Game News Stoic's John Watson reveals that The Banner Saga 2 was a commercial disappointment

[ArchAngel]

Personally I found Banner Saga a bad game and that automatically disqualified even following BS2, not to mention playing it. My bet is that a lot of people were not too happy with the first game so they didn't want more of the same.

 

[Lurker King]

i honestly worry about divinity original sin 2 too. because it looks like they put too much investment to this one, and think the ip/sub title original sin will attract all of DO:S buyers. they blew up their money by having new buildings (one that needs heavy rennovation too from the likes of it), opening branch, etc.

Who is the worst manager: Swen Vincke, John Watson, Brian Fargo or Feargus Urquhart?

DISCUSS!

 

[Johannes]

i honestly worry about divinity original sin 2 too. because it looks like they put too much investment to this one, and think the ip/sub title original sin will attract all of DO:S buyers. they blew up their money by having new buildings (one that needs heavy rennovation too from the likes of it), opening branch, etc.

Who is the worst manager: Swen Vincke, Brian Fargo or Feargus Urquhart?

DISCUSS!

KOTC guy

 

[MrBuzzKill]

My reaction to Banner saga:

Spoiler

- Wow, that actually looks pretty cool, never really seen something like this before!

Spoiler

...Fuck.

 

[commie]

This news has gotten 4 more pages of comments than I expected. Why does anyone even care about Stoic?

 

[you know what time it is]

So some C tier devs got a lucky break and managed (or will, soon enough) to lose it all due to their ineptitude. Who gives a shit?

 

[Infinitron]

This news has gotten 4 more pages of comments than I expected. Why does anyone even care about Stoic?

So some C tier devs got a lucky break and managed (or will, soon enough) to lose it all due to their ineptitude. Who gives a shit?

Because read the post and the thread. This has relevance beyond Stoic and The Banner Saga.

 

[you know what time it is]

Because read the post and the thread. This has relevance beyond Stoic and The Banner Saga.

Sure it does, when applied to other shitty devs that keep making mediocre tablet games and fail miserably instead of capitalizing on the initial success.

And yeah I read the article and some of the posts in the thread (including MRY's) but I disagree completely with the whole notion that it's Human Nature or whatever other nonsense has been said here. Because it sounds more like Big(er) Dick problems than actual PROPER MANAGEMENT. And I don't mean just the business side of things, having a coherent vision of your new projects (while realizing what went wrong AND right in previous ones) is equally important. Pretty sure Stoic failed on both counts, so why should anyone really give a shit?

 

[Korron]

Pretty sure Stoic failed on both counts, so why should anyone really give a shit?

Shit I don't know, maybe because this is an RPG community discussing a relevant subject... Maybe you should go to a cancer patient community next and ask who gives a shit about potential drug therapies.

Plus who doesn't love armchair quarterbacking?

 

[Archibald]

I don't think that's quite right. The first game has a 90% rating on Steam with 8552 reviews. (Note that this doesn't include bundle reviews, and in fact there seem to be very few bundle reviews.) PoE has 88% with 7983 reviews. Grimrock has 95% with 4010 reviews. About 16% of players complete the game, which is low but not abysmal. (It's 12% for PoE, for example.) I think it's more that people played it, liked it, but didn't need to play the same kind of game again -- much of its appeal was its novelty (visuals, design, even narrative), and those things aren't novel anymore.

I guess I should chip as I'm one of those people who enjoyed BS1 and didn't bother to buy BS2. It is close to "more of the same", but I think that real reason (at least in my case and couple of friends who also played and liked it) was "the hook" for why you should buy the sequel. All systems received either small or superficial changes so whats the main reason to buy the sequel? Because it continues the story.

In their site there is a section about whats new in BS2 and most of the combat section is about storytelling in combat and how there are different win conditions based on, obviously, story reasons. And the big problem here is that story was the weakest part of BS1. Main hook for BS1 was visuals, caravan mechanics and turn based combat. Visuals are fine in both games, but caravan and combat system had flaws, yet it doesn't look like they were improved in any meaningful manner. Another huge problem was encounter design and how we fought same 3 enemies whole game. Now they are claiming that they added new enemies, but that doesn't mean anything in itself. In BS1 we fought humans only like 3 times whole game so additional enemy types don't mean much if we fight them once or twice and continue killing Dredge 90% of the time.

And the worst part is clearly visible in this interview/whatever. They continue to talk about this as a trilogy and how they need to finish the story when very few people actually give a damn about it. Improve caravan and combat mechanics and you got solid game, but nah, lets continue writing that bland story and wonder if the problem was some mythical difficulty spike in BS1.

Also, I guess I should make a distinction here between BS setting and storyline. Setting in itself I like and I think it has some cool elements, but story is not very interesting and lacks good characters. Which is natural since actual hook of the game is caravan mechanics which makes most of the characters disposable so you don't have much time (nor reason, frankly) to develop them. In this light their desire to finish the "trilogy" is even stupider.

 

[MRY]

That sounds reasonable. I found the dredge fighting kind of boring myself and can imagine it getting worse if you stuck with the game. Seemed like a lot of combat mechanics and tactics were not entirely suited to fighting dredge.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

snip.

I agree with your post, but you see, BS is a passion project through and through, it is highly unlikely we will see any adjustments to the formula, because the first game was perfect for the developers. To them, it needs no tinkering, no improvement, even if the budget would be released, what would they have spend it on? More quality artwork and animations but not the scope or any meaningful mechanics.

