Soys Row 2022

[RobotSquirrel]

They got that many flops?

THQ Nordic

Successes	Failures
Expeditions Rome - game would have been lean to develop as is the studio's style there's enough peak players that would indicate it probably turned a profit despite its low sales figures. **Bias - one of the developers is an old acquaintance from the Deus Ex community (OffTopicProductions).	Superpower 3 - yeesh what a trainwreck (more info here: https://youtu.be/76vfJzhg5z0)
Way of the Hunter - likely sold enough to break even	MX vs ATV Legends - extremely low playercounts not well reviewed
Endling - Extinction is Forever - Lean developed indie game, received well.	*Knights of Honor 2 - extremely low playercounts granted their strategy seems to be longer term sales. This game was in development for a long time (2016 but announced in 2019 - the 2016 date comes from when the studio acquired the IP fully from Creative Assembly Sofia, and made it clear they were developing a sequel meaning pre-prod)
	*The Valiant - no one played it so I assume no one bought it
	*Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed - extremely low playercounts mixed reception
	*Elex II - playercounts indicate it probably didn't break even and we know this was an expensive game to make. Its a shame because it was probably THQ's most ambitious title this year. (if anyone can prove this is not the case for the games failure please do)
	The Guild 3 - I didn't even know it had released. Its pretty bad but its a lot better than it was during Early Access. It had flopped in Early Access which is pretty bad, but SP3 is worse.

*Please take this not as I think these games are bad, I'm indicating they sold poorly at least as far as steam metrics show.

Plaion

Successes	Failures
Trek to Yomi - very lean looking indie game published with devolver, seems to have enough sales that it probably succeeded.	Saints Row - (read the god damn thread)
Evil West - Doesn't appear to have done well on PC, but I know based on Embracers bragging it did well on other platforms.	Shadow Warrior 3 - No one bought it and it looked expensive to make, also poorly received.
MotoGP 22 - Didn't sell well on PC but did well on other platforms.	SBK 22 - yeesh
	Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame 5 - yeesh

Coffee Stain

Successes	Failures
Goat Simulator 3 - its embarrassing that this was Embracers highest earner lol
Songs of Conquest - Lean developed Indie game likely sold enough and well received
Midnight Ghost Hunt (early access) - sold well and was received well
Valhiem - Still is doing well seems to be a big winner for them multiple years

Amplifier Game Invest - I can't find a lot of data on these studios.

Saber Interactive

Successes	Failures
Evil Dead: The Game - well received but I can't find data	Dakar Desert Rally - poorly received and steam data proves it sold poorly
SnowRunner - This was a highest earner for Embracer for some strange ass reason.	*Redout 2 - really poor selling based on steam even despite it being received well, it looks like a costly game to make because it was Unreal 4 and multiplatform.
	*Circus Electrique - no one bought it on PC, that said it looks like a lean Indie game so I'm probably leaning bias here chances are it probably succeeded but the metrics I can find say otherwise, really low playercounts for something that is published by a big publisher.

Gearbox

Successes	Failures
Have a Nice Death - Seems to be a published Indie game, well received and lean developed.	New Tales from the Borderlands - appears to have done poorly
Eyes in the Dark: The Curious Case of One Victoria Bloom- also a well received lean developed published indie game.
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands - This ones obvious

CDE Interactive - Didn't release anything (formerly Eidos/Crystal Dynamics)

based on this they had a few flops but they also had a lot of major successes that likely made up for it. You can really tell where the money is going to start flowing into. THQ Nordic, Sabre Interactive and Plaion look a bit on the dead weight side in that they likely have had more failures than successes for the 2022 period. Coffee Stain and Gearbox are likely to get a lot more investment if you look at this.

