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Why did Mafia 3 fail

Mafia is still about the Italian mafia in the U.S. The enemy faction is the Italian mafia. One of the friendly factions is also Italian mafia. Mafia 3 just added the black mafia and Irish mafia to the mix because it made sense within the game's time period and location.

They were not the primary focus like in the first two games, which is why I feel the title is a bit misleading. Mafia is a Sicilian word. The reason I played the Mafia series was specifically because I loved living out my wildest Mario Puzo dreams.

As I said before, the series went in a completely different direction. The lead writer of the first two games left to create a new studio and took most of Mafia's original staff with him. I'll eventually get part 3 on sale since it looks pretty awesome in its own right, but I really wanted a true sequel made by the original team.
 

Valdega

Member
They were not the primary focus like in the first two games, which is why I feel the title is a bit misleading. Mafia is a Sicilian word. The reason I played the Mafia series was specifically because I loved living out my wildest Mario Puzo dreams.

As I said before, the series went in a completely different direction. The lead writer of the first two games left to create a new studio and took most of Mafia's original staff with him. I'll eventually get part 3 on sale since it looks pretty awesome in its own right, but I really wanted a true sequel made by the original team.

The word may have had Italian origins but has since been used to describe organized crime all over the world. We already had two games dedicated to the Italian mafia. You can only tell the whole "rags to riches" story so many times before it gets old.

Your points were actually pretty good until you tried to strawman it up and put words in someone else's mouth in an attempt to undermine their argument.

No, my point was very much accurate. Most of the people who immediately dismissed Mafia 3 did so because the protagonist wasn't Italian. To them, the series can only be about the Italian mafia so when they saw a black protagonist who obviously wasn't Italian, they rejected the game. I'm not saying they're racist. I'm saying they dismissed the game for superficial reasons.
 
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The word may have had Italian origins but has since been used to describe organized crime all over the world. We already had two games dedicated to the Italian mafia. You can only tell the whole "rags to riches" story so many times before it gets old.



No, my point was very much accurate. Most of the people who immediately dismissed Mafia 3 did so because the protagonist wasn't Italian. To them, the series can only be about the Italian mafia so when they saw a black protagonist who obviously wasn't Italian, they rejected the game. I'm not saying they're racist. I'm saying they dismissed the game for superficial reasons.


I would have titled it True Crime: New Orleans.
 

Shifty

Member
No, my point was very much accurate. Most of the people who immediately dismissed Mafia 3 did so because the protagonist wasn't Italian. To them, the series can only be about the Italian mafia so when they saw a black protagonist who obviously wasn't Italian, they rejected the game. I'm not saying they're racist. I'm saying they dismissed the game for superficial reasons.

The key here is 'most of the people'. Applying generalizations directly to an individual and claiming to know their opinion better than they do is a sure-fire way to inflame an argument before the discussion actually goes anywhere worthwhile.

There's a fairly big difference between saying "most people didn't want to play as an african american" and "you specifically didn't want to play as an african american". Unless you have evidence to support it, the latter is a spurious assertion.
 

kikonawa

Member
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it had some of the best acting, cutscene direction, stories etc.

yet overall it failed, what were the main reasons?
It didnt felt like a real maffia game for me
 

Horns

Member
I super enjoyed M3, but a lot of the missions were the exact same thing. I found the game to be great otherwise. A little more variety and the game would have been remembered differently.
 

Dunki

Member
Reason is pretty simple. They had a fantastic 90 min opening which then shifted into the most boring open world ever. There was nothing to do and to progress you had to do these boring ass repetitive missions if you even can call them that.
 

NickFire

Member
The word may have had Italian origins but has since been used to describe organized crime all over the world. We already had two games dedicated to the Italian mafia. You can only tell the whole "rags to riches" story so many times before it gets old.



No, my point was very much accurate. Most of the people who immediately dismissed Mafia 3 did so because the protagonist wasn't Italian. To them, the series can only be about the Italian mafia so when they saw a black protagonist who obviously wasn't Italian, they rejected the game. I'm not saying they're racist. I'm saying they dismissed the game for superficial reasons.
I think you're right in assuming many people dismissed it when they saw you did not play as an Italian or Italian American. But I think you're missing something in your first paragraph. It's true that other organized crime has been referred to by some version of the word mafia, but most people who hear the word mafia without another adjective think the Italian Mafia. Other organizations would typically be known as the XYZ Mafia or ABC mob. Mafia by itself means the original.

