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[kizito]

Title says it all, the game seems to be on a great launch despite only 60% on Metacritics. Playing the game myself, these low reviews make no sense and I am happy to see the game doing well and GamePass not preventing it from selling well.
Short extract :

High on Life Steam sales rise despite Game Pass launch as the FPS game from Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland pushes ahead of Modern Warfare 2 and FIFA 23.

Industry sales metrics reporter Benji Sales notes that High on Life is the fourth most-played game on Xbox, coming just behind MW2, Fortnite, and GTA V, and pushing ahead of the likes of free games Apex Legends, Roblox, and Overwatch 2. He adds that the title is “also performing very strongly on PC Game Pass.”

Source : https://www.pcgamesn.com/high-on-life/steam-sales-game-pass

 

[Certinty]

Very happy to see this.

One of the best games of 2022.

Right up there with the funniest games I’ve ever played, gameplay is far better than it has any right to be, the variety in planets is great and it’s a good length with no padded out bullshit.

Deserves all the success it gets. So good to see a game with humour that isn’t limited to today’s “standards”.

 

[bentanchorbolt]

Top selling game on Steam but is also on part of a sub service, Game Pass. People here said that you can’t have both. Weird. So a game can be both commercially successful and part of a sub service. Interesting.

 

[SLB1904]

"Industry sales metrics reporter Benji Sales"

He was a best buy cashier lmfao

 

[BeardGawd]

Great get by Microsoft. Loving the game. Playing through xCloud while out of town has been flawless.

 

[adamsapple]

High on Life is a fantastic game, though the humor is an acquired taste. The more people play it the better.

"Industry sales metrics reporter Benji Sales"

He was a best buy cashier lmfao

ok ? everyone starts somewhere .. and his references are used in GAF on tons of topics all the time.

Coming off very petty here.

 

[feynoob]

"Industry sales metrics reporter Benji Sales"

He was a best buy cashier lmfao

What is wrong with that?
Do you think people born with knowledge like this?

 

[Mister Wolf]

Microsoft should buy them.

 

[twilo99]

Great get by Microsoft. Loving the game. Playing through xCloud while out of town has been flawless.

Cloud has been working for me too, its a good game for it

 

[Jack Videogames]

Reviews say it's full of bugs, is this true or has the game received a major patch in the interim?

 

[SLB1904]

ok ? everyone starts somewhere .. and his references are used in GAF on tons of topics all the time.

Coming off very petty here.

Dude I'm just stating a fact.
If you going to make a thread at least get proper sources. And to be fair benji is a cool dude. I have nothing against him. These kinda threads is what fucks people up. Because people will think he's same kinda insider and drag him down when he just made an observation

What is wrong with that?
Do you think people born with knowledge like this?

Because he's not an "industry sales metric reporter".
Why people are making title up for him?

 

[adamsapple]

Reviews say it's full of bugs, is this true or has the game received a major patch in the interim?

The game launched with a terrible performance issue on console but they fixed it on day 2.

Some of the reviewers flat out mention the bad frame rate in their reviews, a damn shame the patch released after the review cycle.

On PC, it has the same shader compilation issue that just about every modern UE game does.

I played through the game, 12~ hours, on Xbox and did not encounter a single game breaking glitch in my time. Just some minor things like enemies clipping into scenery and stuff.

 

[Kimahri]

I think the scores make perfect sense. It's a good shooter, feels like almost a copy of Halo mechanically. Hell, even that autmatic gun is almost a carbon copy of the needler.

But that's fine, wjat bothers me is the jit or miss humor that often is just really annoying. My god that flying alien talking your ear off. I had to turn the game off because I couldn't think,it was so annoying.

And the music outside of battles is really chill and cool, but then turns into this nightmare of annoying sounds when battles hit. I've got sensitive hearing, so I might react harsher than most, but I can't remember a game that's pummeled my ears more than this one.

The audio is exhausting.

So yeah, good and bad stuff that ends up putting the game somewhere around 60.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Reviews say it's full of bugs, is this true or has the game received a major patch in the interim?

I beat it and didn’t come across any bugs until the very last boss, I had to restart the boss fight halfway through because

Spoiler

the prompt for me to shove the bomb up the bosses asshole didn’t show up for me.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Dude I'm just stating a fact.
If you going to make a thread at least get proper sources. And to be fair benji is a cool dude. I have nothing against him. These kinda threads is what fucks people up. Because people will think he's same kinda insider and drag him down when he just made an observation



Because he's not an "industry sales metric reporter".
Why people are making title up for him?

uhhh the guy looked at the steam top sellers chart and the most played xbox games. would you prefer if jason schreier did this instead? you're acting like guy is presenting some sort of insider information

 

[feynoob]

Because he's not an "industry sales metric reporter".
Why people are making title up for him?

