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[CamHostage]

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/02/kno...e-hosted-server-edition-to-be-released-for-pc

Two years and nine seasons later, Velan Studios is putting the balls down on Knockout City, it's original online dodgeball multiplayer world.

There will be some farewell events for those who enjoyed the game. Also on PC there will be a Private Server Edition, which is a nice touch to turn the hosting over to the community (albeit not for all platforms.) More info on the Knockout City site, plus a heartfelt goodbye from the game director:

https://www.knockoutcity.com/updates/knockout-city-special-announcement

 

[Thabass]

Ah that's sad. But yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. Just couldn't really keep going back to it. I'll give it one last go before the servers end.

 

[CamHostage]

(A little extra context and trivia: Knockout City originally was going to be published by EA but they were able to take it independent.
Velan Studios is a small studio founded by veterans of Vicarious Visions, the Activision studio known for THPS1+2, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, some of the Skylanders and Guitar Hero content, and in the old days a bunch of really nice DS and GBA games. Besides Knockout City, Velan also created the real-world RC car technology used to make Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit for Nintendo.)

 

[sachos]

This game could have been amazing as a Dreamcast like single player/couch coop game, but instead it is a GaaS and is already dead. Same thing with Back 4 Blood and countless others, why do devs keep shooting themselves on their foots chasing the 1% GaaS success. Nice of them to release a Private Server Edition it shows they are aware, hope more GaaS dieing follow that trend at least.

 

[ManaByte]

The TMNT season was awesome. Great game.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Arena shooter, lul.

 

[CamHostage]

This game could have been amazing as a Dreamcast like single player/couch coop game, but instead it is a GaaS and is already dead. Same thing with Back 4 Blood and countless others, why do devs keep shooting themselves on their foots chasing the 1% GaaS success. Nice of them to release a Private Server Edition it shows they are aware, hope more GaaS dieing follow that trend at least.

$Billions of dollars of potential marketplace is why they make GaaSes.

Sure, there are countless corpses littering the path to this impossible treasure, but every path is lined with broken-down failures, and most of those paths lead to much, much less potential revenue. (I have a hard time even naming a Dreamcast-like couch co-op or VS game that has been a great success in the past two generations. It's not just that developers aren't making them, gamers aren't going for them like they used to (and they aren't buying them, if they can avoid it, since there are abundant F2P options out there.

Also, GaaSes are being made because good ones are fun! Sure, they have an underlying commerce system to them which can spoil the enjoyment, but people like playing with other people, they like recorded tracking of their successes and progress, and they like surprised being added to their favorite game every few months. It's even fun for developers, because they can see the engagement of the players and they can know that their efforts are going out to an active fanbase and they can learn a lot about game development from what players request or take to. Yes, it's all ephemeral and a GaaS can always dry up (and might leave people regretting their time investment if the fallout is bad,) but the fun of the moment is what matters. Getting two years of good times out of any game is something, be it a GaaS or otherwise.

I'm with you, I like a trustworthy little self-contained multiplayer game and am nervous that gaming is going away from those in favor of GaaS and F2P and online-only/no-splitscreen. But there are good GaaS titles out there, and they make sense as a business plan. In a perfect world, we'd have both, but this isn't that era...

(Plus, have you played Knockout City? I don't think it would have worked too well as a couch game, maybe with some frustrating split-screen design but it would have been tough on four split squares.)

 

[sachos]

$Billions of dollars of potential marketplace is why they make GaaSes.

There are countless corpses littering the path to this impossible treasure, sure, but every path is lined with broken-down failures, and most of those paths lead to much, much less potential revenue. (I have a hard time even naming a Dreamcast-like couch co-op or VS game that has been a great success in the past two generations. It's not just that developers aren't making them, gamers aren't going for them like they used to (and they aren't buying them, if they can avoid it, since there are abundant F2P options out there.

Also, GaaSes are being made because good ones are fun! Sure, they have an underlying commerce system to them which can spoil the enjoyment, but people like playing with other people, they like recorded tracking of their successes and progress, and they like surprised being added to their favorite game every few months. It's even fun for developers, because they can see the engagement of the players and they can know that their efforts are going out to an active fanbase and they can learn a lot about game development from what players request or take to. Yes, it's all ephemeral and a GaaS can always dry up (and might leave people regretting their time investment if the fallout is bad,) but the fun of the moment is what matters. Getting two years of good times out of any game is something, be it a GaaS or otherwise.

