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FUSE Bombs in UK, #37 in charts in debut week
- Thread starter Miles Quaritch
- Start date
Counter Terrorists Win.
KennyLinder
Member
To be fair.. It is a tough time in the industry, and you've got to be really special to stand out these days. Also, in the UK especially it was the first beautifully sunny weekend we've had in 2013 so game sales will naturally be low. Well what about GRID2 you say, well I guess we've been starved of racing games for a while now, whereas it seems like every other game is a 3rd person shooter.
I played the demo and from what I saw its just a generic shooter. Boring characters, same old 3rd person over the shoulder view we've had since forever now and gameplay that just doesn't do anything different enough to make to worth while investing. Is there more to it? I don't give a shit, I played the demo and thought it was junk.
They leave Sony exclusivity and present the world THIS for their first multiplatform release, I am genuinely shocked after IG provided us with stunning looking and very slick, enjoyable and energy filled 60fps Ratchet. What on Earth happened? I am guessing a total lack of vision and a severe identify crysis in what they were actually making.
Developers need to stop making games in genres they can't compete in, it's a waste of time. How many more times will we see this happen
I just hope IG can get back on track with their nex project and give us something fantastic again.
I played the demo and from what I saw its just a generic shooter. Boring characters, same old 3rd person over the shoulder view we've had since forever now and gameplay that just doesn't do anything different enough to make to worth while investing. Is there more to it? I don't give a shit, I played the demo and thought it was junk.
They leave Sony exclusivity and present the world THIS for their first multiplatform release, I am genuinely shocked after IG provided us with stunning looking and very slick, enjoyable and energy filled 60fps Ratchet. What on Earth happened? I am guessing a total lack of vision and a severe identify crysis in what they were actually making.
Developers need to stop making games in genres they can't compete in, it's a waste of time. How many more times will we see this happen
I just hope IG can get back on track with their nex project and give us something fantastic again.ThisWreckage
Banned
They really should have stuck with Sony and they should have kept on working on Ratchet games.
KennyLinder
Member
Well I think sales of those games dried up. I think the key is to make something people actually want to play. Nothing about the game grabs you, and as soon as you look at the cover art you wonder what the fuck is going on.
Vespasianus
Banned
Haha, no kidding. I haven't seen this kind of fanatically dedicated defense forcing since the grand old Too Human days.
The real question becomes why anyone expected this game to be successful. No marketing, the reviews indicate mediocrity, and a developer that hasn't made a successful game for how many years again?
And let's be honest, the only reason Resistance 1 even sold what it did was because it was either that or Motorstorm at PS3 launch. It was always a derivative and mediocre shooter. It never had a chance of competing with shooters even before COD4 came in.
Sweet Aunt Nancys Panties
Banned
You think they'd have been better off doing something they didn't want to do? Sounds like a fun job.
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
To be honest? Probably not blockbuster tier but I could see it doing better since at least that has the ability to being market as both a game for everyone or exclusively as a game for "young adults".
It's the kind of game 15 year old me would have gone bat shit insane over, which is probably why I loved Jak and Daxter / R&C so much back then. It gave off a very similar vibe.
sono
Member
Looks good.
IdreamofHIME
Member
No offence, but FUSE ain't exactly some indie critical darling that's been destroyed by the power of marketing.
FUSE is sitting on Metacritic with a 64 and Aliens with a 49. Neither of these games are worth £39.99.
Aliens just got lucky with brand recognition and Gearbox's lies.
Acrylic7
Member
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
And this game sends the right message? Better pander to whatever is currently ultra popular!
The game had good ideas, and I love co-op games but it does a poor job of making me excited about playing it. Not to mention it looks extremely unappealing.
Kazuma Kiryu
Member
Well, the aliens name helped that game.
Insomniac is just showing how much of an inconsistent development team they are.
Resistance turned to shit with 2 and even though they improved a little with 3, the damage had already been done to the franchise.
They've made 5 ratchet games this gen and the only great games are ToD and ACiT.
And then you have FUSE.
Honestly, i can't even bring myself to be excited to another ratchet game from them or whatever they're going to make for microsoft.
DC1
Member
The only things that changed with R2 (from R1):
1-Story narration
2-Health Regeneration
3-Color scale from gray pallet to brown saturation.
