I think it’s a story when it’s perhaps the largest flop in the medium, much like John Carter. It’s somehow worth writing five articles about the Joker sequel flopping.
RonnieB@lemmy.world 1 month ago
A game no one heard of until it shut down isn’t that interesting of a story. It’s not that deep.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 month ago
RonnieB@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m not saying it’s not a story, just not one most people care about. Avid gamers had barely heard of the game before it flopped, average non-gamer wouldn’t care.
Joker sequel flopping is a bigger story because the first one was well recieved, also celebrities are involved.
If the next call of duty sells 14 copies and shuts down in two weeks it would be a big story.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Do you think more people care about the average video game story or the average story about the theater? Live performances, not movies. Theater, Dance, and Visual Arts all get their own sections in the NYTimes, for instance, but video games are demonstrably bigger and don’t get the same attention. There’s rarely even a mention of the likes of Call of Duty in mainstream media when they do exceptionally well, let alone exceptionally poorly, and that’s really the crux of the article.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That has more to do with New York having a thriving theater scene and a NY newpaper promoting a local thing that is popular with its readership and the companies that pay for advertising. It is something that sets NY apart from a lot of other locations, even if theater is pretty common in most areas.
Kind of a chicken and egg when it comes to games, since readers won’t be expecting games news in mainstream sources they don’t dedicate resources to writing the articles when most people who are looking for game news already have a number of web sites to choose from.
RonnieB@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I think more people who pay to subscribe to NYTimes care more about live theater than video game news.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 month ago
John Carter didn’t get that much attention either, and what it did was mostly about the leadership changes in Disney tanking the advertising and not about the movie itself.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Sounds familiar…
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 1 month ago
As a fan of the books, the movie was pretty bad. The only good parts I can recall were the CG, and the actors who played Tars Tarkus and Kantos Kan. Everyone else in the film was mid to bad.
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They story should have been how a $200m investment into a live service game failed. An investor who knows jack shit about games reads that and now thinks live service games are a risky invetment strategy.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 month ago
I do find it interesting though that the finals is another game that basically has not been advertised to anyone, and that has a very strong but small community. So not advertising your game is not automatically a death sentence although it probably doesn’t help.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Also, generally speaking, people interested in news about games read and seek out gaming sources that cover gaming info. Like kotaku.
Gaming is popular enough that there are several dedicated news and information sites to choose from. The “news” is for stuff of general interest. They could cover some gaming news, but for the most part people who want gaming news get it from more dedicated sources.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 1 month ago
It’s interesting in the sense that something went catastrophically wrong here.
This isn’t just a small indie dev wasting a bit of money, it’s hundreds of millions set on fire by an established company in this industry.
The fact that “no one heard of it” is exactly the point. What went wrong here?