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LawBreakers' launch numbers are much lower than Battleborn's - PCGamesN

K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
This game is more like one of the objective modes in Unreal Tournament than Overwatch to me, and I think it scratches rather different itches.

However I wonder if confusion and lack of information over what it was going to be also helped hurt it. It changed from f2p to paid game in mid-stream. While there were betas, I seem to recall having trouble even finding out when the betas where open.
 
N

Niceguydan8

Member
Mooreberg said:
I really disagree with that IGN article about how player numbers do not matter. If there are too few, or the people playing the game treating objective modes like TDM, it just turns into a mess.
Click to expand...

You're kind of missing the point of the article though, don't you think? Here's a quote from it, and it's basically the thesis of the whole thing:

"But those numbers don't actually mean much when it comes right down to it, and they certainly don't paint the whole picture of a game's success or failure. If there are enough people playing LawBreakers that you can quickly find a game every time you play (which, in my experience, there are) why does it matter to the people playing it what the size of the player base is?"

also

"A game's long term success has to do with a lot more than just its player count on launch week. Popular games can crash, and games with smaller player bases than LawBreakers can thrive with the right post-launch support - and it's encouraging to see developer Boss Key has already put out an update."

This person isn't saying that it's not important, the person is saying that you shouldn't focus on it. The game could still be a success for Boss Key for all we know - we have no information about PS4 sales (probably the bulk of their actual sales) and know pretty much nothing about their actual budget. A developer chimed in saying that Battleborn had a budget that was over three times that of Lawbreakers. How are we supposed to sit here and say whether or not it's a failure when the cost of the game is a relatively small number that is totally unknown to us?

A keyword in the article is "focusing." The author just goes on about how useless it is to doomsay the game based on population. While a successful game may generally have a large playerbase, there could be a game out there (maybe even lawbreakers!) that could already be successful despite a small PC userbase. I don't know if that's true, and I'm pretty sure you and everybody else on here doesn't know if that's true either, so people proclaiming that to be the case are not providing anything of value to the actual conversation. These sorts of things are generally loosely based on SteamSpy, which is often looking at interest on the smallest of the big 3 platforms for fairly demanding video games (graphically). They extrapolate that data onto the other (bigger) userbases just assuming that everything is held constant. It's probably misleading and definitely ill-informed.

This isn't me saying that I think LB is in a fine place and that population is not a problem, I don't think that. This is me saying that blind speculation doesn't provide any parties a whole lot of value.
 
S

SimpleCRIPPLE

Member
The constant news about the low pop is killing this game more than the low pop. I was actually going to buy this the other day, but the daily "its been a week and I already can't find a game" news has made me hold off.

Whatever base this game could have grown with word of mouth, is being drowned out by the constant 'the sky is falling" posts and articles.
 
E

E92 M3

Member
SimpleCRIPPLE said:
The constant news about the low pop is killing this game more than the low pop. I was actually going to buy this the other day, but the daily "its been a week and I already can't find a game" news has made me hold off.

Whatever base this game could have grown with word of mouth, is being drowned out by the constant 'the sky is falling" posts and articles.
Click to expand...

It's one of the best shooters I played in recent time. Right up there with Titanfall. If you like skill-based shooters, you can't go wrong for $30.

$30 is basically lunch lol.
 
E

E92 M3

Member
RSTEIN said:
Italian lunch :p
Click to expand...


sKrlcSL.png
 
T

TheSpoiler

Member
Niceguydan8 said:
You're kind of missing the point of the article though, don't you think? Here's a quote from it, and it's basically the thesis of the whole thing:

"But those numbers don’t actually mean much when it comes right down to it, and they certainly don’t paint the whole picture of a game’s success or failure. If there are enough people playing LawBreakers that you can quickly find a game every time you play (which, in my experience, there are) why does it matter to the people playing it what the size of the player base is?"

also

"A game’s long term success has to do with a lot more than just its player count on launch week. Popular games can crash, and games with smaller player bases than LawBreakers can thrive with the right post-launch support - and it’s encouraging to see developer Boss Key has already put out an update."

