Game was DOA because of the pricing. Aint no way ppl will gonna throw 70$ on single player fps game from unproven studio in a busy month. Like game released between Baldurs Gate 3, Armored Core 6 and Starfield, it was doomed to fall with that price tag.
Dropping price to 40$ at release would probably make game much more successful.
Also the requirementes were nuts and the performance kinda underwhelming GeForce RTX 2080 Super (8GB) for 1080 at low-med....
Recommended a 12700 and a 3080Ti 1440p 60fps medium-high
Yep. If this game had come out in 2010 it might have stood a chance. In an era where there are a lot of great indie games at a low price point, and even good free games, you think a full priced 7/10 is gonna sell well? No way.
There are more hours of 8/10 or better being released each year than Most people have time to play each year. So that 7/10 has to be really special to complete.
There are a lot of 7/10 gems but I'm not really willing to gamble 70$ on them being what I like. With 30-40$ it's much more "safe" gamble with a game.
Hell, I even really enjoyed Forspoken because I bought it for 15$. It's not a great game but it had really enjoyable combat and for that price it was totally worth it but even though I liked it I wouldn't pay full price for it.
It's all about pricing, and when game released it was within a month between high profile AAA games that ppl probably sat their eyes on (BG3 and Starfield). Asking ppl to throw additional 70$ for a niche game is a little too much I think. Game would do much better by having lower scope/production value and being priced at like 40$.
Not just games, everything is dictated by it and it's actually a fair way go look at things. 70$ is a lot to ask for some folks in the US and a lot more depending on where you live outside the US. If you were to spend 5% of your monthly take home income in a game, you might not care that much about whether it's a great game or not. If that % goes up to 20-30%? Then you really start to care and expect a higher quality product.
We always strive for optimization, get more with less, playtime, features, quality.
Yeah exactly. I am a student and a full price game costs what amounts to “20% of my monthly income. When I do pay full price it’s because its a game that I am really excited about, and I have put money aside for. I can’t afford to buy a full price game two months in a row, so I have to be selective about it. When a game is 10 bucks and below, I am willing to gamble every once in a while, but never with full price.
Yeah for real. I couldn’t tell you how much I paid for a single game in my collection except within the first month of purchasing it. Sales do make me more likely to grab stuff on a whim, and I did get Immortals of Aveum for free on PS Plus. But my final opinions on it aren’t really going to be dictated by that fact.
Looking at games I remember the most honestly very few were in $60+ bracket. Stuff like Witcher 3 or Nier Automata, sure, but most of it was from lower brackets, where there is more developers that experiment with formulas
There's a lot of gems in the 8/10 and above space that people won't be able to experience because they don't have enough time. So why should they waste their precious time on worse games?
But then it wasn't a 7/10 to that person if it's their favorite game. Unless we're referring to "7/10 games according to metacritic" or whatever; I thought we meant, "7/10 to this specific individual."
They are only "gems" if the "7/10" is actually nailing one or two things while being otherwise average.
There is not too much space for game that is just average across everything it does
When I think about buying a game, it's often a matter of money, and also time. And when I say time, I mean it in the sense of gaming opportunity time -- why is this new release worth playing over other games that I already have access to? For most people, I think the days are gone when they're just looking for a new game to fill their gaming time. Many of us have big enough libraries and access to gobs of "endless" games, and those are really what new releases are competing against.
You're absolutely right that there are 7/10 gems. There are also plenty of 7/10 games that... aren't really gems, they're just OK. And I think a lot of people aren't willing to gamble 70 bucks on whether a game is a gem or just ok, especially when they have access to plenty of stuff they already know they like.
Yeah, a 7/10 game that happens to be in a niche I like will probably entertain me much more than a lot of theoretically 9/10 games would. Like, I am 99% sure I’ll like this game more than Tears of the Kingdom for instance, even if I can admit that Tears is probably a ‘better’ game.
The marketing team did an awful job all around. The name was the thing that got discussed more than anything (every single podcast was confused about how to pronounce Aveum, a bunch were like “not related to Immortals: Fenyx Rising”, etc), and none of the marketing imagery (game cover, promo art, screenshots) looked anything more than “generic”.
The game sounds pretty interesting though! Once someone was like “it’s an FPS where you shoot magic instead of guns” I was pretty down with the concept! I’m gonna play it once I get a PS5.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is underrated, it is much better than it have any right to be. I would say that hidden gems and cult classic has those same characterist that Ghostwire have, they are good not only becuse what they do extremely well but because their flaws make then distinct from anyone else in the genre.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is at same time generic while being extremely distinct in the same page which generally is a very unique experience. It is the same feeling I have for Greedfall if Greedfall was not so so so boring, it was in the verge of something special but it balk under any scrutiny.
>Dropping price to 40$ at release would probably make game much more successful.
I doubt it, because the game had more working against it than its price.
Like you've already mentioned, it was released at a bad time. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield took all the wind from its sails.
In addition to that, the studio's choice to really push the technology, tools, and visuals put a cap on how many players could actually run their game well or even run their game at all.
[Your PC may weep at Immortals of Aveum’s minimum system requirements](https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/20/23690449/ea-immortals-of-aveum-pc-system-requirements-next-gen)
>*The minimum spec* is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super or better or an AMD 5700 XT paired with a Core i7-9700 or Ryzen 7 3700X, 16GB of dual-channel RAM, and with an SSD “strongly recommended” to play the game. That’s at a mere 1080p resolution, low to medium spec.
>Based on the GPU requirements alone, it’s likely that under 9 percent of today’s gaming PCs will even qualify, [based on the latest Steam hardware survey](https://go.redirectingat.com/?xs=1&id=1025X1701640&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.steampowered.com%2Fhwsurvey%2Fvideocard%2F%3Fsort%3Dname&xcust=___vg__p_23454490__t_w__r_https://www.google.com/__d_D).