"Metric reporter".
Maybe read that part first.

 

[Esppiral]

Do people really care about metacritic? Lol

 

[DenchDeckard]

Maybe this will send a message to some reviewers on how out of touch they actually are......who am I kidding. Lol

Awesome game for me, one of the best of the year.

 

[Kagey K]

Do people really care about metacritic? Lol

Only when a game on thier platform of choice scores high or an exclusive on a competitors platform score low.

 

[jakinov]

Do people really care about metacritic? Lol

Wait until you see those metacritic prediction scores threads people make for every big game.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Someone just made a long silly thread on Xbox being bad for the industry long term by pushing one of the most creative games of the year. Not enough skill trees I guess.

 

[GHG]

Top selling game on Steam but is also on part of a sub service, Game Pass. People here said that you can’t have both. Weird. So a game can be both commercially successful and part of a sub service. Interesting.

You think most people who use and are accustomed to Steam use the Windows store?

There are several games I've paid a premium for on Steam just so that I don't need to deal with the windows store and plenty of other people do exactly the same thing.

This is a positive development for the developers, but don't get it twisted. If gamepass was on Steam there's a high chance the outcome would not be the same.

 

[Bragr]

I don't know about this, it's a good sign to see it charting on the most played list, but it's also natural since it's new.

Wait 2 weeks and see where it's then. And this list, the top 3 usually sell well, but the bottom of the top 10 is not some huge sellers.

Still, people seem to like the game.

 

[Griffon]

Top selling game on Steam but is also on part of a sub service, Game Pass. People here said that you can’t have both. Weird. So a game can be both commercially successful and part of a sub service. Interesting.

It is just because Gamepass hasn't reached its intended critical mass.

Simply said: Many gamers just aren't subbed. This "good" scenario is only possible because gamepass isn't a massive success and a decent part of the gaming population are thankfully resilient to it.

Those sales are definitely not coming from subbed people.

 

[pasterpl]

Obviously paid shills article. That sneaky Microsoft /s

 

[Drizzlehell]

I reckon the reviews are split mostly due to its style of humor, which probably isn't for everyone.

I haven't gotten around to playing it since I was too busy with The Witcher 3 but I've seen the reviews and I can imagine some people being annoyed with the constant yammering and ad-libbing. Despite the Rick & Morty guy being involved, it doesn't sound like he's going for quality over quantity with the writing but I appreciate that the same kind of absurdist humor is still present here.

 

[El Muerto]

Reviewers are treating this game as if it was an AAA game when really it's an indie game with a decent budget.

 

[Kilau]

"Industry sales metrics reporter Benji Sales"

He was a best buy cashier lmfao

I just can't read anything from him without thinking of his initial attempt to hide his identity.

 

[Buggy Loop]

I can sort of understand.

I uninstalled the xbox app on PC, it's a piece of shit. After gamepass expired i don't want to go back. I have a bunch of MS games on wishlist on steam because of that.. maybe it's what they want

I don't think i've seen such a drastic polarity between game journalists and users in a long time. Metacritic score of this is 60, steam review is very positive.

 

[Hypereides]

Game reviewers: "Whoops..."

Do people really care about metacritic? Lol

More than you probably think. Some peeps depend on their games being "approved" by some apparently game media experts to be able to enjoy/play them.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

https://www.dualshockers.com/high-on-life-now-top-4-most-played-games-xbox/

It's a distinguishing achievement for High on Life at this early stage in its life cycle. Having just released, the game has already been listed as a top seller on Steam for this week, coming in at number two behind the Steam Deck itself. SteamDB even shows the game ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, though Steam's own sales charts do not yet seem to have updated to reflect that ranking. All this is in spite of High on Life being offered on Microsoft's PC Game Pass subscription service, equivalent to the Xbox Game Pass service wherein the game achieved that top-four ranking on the console.

High on Life's performance is also notable as demonstrating the gulf between critical and audience reception. The game currently sits at a Metacritic average of 67 based on 17 Critic Reviews, but has a User Score of 7.7, powered by generally favorable ratings. It's almost certainly indicative of the hit-or-miss appeal of Roiland's humor baked into the game, akin to the creator's still-popular, but arguably overexposed, Rick and Morty TV series, which has continued to draw impressive ratings now into its sixth season.

This game is becoming a big hit, we have to see if it sustains long-term but so far it's looking to be around for some time.

If anything this also shows that Game Pass doesn't hurt or impact sales as much as people have been speculating. Looking at the chart it's beaten out a bunch of general audience f2p games, and even an on sale sports game.