All in all, I would blame the publisher and GTA. The publisher should have given more thought to using the word Mafia and/or how they used it, because right off the bat that will cause many people to expect a story based on the NY families, Capone, the Godfather movies, the Soprano's, etc. Failing to meet such basic expectations will naturally turn people off who were expecting something different. And GTA is the real elephant in the room. That game has established such a high bar for these kind of games, and the online component has given fans of the genre ample reason to stick with what they already had.
 

carsar

Member
Watch Dogs 1
WD is much worse than mafia 3 in terms of story/visual/driving/shooting/details. For example, when you are starting engine, healights light up gradually with flickering( due starter lowers voltage). Mafia 3 is the only game where I saw such detail
 
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WD is much worse than mafia 3 in terms of story/visual/driving/shooting/details. For example, when you are starting engine, healights light up gradually with flickering( due starter lowers voltage). Mafia 3 is the only game where I saw such detail

Agree to disagree. I think WD1 has a great, dark story, the guns feel good (Focus mode was sorely missed in WD2). Driving is super fun if you just stick to bikes, especially riding in first person. And details? The entire city of Chiraq is mapped out along with every single attraction and hot spot. Visuals still look awesome too. They really nail rainy, shitty grey days.
 

bufkus

Member
it's a game I wanted to play but avoided after hearing about frame rate and other buggy issues. might pick it up again due to the patches but I don't have time for it right now.
 
No, my point was very much accurate. Most of the people who immediately dismissed Mafia 3 did so because the protagonist wasn't Italian. To them, the series can only be about the Italian mafia so when they saw a black protagonist who obviously wasn't Italian, they rejected the game. I'm not saying they're racist. I'm saying they dismissed the game for superficial reasons.

That's true - I loved Mafia 2 atmosphere of classic mob movie so I wasn't interested in what looked like GTA clone. I'll check it now once I get code from humble bundle.
 

camelCase

Member
What, not even old school GTA was that bad... You'd get odd variety like RC missions or such.

GTA V has some of the strongest gameplay variety of any third-person open world game though. Every few missions, you'd be have either something traditional with a new mechanic (e.g. driving but you need to drive below Jimmy catch him) or just traditional mechanic variety (e.g. instead of just regular shooting, using the high-tech sniper scope to take out a jet; or instead of just cars and bikes, using a submersible or flying a jumbo jet -- all add pretty large variety and aren't really derivative of any other TPS)
Okay sure, V had a lot more density in the missions. But everything before that was straightahead sameness with little minigames sprinkled in like the RC missions and such. I still wouldn't call V the gold standard for single player open world mission design, and I'm not sure what is.
 

Dunki

Member
Okay sure, V had a lot more density in the missions. But everything before that was straightahead sameness with little minigames sprinkled in like the RC missions and such. I still wouldn't call V the gold standard for single player open world mission design, and I'm not sure what is.
but standards change. Mafia 2 also had a total empty world but you were not forced to do this and could straight go for the Story. Honestly while I really enjoyed the first like 90 Minutes I gave up on this game after 4 hours because it really bored the shit out of me and it made me frustrated that I could not just play the story.
 
Lack of fast travel is a pretty major blemish. It never bothered me though.

On the road to the plat...

Also started up the BC Mafia 2 on my Bone S. Looks good!
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Yes! It was not fun driving 25 min out to some bayou to pick up a crate and then 25 min back.
It was more like 5-7 minutes, but yeah. Lack of fast travel was a pain. I could myself only doing those missions when I was already in the bayou for something else.
 

Valdega

Member
The key here is 'most of the people'. Applying generalizations directly to an individual and claiming to know their opinion better than they do is a sure-fire way to inflame an argument before the discussion actually goes anywhere worthwhile.

There's a fairly big difference between saying "most people didn't want to play as an african american" and "you specifically didn't want to play as an african american". Unless you have evidence to support it, the latter is a spurious assertion.

Perhaps I should have rephrased my assertion to appear less inflammatory. However, it is still correct. When he saw that the protagonist was black instead of Italian, he dismissed the game. He said it himself: he wanted a game where you played as a member of the Italian mafia. As far as I know, there were no African American members of the Italian mafia. Therefore, he didn't want to play as an African American. Again, this isn't an accusation of racism. It's simply an observation that he dismissed the game because it didn't match his preconceptions.

Personally, I think dismissing games for things like that are silly. It reminds me of when people dismissed Splinter Cell: Blacklist because Ironside was no longer voicing Fisher. Or when people dismissed HITMAN because it was episodic. Or when people dismissed RE7 because it was first-person. Or when people dismissed Prey because it had nothing to do with the original. Refusing to play something for such petty reasons only hurts innovation and leads to stagnant franchises. I'm glad that they tried something new with Mafia 3. It certainly wasn't perfect but it explored some interesting themes, introduced some interesting characters and fundamentally improved the core gameplay mechanics of the series. However, you'd never know this unless you actually tried the game.
 