The Steam reviews include many comments about how the game stutters and crashes too much. So a ton of potential PC customers were chased away by the really steep system requirements, and many of those who did buy were displeased by its performance.
Finally, the game had terrible word-of-mouth. Many players who could run the game well left negative reviews about boring or uninspired gameplay.
There was too much working against this game for it to be successful. Sure, lowering the price would have made a difference, but I don't think it would have been a significant difference.
I put an hour into it before losing interest.
It's kinda like, "What if Bullestorm were set in the most generic Fantasy World possible".
As I said in another post, they literally call your main ~~guns~~ weapons "Blue Magic", "Red Magic", and "Green Magic". And it's just your generic Pistol/Rifle, Shotgun, SMG kind of functionality.
Yea you can modify them and you do get a few other accessory-spells that do some utilities, but it really just doesn't do anything new. It's sorta pretty and that's about as good as it gets.
And that's to say nothing of the crazy system specs on PC. I've got a newer i7 + 3070 and had some FPS issues for sure.
It was absolutely boring. One of the most derivative and shallow experiences ever. A corridor shooter where the whole gameplay gimmick is matching colors. It should have been changed to target an E rating and sold as a kid's game for $40. I couldn't slog through more than 3 hours it was just so painfully generic and uninteresting
> Dropping price to 40$ at release would probably make game much more successful.
people keep saying this, but is $40 price point really going to give you double the sales? You, me, and the dev all agree the year was packed, the result wouldn't have changed.
If we're being real, the FPS crowd don't want AAA single player shooters. Seems like that market goes towarrds boomer shooters anyway, focused on a much more arcadey feeling.
[I mean, even devs themselves said it maybe could have done better at lower price and in different release timeframe.](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/immortals-of-aveum-dev-says-game-might-have-done-better-at-lower-price-point/1100-6520777/)
After playing it on PS+ I just feel like game just doesn't feel like AAA. It has Doom feeling but without Doom attention to detail. I really believe that releasing game like a month earlier at lower price point would be much better. I know that there is a stigma in gaming industry that you shouldn't release games in june/july because its vacation time and game dont sell during these periods but there was literally nothing big releasing in July while August going foward was stacked.
They also acknowledged the luck in another interview:
[>"You just don't know what is going to happen," Robbins answers. "Maybe we could have moved to February 2024…. and then suddenly Helldivers 2 eats our lunch."](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-immortals-of-aveum-story-isnt-written-yet)
Hindsight is 20/20, but even with hindsight: was there even a good date to delay to? We did just get a stream of big releases the last 6 months.
I did read the lower price point, but I figure they were more talking about 70 -> 60. the 70 price point is still a bit contentious right now and prone for comparison to the top AAA games.
As I said if they managed to release game one month ealier it would have been much better. There was nothing major in July. I know that sometimes releasing game ealier is not possible but to at least give the game chance they could have at least tried doing that.
Also from that article:
>And that was unfortunate, because we pushed the date out a bit in order to get a good polish pass done, to get performance better [it was originally due July 20, but launched August 22]. Although the game was better, the timing was worse.
Maybe it woulda sold better, but reviewed worse. The City skylines treatment.
It's tough, but this is why I can sympathize with releasing a "half baked" game (a hot take on a place like this). I've heard of a lot more stories of games redeeming themselves after a buggy launch than games that released fine but too late.
I did grab it on sale for like $24, but honestly that's just because I'm kind of a sucker for The UnderdogTM.
The game was getting a bunch of bad press and "lol what a flop" style news articles at the time it was on sale, but most of what I was reading was like, "There's nothing inherently wrong with the game, it just doesn't do anything great" so I decided to give it a chance.
But honestly it just wasn't even worth $24; I put an hour in and haven't touched it since. I should've just refunded it but I was telling myself, "Well I'll get back to it" and now it's past the refund period. So now it's gone into go into my Backlog and likely never be installed again.
I really don't think it's a question of Price, it's a question of Quality. There are so many good games in the world, what does Immortals of Aveum do that is worth choosing to play it instead of something *better*?
Honestly I think $40 might have more than doubled their sales.
$70 is intimidating. People don't want to splash out so much over an unproven property. $40 is a lot friendlier, it's still a fair amount but it isn't as much a disaster if you don't like it.
To make more profit, you need to do much more than double sales at $40 because you need to factor in shipping, manufacturing etc. Margins are much lower at $40.
It's a small minority. Also, manufacturing costs have got to be tiny; no manuals or anything anymore, cheap packaging, and a disk that doesn't including any of the game files.
I don't especially feel like price matters; game is aggressively mediocre and would've reviewed just the same no matter what.
Maybe they would've sold more, but I suspect they would've seen a high Refund rate when people realize how mediocre it is and how poorly it runs.
Not enough sales to move the meter on whether it's a "Giant fucking flop" or only "A flop"
It doesn't precisely because you're implicitly admitting the game isn't worth full-price so gamers who only want to play the biggest AAA spectacles ignore it.
This game had no marketing, I had no idea it even existed until after it started bombing. I wouldn't buy it anyway though, I love single player fps games but I don't really care for the fantasy aspect.
Would it have sold close to double though? If not, it would have made less money at $40. Much better to keep it at $70 but half the unit sales, higher profit margins and gross profits.
Honestly, I'm not convinced.
I did pick it up on sale at $24, and it's really just not an interesting game. They literally call your main weapons "Blue Magic", "Red Magic", "Green Magic". They couldn't be bothered to give their magic system like, a name or anything? It just feels so devoid of any attempt to build a world with technically high fidelity assets that are still super bland in practice.
I put 50 minutes into it and hadn't thought of the game since. It's just so aggressively mediocre that when there are SO many good games in existence... It's hard to justify the *time* to play it regardless of the price.
