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GI.biz Op-Ed: Titanfall 2 a "commercial failure," "a victim of chest-beating pride."

ebullientprism

ebullientprism

Member
Majukun said:
make a shallow first game and people don't come back for the sequel? what a shock
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This is how you can shitpost without ever reading anything in the OP.

HighResTomato said:
EA put this game up for EA access trial and maybe save it before christmas.

Why Respawn refused to have this game on there I truly don't understand.
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This is genuinely baffling as well. Maybe the poor beta feedback made them wary of giving people access to more of their game. But surely the pre order situation would have given EA clear warning that this was gonna "bomb" and putting it on EA/Origin Access should have been a no loss situation at that point.
 
SentryDown

SentryDown

Member
Why is everyone so surprised that games that fall short to expectations burns their sequel, no matter how improved they are ? For blockbusters it seems to be the norm, from Assassin's Creed to Call of Duty.
 
B

brandonh83

Banned
Titanfall 2 is absolutely amazing. I'm not even a big shooter guy but it just feels great and actually has a pretty good "campaign" with writing that doesn't make me want to shut off the console entirely. I can't say that about certain competition.

It's just sad. I get that a lot of people buy and like Call of Duty, and that's totally fine. Same for Battlefield. I'm also very much enjoying that one too. I just think fans of online shooters should absolutely be supporting this as well. The gameplay, campaign and online is just rock fucking solid. I thought the decent success of the first one as well as this one being on PS4 as well was a sure thing.
 
F

family_guy

Member
Just change to a games as a service model. There might never be a Titanfall 3, but there also doesn't need to be. Just continue to update your game and add value to it. Also as far as sales go, Demon Souls was not a hit out of the gate. Took alot of word of mouth over months.
 
D

Dash_Riprock

Member
I have a feeling when someone makes a "Top 10 dumbest decisions of this Console Gen" list, TF2's release date will be right up there along with Rise of the Tomb Raider timed exclusivity.
 
M

MazeHaze

Banned
I only have like 10 people on my friends list, mostly real life friends who are pretty casual. 3 of them are playing TF2.
 
S

Strakt

Member
brandonh83 said:
Titanfall 2 is absolutely amazing. I'm not even a big shooter guy but it just feels great and actually has a pretty good "campaign" with writing that doesn't make me want to shut off the console entirely. I can't say that about certain competition.

It's just sad. I get that a lot of people buy and like Call of Duty, and that's totally fine. Same for Battlefield. I'm also very much enjoying that one too. I just think fans of online shooters should absolutely be supporting this as well. The gameplay, campaign and online is just rock fucking solid. I thought the decent success of the first one as well as this one being on PS4 as well was a sure thing.
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Well it seems CoD is dead on arrival on the PC version with a ton of bugs / issues
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
It's hard to believe, but if it comes down to dick measuring, it's not hard at all to see why they launched RIGHT BEFORE CALL OF FREAKING DUTY.

The thing is, they didnt even TRY to advertise against it. Just some really low key twitter jabs. It's like they gave up or got cannibalized by Battlefield's focus. They didn't even play COD, they just played themselves.

EA probably thought it was smart to cover both bases: Old war big map shooter + Sci fi small map shooter. Leave nothing for COD. Except Titanfall doesn't have the power of COD, and EA didnt even try
 
F

FonkyByNature

Member
Sad, because Titanfall 2 shits over all the other shooters. It's such a good, fun and fluid game to play.

I did my part and i supported both the first Titanfall and Titanfall 2.
 
S

schwabdizzle

Banned
First off I just want to Say Titanfall is amazing. Secondly EA did a SHITTY job with this game advertising it. It should be a easy sell and they failed.
 
S

Schlorgan

Member
TimeEffect said:
It's hard to believe, but if it comes down to dick measuring, it's not hard at all to see why they launched RIGHT BEFORE CALL OF FREAKING DUTY.

The thing is, they didnt even TRY to advertise against it. Just some really low key twitter jabs. It's like they gave up or got cannibalized by Battlefield's focus. They didn't even play COD, they just played themselves.

EA probably thought it was smart to cover both bases: Old war big map shooter + Sci fi small map shooter. Leave nothing for COD. Except Titanfall doesn't have the power of COD, and EA didnt even try
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Just because you didn't see any marketing doesn't it wasn't there. There was a lot of marketing for this game directly to the mainstream. Commercials during major sports events cost a lot of money and Titanfall 2 had a lot of ads during sporting events.
 