TheWatcher

Banned
Obnoxious characters, poorly written, full of small bugs, and extremely repititive. Hamger 13 tried to make a 'statement' with this game when all we really wanted was an authentic mafia game.
 

Hostile_18

Banned
Well I loved Mafia 1, it's one of my favorite games of all time. I liked Mafia 2 but the first half was so slow. Mafia 3 I enjoyed alot, more so than 2. I came to it with all DLC and patches so that probably affected things.

Best licenced soundtrack since Vice City.
 
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Denton

Member
Why do you think it failed? It sold more than 2.7 million copies on PS4 alone, that's pretty decent. Yeah it's not GTA numbers, but not much other than GTA and a few Mario games have those.

It shipped a lot but afaik we do not know the sold through numbers except the 700K on steam (which includes all sales, humble bundle etc).
The reason why it failed is fairly clear - critically it was a disaster, no sequel is being made and the studio recently laid off most of its staff.
 
I've been wanting to play this game for quite a while, but I never played Mafia 2 and that combined with the meme gifs of the graphical glitches had me delaying my purchase. I'll get it one of these days though.
 
Failed in what respect? Critically? Commercially? Commercially, I think it actually did pretty well. Not as well as GTA, obviously, but well by Mafia standards. Critically, the game was criticized for being too formulaic. The previous games were criticized for not utilizing the open-world in any meaningful way. Mafia 3 addresses that but goes too far. The series has always been story-driven and M3 deviates from that by offering a bunch of missions that don't advance the story in any way. As such, these missions are seen as filler, even if they're well-designed.

If M3 had made the "filler" missions optional, the game would have been much better received.



Eh, that's a pretty flimsy argument. Mafia 2 didn't really have anything to do with Mafia 1. Different characters, different time period, different setting. The only connection was a brief cameo appearance of the protagonist from the first game. In that respect, Mafia 3 actually has a much stronger connection to its predecessor. Vito, the protagonist of Mafia 2, plays a fairly prominent role in Mafia 3. And the name "mafia" is still perfectly applicable. Mafia 3 deals with the black mafia, Italian mafia and Irish mafia. It is still very much a game about organized crime in America.

What you really meant to say is that you lost interest in Mafia 3 because you play as an African American instead of an Italian American.
That last line is a pretty ignorant statement. Quite a harsh accusation with nothing to back it up.
 

drotahorror

Member
Agree to disagree. I think WD1 has a great, dark story, the guns feel good (Focus mode was sorely missed in WD2). Driving is super fun if you just stick to bikes, especially riding in first person. And details? The entire city of Chiraq is mapped out along with every single attraction and hot spot. Visuals still look awesome too. They really nail rainy, shitty grey days.

Word, Mafia 3 looks like shit imo. I'm playing it on PC maxed out and it's so blurry and full of post processing that it looks rough as hell. Watch Dogs 1 looked really nice from what I remember, and that was on my old computer.l
 
Scratch that. I initiallly saw the sales clock in at over 4 million but then noticed that was a crafty way of saying that many copies were shipped. It looks like roughly 2.8 million were sold. I think that part of the reason 3 "failed" is because of 2. I loved Mafia 2, however sales looked to clock in at only around 1 million.

At any rate, great game, but most likely not enough exposure.
 

Dunki

Member
That last line is a pretty ignorant statement. Quite a harsh accusation with nothing to back it up.
I agree with this. I loved the opening but they totally botched the open world part. I t got me so bored that I stoped after 4 Hours. If I cold have jus played the Main Story I would have had a great experience. So I feel like I wasted the 30 Euro I paid back then. That is also the reason why GTAV is so much better because all the stuff in the main mission introduces you to side stuff but you never HAVE to do it.
 
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Understand the need of venting some times, specially when we feel unfairly accused, but we need to make an effort to keep things civil and polite as possible.
Perhaps I should have rephrased my assertion to appear less inflammatory. However, it is still correct. When he saw that the protagonist was black instead of Italian, he dismissed the game. He said it himself: he wanted a game where you played as a member of the Italian mafia. As far as I know, there were no African American members of the Italian mafia. Therefore, he didn't want to play as an African American. Again, this isn't an accusation of racism. It's simply an observation that he dismissed the game because it didn't match his preconceptions.