This person isn't saying that it's not important, the person is saying that you shouldn't focus on it. The game could still be a success for Boss Key for all we know - we have no information about PS4 sales (probably the bulk of their actual sales) and know pretty much nothing about their actual budget. A developer chimed in saying that Battleborn had a budget that was over three times that of Lawbreakers. How are we supposed to sit here and say whether or not it's a failure when the cost of the game is a relatively small number that is totally unknown to us?

A keyword in the article is "focusing." The author just goes on about how useless it is to doomsay the game based on population. While a successful game may generally have a large playerbase, there could be a game out there (maybe even lawbreakers!) that could already be successful despite a small PC userbase. I don't know if that's true, and I'm pretty sure you and everybody else on here doesn't know if that's true either, so people proclaiming that to be the case are not providing anything of value to the actual conversation. These sorts of things are generally loosely based on SteamSpy, which is often looking at interest on the smallest of the big 3 platforms for fairly demanding video games (graphically). They extrapolate that data onto the other (bigger) userbases just assuming that everything is held constant. It's probably misleading and definitely ill-informed.

This isn't me saying that I think LB is in a fine place and that population is not a problem, I don't think that. This is me saying that blind speculation doesn't provide any parties a whole lot of value.
Click to expand...

I agree with this mostly, but I think the consumer who is looking for a solid player base weeks to months later should consider the current numbers. Not as a direct indication solely, or how things will totally turn out, but a piece of the pie rather than the whole. It's unfair to say it's doomed, but it's also unfair to completely call it saved. Just gotta roll the dice on this one. I'd do the same for a fighting game that's not as popular as SF if I could only play online.
 
D

DroneBrother

Banned
RSTEIN said:
It's not peak time yet. This morning there were just over 200 people.
Click to expand...
200 :eek: on a game fresh out the gates

Felt like a strange launch and boycotting cliffs biggest fan base over on the Xbox just blew me away.

I have no doubt from reading all your comments that this game is good, but the whole launch and launch window just boggles my mind.

I mean even the initial announcement was on the same day as unreal tournament 4
 
P

Primpompano

Member
E92 M3 said:
It's nothing like OW.
Click to expand...

You and I might know that and care, but the market at large does not. To speak purely about sales and popularity: Overwatch is occupying the market space that Lawbreakers needs, whether or not Lawbreakers was even trying to have that space in the first place.
 
E

E92 M3

Member
Primpompano said:
You and I might know that and care, but the market at large does not. To speak purely about sales and popularity: Overwatch is occupying the market space that Lawbreakers needs, whether or not Lawbreakers was even trying to have that space in the first place.
Click to expand...

And it is just another Team Fortress. The OW comparisons are just ridiculous and exactly what I meant earlier when I said it's sucking up all of the oxygen.

Hopefully, BK does some free weekends to get people to try it.
 
N

Niceguydan8

Member
E92 M3 said:
And it is just another Team Fortress. The OW comparisons are just ridiculous and exactly what I meant earlier when I said it's sucking up all of the oxygen.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go so far as to say they are "ridiculous." There are a lot of design decision unrelated to core gameplay that those that are not well-informed about the game will see and draw immediate comparisons to OW.

I don't think the differences are immediately obvious until one actually plays the game.
 
Demoskinos

Demoskinos

Member
Niceguydan8 said:
You're kind of missing the point of the article though, don't you think? Here's a quote from it, and it's basically the thesis of the whole thing:

"But those numbers don’t actually mean much when it comes right down to it, and they certainly don’t paint the whole picture of a game’s success or failure. If there are enough people playing LawBreakers that you can quickly find a game every time you play (which, in my experience, there are) why does it matter to the people playing it what the size of the player base is?"

also

"A game’s long term success has to do with a lot more than just its player count on launch week. Popular games can crash, and games with smaller player bases than LawBreakers can thrive with the right post-launch support - and it’s encouraging to see developer Boss Key has already put out an update."

This person isn't saying that it's not important, the person is saying that you shouldn't focus on it. The game could still be a success for Boss Key for all we know - we have no information about PS4 sales (probably the bulk of their actual sales) and know pretty much nothing about their actual budget. A developer chimed in saying that Battleborn had a budget that was over three times that of Lawbreakers. How are we supposed to sit here and say whether or not it's a failure when the cost of the game is a relatively small number that is totally unknown to us?