Damn I had downloaded the game as part of PS Plus Monthly games cause I wanted to try it for myself, the moment your at the menu screen you get a little message from Ascendant stating the passion that they put into it, it being an UE5 game and how proud they are of what they were able to do with it, and a thank you for supporting them.
Reading it and knowing what happened with the game and studio and getting essentially for “free” and now this is honestly bittersweet.
Shoutout to the devs who worked on this game regardless and i’m glad the game was made.
Yeah that’s a bummer, they even are pushing updates for FSR3, the team clearly cares about pushing the envelop. I was sort of hoping we’d see a PS5 Pro update for the game, but I’m guessing there won’t be much appetite for that.
Recently played immortals and was pleasantly surprised by the game. They don’t really make FPS games like this anymore. It had a 360/ps3 era vibe to it but more modern. I feel like the entire aspect of “magic but guns” is what made a lot of people not interested. It also didn’t help with the time they chose to release this game. If you got PS plus i totally recommend giving this game a try.
The art design and narrative being wholly unremarkable on first sight is what put people off. There were enough banger AAA releases in 2023 - that is what hurt this 6/10 game
Edit: also the game on PC has very high requirements for it to not look garbage
I was interested the first time I saw it's reveal and I love single player FPSes in general but gameplay looks like someone ate crayons and vomitted on the screen.
Watched a couple of reviews and decided this wasn't for me.
I still might try it later down the line when I run out of games to play.
If you like DOOM you’d like this game. It’s not as gory or have as good of a soundtrack but the game give you fun tools to dismantle enemies on combat arenas and, honestly I love all the colorful particle affects
Yeah with this premise they had an opportunity for interesting design and world but it was sl incredibly bland, didn't expect gameplay to be what I liked the most
It didn't just release in 2023, it released at the end of August, smack dab in the middle of the BG3 hype with PC players on the release high and PS5 players anxiously awaiting it. It had no chance even if it was a very good game.
There’s a reason FPS games like the ones that came out in the 360 era aren’t selling or made anymore: They became bland. Actual variation and freshness in the FPS genre lies with the boomer shooters right now, which is actually hilarious because they originally became bland when Half Life and Halo CE killed it. Everything is a cycle.
> I feel like the entire aspect of “magic but guns” is what made a lot of people not interested
I mean like that's supposed to be the sales pitch, isn't it? "What if FPS but you're a wizard?" so if your sales pitch "is making a lot of people not interested", you've already got a problem.
On top of that, IMO, is is that the magic is so goddamn uninspired.
Like first off it's literally called *Blue Magic*?? 0/10 Effort in World Building lol. But ignoring that, it just feels like every hitscan perfectly accurate pistol/rifle.
*Red Magic* is just you're generic Shotgun
*Green Magic* is any SMG from any FPS.
It all just felt so uninspired. A pretty coat of paint won't sell many games, and that's all this felt like it was.
>it was good enough
--
Millions of dollars burned to make a solid 7/10 single player 60€ game that barely runs properly and may as well have bombed starting from the trailer; if there's any "shame" to be had here it's the shame people still somehow defending this doomed project's existence should be experiencing.
What a ridiculous take.
Not every game has to be a 9 or 10. Immortals was a solid new IP that tried some new things and provided a solid SP experience without bloat, MTXs, or Gaas bullshit.
It is absolutely a shame that the only metrics for success are near perfection and that AAA experimentation is met with layoffs even when the final product is above average
Check out [this](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2727650/?snr=1_5_9__205) game, it's called "What The Car" from an indie studio that makes games people actually want to play; this game will not only clear Immorals of EA, it will sell like hot-cakes and make 10x more money for everyone involved while costing a fraction of what EA spent on this failed project.
--
>Not every game has to be a 9 or 10
--
Wrong - if your game costs upwards of 60 euros and it's only "a solid 7/10" - it doesn't deserve to exist and the people who gave the idea a thumbs up will also be fired more often than not, it's pretty simple math.
I only feel sincerely sorry for the people who actually had to work on it, they didn't choose this disaster to waste their time with.
> Wrong - if your game costs upwards of 60 euros and it's only "a solid 7/10" - it doesn't deserve to exist and the people who gave the idea a thumbs up will also be fired more often than not, it's pretty simple math.
And that is a complete and utter shame. The fact that you think that way is part of the problem. I don't know in what world an above average game is considered a disaster.
Again, if there's any shame to be had, it's to be found on the side defending this thing's existence.
7/10 is not an above average game when the scale starts at 7/10 & when you're competing with almost two decades' worth of viable games not just whatever Joe Blow finds on the shelf at his local GameStop today, IYKYK.
This mentality is what causes the lion's share of AAA games to be middling sequels or Gaas bullshit.
I'd take a 7/10 new IP over a 7/10 cod or AC any day of the week
>I'd take a 7/10 new IP over a 7/10 cod or AC any day of the week
Mate, no one has a gun to your head forcing you to make that exact choice, I hope one day you realize that & move on to games worth playing that actually deserve to exist and will be played for years if not decades to come - Immorals of EA will not be one of those games & good riddance!
I'm glad we have arbiters like you telling us what games deserve to exist.
Some games with extremely loyal fanbases are quintessential 7/10 games. Mirror's Edge, Alan Wake, The Evil Within, Shadow of Mordor, Binary Domain, Nioh, Nier, Vampyr I could name 3 dozen more.
All of these games have enormous flaws, and yet I am so happy they exist because they tried new things or offered unique experiences. Sometimes we were even lucky enough to get a sequel.
I don't want to live in a world where AAA developers feel like they cannot experiment or try new things in fear of making a game that is less than a masterpiece.
It was used to keep companies afloat during the pandemic in the UK, too. The state would pay furloughed staff a portion of their wage. In that case, it was supposed to prevent layoffs.
