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Lawbreakers dropped to 10 users online.

It's not a BAD game. It looks good. Pretty tight gameplay.

It just lacks that thing that keeps people coming back. And I'm not sure what that thing would be for Lawbreakers. I tried it in beta. I enjoyed it, but had no desire to come back to it. And now I'm knee deep in PUBG and Fortnite BR with no end in sight. Can't even bring myself to stop playing those games in order to pick up the Dishonored DLC that just released. Or Shadow of War. Or Divinity OS2....
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
So according to SteamSpy, about 75,000 people own this game.

That seems like more than enough to run a much healthier population, so presumably there's something people fundamentally don't like about the game - or at minimum its retention model - that isn't keeping them around.
 
So according to SteamSpy, about 75,000 people own this game.

That seems like more than enough to run a much healthier population, so presumably there's something people fundamentally don't like about the game - or at minimum its retention model - that isn't keeping them around.

For a game on PC without community dedicated servers, once the population drops below a certain threshold (that can maintain a reasonable matchmaking experience) it will never go up.
 

amdb00mer

Member
I've had a ton of fun with Lawbreakers, but I haven't played in a couple weeks. I've just been playing other games. I didn't like the health changes either. I also don't know why they're pushing out leagues now. I get that people want them but it doesn't make sense given the population. It truly is an excellent game though. It's sad to see it doing so poorly. I've played well over 500 matches and I'll be back when they release the last class.


I love Raiders of the Broken Planet and it's struggling too. It's only been out a few weeks. Another niche title overlooked in a year of great games.
NlgrHm5.png

I honestly thought Raiders was going to be a traditional game with a campaign, but I misread that. While it does have "campaign" missions, it really is not a traditional campaign. I'm not sure I want to buy the remaining missions.
 
No XB1 version is the reason why no one plays this game on PC? lol

Lots of older Gears fans have a PC or PS4 besides XB1, saying none of Cliffy's fans bought the game simply because it wasn't released on Xbox is kinda silly.

He is not saying that the game would fare better on PC if it came to XB1, what he is saying is that the XB1 might hold it better than the PC. Isn't the PS4 faring better? Without the XB1 that's all they have left. It was a dumb (and unnecessary) move and they are paying for it. Not releasing a JRPG on XB1 is understandable. Not releasing a FPS? Completely unjustifiable.

Not releasing it on XB1 is one of the many mistakes of the game: the bland characters, the poor advertising, the confusing advertising, even the name of the game is so generic and out of place that it seems like they wanted the game to fail. Shame, I don't think that the F2P change will change this scenario.
 
For a game on PC without community dedicated servers, once the population drops below a certain threshold (that can maintain a reasonable matchmaking experience) it will never go up.

Yup, pretty much. Once you get the feeling that there's no playerbase, there's no point in opening the game. Unless you're desperately clinging onto it for dear life.

Those 10 players were probably devs :p
 
For a game on PC without community dedicated servers, once the population drops below a certain threshold (that can maintain a reasonable matchmaking experience) it will never go up.

I wonder if there is any path to recovery by releasing public server binaries and mod tools. I'm not sure how it could help but it would be in the unique position of being the only modern shooter out that supports these features.
 

Erheller

Member
Wow, there are literally more people playing Guns of Icarus Online (old niche indie game I used to play that was never very popular) than Lawbreakers
 

gypsygib

Member
What happened?

Overwatch
PUBG
BF1
COD
Paladins (FREE)
R6
CSGO

All offer something to meet every type of competitive FPS gamer's tastes for them not to spend any money on a new competitive only online shooter.

If Titan Fall 2 couldn't crack that market, Lawbreakers had no chance. Cliffy bet on the wrong horse making a k/d arena shooter. He probably could have found great success making a Battle Royal game and being the second major BR game on the market; and made by a far far more experienced developer. Fortnite is bare bones and already very popular.