A keyword in the article is "focusing." The author just goes on about how useless it is to doomsay the game based on population. While a successful game may generally have a large playerbase, there could be a game out there (maybe even lawbreakers!) that could already be successful despite a small PC userbase. I don't know if that's true, and I'm pretty sure you and everybody else on here doesn't know if that's true either, so people proclaiming that to be the case are not providing anything of value to the actual conversation. These sorts of things are generally loosely based on SteamSpy, which is often looking at interest on the smallest of the big 3 platforms for fairly demanding video games (graphically). They extrapolate that data onto the other (bigger) userbases just assuming that everything is held constant. It's probably misleading and definitely ill-informed.

This isn't me saying that I think LB is in a fine place and that population is not a problem, I don't think that. This is me saying that blind speculation doesn't provide any parties a whole lot of value.
Click to expand...


Exactly. I think the focus on the numbers is incredibly stupid and only serves to dissuade people who would otherwise be interested coming into the fold and playing the game. The experience of finding a match at least right now is still pretty smooth unless you're like at the very top of the MMR pool which I doubt most people will reach that height.

Honestly, just go and try the game this game doesn't need to be F2P the model is has is fine for what it is. Steam has the return thing now. Like seriously if you're even remotely interested give the game a shot its the most fun shooter I've played in ages. Forget the art style forget all the talk about the numbers of players just play the game and tell me if the shooting and game play isn't some of the most entertaining FPS game play out there.
 
H

hollomat

Banned
Niceguydan8 said:
You're kind of missing the point of the article though, don't you think? Here's a quote from it, and it's basically the thesis of the whole thing:

"But those numbers don’t actually mean much when it comes right down to it, and they certainly don’t paint the whole picture of a game’s success or failure. If there are enough people playing LawBreakers that you can quickly find a game every time you play (which, in my experience, there are) why does it matter to the people playing it what the size of the player base is?"

also

"A game’s long term success has to do with a lot more than just its player count on launch week. Popular games can crash, and games with smaller player bases than LawBreakers can thrive with the right post-launch support - and it’s encouraging to see developer Boss Key has already put out an update."

This person isn't saying that it's not important, the person is saying that you shouldn't focus on it. The game could still be a success for Boss Key for all we know - we have no information about PS4 sales (probably the bulk of their actual sales) and know pretty much nothing about their actual budget. A developer chimed in saying that Battleborn had a budget that was over three times that of Lawbreakers. How are we supposed to sit here and say whether or not it's a failure when the cost of the game is a relatively small number that is totally unknown to us?

A keyword in the article is "focusing." The author just goes on about how useless it is to doomsay the game based on population. While a successful game may generally have a large playerbase, there could be a game out there (maybe even lawbreakers!) that could already be successful despite a small PC userbase. I don't know if that's true, and I'm pretty sure you and everybody else on here doesn't know if that's true either, so people proclaiming that to be the case are not providing anything of value to the actual conversation. These sorts of things are generally loosely based on SteamSpy, which is often looking at interest on the smallest of the big 3 platforms for fairly demanding video games (graphically). They extrapolate that data onto the other (bigger) userbases just assuming that everything is held constant. It's probably misleading and definitely ill-informed.

This isn't me saying that I think LB is in a fine place and that population is not a problem, I don't think that. This is me saying that blind speculation doesn't provide any parties a whole lot of value.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I enjoyed the beta, but I'm holding off due to the low player counts. Being able to find a game quickly is obviously important (and not an issue even with these player counts apparently), but my bigger issue is that I don't want to only play against hardcore people who play it every day. If I'm starting out, I want to match against other people who just started out and are at the same skill level.

This is what's turning me off from the game. I want a game I can jump into a few matches once or twice a week and have fun. Doing so here I'll be matched against people who play every day and get wrecked.
 
E

E92 M3

Member
Niceguydan8 said:
I wouldn't go so far as to say they are "ridiculous." There are a lot of design decision unrelated to core gameplay that those that are not well-informed about the game will see and draw immediate comparisons to OW.

I don't think the differences are immediately obvious until one actually plays the game.
Click to expand...