 

[Jaybe]

High on Charts

 

[anthony2690]

In the UK it is 6th last time I checked, still super impressive regardless. (Glad to see the game doing well)

& Second most popular game pass game (after Minecraft)

My other half finished it today, I haven't seen her addicted to a game like this in a while.

I've only done the first three bosses myself, I'm going to try finish it before Christmas, but work has been pretty hectic.

 

[adamsapple]

I actually saw it as number one on the top most played games on game pass yesterday, apparently it's doing really well.

I really like the game though I understand it might be not the same feeling for everyone because of the divisive humor.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Game Pass really is turning into Netflix.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I think the critic reviews underrated this game.

I also think that games that score less than 90% can still be enjoyed.

I've played to the second bounty and if I found the comedy annoying, I'd have stopped by now. As I don't mind it, it's an ok game.

It's not amazing, but It's character makes it stand out as being different, and for me, that's a big plus. I'm not surprised it's got some buzz about it.

 

[Mr Hyde]

A bonafide sleeper hit.

 

[ProtoByte]

https://www.dualshockers.com/high-on-lifeIf anything this also shows that Game Pass doesn't hurt or impact sales as much as people have been speculating. Looking at the chart it's beaten out a bunch of general audience f2p games, and even an on sale sports game.

That... doesn't indicate anything about sales. You're counting player numbers without even seeing rhe number.

Being at the top of the charts on Steam literally means nothing. The unspoken secret about Steam is that not that many actually buy games on there.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

That... doesn't indicate anything about sales. You're counting player numbers without even seeing rhe number.

Being at the top of the charts on Steam literally means nothing. The unspoken secret about Steam is that not that many actually buy games on there.

Ok, this is not about steam but Xbox. It's topping charts that combine paid and f2p players, and is beating massive f2p games. That's pretty deep engagement.

You're acting like the devs are losing money for these gains on GP.

 

[Puscifer]

I don't know how, I tried for 2 hours and I just wanted everyone to shut up.

Even with my Gamepass trial I got for buying my gaming laptop I feel like I wasted my time.

 

[N0S]

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I don't know how, I tried for 2 hours and I just wanted everyone to shut the fuck up.

Even with my Gamepass trial I got for buying my gaming laptop I feel like I wasted my time.

There's a setting to have less chatter.

 

[ProtoByte]

Ok, this is not about steam but Xbox. It's topping charts that combine paid and f2p players, and is beating massive f2p games. That's pretty deep engagement.

Thag doesn't mean that High on Life is on fhe most played charts because of paid players. In fact, the majority/supermajority are coming from Gamepass.That's not an achievement on Xbox being the only new game with practically zero competition this week.

You're acting like the devs are losing money for these gains on GP.

All I'm saying is that you can celebrate about the game's sales. Players != sales.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Thanks to Game Pass. Hopefully, the devs got paid handsomely

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Thag doesn't mean that High on Life is on fhe most played charts because of paid players.

I didn't say that.

But you are implying no paid players contributed to the charts which I find incredibly unlikely given it's position and what games it beat, along with the high engagement.

There's a setting to have less chatter.

Oh, so it's like Bubsy, you can adjust how much he talks.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Can't wait to play it.

Looks like a ton of fun. We need more games like this ❤

 

[Fuz]

Let's point out, yet again, how pathetic gaming journalists actually are:

High on Life Reviews

Fresh out of high school with no job and no ambition, you've really got nothing going for you until an alien cartel that wants to get high off humanity invades Earth. Now, you and a team of charismatic talking guns must answer the hero's call and become the deadliest intergalactic bounty hunter...

www.metacritic.com

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Let's point out, yet again, how pathetic gaming journalists actually are:

High on Life Reviews

Fresh out of high school with no job and no ambition, you've really got nothing going for you until an alien cartel that wants to get high off humanity invades Earth. Now, you and a team of charismatic talking guns must answer the hero's call and become the deadliest intergalactic bounty hunter...

www.metacritic.com

Pretty fair review score to be honest

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Played it for a bit with my son and his friends in party chat the other night. All those teenage boys had a laugh and took time off Overwatch II or Apex or COD MWII to dive in via Gamepass. It's not going to replace those games on the regular over the next year but what it does do should be commended and enjoyed for balancing out FPS/RPG/action-adventure releases.

My son is at me for another play session already while he and his friends keep jumping on it. It's great to see refreshing games like this, I have no issue with games taking a new approach or creative direction. Wonderful GP title.

 

[darrylgorn]

It's the sophomoric humour.

I'm surprised they didn't bundle it with a free copy of American Pie and Super Troopers.