First of all, you're still accusing me of racism. Second, Lincoln Clay is not even African American, you BLIP BLIP.

It has nothing to do with the main character being black. They could have made him Irish, Russian, Mexican, Japanese... etc. I still would have been disappointed and chosen not to play it.

Mafia was like an Italian mob simulator, not just a random crime syndicate game. At least not until the 3rd game. You can cry all you want. I have every right not to want to play this game. Just like I can opt not to get the latest FIFA for no longer featuring a specific league.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
you BLIP BLIP.

Seriously dude? Come on now, no need to go to petty insults. Though I do understand where you are coming from. Mafia 3 felt much less like a Mafia crime drama and more of a personal revenge story that just happened to feature some mafia elements. Personally, I enjoyed the game's characters and story (up to what I have played thus far) as it did enough different to maintain interest (though I also didn't play the game until all the DLC released, so I had some good buffers between the more monotonous sections).

I agree with this. I loved the opening but they totally botched the open world part. I t got me so bored that I stoped after 4 Hours. If I cold have jus played the Main Story I would have had a great experience. So I feel like I wasted the 30 Euro I paid back then. That is also the reason why GTAV is so much better because all the stuff in the main mission introduces you to side stuff but you never HAVE to do it.

I felt the open world was great. I loved the setting and the different locales that you are able to go to, the only issue I had was the graphical bugs/glitches (with things constantly popping up). I still haven't finished the story (got side tracked with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Assassin's Creed Origins), so I can't comment too much on the story as a whole - but it is quite good. You can quickly go through the core gameplay/story in a decent amount of time (around 7~ish hours assuming you don't do all the achievements/trophies and extra content). Though I wasn't a huge fan of GTA V's story nor its world. I much preferred Vice City/San Andreas/GTA IV.
 

camelCase

Member
but standards change. Mafia 2 also had a total empty world but you were not forced to do this and could straight go for the Story. Honestly while I really enjoyed the first like 90 Minutes I gave up on this game after 4 hours because it really bored the shit out of me and it made me frustrated that I could not just play the story.
That's fine, I'm not making a case for mafia being a lot better but trying to broach the question, what do we really want out of these games?

Yakuza, gta, red dead, saints row etc are games we all spend hundreds of hours in and do the same shit more or less for the bulk of that time. A lot of the time it's busy work, drudgework, generally unfun laborious tasks. Gta doesn't tackle this very effectively. I liked the vigilante missions the best in IV, which was an example of their core gameplay loop (drive,shoot) being used to success, imo. If mafia could do more of that and less "Zeros RC" quality missions then I would think s lot more people would enjoy it.

Just saying,gta single player is so dead. That experience has sailed so far into that good night. And it never really was all that good, except for the tent pole missions that everyone thought was cool. Mafia, it's time for you or someone to take the reigns. GTA is done leading by example for SP and I love the series and will bet that I have more play throughs on those games than...many people.
 

Valdega

Member
It has nothing to do with the main character being black. They could have made him Irish, Russian, Mexican, Japanese... etc. I still would have been disappointed and chosen not to play it.

That isn't helping your position. You dismissed the game because the ethnicity of the protagonist didn't match your expectation. You wanted an Italian American protagonist because you wanted to play as a member of the Italian mafia in the U.S. Once again, not accusing you of racism. Just accusing you of dismissing a game for a petty reason.

Mafia 3 felt much less like a Mafia crime drama and more of a personal revenge story that just happened to feature some mafia elements.

Yeah, I think that's why many people disliked the story. The previous games were about climbing the ranks and going from a nobody to a made man. Mafia 3 has some of that, as you gain power by taking over the mafia's territory and operations. However, it's not the central focus. Lincoln Clay is all about revenge and ironically, the story feels rather impersonal as a result. You kill the majority of characters that you meet and the three potential allies feel like business partners more than friends. There's no equivalent to Joe in Mafia 3 (though Donovan comes pretty close).

That's fine, I'm not making a case for mafia being a lot better but trying to broach the question, what do we really want out of these games?

Narrative context. If all of the missions in Mafia 3 had interesting stories and characters, nobody would have complained. It's important to wrap repetitive tasks in a compelling narrative, otherwise people will quickly get bored. For example, the quest design in Witcher 3 is pretty formulaic. You investigate a crime scene, follow a trail until you find the suspect, then decide whether to kill the suspect or let them go. However, CDPR did an excellent job of giving the quests interesting stories and characters. GTA does the same thing. What would otherwise be a repetitive chore is suddenly a compelling mini-adventure, all thanks to narrative.
 
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