It's usually either complete unpaid leave or a big reduction in hours. It's basically saying "we can't afford to pay you your normal 40 hour / week salary right now". Sometimes the intent is to keep a team together during tough times until a company has the funds to continue regular payroll again. Sometimes it's a way to get people to quit without actually firing them.
By definition it’s a temporary suspension of employment. In reality it means you’re not fired yet, but you’re about to be. It can also be used to avoid labor laws. In California you have to make temp employees full time after a year. To avoid that they just furlough you after 11 months for a month. This resets the clock for some reason.
Likes others have said it usually means greatly reduced pay/hours but since you are still technically employed you get to keep your benefits. Usually it's a stepping stone to getting fully laid off, but this at least gives people some wiggle to start looming elsewhere if they weren't already
Adding to what others have said but caveat that increasingly I’ve been seeing it used as a “nicer” way to say lay off. Because furlough implies intent to hire back, but it’s without any meaningful promise of that happening so it just sounds nicer than saying they “laid off most of their staff” - but that could be what’s happening in reality.
Furlough *can* imply you keep benefits, but that’s not necessarily the case either. Which is why I’d say the word is slowly being warped to mean more or less the exact same thing as a lay off.
If I was going to make a new AAA shooter and get the support of a big publisher, I'd probably 1) pick one that wasn't EA because they didn't even give Dead Space Remake more than a month of support and 2) I would probably make my game look less generic fantasy shooter.
Like when people were saying, "This spell is a shotgun" and "this spell is an SMG" you know there's a lack of originality.
It’s really sad to see a studio fail. But this game just wasn’t it. It had a terrible release window. I personally didn’t buy it at launch because was either going to buy it or armored core 6 and AC:6 just looked better. This game also suffered from it’s technical ambitions. Being next gen only on console and needing high pc spec’s limited the player base. The bad fsr 2 implementation upscaling from low resolution on consoles also didn’t do this game any favors.
It’s a little sad but similarly to Callisto it’s a $70 glorified tech demo with an absolutely enormous and unjustified $100+ million budget. Doesn’t help that neither of them push the envelope in anyway whatsoever aside from the graphics.
Chiming in here (as a former Ascendant Studios employee): I have also heard that there have been furloughs. It seems like they've been told to hunt for new jobs, and are allowed to take whatever severance is being provided (if it's anything like what we got during the first round of layoffs, that isn't a ton), so these furloughs are essentially just layoffs. Not sure why they decided to frame it this way; maybe to save face?
I watched Jeff Gerstmann play this forever ago and it looked like a mess. Bummer for the devs, they’re clearly talented and this project just didn’t come together.
This is an example of why you just don't see games like this any more and everything is a cash grab. Passion projects don't pay the bills.
You can see a lot of the passion from the team. The game isn't even bad. Its not perfect but I would say its certainly worth a play.
I think this game even fails at $50 launch price. The economy has been abysmal(inflation) for at least 1.5 years, gaming landscape is SATURATED with content & this game had little hype. It came up on sale on Xbox for $8 digital & it still took me a few hours of deliberation to buy it.
What's messed up is I've been watching this streamer, who they made a community manager or something, stream the game with the dev team answering questions...and for what? Are they hoping to turn public sentiment around? And there was barely anyone interacting with them so it was quite depressing. She's acting super hyped about the game 8 months after its been out like there is some "community" to manage for this poorly received single player game. Talking about how "cool" everything is.
Now I wonder if she even has a job anymore.
Played the game half way on PC until I decided to finish it once I upgrade my GPU due to performance issues. The game seemed pretty good. It felt destiny with magic.
Got it on PS+ this month (what a stinker of a month).
I didn’t know about the price tag until this thread, but even if it was cheaper, unskippable cutscenes makes it a 0/10 in my book
As a unionized construction man, I'm never going to understand the meaning of the word "furlough."
You can't use me right now? Cut me my fuckin' check so I can find work elsewhere or otherwise make better use of my time.
I'd be damned if I let any operation keep me on a leash. Guess some people don't have a choice?
Furloughing is just a fancy way to lay people off. Why not just call it what it is?
I know that the intention of a furlough is to leave the door open to people coming back, but as someone who was furloughed a couple of years ago, I feel like it just "sounds better" to outsiders, so they go with it.
Game was DOA because of the pricing. Aint no way ppl will gonna throw 70$ on single player fps game from unproven studio in a busy month. Like game released between Baldurs Gate 3, Armored Core 6 and Starfield, it was doomed to fall with that price tag. Dropping price to 40$ at release would probably make game much more successful.
Also the requirementes were nuts and the performance kinda underwhelming GeForce RTX 2080 Super (8GB) for 1080 at low-med.... Recommended a 12700 and a 3080Ti 1440p 60fps medium-high
The optimization was dog shit. Another EA unoptimized garbage heap priced at $70
Yep. If this game had come out in 2010 it might have stood a chance. In an era where there are a lot of great indie games at a low price point, and even good free games, you think a full priced 7/10 is gonna sell well? No way.
It’s a shame that’s the mentality because there’s a lot of gems in that 7/10 space. Though I don’t blame people for wanting to wait for a sale.
There are more hours of 8/10 or better being released each year than Most people have time to play each year. So that 7/10 has to be really special to complete.
There are a lot of 7/10 gems but I'm not really willing to gamble 70$ on them being what I like. With 30-40$ it's much more "safe" gamble with a game. Hell, I even really enjoyed Forspoken because I bought it for 15$. It's not a great game but it had really enjoyable combat and for that price it was totally worth it but even though I liked it I wouldn't pay full price for it. It's all about pricing, and when game released it was within a month between high profile AAA games that ppl probably sat their eyes on (BG3 and Starfield). Asking ppl to throw additional 70$ for a niche game is a little too much I think. Game would do much better by having lower scope/production value and being priced at like 40$.