4-Added MP
5-Added Scale / enemy content / weapon variation.
6-Added Co-op
R2 was/is a FPS gem that received an undeserved media backhand (Awarded to any Sony first party devs releasing anything during that period).
R2 was in every way better than R1 with the exception of the narrative driven story outline. Please tell me where I'm mistake!
Leave semantics out of it.
Oh..by the way, I loved R2.
Is this game really pandering, though? I mean, maybe it is, but that was never the impression I got. I feel like it's more or less a game that struggled to find its identity during development, not necessarily that it was trying to go through a grab bag of popular ideas and mash them together.
we've seen this from all the major publishers, if the game is testing poorly before launch they kill any plans for marketing to try and not eat it that much harder financially. Then the game public blames the poor sales regardless of the titles quality on a lack of marketing.
Its tricky, would it have done well if they doubled down on big marketing.....or would they have just lost even more money on the game.
Its tricky, would it have done well if they doubled down on big marketing.....or would they have just lost even more money on the game.
Insomniac should had paid attention to Mark Cerny
http://www.slideshare.net/holtt/cerny-method
What you'll learn from a Focus Test
- What's popular as of ten minutes ago
- How not to stand out
- The feature list of every recent game that was pretty good
http://www.slideshare.net/holtt/cerny-method
What you'll learn from a Focus Test
- What's popular as of ten minutes ago
- How not to stand out
- The feature list of every recent game that was pretty good
No, it still would have bombed with the more casual crowd of gamers because EA essentially sent the game out to die due to absolutely no functional marketing campaign. But it might have received more more sales from the 'core' group if it could entice them with a more unique art style. As it stands now, if the UK results can be extrapolated to world wide sales, the game is not seeing a high purchase rate by either group of gamers.
/ I and my friends, whom I play co-op with, are kind of busy so we'll probably pick a few copies up over the weekend.
The only things that changed with R2 (from R1):
1-Story narration
2-Health Regeneration
3-Color scale from gray pallet to brown saturation.
4-Added MP
5-Added Scale / enemy content / weapon variation.
6-Added Co-op
R2 was/is a FPS gem that received an undeserved media backhand (Awarded to any Sony first party devs releasing anything during that period).
R2 was in every way better than R1 with the exception of the narrative driven story outline. Please tell me where I'm mistake!
Leave semantics out of it.
Oh..by the way, I loved R2.
R2 was my first Resistance game and possibly the worst game I have played this gen. I loved the R&C games but found nothing redeemable about R2 - that being said, I never played any of the online stuff, co-op or competitive so maybe that had some good elements (and I hear that it did). But, as a SP campaign, my God. It was AWFUL. A collection of some of the worst boss fights I've ever had the misfortune of facing (that glowing sphere?!) as well as terrible level design, poor AI and laughable 'epic' backgrounds that made everything feel like a toy box.
It still boggles my mind as to how that game reviewed so well. Sure, the backlash was huge after, but I still don't understand any of the scores at the time.
How big is uncharted?
That is something everyone should do.
NullPointer
Member
Original artstyle + more marketing could have done wonders I think. The core here is good, but nobody knows about it or has seen it unless they've played it long enough to level up and experiment and find the interesting combinations. But you have to look beyond the lower production values and less interesting visuals.
But if this current gen wasn't winding down I would've bet that we'd see some LTTP threads down the line, once Insomniac had been flogged enough, and the price and expectations had hit the floor for awhile.
Maybe this is more like Shadowrun than Haze.
But the art may have helped.
Games that are appreciated by even a subset of the core can become true phenomena. Look at games like Okami, Vanquish, Mirror's Edge, God Hand, etc. These are games that were initially disappointing from a sales perspective, but captured the imagination of enough gamers to slowly become part of the accepted number of "good" games. This creates a built-in buzz for any sequel. If you're going to bomb, may as well bomb in a way that leaves gamers wanting for more. Does anyone want more FUSE?
funkystudent
Member
Aliens is aliens
A powerful franchise
Compared to fuse a generic game with no marketing and no word of mouth
He'll if anything aliens negative reception prob drove sales
I just don't see what this has to do with Sony. If Sony published FUSE, it would be just as mediocre.
