From videos I have seen of this game, it kinda makes me think of Dragon’s Dogma 2 but bigger and without the Pawn system. And probably not shitty? 🤷♂️
Kinda wanna check it out, but I’m not sure how it’ll run on my PC. Especially since it uses Denuvo which in my experience causes tons of performance related problems until the devs strip it out.
This game has no business being as good as it is, like some aspects are real bad (game controls are very poorly thought out/implemented, story doesn’t exist, etc), some aspects are real good (the movement, the combat, the options, the exploration).
Idk, if you like Assassin’s Creed you should play this game. This feels like what every AC starting from Odyssey should have felt like.
Edit: oh, and you can suplex people. You can go full WWE in your Korean single player RPG. What more need I say?
I’m still pretty early in, but the thing that really blows me away is how alive the world feels.
Just moving through nature, there are all kinds of critters dipping in and out if bushes every which way.
On my journey yesterday, I passed through a tannery, a quarry, textile production, and a small encampment that seemed dedicated to charcoal production.
Most fantasy RPGs have big cities, small villages, maybe some mines and farmland, and then Wilderness.
Crimson Desert is giving me the impression they really thought out and put in every little logistic that goes to supporting these kinds of societies.
Legend of Zelda, believe it or not, does not have individual good stories.
Great games, love me some LoZ — stories are consistently weak across all entries. Robust lore, poor individual narratives— see Dark Souls if you want another example.
That all being said: the game (Crimson Desert) very strictly establishes rules regarding the Abyss. Kliff is the only one who’s allowed to go up there — because reasons! He’s the hero!
I spoil something here so be warned - To reiterate, the game is very strict about letting anyone but Kliff up into the Abyss throughout the entire game. You’d think there’d be some overarching reason for it, right? No, Oongka practically instant transmissions to save you at the end of the game. No explanation for why he’s there, no explanation for why he couldn’t go there before — nope he just pops in and saves you from… it’s still not clear.
Like I’ve beaten the game. The bit I mentioned up above literally made me burst out laughing. If it weren’t for how cool and alternative the unarmed system is, I’d have put the game down right then out of boredom.
Bottom line: you’re allowed to like whatever you want, but Crimson Desert would have been a better experience with a custom character and less narrative. I mean for fucks sake, Kliff literally has a canned goofy ass ‘Yes’ response for random NPC dialogue — it literally would have been better if they just made him not speak.
Edit: oh, that’s to say nothing of fucking Yann. When one of the only memorable characters in your story (because yes, everyone involved in the narrative is simply forgettable) is only memorable because the character routinely pisses you off — I’m sorry but your story is cheeks.
My feelings on the Last of Us are complicated. Last of Us in isolation is good, TLoU and TLoU2 together are bad. Way better story than Crimson Desert’s, though.
Mass Effect… I’m sorry but everything past 1 was bad, and 1’s story was good because of the expectations set up for future games. Like Kliff, Shephard is a nothing character — only there’s an actual narrative driven by him/her and the rest of the cast + the events from the previous game.
We’ve discussed Zelda and Dark Souls, but I think Valheim is actually a point against what you’re saying — yes you’re reacting to the world but Valheim has next to no story (I’d say no story but I haven’t played it in a while).
Kliff could have been anyone. You could replace Kliff as the main character with Damiane and the story literally wouldn’t change (only you can’t because the Abyss can only be accessed by Kliff).
Only for >!this to mean absolutely fucking nothing because Oognka goes where he pleases.!<
I think the world is beautiful and you could subtract the entire beginning of the story and filled the game with only side quests and side stuff in the world — it would have been a better experience. Simply deleting the dogshit Yann and Naira quests would make it a better experience. If a game’s story would be strictly better with half of it deleted, I’m sorry but the story is just bad.
Edit: not a huge spoiler but I’m sorry, I meant to be spoiler free.
I forget who said it, but I saw a review that called it the worst game they enjoyed. It’s hyperbolic but I agree on some level. Like I feel like I should have lost interest 10 times by now, but it keeps pulling me back in with new crazy things to find, new systems keep popping up and I’m like 60 hours in.