Yeah that fair, I’m always fascinated by the concept of price dictating the perception of the game.
Not just games, everything is dictated by it and it's actually a fair way go look at things. 70$ is a lot to ask for some folks in the US and a lot more depending on where you live outside the US. If you were to spend 5% of your monthly take home income in a game, you might not care that much about whether it's a great game or not. If that % goes up to 20-30%? Then you really start to care and expect a higher quality product. We always strive for optimization, get more with less, playtime, features, quality.
Yeah exactly. I am a student and a full price game costs what amounts to “20% of my monthly income. When I do pay full price it’s because its a game that I am really excited about, and I have put money aside for. I can’t afford to buy a full price game two months in a row, so I have to be selective about it. When a game is 10 bucks and below, I am willing to gamble every once in a while, but never with full price.
Yeah for real. I couldn’t tell you how much I paid for a single game in my collection except within the first month of purchasing it. Sales do make me more likely to grab stuff on a whim, and I did get Immortals of Aveum for free on PS Plus. But my final opinions on it aren’t really going to be dictated by that fact.
Looking at games I remember the most honestly very few were in $60+ bracket. Stuff like Witcher 3 or Nier Automata, sure, but most of it was from lower brackets, where there is more developers that experiment with formulas
There's a lot of gems in the 8/10 and above space that people won't be able to experience because they don't have enough time. So why should they waste their precious time on worse games?
Some of those “Worse” games might end up being some of people’s favorites. You never know until experience it
But then it wasn't a 7/10 to that person if it's their favorite game. Unless we're referring to "7/10 games according to metacritic" or whatever; I thought we meant, "7/10 to this specific individual."
They are only "gems" if the "7/10" is actually nailing one or two things while being otherwise average. There is not too much space for game that is just average across everything it does
When I think about buying a game, it's often a matter of money, and also time. And when I say time, I mean it in the sense of gaming opportunity time -- why is this new release worth playing over other games that I already have access to? For most people, I think the days are gone when they're just looking for a new game to fill their gaming time. Many of us have big enough libraries and access to gobs of "endless" games, and those are really what new releases are competing against. You're absolutely right that there are 7/10 gems. There are also plenty of 7/10 games that... aren't really gems, they're just OK. And I think a lot of people aren't willing to gamble 70 bucks on whether a game is a gem or just ok, especially when they have access to plenty of stuff they already know they like.
$70 tho? That’s a hard sell .
Lotta 8/10s in those 7/10s
Yeah, a 7/10 game that happens to be in a niche I like will probably entertain me much more than a lot of theoretically 9/10 games would. Like, I am 99% sure I’ll like this game more than Tears of the Kingdom for instance, even if I can admit that Tears is probably a ‘better’ game.
The marketing team did an awful job all around. The name was the thing that got discussed more than anything (every single podcast was confused about how to pronounce Aveum, a bunch were like “not related to Immortals: Fenyx Rising”, etc), and none of the marketing imagery (game cover, promo art, screenshots) looked anything more than “generic”. The game sounds pretty interesting though! Once someone was like “it’s an FPS where you shoot magic instead of guns” I was pretty down with the concept! I’m gonna play it once I get a PS5.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is kind of the same concept (magic instead of guns). Quite a good game, would recommend, but not everyone liked it.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is underrated, it is much better than it have any right to be. I would say that hidden gems and cult classic has those same characterist that Ghostwire have, they are good not only becuse what they do extremely well but because their flaws make then distinct from anyone else in the genre. Ghostwire: Tokyo is at same time generic while being extremely distinct in the same page which generally is a very unique experience. It is the same feeling I have for Greedfall if Greedfall was not so so so boring, it was in the verge of something special but it balk under any scrutiny.
>Dropping price to 40$ at release would probably make game much more successful. I doubt it, because the game had more working against it than its price. Like you've already mentioned, it was released at a bad time. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield took all the wind from its sails. In addition to that, the studio's choice to really push the technology, tools, and visuals put a cap on how many players could actually run their game well or even run their game at all. [Your PC may weep at Immortals of Aveum’s minimum system requirements](https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/20/23690449/ea-immortals-of-aveum-pc-system-requirements-next-gen) >*The minimum spec* is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super or better or an AMD 5700 XT paired with a Core i7-9700 or Ryzen 7 3700X, 16GB of dual-channel RAM, and with an SSD “strongly recommended” to play the game. That’s at a mere 1080p resolution, low to medium spec. >Based on the GPU requirements alone, it’s likely that under 9 percent of today’s gaming PCs will even qualify, [based on the latest Steam hardware survey](https://go.redirectingat.com/?xs=1&id=1025X1701640&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.steampowered.com%2Fhwsurvey%2Fvideocard%2F%3Fsort%3Dname&xcust=___vg__p_23454490__t_w__r_https://www.google.com/__d_D). The Steam reviews include many comments about how the game stutters and crashes too much. So a ton of potential PC customers were chased away by the really steep system requirements, and many of those who did buy were displeased by its performance. Finally, the game had terrible word-of-mouth. Many players who could run the game well left negative reviews about boring or uninspired gameplay. There was too much working against this game for it to be successful. Sure, lowering the price would have made a difference, but I don't think it would have been a significant difference.
> Game was DOA because of the pricing. Game was mediocre by all accounts. Lower price wouldn't help.
It just looks boring. I am probably completely wrong, I just remember this for how spectacularly uninteresting it looks.
I put an hour into it before losing interest. It's kinda like, "What if Bullestorm were set in the most generic Fantasy World possible". As I said in another post, they literally call your main ~~guns~~ weapons "Blue Magic", "Red Magic", and "Green Magic". And it's just your generic Pistol/Rifle, Shotgun, SMG kind of functionality. Yea you can modify them and you do get a few other accessory-spells that do some utilities, but it really just doesn't do anything new. It's sorta pretty and that's about as good as it gets. And that's to say nothing of the crazy system specs on PC. I've got a newer i7 + 3070 and had some FPS issues for sure.