Also, for a class based team shooter, the gameplay/environments didn't result in much teamplay as their was no focus on the objective . I played it, it was good but I've been playing k/d shooters since 360 and there's no way I'd spend money on another one with no SP. If it was free, I'd probably keep it in my gaming rotation but now, who cares. It's dead.
 

Marcel

Member
I wonder if there is any path to recovery by releasing public server binaries and mod tools. I'm not sure how it could help but it would be in the unique position of being the only modern shooter out that supports these features.

Once the player population for your multiplayer-only game hits less than a dozen people there's no strategy other than making the game free to play. Why they haven't done it like yesterday is astoundingly stupid.
 

Nev

Banned
Reminds me of when Wildstar was sent to die with a stupid subs model after like 6 years of development.

Some developers/publishers must learn less money upfront might be the right decision in the long run. I guess the easy money was more attractive but in the end they got a dead game for ignoring market trend to follow the easy money ¯_(ツ)_/¯


You try to be Blizzard, disaster ensues. At least Hi-Rez understands that.
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
I understand the low numbers. It's a mediocre game with terribly bland art design and characters -- which is very important in a game like this if you're going to go up against Overwatch.

But 10? That has to be a mistake, right?
 

RoyalFool

Banned
On Twitch there are more people playing Sim City on the SNES than this (right now).

As a game it might well be dead, but at least it'll live on as a meme I guess.
 

MUnited83

For you.
from what I played of the game during the free weekend: it's a game that has really fun characters to play and move around on

they just forgot to design the actual game around them
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
I get no joy from seeing this game fail. But I'm not very concerned that it did either. I will be there of CB wants to sell me a killer SP experience again!
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
The better question is what is good about it? It is pretty average.

It does have some interesting ideas but I personally found the maps to be poor and the shooting wasn't great. On top of that, the characters are mostly forgettable.

It's the definition of mediocre.
 

Bydobob

Member
What happened?

Overwatch
PUBG
BF1
COD
Paladins (FREE)
R6
CSGO

All offer something to meet every type of competitive FPS gamer's tastes for them not to spend any money on a new competitive only online shooter.

All these games and no mention of Quake Champions, surely the most similar game of all recent release. It was my reason for skipping Lawbreakers anyway.

Genuinely sad for CliffyB and his team for this though. Can't believe the bile thrown in his direction for simply believing in his product, and now dancing on the grave. F2P only way forward now for Lawbreakers.
 

EL CUCO

Member
All these games and no mention of Quake Champions, surely the most similar game of all recent release. It was my reason for skipping Lawbreakers anyway.

Genuinely sad for CliffyB and his team for this though. Can't believe the bile thrown in his direction for simply believing in his product, and now dancing on the grave. F2P only way forward now for Lawbreakers.
What are the numbers like for Quake atm?
Is this worse than Battleborn or Evolve?
Those 2 games had way bigger marketing/publishing campaigns behind them, so I'd argue no from a business stand point.
 
most of the community for this type of thing had already committed to other games and weren't interested in switching.
This is the actual answer.

These days your game has to have enough gravitational pull to drag people away from whatever other big fps game they are playing. That "pull" is marketing strategy and it simply didn't do enough hype generation to get people to move over. They would have done well to pay big Twitch streamers to play their game regularly. Generate some interest and get some positive energy moving in their direction. Maybe some CG trailers filling out the backstory, especially given it is a new IP. People love story trailers, as it gives things purpose and a reason for being. Maybe a name better than "Lawbreakers" would have helped. Maybe a better messenger than Cliffy B.

I'm a fan of Cliffy's work. This one never even made my radar. I couldn't even be bothered to remember it had a free weekend coming in September. I wanted to give it a try, but not enough reasons to keep it in mind when it came around. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

As I've said before, they need to be in crisis/emergency mode trying to get this to F2P. The longer it takes, the more the stench of death and failure sit on the game. Wait too long and the window for any F2P viability closes as well and the game really does die.

I wish them all good luck. Their marketing team failed them.
 

Flux

Member
Everyone here is way too negative and harsh on this game. Those ten players are probably forming the best gaming bonds and will create long lasting friendships we all desire.
 
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