The story is absolute garbage, like I feel like there had to be an actual once at some point but it got butchered or edited to pieces. There are breadcrumbs all over that feel like there has to be more to the story but every time there’s some big emotional scene I feel like I’m missing some crucial pieces of information.
Tying inventory space to the shitty fetch quests was a stroke of genius though. I’m still doing every one I find so I can hoard more. You need me to ask someone across the country if they liked the stuff you sold them and you’ll give me 3 more inventory slots? Sold.
Who cares for sales? You can sell dried colored assholes to people with enough marketing. That’s rarely a good index for anything. Except you’re a shareholder.
But where’s the marketing? Where’s the established franchise to coast upon? Where’s the developer reputation to guarantee sales? Pearl Abyss is a pretty much unknown developer, Crimson desert is a new IP and the only marketing I’ve seen is essentially word of mouth. For a game to organically sell 5 million units is a pretty big deal.
The answer is kinda yes and no but more towards no because it was conceived as a successor to Black Desert and was originally set as a prequel to Black Desert but during development it became its own universe and the final product isn’t even in the same genre as Black Desert. But like Dark Souls isn’t in the same universe as Demons souls either and is still a spiritual successor if you want to consider Crimson Desert as a sort of a single-player successor to Black Desert online I guess that’s probably somewhat true. I can’t really say because I’ve never played Black Desert Online. For me personally MMO vs single-player is a big enough difference to not consider it a successor.
Speaking of lack of marketing did anyone else think was an MMO ? For a long time I thought it was a sequel to Black Desert or a big expansion. I just found out a few months ago it’s a single player game
Just because the space Sim crowd knows who Frontier Developments is doesn’t mean the rest of the gaming space knows who they are. Pearl abyss may be known in the niche they were in before but they’ve made a game with mainstream appeal and for many people Pearl Abyss is a name they’re hearing for the first time.
Yet if you’d said Elite Dangerous it would be much more recognizeable, just like BDO is with Pearl Abyss.
Plus, Pearl Abyss has been working to get people to play their mmo for quite some time — Shroud played it for a bit and I know some other popular mmo streamers played it. All of this to say, Crimson Desert’s success is not wild — and using Marathon as a metric is just the worst thing you could do because Pearl Abyss hasn’t been shitting themselves reputation-wise.
My point is that if you took a normie gamer and asked them who Pearl Abyss is they wouldn’t know just like they wouldn’t know who Frontier Developments is. They might know if you mention BDO or ED but that’s not the same as asking who the studio is. If you ask who Bungie is they will know.
The comparison to Marathon was explicitly to debunk the idea that you can sell 5 million units simply by doing marketing. That was the extent of the comparison. But to bring it back to my point here, the reason we’re even talking about Marathon is because of Bungie. If Pearl Abyss had made Marathon we wouldn’t be talking about it because nobody would be giving a shit about a failed extraction shooter. People gave Marathon a chance because it’s made by Bungie. Some people bought Marathon only because they believed Bungie is going to pull out another banger.
And my point is that if you asked your normie gamer, which really didn’t exist in the same form, in 2005 who Bungie is — you’d mostly get question marks.
The comparison to Marathon was explicitly to debunk the idea that you can sell 5 million units simply by doing marketing.
This would be relevant except that Marathon only sold as well as it did because of the heavy marketing push. If you’ve been following what Bungie has done with Destiny 2 then you should know it’s fucking amazing anyone bought into that soulless trash. They have burned so many bridges with their community. Had they released Marathon before Bungie was sold to Sony it would undoubtedly have sold better. They literally needed the marketing push.
And my point is that if you asked your normie gamer, which really didn’t exist in the same form, in 2005 who Bungie is — you’d mostly get question marks.
I doubt it. By 2005 people already knew Bungie. Halo was a critical and commercial success and Halo 2 had released a year prior and not only was highly anticipated but ended up as a system seller for Xbox. If you were gaming in 2005 you’d know about Bungie. Had it been about Bungie in 2001 then a normie would give you question marks because at that point Bungie was pretty much unknown. Marathon games were on Mac, they made a RTS game and Oni, which wasn’t all that big of a hit. Halo is what put Bungie on the map and Halo 2 made them very much a household name.