D

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
enzo_gt said:
Sad but..

the thought of those Black Friday and Boxing Day sales

tumblr_nkrezha2H31s20efno1_400.gif
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can't wait for the people waiting on sales to buy the game to a dead community because they were waiting on sales
 
T

TheXbox

Member
Studio performance evaluations are made partly on sales, no? West and Zampella's creative freedom is contingent on the success of their projects. If their game flops, EA has an excuse (maybe a codified one) to exercise more control over Respawn.

I think we all know why the game bombed. It has nothing to do with quality, it has nothing to do with a waning desire for first person shooters. The issue is the release date. They launched it between the two most popular shooters of the holiday, by a matter of days. Who decides the release date? The publisher. Not Respawn.

EA sent this game to die. I don't buy their argument that somehow Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Titanfall all share separate and distinct audiences. We all know that's bullshit. I think it was a political decision that allows them to leverage more authority over Respawn and the Titanfall IP.
 
C

Chris1

Member
mercenar1e said:
The online community dying so fast after TF1s release is probably contributing to the disappointing sales on XB1 and PC.
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Honestly the XB1 community didn't even die off that fast on TF1. I actually just looked up the numbers from around the time they released the player numbers

25th October 4am GMT/11pm EST there was 9k people playing it (7+ months into its life), at this point in time CoD Ghosts had 13K.



9K isn't amazing or anything but it wasn't exactly dead either. Titanfall 2 has been peaking at around 30K on weekdays lately.
 
J

jabberwocker

Banned
I don't understand, what stopping this game from having legs? The way it sounds this game will be something that people pick up by word-of-mouth that should probably do fairly well. I mean are they going to stop selling the game after this week? I understand where the articles coming from where most the time the majority of a game sales is on the front end, but this seems like this could be an exception to the rule based upon what I'm hearing. I understand a lot of it is just from gaf right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if this does a slow burn to a success.
 
S

Schlorgan

Member
TheXbox said:
EA sent this game to die. I don't buy their argument that somehow Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Titanfall all share separate and distinct audiences. We all know that's bullshit. I think it was a political decision that allows them to leverage more authority over Respawn and the Titanfall IP.
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Holy cow, I didn't think it was possible for these threads to have as much Schadenfreude as the Infinite Warfare threads, but there it is.
 
S

SpecialAgentDaleCooper

Banned
Interesting to me that the author makes a point out of "tribalistic" fans, while disregarding those who simply didn't appreciate many of the changes made to the great original formula, or how the EA Access deal was handled.

Which, speaking of, might have made the results slightly less dismal if people who were disappointed with the tech test had a chance to try the retail version before launch. Oops.
 
R

ryseing

Member
The pretty much unanimous feedback from the technical test was that the game needed a delay to figure its balancing shit out. Credit to Respawn for fixing most of that before launch but a delay still would have done wonders, especially if they had been able to add more maps to the launch package.

Shame. It's a very good game and I've enjoyed my time with it over the past week, but CoD4 Remastered is going to be taking most of my MP mindshare now.

Also, hasn't Jason West been out since the first game started development?
 
N

NinjamicWZ

Banned
That's a harsh way to put it, but succinct yeah. I've been trying to say that you gotta stop thinking you are whatever it is you're chasing. It's not about quality... Titanfall 2 is clearly amazing by all accounts, but you can't take respect, attention and money from people that just do not care about anything else this team of year.
 
BigTnaples

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Depressing. I am super excited to pick this up in 6 days with my Pro.




Going to buy the Delux edition just to throw them some support.
 
J

jelly

Member
TheXbox said:
Studio performance evaluations are made partly on sales, no? West and Zampella's creative freedom is contingent on the success of their projects. If their game flops, EA has an excuse (maybe a codified one) to exercise more control over Respawn.

I think we all know why the game bombed. It has nothing to do with quality, it has nothing to do with a waning desire for first person shooters. The issue is the release date. They launched it between the two most popular shooters of the holiday, by a matter of days. Who decides the release date? The publisher. Not Respawn.

EA sent this game to die. I don't buy their argument that somehow Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Titanfall all share separate and distinct audiences. We all know that's bullshit. I think it was a political decision that allows them to leverage more authority over Respawn and the Titanfall IP.
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Respawn own the IP.