** please note that I did this list with full bias showing because if Embracer isn't transparent all I can really do is go based on hunch so make of that of that what you will. Feel free to dispute this.
*** Also note that Cryptic is absent because it'll be a pain in the ass to track down all their metrics because they have many running MMOs, but they also seem to be very profitable for Gearbox and Embracer, I can tell you that Star Trek Online is probably their most profitable due to how its monetised and its player counts. They also haven't released anything new in a very long time.
According to steam:
STO: 2,000 avg players
100k daily total for non-steam figures

ChampOnline: 100 avg players
2,000 daily total for non-steam figures

Neverwinter: 900 avg players
18k daily total for non-steam figures

 

[Modron]

Gearbox

Successes	Failures
New Tales from the Borderlands - Also obvious

Going to need a citation on this abomination making money.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Going to need a citation on this abomination making money.

I made a mistake, its been fixed, I accidentally had the two borderlands in the same box when I wrote it. It full on flopped.
I also screwed up KoH's name lol
I also forgot about Guild 3.

 

[Ryzer]

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands sold well? What? Nobody heard about it after a single month of its release unlike Borderlands 2-3 which were marketed heavily.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands sold well? What? Nobody heard about it after a single month of its release unlike Borderlands 2-3 which were marketed heavily.

The metrics show that it sold over a longer period active player counts were in the thousands and still are. It was multiplatform and likely sold better on console platforms. Also randy bragged.

Released earlier this year, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands has proven to be a big success for Gearbox and 2K. In fact, it did so well that Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford confirmed that the Borderlands spin-off is now the start of a brand new franchise, with more Wonderlands content to come in the future.

this may or may not be Randy copium. Also

The PlayStation 4 version of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands sold 5,427 copies within its first week of release in Japan, making it the fourteenth bestselling retail game of the week in the country. The PlayStation 5 version sold 2,835 copies in Japan throughout the same week, making it the twenty-sixth bestselling retail game of the week in the country.[41] Tiny Tina's Wonderlands was the second-best-selling retail video game in the United Kingdom in its week of release, according to Chart-Track. 77% of the game's launch sales in the UK, however, were digital.[42] It was the 11th best-selling game in the US in March 2022 by dollar sales.[43] In May 2022, Take-Two Interactive revealed that the sales of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands had exceeded the publisher's expectations.[44]

this kind of verifies its success.

 

[Ryzer]

Why perfidious Albion likes this deranged game?

 

[Caim]

Why perfidious Albion likes this deranged game?

You get to kill Americans.

 

[maydaymemer]

Wait it lost how much money. $100 Million!?!? You're serious?! This monstrosity of a game cost $100 Million?! You're telling me this cost as much as Witcher 3 wtf.

Great so its basically now Deus Ex is being developed under the same horrid publisher situation Eidos was under when Invisible War happened. Ugh. Financer is still profitable, but risk averse and unwillingly to give the project the resources it needs when there are other sure things they could be putting money into.
Also might impact on the Kingdom Come sequel as well which sucks.
Embracer/THQ Nordic/Gearbox you guys are morons, at least you're not Square Enix but god damn what are you doing. This does not bode well at all they've had flop after flop after flop despite profitability, that erodes confidence and no doubt Embracer will be further consolidating to get rid of the dead weight.
Simply they've got too much subsidiaries that are directionless and are just money sinks, I'm half expecting an asset sale off in time, sure as hell Saints Row is getting sold that can be certain the IP lost all its value here Randy would be stupid for attempting another game then again it is Randy we're talking about.

It's amazing to see how much profit they bring in from Tabletop games.

if THQ nordic are behind this I fear even more that the new Timesplitters will be Captain Ash apologizing to the Aztecs for being a colonial and none of the characters will have titties unless a tranny drew them

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Embracer are into ESG funding so it doesn't really surprise anyone Saints Row ended up the way it did.

We therefor arranged sustainability sessions in all our operative groups to create a forum to share insights and knowledge on topics such as “Well-being”, “Accessibility” and “Women in the Gaming Industry”. Embracer Group is now also a signatory member of the UN Global Compact since December 2021.

For Embracer Group, our common foundation is our code of conduct, which aims to support inclusion, diversity, and gender equality among other things. Furthermore, we trust that each company in our Group listens, discusses and acts in line with the code of conduct. The concept of sustainability and ESG was never more important than it is today.