I'm with you, I like a trustworthy little self-contained multiplayer game and am nervous that gaming is going away from those in favor of GaaS and F2P and online-only/no-splitscreen. But there are good GaaS titles out there, and they make sense as a business plan. In a perfect world, we'd have both, but this isn't that era...

(Plus, have you played Knockout City? I don't think it would have worked too well as a couch game, maybe with some frustrating split-screen design but it would have been tough on four split squares.)

Yeah i know you are right, i just feel bad when i see devs focus so hard on GaaS for them to inevitably fail. No i did not play KnockOut city but watched some streams of it, from what i remember i thought it could have worked as something like Power Stone or something like that and 4 way split screen is getting easier now that TVs are getting so huge though although i guess people keep sitting way too far away from them.

 

[ANDS]

This was one of those games that needed to not be tied to a corporate publisher. Excellent pick-up-and-play game (that was also surprisingly strategic).

. . .shame. There have been quite a few of these game that are actually pretty decent, but - because they have to pay for themselves in the long run - just don't get the push needed to make them self-sustaining.

 

[Bridges]

Holy shit this has really been a GaaS bloodbath.

This game was actually pretty fun from what I played of it. I could never convince my friends to give it a shot though so I ended up dropping it pretty quick. Real bummer for the devs, it was a neat project.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Arena shooter, lul.

Not why the game failed. It didn't have enough variety, had a early start than it should've without enough content, etc. Lot of variables, ones that we've already seen happen with many other games.

It IS really cool to see them have an edition that allows people to host games. Better than just completely pulling the plug like what's been done with a lot of the other games.

 

[Portugeezer]

I felt like MP games lasted longer in the past before pulling the plug...

This sucks for those who still enjoy the game.

 

[Roberts]

Great game. I’m not really a multiplayer kind of a guy but I played this one so much I started to have crazy weird dreams about it to a point where I just had to quit.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

Ouch. Sad to see an amazing game go down so soon.

 

[Warablo]

Live service isn't working unless you got a mega hit.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Not why the game failed. It didn't have enough variety.

Arena shooters in a nutshell.

People have been making excuses for that genre for way too long.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Arena shooters in a nutshell.

People have been making excuses for that genre for way too long.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Live service isn't working unless you got a mega hit.

Bad game design isn't working. The business model is tertiary.

 

[PeteBull]

Down with another GAAS shit, still plenty left to sink, but every time any representative of this abnomination of a game genre dies, it makes my heart warm, coz it means evil greedy fucks lose more money xD

 

[Shakka43]

Dropping like flies. I hope Sony rethinks their strategy of chasing GAAS trends and instead stick and invest on what has worked for them, single player is their bread and butter.

 

[Havoc2049]

People have some legit strait up weird takes on this forum when it comes to online multiplayer games, like it's some new thing that is infecting gaming or something.

People have been playing online multiplayer games on subscription services since the frikin' mid to late 80's. I used to play Air Warrior online, on GEnie, on my frikin' Atari ST. Hell, the Gemstone series (MUD/MMORPG) is still going and is older than almost every single active video game franchise out there. Just like regular video games, there are winners and losers in online multiplayer games and not every game needs to be a MEGA-hit to make a profit for either a short time or over the long haul.

 

[Mess]

Bad game design isn't working. The business model is tertiary.

If that was the case nobody would be playing fortnite...

On topic : the private server edition is really nice though, I hope more devs take this approach in the future

 

[DenchDeckard]

More live service games to the death pile...just in time for Sony to launch how many?

 

[PeteBull]

People have some legit strait up weird takes on this forum when it comes to online multiplayer games, like it's some new thing that is infecting gaming or something.