All EA wanted to do was put the big squeeze on COD with BF and TF2 eating into the COD audience. If MW Remastered wasn't a thing, it may have actually done some damage.
 
F

fernoca

Member
I agree that EA's obsession to try to "beat" Call of Duty is nonsense.

Is baffling too, because it just doesn't make sense.

When it comes to Nintendo, everyone's all like "we give up, we can't compete with Nintendo", despite not trying. But with Call of Duty and GTA, everyone's looking for ways, sacrificing studios/jobs, and throwing millions to "beat them" and don't... yet continue trying to do so.

Just focus on making great games more than beating the competition, in the end not everyone buys Call of Duty. Their own Battlefield shows that too, so release games like Titanfall months after Battlefield.
 
S

Schlorgan

Member
jelly said:
Respawn own the IP.

All EA wanted to do was put the big squeeze on COD with BF and TF2 eating into the COD audience. If MW Remastered wasn't a thing, it may have actually done some damage.
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I think it still could but we won't know until after the holidays. For as many people that are buying the Legacy Edition, I think they are in the minority of the mainstream that buys Call of Duty every year. If the mainstream buys Infinite Warfare and doesn't like it, there is a clear alternative for them.
 
K

KillerMan91

Member
RoboPlato said:
I still think it's a case of EA not being confident in BF1 and thinking Titanfall 2 was safer in the current climate of shooters. Even in the marketing, BF1 info was stepping on TF2's coverage as news hit.
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This is pretty good point. When the rumours about BF1 being WW1 shooter leaked I still remember how sceptical people were even on here how it would play and sell. Wouldn't surprise me if EA thought similarly. Pretty much no one saw before the reveal trailer how big the hype would grow around BF1 and solely because it's so different to recent shooters.
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
Schlorgan said:
Just because you didn't see any marketing doesn't it wasn't there. There was a lot of marketing for this game directly to the mainstream. Commercials during major sports events cost a lot of money and Titanfall 2 had a lot of ads during sporting events.
Click to expand...

True I was using anecdotal evidence.
 
D

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
jabberwocker said:
I don't understand, what stopping this game from having legs? The way it sounds this game will be something that people pick up by word-of-mouth that should probably do fairly well. I mean are they going to stop selling the game after this week? I understand where the articles coming from where most the time the majority of a game sales is on the front end, but this seems like this could be an exception to the rule based upon what I'm hearing. I understand a lot of it is just from gaf right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if this does a slow burn to a success.
Click to expand...

An unproven franchise sandwiched between two of the bigger juggernauts in FPSes. Word of mouth already happened a week prior when people found out BF1 was good. People paid their money. And Titanfall IS an unproven franchise in most peoples eyes.
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
RoboPlato said:
I still think it's a case of EA not being confident in BF1 and thinking Titanfall 2 was safer in the current climate of shooters. Even in the marketing, BF1 info was stepping on TF2's coverage as news hit.
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I said the same thing. They seriously underestimated WW1 thirst
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
inpHilltr8r said:
I want to believe that this will be a slow but steady burner. As it is I probably won't even get to it before early next year.
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The problem with this is the competition. Too many shooters this gen all more successful in playerbase.

The only way to compete is in pricing
 
S

soultron

Banned
A lot of words on that page that basically boil down to, "EA shouldn't have wedged it between BF1 and CODIW."

While it's a huge mistake, I think Respawn can leverage treating TF2 as GAAS, in a way. Regular free content updates (I'd even be cool with paid, if it's simple cosmetic stuff) will grab press and still amount to sales if EA markets the updates correctly. It's not going to correct the injustice that was TF2's release date, however.
 
Woo-Fu

Woo-Fu

Banned
Hesh said:
Rainbow Six Siege was a "failure", too, after launch, and has made amazing strides with post-launch support. I wouldn't write off Titanfall 2 yet.
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Siege is a unique experience, IMHO, much more so than Titanfall. After a terrible alpha and an OK Beta Siege came back because it offered something compelling you won't get anywhere else. I mean, sure, I suppose you could call CSGO a similar experience but that is a "been there, done that" game for most people.

Titans themselves don't have a lot of modern competition but the pilot gameplay is similar to a number of other games.

I think TF2 still has a chance though. It will hinge almost entirely on the first major balance patch and the word of mouth that results from it.
 
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