A future Metaverse will mostly be about non-gaming social connections, but game publishers are already driving new experiences through virtual concerts, virtual fashion shows, media/product partnerships etc.

https://embracer.com/wp-content/upl...-Report-and-Sustainability-Report-2022_EN.pdf

Sounds like fun times ahead.

 

[maydaymemer]

Embracer are into ESG funding so it doesn't really surprise anyone Saints Row ended up the way it did.

We therefor arranged sustainability sessions in all our operative groups to create a forum to share insights and knowledge on topics such as “Well-being”, “Accessibility” and “Women in the Gaming Industry”. Embracer Group is now also a signatory member of the UN Global Compact since December 2021.

For Embracer Group, our common foundation is our code of conduct, which aims to support inclusion, diversity, and gender equality among other things. Furthermore, we trust that each company in our Group listens, discusses and acts in line with the code of conduct. The concept of sustainability and ESG was never more important than it is today.

A future Metaverse will mostly be about non-gaming social connections, but game publishers are already driving new experiences through virtual concerts, virtual fashion shows, media/product partnerships etc.

https://embracer.com/wp-content/upl...-Report-and-Sustainability-Report-2022_EN.pdf

Sounds like fun times ahead.

"we want games to be accessible to more people

that'll be 70 dollars please"

 

[Feyd Rautha]

There's a major new patch coming May 9.

Wouldn't some of these changes make the game easier?

-Drastically reduced the hit point values of all enemies.
-Reduced the frequency of enemy dodges in melee combat to near 0.
-Reduced the frequency of enemies avoiding player kicks to 0.
-Increased the amount of time it takes for enemies to call for reinforcements.

-Changed the crossbow weapon to use hit scan logic instead of behaving like a projectile weapon.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Embracer are into ESG funding so it doesn't really surprise anyone Saints Row ended up the way it did.

We therefor arranged sustainability sessions in all our operative groups to create a forum to share insights and knowledge on topics such as “Well-being”, “Accessibility” and “Women in the Gaming Industry”. Embracer Group is now also a signatory member of the UN Global Compact since December 2021.

For Embracer Group, our common foundation is our code of conduct, which aims to support inclusion, diversity, and gender equality among other things. Furthermore, we trust that each company in our Group listens, discusses and acts in line with the code of conduct. The concept of sustainability and ESG was never more important than it is today.

A future Metaverse will mostly be about non-gaming social connections, but game publishers are already driving new experiences through virtual concerts, virtual fashion shows, media/product partnerships etc.

https://embracer.com/wp-content/upl...-Report-and-Sustainability-Report-2022_EN.pdf

Sounds like fun times ahead.

"we want games to be accessible to more people

that'll be 70 dollars please"

"Also, to run it you need 100gb and the latest hardware even though it looks worse than games from 10 years ago."
"We're also putting Denuvo on it to make it run like shit even though you forked out 70$+whatever the new hardware costs because Fuck You that's why."

 

[Peachcurl]

There's a major new patch coming May 9.

Wouldn't some of these changes make the game easier?

-Drastically reduced the hit point values of all enemies.
-Reduced the frequency of enemy dodges in melee combat to near 0.
-Reduced the frequency of enemies avoiding player kicks to 0.
-Increased the amount of time it takes for enemies to call for reinforcements.

-Changed the crossbow weapon to use hit scan logic instead of behaving like a projectile weapon.

Reducing hit points is nearly always a plus for me, but I'll admit I'm biased due to having a severe case of HP-sponge-PTSD.

Regarding the rest, it makes sense for the mentally challenged audience of that game.

 

[orcinator]

Wouldn't some of these changes make the game easier?

This isn't a beat em up/character fighting game where enemies have attack patterns and you have to work around em, this is a (bad) shooter where enemies can randomly dodge your attacks because those dodges give them tons of iframes and it doesn't matter how well you track their movements.