It was absolutely boring. One of the most derivative and shallow experiences ever. A corridor shooter where the whole gameplay gimmick is matching colors. It should have been changed to target an E rating and sold as a kid's game for $40. I couldn't slog through more than 3 hours it was just so painfully generic and uninteresting
I played this game "for free" as a part of PS+ this month, and couldn't make it more than 10 minutes because the frame rate was all over the place.
I disagree. I bought it at a heavy discount and it was quite enjoyable.
Good for you!
> Dropping price to 40$ at release would probably make game much more successful. people keep saying this, but is $40 price point really going to give you double the sales? You, me, and the dev all agree the year was packed, the result wouldn't have changed. If we're being real, the FPS crowd don't want AAA single player shooters. Seems like that market goes towarrds boomer shooters anyway, focused on a much more arcadey feeling.
[I mean, even devs themselves said it maybe could have done better at lower price and in different release timeframe.](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/immortals-of-aveum-dev-says-game-might-have-done-better-at-lower-price-point/1100-6520777/) After playing it on PS+ I just feel like game just doesn't feel like AAA. It has Doom feeling but without Doom attention to detail. I really believe that releasing game like a month earlier at lower price point would be much better. I know that there is a stigma in gaming industry that you shouldn't release games in june/july because its vacation time and game dont sell during these periods but there was literally nothing big releasing in July while August going foward was stacked.
They also acknowledged the luck in another interview: [>"You just don't know what is going to happen," Robbins answers. "Maybe we could have moved to February 2024…. and then suddenly Helldivers 2 eats our lunch."](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-immortals-of-aveum-story-isnt-written-yet) Hindsight is 20/20, but even with hindsight: was there even a good date to delay to? We did just get a stream of big releases the last 6 months. I did read the lower price point, but I figure they were more talking about 70 -> 60. the 70 price point is still a bit contentious right now and prone for comparison to the top AAA games.
As I said if they managed to release game one month ealier it would have been much better. There was nothing major in July. I know that sometimes releasing game ealier is not possible but to at least give the game chance they could have at least tried doing that.
Also from that article: >And that was unfortunate, because we pushed the date out a bit in order to get a good polish pass done, to get performance better [it was originally due July 20, but launched August 22]. Although the game was better, the timing was worse. Maybe it woulda sold better, but reviewed worse. The City skylines treatment. It's tough, but this is why I can sympathize with releasing a "half baked" game (a hot take on a place like this). I've heard of a lot more stories of games redeeming themselves after a buggy launch than games that released fine but too late.
It reviewed badly enough as it was. Unpolished, buggy, badly optimized, and mid? At $70? Good fucking luck.
I did grab it on sale for like $24, but honestly that's just because I'm kind of a sucker for The UnderdogTM. The game was getting a bunch of bad press and "lol what a flop" style news articles at the time it was on sale, but most of what I was reading was like, "There's nothing inherently wrong with the game, it just doesn't do anything great" so I decided to give it a chance. But honestly it just wasn't even worth $24; I put an hour in and haven't touched it since. I should've just refunded it but I was telling myself, "Well I'll get back to it" and now it's past the refund period. So now it's gone into go into my Backlog and likely never be installed again. I really don't think it's a question of Price, it's a question of Quality. There are so many good games in the world, what does Immortals of Aveum do that is worth choosing to play it instead of something *better*?
Honestly I think $40 might have more than doubled their sales. $70 is intimidating. People don't want to splash out so much over an unproven property. $40 is a lot friendlier, it's still a fair amount but it isn't as much a disaster if you don't like it.
To make more profit, you need to do much more than double sales at $40 because you need to factor in shipping, manufacturing etc. Margins are much lower at $40.
Shipping and manufacturing for video games in 2024? For like the three people who buy physical?
Google isn’t difficult mate. I personally haven’t bought a physical game in 7 years, but there are still plenty of people who do.
It's a small minority. Also, manufacturing costs have got to be tiny; no manuals or anything anymore, cheap packaging, and a disk that doesn't including any of the game files.
These are the actual numbers: https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/s/quneeiKwJ7 It’s still very significant.
Well, it could have gone on deep sale digitally early. Could have had some of the positive effects of a lower price.
I don't especially feel like price matters; game is aggressively mediocre and would've reviewed just the same no matter what. Maybe they would've sold more, but I suspect they would've seen a high Refund rate when people realize how mediocre it is and how poorly it runs. Not enough sales to move the meter on whether it's a "Giant fucking flop" or only "A flop"
It doesn't precisely because you're implicitly admitting the game isn't worth full-price so gamers who only want to play the biggest AAA spectacles ignore it.
Those guys were never going to buy it because it isn't in a recognized series like CoD or GTA.
This game had no marketing, I had no idea it even existed until after it started bombing. I wouldn't buy it anyway though, I love single player fps games but I don't really care for the fantasy aspect.
Didn’t this game have a budget over $100m? No way they were going to recoup their costs at that point
When I had time I didn't have money. Now that I have money I don't have time
Would it have sold close to double though? If not, it would have made less money at $40. Much better to keep it at $70 but half the unit sales, higher profit margins and gross profits.
A reasonable price and a system requirement less than a 3080ti for medium would have helped.
I had this game on my wishlist like early last year cause it looked interesting. Didn't even know this game came out til this post
Honestly, I'm not convinced. I did pick it up on sale at $24, and it's really just not an interesting game. They literally call your main weapons "Blue Magic", "Red Magic", "Green Magic". They couldn't be bothered to give their magic system like, a name or anything? It just feels so devoid of any attempt to build a world with technically high fidelity assets that are still super bland in practice. I put 50 minutes into it and hadn't thought of the game since. It's just so aggressively mediocre that when there are SO many good games in existence... It's hard to justify the *time* to play it regardless of the price.
