and executives expressed concerns that a sequel would cannibalize long-term sales of the first game
This is legit the most ridiculous take I’ve ever seen
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Team Disbanded After Critically Lauded Platformer Fails to Meet Expectations - Report
Submitted 3 weeks ago by simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world
Comments
lockhart@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Gerudo@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Right? Like there are 48 Assasins Creed games, sequels are their bread and butter.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Don’t sequels actually cause new audiences to show up, who then go back and play the first game?
dditty@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Exactly this; for a video game developer to claim otherwise is incomprehensible, and likely is just doublespeak to mask something
bread@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
I wanted to play this, but not enough to interact with their launcher and Denuvo.
yamanii@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They released on steam in august, but yeah, by then people already forgot about it.
bread@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
True, but even through Steam, you’re still dealing with Ubi’s launcher and Denuvo, so it’s just adding another layer on top.
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
All (or at least the vast majority) of Ubisoft’s Steam releases require installing and using Ubisoft’s launcher.
sushibowl@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
The big reason I’m hearing in this thread is “Denuvo and I don’t trust Ubisoft.” However I doubt that is the reason the mainstream audience skipped over this game. Ubisoft franchises generally sell like hotcakes, and for the most part only nerds care about DRM (like the type of person who knows what a lemmy is).
It’s hard to say why it didn’t sell more units. Certainly it seems their internal expectations were sky high:
similarly to the biggest Metroidvania’s in the market, with millions of units sold in a relatively short space of time
The game is good, but metroidvania is not exactly an easy market; there’s some juggernauts in that genre, and they came out with a completely new and unproven concept. Apparently it sold a million units or so still, to me that’s not unimpressive.
On PC, it initially launched only on Epic afaik, which certainly doesn’t help. And by the time they brought it to steam it was much too late.
What I don’t really get is, why disband the team? They’ve proven they can produce quality stuff. Just hand them some other promising projects? I suppose that’s too much of a risk for a publisher like Ubisoft.
aluminium@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Prince of Persia is such a IP almost no one cares about and most people know that it has something to do with AC in some way.
sushibowl@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
How the mighty have fallen eh? Prince of Persia was a big franchise once upon a time.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Didn’t even know this existed, sounded like another case of “We made a game and didn’t do any marketing for it, made absolutely no effort to let anyone know this even existed. I guess this means this genre and IP are worthless.”
Renacles@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They didn’t even release it on Steam
HawlSera@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
At this point that’s the video game equivalent of “We only opened our movie in like 3 towns for two weekends despite not being an indie studio, and somehow that didn’t sell gangbusters, guess the movie is crap.”
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I love 2D platformers. I had no idea this game was anything like that. Absolutely no one has talked about it. All I’ve seen is the character with the logo, and it just looks like a bad knockoff of the old sequels, so…
Maybe they should have advertised it.LiveLM@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
OK but did it really flop or where they expecting it to sell a morbillion units weekly?
sawdustprophet@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
OK but did it really flop or where they expecting it to sell a morbillion units weekly?
Sources say that Ubisoft was expecting The Lost Crown to sell similarly to the biggest Metroidvania’s in the market, with millions of units sold in a relatively short space of time. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has sold approximately one million units at the time of writing.
mlg@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m assuming Ubisoft thought people would blindly cash in on a a legacy franchise. I’m sure the game was fine, but nothing mindblowing. Just didn’t make enough money for the cash money execs.
Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
It’s actually a really good game, though of course it has some problems. The real issue is the fact that most people weren’t even aware that it existed.
SeriousMite@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’d put it almost on par with Hollow Knight. One of the best modern Metroidvanias I’ve played.
ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“why are people not buying our games? Please only give answers where we are not at fault and admit no wrongdoing”
randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I passed on this one because I always feel like there’s a real chance I’ll get screwed one way or another by Ubisoft so I just avoid them outright.
jacksilver@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s a shame to hear, I recently played this game and it’s one of the best Metroidvanias I’ve ever played.
Konraddo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Perhaps the reason is more simple. When did we have a non-indie platformer title well received by the mass? I don’t think people want a combo of “platformer” and “AAA” (hence the price).
kemsat@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I would consider this game, but I’m not installing another launcher. I used to play Far Cry 3 & 4, but I haven’t touched them since the launcher became a part of it.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme…
yamanii@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This game is technically the same price of other metroidvanias like Bloodstained, in the US maybe, because here in Brazil this game is almost the same price of a regular AAA, they didn’t localize the price at all, so I wouldn’t buy it until it gets a deep discount since I don’t buy any overpriced AAA on release anymore either.
The price here is so high that even the 40% steam debut was still too much for it, I can buy 3 Bloodstaineds without any discount for the price of 1 Lost Crown.
badbytes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
IGN though. Would consider theonion more credible news source.
NONE_dc@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is the kind of shit that makes you wish for the imminent Ubisoft debacle to happen sooner rather than later.
zecg@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Fuck you, Ubi. Apart from all your shitty practices, it’s a 16-hour long game that’s 40€ with a 50€ complete edition and cosmetics bullshit. That shit won’t fly anymore. I might get it in two years when it’s 10€, but only if your kill your launcher as a requirement.
yamanii@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
*on steam
blackris@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
What is your problem with the price related to the length of the game?
FenrirIII@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I paid $8 for Titanfall 2. Worth every penny since I only play campaign (~6-8 hours). I wouldn’t have bought it for more than $10.