If you had the misfortune to play the game you'd notice devs tried to move away from being a by the numbers TPS like GTA but completely failed to understand how to make everything work, ending up with something that's worse than all those other "generic shooter with 1 gimmick" games.

 

[Zeem]

Wouldn't some of these changes make the game easier?

This isn't a beat em up/character fighting game where enemies have attack patterns and you have to work around em, this is a (bad) shooter where enemies can randomly dodge your attacks because those dodges give them tons of iframes and it doesn't matter how well you track their movements.


If you had the misfortune to play the game you'd notice devs tried to move away from being a by the numbers TPS like GTA but completely failed to understand how to make everything work, ending up with something that's worse than all those other "generic shooter with 1 gimmick" games.

Why would enemies even have i-frames in the first place? Who came up with that idea?

 

[Dodo1610]

This game is the most broken piece of software I have played in a long time.
-It crashes constantly
-enemies sometimes don't spawn or the mission scripts stop working (which means you have to restart the whole mission, resetting to the last checkpoint doesn't help)
-your character loses all clothes and customisation options, sometimes clothing changes won't work and you have to restart to make the newly bought appear clothes on your char

And this was 3 months ago, no idea how bad it was on release.

Even if it had none of these issues it would still be an extremely mediocre shooter but it's still Saints Row. Still, I'm actually sad that this will be the last game in this franchise because there is literally nothing like it on the market. Even in this sorry state with the boring writing, the game still delivers the explosive, dumb but fun action I love from Saints Row titles.

 

[orcinator]

Wouldn't some of these changes make the game easier?

This isn't a beat em up/character fighting game where enemies have attack patterns and you have to work around em, this is a (bad) shooter where enemies can randomly dodge your attacks because those dodges give them tons of iframes and it doesn't matter how well you track their movements.


If you had the misfortune to play the game you'd notice devs tried to move away from being a by the numbers TPS like GTA but completely failed to understand how to make everything work, ending up with something that's worse than all those other "generic shooter with 1 gimmick" games.

Why would enemies even have i-frames in the first place? Who came up with that idea?

Because dork souls has iframes in all the dodges so clearly in order to make our TPS less boring we should just copy what those types of game do, also add nudoom executons that heal you. Cargo cult mindset.

Surprising they even bothred to patch things this late given I doubt anyone's playing this unless they're making a DLC which I doubt since the launch DLCs were just some really shitty outfits followed by nothing.

Oh wait there's an expansion coming out next week, huh. I guess they're just trying to make the game less painful to play for the 12 fags that will buy it.

the game still delivers the explosive, dumb but fun action I love from Saints Row titles.

By the numbers open world TPS missions?

 

[Late Bloomer]

More soy

 

[Don Peste]

Nice trailer for a Sims 2 expansion.

 

[Echo Mirage]

That YouTube comments section is oddly positive, almost suspiciously so.

 

[Modron]

More soy

Was this sold as part of the preorder? Pretty sure that's the only reason they made that Forspoken DLC expac. I guess Soys Row at least moved a fair amount of copies even if it underperformed,

 

[LarryTyphoid]

That YouTube comments section is oddly positive, almost suspiciously so.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Was this sold as part of the preorder?

I looked around and couldn't find anything about that. Most games do the deluxe version with season pass / expansion pass. Not 100% certain

https://www.ign.com/articles/saints-row-release-date-special-editions-preorder-guide

I guess Soys Row at least moved a fair amount of copies even if it underperformed

It sold around 1 million copies. The low sales caused Embracer group to make some public statements about how they are going to greenlight games going forward.

 

[Outlander]

That YouTube comments section is oddly positive, almost suspiciously so.

Yeah, current like-dislike ratio is almost 1:1.

 

[Modron]

It sold around 1 million copies. The low sales caused Embracer group to make some public statements about how they are going to greenlight games going forward.

Forespoken wishes it sold a million copies. I bet they regret forgoing a steam release, could have probably tripled those sales now when they come to steam years later it will barely make a splash.