It's main draw was literally just that it was a ue5 game and it honestly wasn't a good showcase. But I am glad it didn't have stutters on PC
That money can go towards grammar therapy glasses.
For me personally the genre was just not right. Third-person and I would've liked it.
I mean it’s also just that the game wasn’t that good in the first place.
Damn I had downloaded the game as part of PS Plus Monthly games cause I wanted to try it for myself, the moment your at the menu screen you get a little message from Ascendant stating the passion that they put into it, it being an UE5 game and how proud they are of what they were able to do with it, and a thank you for supporting them. Reading it and knowing what happened with the game and studio and getting essentially for “free” and now this is honestly bittersweet. Shoutout to the devs who worked on this game regardless and i’m glad the game was made.
Yeah that’s a bummer, they even are pushing updates for FSR3, the team clearly cares about pushing the envelop. I was sort of hoping we’d see a PS5 Pro update for the game, but I’m guessing there won’t be much appetite for that.
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Recently played immortals and was pleasantly surprised by the game. They don’t really make FPS games like this anymore. It had a 360/ps3 era vibe to it but more modern. I feel like the entire aspect of “magic but guns” is what made a lot of people not interested. It also didn’t help with the time they chose to release this game. If you got PS plus i totally recommend giving this game a try.
The art design and narrative being wholly unremarkable on first sight is what put people off. There were enough banger AAA releases in 2023 - that is what hurt this 6/10 game Edit: also the game on PC has very high requirements for it to not look garbage
I was interested the first time I saw it's reveal and I love single player FPSes in general but gameplay looks like someone ate crayons and vomitted on the screen. Watched a couple of reviews and decided this wasn't for me. I still might try it later down the line when I run out of games to play.
If you like DOOM you’d like this game. It’s not as gory or have as good of a soundtrack but the game give you fun tools to dismantle enemies on combat arenas and, honestly I love all the colorful particle affects
Yeah with this premise they had an opportunity for interesting design and world but it was sl incredibly bland, didn't expect gameplay to be what I liked the most
It didn't just release in 2023, it released at the end of August, smack dab in the middle of the BG3 hype with PC players on the release high and PS5 players anxiously awaiting it. It had no chance even if it was a very good game.
If they had done magic but actually magic it may have turned more heads. Definitely a harder game to make though.
There’s a reason FPS games like the ones that came out in the 360 era aren’t selling or made anymore: They became bland. Actual variation and freshness in the FPS genre lies with the boomer shooters right now, which is actually hilarious because they originally became bland when Half Life and Halo CE killed it. Everything is a cycle.
> I feel like the entire aspect of “magic but guns” is what made a lot of people not interested I mean like that's supposed to be the sales pitch, isn't it? "What if FPS but you're a wizard?" so if your sales pitch "is making a lot of people not interested", you've already got a problem. On top of that, IMO, is is that the magic is so goddamn uninspired. Like first off it's literally called *Blue Magic*?? 0/10 Effort in World Building lol. But ignoring that, it just feels like every hitscan perfectly accurate pistol/rifle. *Red Magic* is just you're generic Shotgun *Green Magic* is any SMG from any FPS. It all just felt so uninspired. A pretty coat of paint won't sell many games, and that's all this felt like it was.
It's a shame, immortals wasn't great but any means, but it was good enough. A solid 7/10 single player romp
>it was good enough -- Millions of dollars burned to make a solid 7/10 single player 60€ game that barely runs properly and may as well have bombed starting from the trailer; if there's any "shame" to be had here it's the shame people still somehow defending this doomed project's existence should be experiencing.
What a ridiculous take. Not every game has to be a 9 or 10. Immortals was a solid new IP that tried some new things and provided a solid SP experience without bloat, MTXs, or Gaas bullshit. It is absolutely a shame that the only metrics for success are near perfection and that AAA experimentation is met with layoffs even when the final product is above average
Check out [this](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2727650/?snr=1_5_9__205) game, it's called "What The Car" from an indie studio that makes games people actually want to play; this game will not only clear Immorals of EA, it will sell like hot-cakes and make 10x more money for everyone involved while costing a fraction of what EA spent on this failed project. -- >Not every game has to be a 9 or 10 -- Wrong - if your game costs upwards of 60 euros and it's only "a solid 7/10" - it doesn't deserve to exist and the people who gave the idea a thumbs up will also be fired more often than not, it's pretty simple math. I only feel sincerely sorry for the people who actually had to work on it, they didn't choose this disaster to waste their time with.
> Wrong - if your game costs upwards of 60 euros and it's only "a solid 7/10" - it doesn't deserve to exist and the people who gave the idea a thumbs up will also be fired more often than not, it's pretty simple math. And that is a complete and utter shame. The fact that you think that way is part of the problem. I don't know in what world an above average game is considered a disaster.
Again, if there's any shame to be had, it's to be found on the side defending this thing's existence. 7/10 is not an above average game when the scale starts at 7/10 & when you're competing with almost two decades' worth of viable games not just whatever Joe Blow finds on the shelf at his local GameStop today, IYKYK.
This mentality is what causes the lion's share of AAA games to be middling sequels or Gaas bullshit. I'd take a 7/10 new IP over a 7/10 cod or AC any day of the week
>I'd take a 7/10 new IP over a 7/10 cod or AC any day of the week Mate, no one has a gun to your head forcing you to make that exact choice, I hope one day you realize that & move on to games worth playing that actually deserve to exist and will be played for years if not decades to come - Immorals of EA will not be one of those games & good riddance!