Mustainium
Banned
This was my exact experience with both R2 and R3, just add the fact there is absolutely no reason to care about then universe or any of the characters that reside in it. Just an absolutely awful franchise.
I really don't see the reasoning behind the very talented people at Insomniac wanting to develop games with a dead-serious tone, it's not working for them.
The only things that changed with R2 (from R1):
1-Story narration
2-Health Regeneration
3-Color scale from gray pallet to brown saturation.
4-Added MP
5-Added Scale / enemy content / weapon variation.
6-Added Co-op
R2 was/is a FPS gem that received an undeserved media backhand (Awarded to any Sony first party devs releasing anything during that period).
R2 was in every way better than R1 with the exception of the narrative driven story outline. Please tell me where I'm mistake!
Leave semantics out of it.
Oh..by the way, I loved R2.
The media loved Resistance 2, it was the player base that took issue with the loss of the weapon wheel, the way the auger rifle lost the kick (slow powerful shots to a relatively fast pea shooter).
The loss of the weapon wheel also reflected a huge change in how encounters played. ie.
R1: You have your entire arsenal. Have fun.
R2: We just happen to have a particle cannon here for that Kraken. ps. It does nothing against furies. Deal with it.
There was a huge increase in how scripted the encounters felt. eg. Invincible furies, Cloverfield monster, and ugh, the Swarm.
Also regardless of whether it is fair or right, the original art direction stood out while the new look doesn't seem to catch anyone's attention. Regardless of how good a game is, people have to at least look at it first.
ProfessorMoran
Member
And whose fault is this exactly?
I'm confused as to the context and purpose of your question?
Clearly we should all understand who's "fault" it is. Insomniac made a title, and made a few missteps with regards to art style and narrative (this is subjective, but this is how I feel). Mechanically, the game is extremely sound, and has solid grounding as to what it wants to be: a good co-op shooter (again, entirely subjective, but how I feel).
That being said, I'm not sure how your question is in any way a response to my own. I asked how, exactly, the game was "pandering" to what is ultra popular. Not who's fault any specific shortcoming or successes.
ProfessorMoran
Member
The only things that changed with R2 (from R1):
1-Story narration
2-Health Regeneration
3-Color scale from gray pallet to brown saturation.
4-Added MP
5-Added Scale / enemy content / weapon variation.
6-Added Co-op
R2 was/is a FPS gem that received an undeserved media backhand (Awarded to any Sony first party devs releasing anything during that period).
R2 was in every way better than R1 with the exception of the narrative driven story outline. Please tell me where I'm mistake!
Leave semantics out of it.
Oh..by the way, I loved R2.
4. is wrong, R1 had MP already. Better MP with better maps.
R2 did not receive undeserved media backhand, if anything, it got full support from the media because of the relationship between Insomniac community management and the media, it was never critically trashed as it might have been had the game not come from Insomniac, Insomniac put on a clinic in terms of how to manage their relationship with media outlets to get the most positive previews.
R2 was in many ways an inferior game than R1 with the exception of R2 having a repetitive co-op mode which some people seemed to like, everything from how the weapons felt, accuracy, damage, map designs, gameplay scenarios lacked the balance and polish that R1 got, they made drastic changes without consulting the community that supported the MP and ended up with a ton of backlash but by then it was too late to change anything because a lot of changes were at a fundamental level, R2 played like a completely different game. R2 boss fights were a total joke.
R2 essentially poisoned the community and as a consequence doomed R3's prospects before R3 even had a chance.
ProfessorMoran
Member
The developer, by altering the art style and narrative of the game, pandered to what is ultra popular, shooters with more serious overtones.
It's important to understand where the fault lies, because this isn't a case of people not picking up what you believe to be a sound game, but the game failing to appealing to whatever its intended audience is supposed to be, and it's obvious that Insomniac did not know whom their game was targeting because from both a critical standpoint and from a sales standpoint this seems to be a failed gambit.
