on a game that's doing something I probably won't like? Probably not, it's safer to go back to older games I already know and wait for someone else to do a better job selling their product.

 

[Begleiter]

From reading the article, it sounds like there were other problems and the thing wasn't coming together as hoped either. Seems like it was a choice to invest more or let it die.

 

[Trilobit]

In the history of poor excuses that excuse still stands out. Why not just admit that they were going for wokeness and saw what's happened to quite a few games recently.

 

[EN250]

"narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Christmas came early this year. I haven't read a sentence this beautiful in years.

Men_in_Boxes alt account?

 

[Majukun]

it's almost like games are meant to be played and if you want to focus solely on story there are better media you could use

 

[realcool]

Frostpunk developers 11 bit studios have cancelled a new, console-oriented game in response to both "shifting market trends" - in particular, declining player enthusiasm for "narrative-driven, story-rich games" - and specific problems during development.

"While we achieved noticeable quality improvements in certain areas, several critical aspects of the game and its development process remained problematic despite multiple iterations," he said. "Over time, delays accumulated, and with each milestone, the project's budget grew."

It began development in early 2018, with total development costs of about 48.4 million zloties - around 9.4 million pounds or 11.8 million dollars - by this September.

During the unannounced game's last project milestone review, Marszał explained, "our findings revealed unresolved issues and challenges that would require further extensions of the production timeline and corresponding budget increases to address. This, coupled with revised sales forecasts, largely reflecting the changing market environment, raised significant doubts about the project's overall profitability."

They can't afford to be in development hell so they cut their losses.

"It's not you, it's me the market."

Classic.

 

[SJRB]

Hmm I wonder what the subject of this "narrative-driven, story-rich" game was that made them cancel it, thinking it won't sell..

 

[Bernardougf]

Lots of games without controversial consultants fail.

There's far too much focus on things like Sweetbaby and far too little on the fact that people who want storytelling are becoming a minority in the gaming scene.

Well there is a causality effect there that I think you are ignoring...

 

[Lucumo]

I want a video game about a day in the life of DragoonKain and his neighbors from hell. That's a narrative story driven game I'm sure most of Gaf would play.

"Neighbours from Hell" you say?

 

[Myths]

Isn’t Project 8 a Tony Hawk game?

I was just about to crack that joke. Didn’t know there was a remake happening

 

[Drake]

Hmm I wonder what the subject of this "narrative-driven, story-rich" game was that made them cancel it, thinking it won't sell..

yes, my thoughts as well. Also quotes like "under different market conditions" is a red flag. To me it reads like: "This game is a woke piece of shit and it will irreparably damage our companies reputation if we release it."

 

[bbeach123]

sounds like a woke game.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Project 8 was cancelled? The highly anticipated prequel of Unknown 9???

Damn!!!

 

[diffusionx]

The real reason is because Frostpunk 2 was a flop.

 

[mdkirby]

Damn this is a shame, I loved the invincible, but it was niche, and hardly anyone knew about it, and was mid on reviews. I’d have bought a new walking sim from them in a heartbeat. I’ve noticed an unfortunate lack of them being announced this year. They rarely push big numbers but they are also comparatively cheap to make.

 

[Mobilemofo]

"narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Christmas came early this year. I haven't read a sentence this beautiful in years.

Are you a pump and dump guy? In games that is? Or are you the simple type who likes shooty shooty without any sort of hook? I'm betting the latter.

 

[KungFucius]

Every genre sells if your game is good. Just because something is in trend, doesn't mean it sells, too. See all those F2P games that get demolished. See Concord.

It's about quality.

What they say seems like an excuse, but then again they suggest (as per article) there were other issues, too. So who knows. But don't blame it on a genre.

Its not really just about quality though. Many games sell a ton at launch and keep selling. It is about marketing and hype. If the game is also good enough to get good reviews and good word of mouth, the game will likely sell. Just as long as the initial push is more successful than competing products.

Narrative driven games have it tough because they require people to want to play something they need to pay attention to. I can believe that they are a tougher sell in most cases, but the ones that are successful usually do very well.

They can't afford to be in development hell so they cut their losses.

"It's not you, it's me the market."

Classic.

Seems reasonable though. The good money after bad fallacy was rejected based on looking at recent trends. What games failed hard this year or at least didn't do as well as expected? FFVII_Rebirth, Dragon Age, Star Wars Outlaws plus many other smaller titles that just didn't make a dent.

How much does the narrative development and implementation cost in these games? Can we just get the game with some light story ala Zelda or the old Tomb Raiders instead of some big story with hours of story content that many people are skipping?

 

[Edder1]

Maybe it was another woke game and the recent trend of these bombing scared them, lol.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

There's far too much focus on things like Sweetbaby and far too little on the fact that people who want storytelling are becoming a minority in the gaming scene.

I think its also discoverability issue.