They were obvious to me right away. OW was a cartoony team-based shooter while LB was an arena shooter focused on skill.

Completely different games focusing on different type of people.
 
N

Niceguydan8

Member
hollomat said:
I disagree. I enjoyed the beta, but I'm holding off due to the low player counts. Being able to find a game quickly is obviously important (and not an issue even with these player counts apparently), but my bigger issue is that I don't want to only play against hardcore people who play it every day. If I'm starting out, I want to match against other people who just started out and are at the same skill level.

This is what's turning me off from the game. I want a game I can jump into a few matches once or twice a week and have fun. Doing so here I'll be matched against people who play every day and get wrecked.
Click to expand...

What exactly do you disagree with? The stuff you've been talking about doesn't seem to disagree to anything I actually typed.

E92 M3 said:
They were obvious to me right away. OW was a cartoony team-based shooter while LB was an arena shooter focused on skill.

Completely different games focusing on different type of people.
Click to expand...

Is this about you, the person who apparently really likes this game, or about the broader market who, at best, sees this game in passing and doesn't have such an energetic interest in the game?
 
E

E92 M3

Member
Niceguydan8 said:
What exactly do you disagree with? The stuff you've been talking about doesn't seem to disagree to anything I actually typed.



Is this about you, the person who apparently really likes this game, or about the broader market who, at best, sees this game in passing and doesn't have such an energetic interest in the game?
Click to expand...

With the hashtag like #skilledaf, I felt it was marketed more for players like myself. Not every game needs to be appealing to the general gaming public.

I hope it can carve out its own niche.
 
H

hollomat

Banned
Niceguydan8 said:
What exactly do you disagree with? The stuff you've been talking about doesn't seem to disagree to anything I actually typed.
Click to expand...

This quote from ign. "If there are enough people playing LawBreakers that you can quickly find a game every time you play (which, in my experience, there are) why does it matter to the people playing it what the size of the player base is?"

Being able to find a game quickly is important, but being able to find a game with players of all skill types and not only hardcore players is more important to me and what's stopping me from getting this game.
 
T

TheSpoiler

Member
Also, a community that has more players is able to sustain itself for longer based on the fact that it has more players. The less you have, the less variance there is, and the more people start dropping out because of that. The reverse is true as well.

And you want a good variance in skill level. A pool of 200 at peak times is incredibly limited and offputting if you are just starting out.
 
B

Budi

Member
hollomat said:
This quote from ign. "If there are enough people playing LawBreakers that you can quickly find a game every time you play (which, in my experience, there are) why does it matter to the people playing it what the size of the player base is?"

Being able to find a game quickly is important, but being able to find a game with players of all skill types and not only hardcore players is more important to me and what's stopping me from getting this game.
Click to expand...
Atleast right now they have skill based matchmaking so you shouldn't be facing the best of the best. Quote from a dev in the OT below. This is also the reason why some of the Gaffers can't find a match too fast, they are too good to get matched up! Personally I've played it quite a lot, but I'm bad at it. Sometimes I scream at the screen since someone in the enemy team keeps dominating me, but sometimes I'm able to snatch the MVP. So I'm very confident in saying that there's not just hardcore players.
SublimeO12 said:
The reason we use MMR in quickplay instead of pure random is because the game is only really fun if the teams are roughly balanced. In a game like CoD or Battlefield where the TTK is is like 0.3 seconds, the skill gap gets compressed considerably. Meaning that there's a really good chance that a low skill player can score kills on higher skill players just by being in the right place at the right time, seeing them first, etc. In LawBreakers the skill gap is much, much larger, and a higher skill player can completely dominate a match. Before we added skill based match making we saw a lot of this, and yeah the game was fun in a mindless casual way for the top-aiming dudes who just wanted to frag out and get 60 kills or whatever, but for everyone else the experience was awful.
Click to expand...
 
R

RSTEIN

Comics, serious business!
Holy shit... game is now peaking at 300-400 players. That was the floor at the end of August.
 
S

snap

Banned
RSTEIN said:
Holy shit... game is now peaking at 300-400 players. That was the floor at the end of August.
Click to expand...

really should've launched F2P. nobody's going to pay money for a game they don't feel strongly about if nobody's playing it anyways.
 
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