So shooting for a different audience is pandering? That just seems...strange to me. They were making a game initially, and didn't like where it was headed, so they changed directions. I don't think they did that just to "pander", specifically not to a CoD crowd who have shown little interest in cooperative play
Further more, your post seems to suggest that you believe I think it should have sold better? Were this the Resistance 3 thread, you'd be on the money, since that game did in fact deserve better than it got. However, I have said nothing more than "this game is fun", more or less. I've not talked about sales, how successful it should have been, etc. So I'm not exactly sure why you think it's important for me to know where the fault lies...
Kenshin001
Member
No they shouldn't have. Developers should strive to bring creativity to the market and push new IP, not keep churning out the same series ad infinitum until they've been run into the ground. The problem with Fuse is it didn't bring creativity to the market, it seemed stale and derivative. I think that was why people were so keen on the Overstrike concept, it seemed a bit fresh in a sea of dudebro shooters.
I wish people would stop with the "just stick to Ratchet" line. Spyro and Resistance are solid franchises. We know Insomniac is capable of creating great new games that aren't Ratchet regardless of how Fuse turned out. Plus, are you forgetting All 4 One? Whatever that tower defense one was? Even Quest for Booty was only aight. Not everything Ratchet related is golden.
I'd love to see Insomniac continue with new franchises.
I'd love to see Insomniac continue with new franchises.
ProfessorMoran
Member
You kept saying oh the COD crowd don't care about co-op, co-op wasn't the change they made, they changed the tone of the game to a more serious one, that's where the alleged pandering is based.
Beermeister
Banned
No surprises here. Crappy, boring games don't sell.
ProfessorMoran
Member
I agree that Insomniac should move on to new franchises, not sure partnering with EA was the right choice, after the failure of Fuse, Insomniac should really re-examine their creative process.
It's a great pity, but it was long predicted that it would flop. Insomniac fell into the same pathetic trap of chasing the call of duty market as all the other shooters, good people may lose their jobs over this. At this point I wonder if the previous art style would have saved it from derivative gameplay. Probably not. I hope they learn the appropriate lessons from this and get back on their feet.
TheLaughingStock
Member
They stabbed Sony in the back with an IP owned by Sony?
Stripper13
Member
The sales result is unsurprising.
I'm genuinely curious how any competent decision makers at a studio - sit down and come up with the idea for 'shooter #385', make a generic cover, nominal marketing effort, and just generally don't have a decent hook to sell - and think 'yep, this is what we need to make - this is the next step in making our studio successful'.
Anyone on GAF could have told you the game was going to be a commercial disaster from the outset. Shit, I could have told you that it was going to be a disaster before the art change (but at least it may have differentiated itself a little).
This is not aimed directly at Insomniac - but the industry in general. So please, Pachter, jstevenson, Ted, Cliffy, Jaffe - enlighten me. I accepted the fact that I'm unaware of how the Industry operates - so please enlighten me. How did this get green lighted, how did Pachter expect it to sell millions of copies, how come these mistakes KEEP happening - when generic shooters have been bombing for years.
Anyone?
I'm genuinely curious how any competent decision makers at a studio - sit down and come up with the idea for 'shooter #385', make a generic cover, nominal marketing effort, and just generally don't have a decent hook to sell - and think 'yep, this is what we need to make - this is the next step in making our studio successful'.
Anyone on GAF could have told you the game was going to be a commercial disaster from the outset. Shit, I could have told you that it was going to be a disaster before the art change (but at least it may have differentiated itself a little).
This is not aimed directly at Insomniac - but the industry in general. So please, Pachter, jstevenson, Ted, Cliffy, Jaffe - enlighten me. I accepted the fact that I'm unaware of how the Industry operates - so please enlighten me. How did this get green lighted, how did Pachter expect it to sell millions of copies, how come these mistakes KEEP happening - when generic shooters have been bombing for years.
Anyone?
ShockingAlberto
Member
You think they intentionally made a bad game out of spite?
As a former Insomniac employee people like you really bum me out. People there are so passionate and in love with their jobs it's inspiring. There are over 100 people and it's no bullshit that it really is one of the greatest places to work. My first day of work Ted Price got me into his office and we chatted for 15 minutes and every day since then he remembered my name and always asked my opinion even though I was a junior artist. That place has more heart than Ma-Ti and the problems with Fuse go beyond anything you comprehend. Be an adult.
Stripper13
Member
Ignore people like that - it's pathetic behaviour at best.