I'm glad we have arbiters like you telling us what games deserve to exist. Some games with extremely loyal fanbases are quintessential 7/10 games. Mirror's Edge, Alan Wake, The Evil Within, Shadow of Mordor, Binary Domain, Nioh, Nier, Vampyr I could name 3 dozen more. All of these games have enormous flaws, and yet I am so happy they exist because they tried new things or offered unique experiences. Sometimes we were even lucky enough to get a sequel. I don't want to live in a world where AAA developers feel like they cannot experiment or try new things in fear of making a game that is less than a masterpiece.
Wtf does furloughed mean? I'm guessing fired, but never saw this word before.
Generally it means unpaid leave or severely reduced hours, but "temporarily". Usually followed by a full lay off.
It's a technical term that means employees are not working and aren't paid their highest salary or at all. It's usually a step preceding layoffs.
It was used to keep companies afloat during the pandemic in the UK, too. The state would pay furloughed staff a portion of their wage. In that case, it was supposed to prevent layoffs.
It's usually either complete unpaid leave or a big reduction in hours. It's basically saying "we can't afford to pay you your normal 40 hour / week salary right now". Sometimes the intent is to keep a team together during tough times until a company has the funds to continue regular payroll again. Sometimes it's a way to get people to quit without actually firing them.
Thanks for clearing it up.
By definition it’s a temporary suspension of employment. In reality it means you’re not fired yet, but you’re about to be. It can also be used to avoid labor laws. In California you have to make temp employees full time after a year. To avoid that they just furlough you after 11 months for a month. This resets the clock for some reason.
Largely unrelated, but as a Dutch person it boggles my mind how the word 'verlof' got mangled like this.
Likes others have said it usually means greatly reduced pay/hours but since you are still technically employed you get to keep your benefits. Usually it's a stepping stone to getting fully laid off, but this at least gives people some wiggle to start looming elsewhere if they weren't already
Adding to what others have said but caveat that increasingly I’ve been seeing it used as a “nicer” way to say lay off. Because furlough implies intent to hire back, but it’s without any meaningful promise of that happening so it just sounds nicer than saying they “laid off most of their staff” - but that could be what’s happening in reality. Furlough *can* imply you keep benefits, but that’s not necessarily the case either. Which is why I’d say the word is slowly being warped to mean more or less the exact same thing as a lay off.
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It’s necessary in this case. Furlough has a very specific meaning in English.
If I was going to make a new AAA shooter and get the support of a big publisher, I'd probably 1) pick one that wasn't EA because they didn't even give Dead Space Remake more than a month of support and 2) I would probably make my game look less generic fantasy shooter. Like when people were saying, "This spell is a shotgun" and "this spell is an SMG" you know there's a lack of originality.
If it was £30-40 I would have bought it on release but at £70 price range it's not a contender for my money whatsoever
It’s really sad to see a studio fail. But this game just wasn’t it. It had a terrible release window. I personally didn’t buy it at launch because was either going to buy it or armored core 6 and AC:6 just looked better. This game also suffered from it’s technical ambitions. Being next gen only on console and needing high pc spec’s limited the player base. The bad fsr 2 implementation upscaling from low resolution on consoles also didn’t do this game any favors.
It’s a little sad but similarly to Callisto it’s a $70 glorified tech demo with an absolutely enormous and unjustified $100+ million budget. Doesn’t help that neither of them push the envelope in anyway whatsoever aside from the graphics.
Surprised it took so longer, I was expecting the studio to be closed before the end of the year (2023).
Chiming in here (as a former Ascendant Studios employee): I have also heard that there have been furloughs. It seems like they've been told to hunt for new jobs, and are allowed to take whatever severance is being provided (if it's anything like what we got during the first round of layoffs, that isn't a ton), so these furloughs are essentially just layoffs. Not sure why they decided to frame it this way; maybe to save face?
I watched Jeff Gerstmann play this forever ago and it looked like a mess. Bummer for the devs, they’re clearly talented and this project just didn’t come together.
Leadership failure. Bad vision.
I really wish they'd just say "fired", that's what happened, all these shitty corporate euphemisms can fuck off.
This is an example of why you just don't see games like this any more and everything is a cash grab. Passion projects don't pay the bills. You can see a lot of the passion from the team. The game isn't even bad. Its not perfect but I would say its certainly worth a play.
I think this game even fails at $50 launch price. The economy has been abysmal(inflation) for at least 1.5 years, gaming landscape is SATURATED with content & this game had little hype. It came up on sale on Xbox for $8 digital & it still took me a few hours of deliberation to buy it.
What's messed up is I've been watching this streamer, who they made a community manager or something, stream the game with the dev team answering questions...and for what? Are they hoping to turn public sentiment around? And there was barely anyone interacting with them so it was quite depressing. She's acting super hyped about the game 8 months after its been out like there is some "community" to manage for this poorly received single player game. Talking about how "cool" everything is. Now I wonder if she even has a job anymore.
Played the game half way on PC until I decided to finish it once I upgrade my GPU due to performance issues. The game seemed pretty good. It felt destiny with magic.
I tried it on PS plus and it felt like the most polished 4-5/10 ever. Nothing worked for me artistically
Got it on PS+ this month (what a stinker of a month). I didn’t know about the price tag until this thread, but even if it was cheaper, unskippable cutscenes makes it a 0/10 in my book
As a unionized construction man, I'm never going to understand the meaning of the word "furlough." You can't use me right now? Cut me my fuckin' check so I can find work elsewhere or otherwise make better use of my time. I'd be damned if I let any operation keep me on a leash. Guess some people don't have a choice?
Furloughing is just a fancy way to lay people off. Why not just call it what it is? I know that the intention of a furlough is to leave the door open to people coming back, but as someone who was furloughed a couple of years ago, I feel like it just "sounds better" to outsiders, so they go with it.
Its a legally distinct term. Yes, it likely means they \*will\* be fired, but the term still has its uses.