And that's fine by me, really. It's their platform, it's their story, and they want to tell it with as little distractions from the community as possible. With as little player input as possible. I personally, didn't like the game, didn't like the story, didn't think of ever coming back to check out the sequels even if they touch up the formula.

As far as the article itself goes, ehhhh. I'm just bothered by what they blew their "high marketing budget" on that I have never heard of BS2 until I hit up the steam discovery queue.
They have a full time community manager and kickstarter was super taxing on them but they are running out of money? Why not do a new kickstarter? Disable stretch goals, make that community manager actually work for his salary instead of "engaging community" on forums or twitter. (At least that's what I assume he/she is doing.)
Really, there's no good reason not to do a kickstarter at this point, even if it brings no more than 100k, it's still lowering the strain on their personal finances?

 

[Vault Dweller]

snip.

I agree with your post, but you see, BS is a passion project through and through, it is highly unlikely we will see any adjustments to the formula, because the first game was perfect for the developers.

Being passionate about something doesn't mean you have to be blind to its flaws. It's far more likely that they thought that since the game was so well received and sold so well, people loved it the way it is and it would be unwise or risky to make changes to the formula. Make the combat system more complex and it might alienate people, etc.

As far as the article itself goes, ehhhh. I'm just bothered by what they blew their "high marketing budget" on that I have never heard of BS2 until I hit up the steam discovery queue.

If it hadn't been mentioned on the Codex (of all places), I wouldn't know it existed.

 

[MRY]

That was basically my take on it. I also couldn't figure out how to make archers useful against the Dredge, but I'm sure that's my own foolishness.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

BS1 only sold well because it was one of the first big Kickstarters to enter the market. That, and unique graphic style certainly made excellent first impression. I think a lot of people saw it as a proof of concept that crowdfunded indie games don't have to look...well, indie.

Beyond that though, it just wasn't very good really, I've tried 3 times and never even managed to finish it. I wonder how many people actually did finish it, actually. Doesn't Steam have metrics for this stuff? How many people complete it, how many people replay it multiple times, that sort of thing? Because surely just sales alone aren't enough to determine if people actually like your game.

Seems like Stoic just deluded themselves that everybody loves them.

 

[Gunnar]

I played a bit of the first game and I found it boring and tedious so I stopped playing and never looked back. A tactical game with no terrain, no elevation, no assists xp, and a meta-gamey don't-kill-enemies mechanic.

Yup. I did not care for the game and so I did not buy the sequel. I think that's all that's really going on here.

 

[aratuk]

I liked the first game on PC enough to buy the sequel on my phone. That's where it feels like it belongs.

 

[Archibald]

I played a bit of the first game and I found it boring and tedious so I stopped playing and never looked back. A tactical game with no terrain, no elevation, no assists xp, and a meta-gamey don't-kill-enemies mechanic.

And most of that should, or at least could, have been fixed in the sequel. But nope, continue following our epic story, now with dialogue during the combat too.

 

[Infinitron]

Making a well-rated game and then changing everything in the sequel to attract a wider audience is okay when you don't like the game.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I played a bit of the first game and I found it boring and tedious so I stopped playing and never looked back. A tactical game with no terrain, no elevation, no assists xp, and a meta-gamey don't-kill-enemies mechanic.

And most of that should, or at least could, have been fixed in the sequel. But nope, continue following our epic story, now with dialogue during the combat too.

they toned down the caravan mechanics too. The war sequences almost never happen and your people always got split because of stupid story reason.

Oh and that,cliffhanger is awful. TBS ending at least. Wrapped things up with the bellower while opened way to future stories.

This one just ended abruptly

 

[Archibald]

Making a well-rated game and then changing everything in the sequel to attract a wider audience is okay when you don't like the game.

I don't see how slightly altering turn order so that we don't run into "better leave everyone at 1-4hp instead of killing them" situations changes everything. I actually like their combat system, but it has some flaws and their combat encounters were very limited (basically most maps were plain grid with your guys duking it out against their guys). In my opinion fixing flaws and adding some new shit (like elevation or terrain) is what sequel is supposed to do.

 

[DeepOcean]

This is not surprising:
1 - Make game which major selling factor is the story
2 - Write story that is weak and the characters aren't charismatic
3 - Take 2 years to make a sequel.
4 - Profit?

 

[Severian Silk]

Banner Saga 1 was okay (I completed it), but it was too minimalist for my taste. Not worth $20 IMO. Less than $10 maybe.

 

[Morality Games]

i honestly worry about divinity original sin 2 too. because it looks like they put too much investment to this one, and think the ip/sub title original sin will attract all of DO:S buyers. they blew up their money by having new buildings (one that needs heavy rennovation too from the likes of it), opening branch, etc.

Who is the worst manager: Swen Vincke, John Watson, Brian Fargo or Feargus Urquhart?

DISCUSS!

That'd be a pretty cool poll.

Urquhart is a reasonably successful manager.

Swen and Brian are both pretty bad, but they are great salesmen so it doesn't matter.

Not that I consider either to be bad producers in the grand scheme of things.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Urquhart is a reasonably successful manager.

how is urquhart a good manager? obsidian projects suffer from "aiming too high" then get shafted because of publisher. now that they have gotten rid of the evil publishers, they still cannot properly complete PoE and it took them a year to patch stuff out for it to be playable