People have been playing online multiplayer games on subscription services since the frikin' mid to late 80's. I used to play Air Warrior online, on GEnie, on my frikin' Atari ST. Hell, the Gemstone series (MUD/MMORPG) is still going and is older than almost every single active video game franchise out there. Just like regular video games, there are winners and losers in online multiplayer games and not every game needs to be a MEGA-hit to make a profit for either a short time or over the long haul.

I played plenty online multiplayer games too, from the biggest one i can only mention WoW from burning crusade expack till end of cataclysm expack so basically its golden years, and from recent ones, d2r- superfun to play it early on when new season starts with buddies all of us wearing potato sack gear and dieing to stuff we normally fly tru on geared characters ;D

That doesnt change the fact- i loved and still love oldschool online multiplayer, not this shitty GAAS model where u get close 0 content, 0 fun and pay tons for all kinds of useless or even worse- not useless mtx.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

That doesnt change the fact- i loved and still love oldschool online multiplayer, not this shitty GAAS model where u get close 0 content, 0 fun and pay tons for all kinds of useless or even worse- not useless mtx.

What old school, non GAAS multiplayer gives you more content than Fortnite, League of Legends, Genshin Impact, Roblox, and Counter Strike?

This answer is going to be fun...

 

[DaGwaphics]

I really enjoyed this one when it first released. I'll have to go back to it before they close it down. It's too bad it couldn't maintain traction, this one was actually a good one.

Nice of them to do the private server edition, too bad more of these games didn't do something like that.

 

[PeteBull]

What old school, non GAAS multiplayer gives you more content than Fortnite, League of Legends, Genshin Impact, Roblox, and Counter Strike?

This answer is going to be fun...

Its not about more content from non gaas, its about value, and again 2 examples- WoW- u could consider it GAAS but it was oldschool GAAS, so u paid for base game then xpacks and monthly fee(i think 10 usd/euro if u bought in bulk) but u got really tons of new content, i know coz i spent k's of hours in it w/o even being bored- i stopped playing WoW coz it was too good/addicting only.
Another example of value- d2r- 40bucks/euro at launch but since then u had many times promos for 20-30bucks/euro, and its enough to play few days of ladder, sell the drops from that and u made all the cash back(in fg, which u can sell for real cash if u feel like it;p).

All examples u said is 0 new content, just stupid mtx(its not my genre of games either, aka i wouldnt play even for a minute unless im threatened with gun to the head, thats how awfull all those games are in my eyes;D

 

[Umbasaborne]

Another live service bites the dust, when will publishers stop trying to chase this goose?

 

[DaGwaphics]

Another live service bites the dust, when will publishers stop trying to chase this goose?

Not likely to happen as long as the reward for that 1% of games that works long-term is as high as it is.

 

[PeteBull]

Not likely to happen as long as the reward for that 1% of games that works long-term is as high as it is.

Indeed, even sony, so last bastion of single player, bent the knee recently, wish we got more high quality sp games instead tho, like for example istead of last of us factions we get uncharted 5 or new ip.

Ppl asking why we-veteran players look at GAAS shit with disgusting eyes- its coz of this, every GAAS game takes away funds/dev time from proper games that we actually enjoy, my heart always breaks knowing we could ged 2-3 midsize games instead of shitty big budged AAA that ultimately wont bring nothing new to the table.

Recipe for good game isnt even that hard, as proven by recent hi fi rush https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/hi-fi-rush.
Even microsofts's studio can make great game when it isnt cursed with making it GAAS as a base, like so many of their failure games.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Its not about more content from non gaas, its about value, and again 2 examples- WoW- u could consider it GAAS but it was oldschool GAAS, so u paid for base game then xpacks and monthly fee(i think 10 usd/euro if u bought in bulk) but u got really tons of new content, i know coz i spent k's of hours in it w/o even being bored- i stopped playing WoW coz it was too good/addicting only.
Another example of value- d2r- 40bucks/euro at launch but since then u had many times promos for 20-30bucks/euro, and its enough to play few days of ladder, sell the drops from that and u made all the cash back(in fg, which u can sell for real cash if u feel like it;p).

All examples u said is 0 new content, just stupid mtx(its not my genre of games either, aka i wouldnt play even for a minute unless im threatened with gun to the head, thats how awfull all those games are in my eyes;D

I learned a lot.