Players don’t pay attention if big publisher is not attached or it doesn’t get high enough scores / word of mouth.

Pretty easy to get lost in sea of games releasing on weekly basis. (Some good/great ones)

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I'm currently playing a game called Wandering Swords. It is quite a successful game.



Triple A big budget story driven games are declining but that's why indies are around.

 

[kevboard]

Are you a pump and dump guy? In games that is? Or are you the simple type who likes shooty shooty without any sort of hook? I'm betting the latter.

video games aren't a narrative first medium.

the story of a game is the frame, the game design, level design and moment to moment interactions are the painting.

any game that focuses on the story first is like a museum that cares more about how the frame of a painting is presented than the painting itself. in other words: it's shite innit?

this is also why a 10/10 game can have close to no narrative elements but genius gameplay, while the other way around it can never be a 10/10 game.
and the moment I hear a developer say that their game is a "narrative driven" one, I instantly assume they suck at game design and can only do shitty wannabe movies or walking sims

 

[leizzra]

Are they over? Really? I remember that the same guy said that consoles are over just before PS4 reveal… So yup, they are over… for the studio.

 

[Bojji]

Plenty of (quality) SP games sell very well.

Woke propaganda has low chance of succeeding.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Hmm I wonder what the subject of this "narrative-driven, story-rich" game was that made them cancel it, thinking it won't sell..

Yeah that’s my guess as well.

2018: “I have this great idea for a story driven game with a strong, non-sexualized BIPOC girlboss protagonist (who we based on a beautiful real life woman, but we uglied up her character model), a diverse cast of characters spanning all races and gender identities, and quippy Guardians of the Galaxy style dialog. It’s just what the market wants!!!”

2024, after seeing Forspoken, Redfall, Saints Row, Suicide Squad, Dustborn, Star Wars Outlaws, Unknown 9 Awakening, Concord, and Dragon Age Veilguard all flop, The Marvels and Madame Web flop, Star Wars Acolyte canceled, Trump re-elected, Alyssa Mercante and many others laid off, gamers going out of their way to identify and avoid anything Sweet Baby Inc touched, and every game trailer featuring a mannish Strong Woman protagonist getting ratio’d to hell: “uhh nevermind”

 

[Fabieter]

I mostly play those but they have to be good and not too political.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Men_in_Boxes alt account?

There are others who know gaming is a player centric medium?!

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

he said the quiet part out loud. based

 

[Buggy Loop]

Seriously WHAT?

Baldur's Gate 3? HELLO?

What's supposed to sell then? The saturated GAAS full of dead bodies along the way like Everest's frozen climbers?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Seriously WHAT?

Baldur's Gate 3? HELLO?

What's supposed to sell then? The saturated GAAS full of dead bodies along the way like Everest's frozen climbers?

It's possible the saturation of the GAAS market was always a myth and sold to you by people who profit off you wanting to hear things that make you feel good.

 

[Buggy Loop]

It's possible the saturation of the GAAS market was always a myth and sold to you by people who profit off you wanting to hear things that make you feel good.

Is this the new conspiracy why Concord failed?

 

[Humdinger]

he said the quiet part out loud. based

Yeah, he translates "narrative and story driven" game to mean "game with woke elements," due to inception in 2018, around the peak of that ideology. Sounds like a reasonable speculation. It would be nice to get confirmation from a dev later, but that probably won't come.

As far as I can tell, narrative driven games have not dropped off a cliff. There are still plenty of successful ones. Like him, I'm guessing that it probably had to do with the nature of the narrative, not the fact that the game had one.

It seems clear that the game had other issues as well, though. The investors had been funding the game for many years, and the team repeatedly wasn't able to deliver on their promises. They fell short, kept needing more time, more resources... Investors said no thanks, we're out.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Is this the new conspiracy why Concord failed?

Consider the possibility that games can fail in an unsaturated market.

 

[Brakum]

i know narrative events have been slowly making strategy games worse in the last few years, including frostpunk

 

[Bartski]

Not that they ever made one. This War of Mine was brilliant, though. They should play to their strengths.

 

[Topher]

The real reason is because Frostpunk 2 was a flop.

Pretty much. God of War had twice as many players as Frostpunk 2.

 

[Heisenberg007]

They should make a live-service GaaS hero shooter.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Pretty much. God of War had twice as many players as Frostpunk 2.

I'd say 35K peak is pretty good for a smaller-budget game. GoW isn't a good example because it was a port and even 73K was a good number.

But we should look at other relatively low-performer new day-1 PC games, like Suicide Squad (13K), Indiana Jones (12K), Hellblade 2 (6K), Forspoken (13K) to gauge this. Frostpunk performed better than all those games and would have definitely cost less.

If anything, the devs need to create efficiencies and minimize dev costs / scope, to make their projects more successful. But, of course, they would rather draw an irrational conclusion, shift directions completely, make a game no one wants, and then lay off their teams.