And that’s my point with Crimson Desert as well. Pearl Abyss made BDO before, but they’re still very much an unknown developer. They don’t get the kind of benefit of doubt Bungie or Bioware or Blizzard tend to get. Crimson Desert is the hit that puts weight behind the Pearl Abyss name. The next Pearl Abyss is going to get more eyes because of Crimson Desert.
This would be relevant except that Marathon only sold as well as it did because of the heavy marketing push.
Again, that’s largely my point. You can’t market a game and just sell 5 million units. Marathon sold 1.2 million units because a) it’s a Bungie game so people would be paying attention to it and b) it had heavy marketing behind it. It would’ve sold even less without those two things, but that’s besides the point. The idea that you can just sell 5 million units through marketing is simply not true and Marathon proves it.
Word of mouth my ass. Heard absolutely nothing about this game for years and then suddenly a few weeks before launch ( and even now) reddit and youtube absolutely exploded in “can’t wait for this!” and “this is the greatest game ever!” posts. To me that smells of astroturfing. I don’t doubt it’s a good game and might pick it up when/if they drop denuvo, but it was definitely not “organic”
You can argue everything before launch wasn’t organic if you want to, I don’t care enough to argue over your cynicism, but post-launch it has been organic. If the game was a steaming pile of shit none of the before release “astroturfing” would matter a month after release, the game would have a player count nosedive like Highguard and it would be what people consider “a dead game”. But it’s not having that nose-dive, it has a fairly small decay considering last sunday peak playercount was almost the same as the first peak after launch. Furthermore the reviews have gone from mixed at launch to very positive. Those things don’t happen when the hype is manufactured.
People aren’t making Youtube videos on Crimson Desert combos or puzzle solving videos or why you should engage with the camp management system or etc because Pearl Abyss is paying them, the videos get made because people want to make those videos and talk about the game. You don’t get a RDR2 artist glazing the water simulation (which BTW is a video I very much recommend watching because it’s a nerd nerding out about nerdy things and IMO those are always the best videos) unless there’s something to glaze, Pearl Abyss isn’t going to pay their competition to glaze them.
It’s totally astroturfed. I never heard of this game until two days before release, and most comments about it are “it’s good if you ignore the story and gameplay”.
My YouTube feed has a million videos on this game. Every major media outlet has done multiple videos on this game and the bugs and the launch. I’m pretty plugged into the games industry and I hadn’t heard of it until it launched but since then it has gotten a ton of press and I doubt it’s just “word of mouth”.
They did a pretty significant marketing push on Twitch for Crimson Desert, but in financial terms I don’t know if that is all that expensive, and certainly not in relation to 5 million copies sold.
I actually just assume marketing to sell 5m copies. As I don’t consume social media or YouTube I have no idea.
But even if that sounds impressive then, it’s still no index for quality IMHO. Buuuut consideting that it’s already released and reviews look good my point is worthless here.
As it uses denuvo I haven’t checked myself yet.
When they remove it it’s an instant purchase.
Marketing doesn’t guarantee 5 million sales. Just look at Marathon. Insane marketing push for a game made by a beloved studio sold only 1.2 million units. And the marketing was excellent, clearly better than the game itself. This is a piece of art.
Well, Marathon is a supremely bad example as Bungie has been doing everything they can to make the people who have supported them throughout Destiny hate them. Pearl Abyss might have scummy mtx but they’re honest about it and ultimately make a pretty good game. For Korean devs. Who develop games for Koreans. Who are born with a third invisible spirit arm that they use for extra inputs.
You’re right but I think it might be relevant for retention? If they retain 10% of players 500k vs 5 mill sales makes the player base size quite different.
Why are you talking about player retention in context of a single player game? Perhaps you mixed it with their previous game — Black Desert – which is an MMO.
It technically started as an MMO. That was their initial idea, but after they started development, they changed direction. That shows in the game to some extent, because the quests are kinda scattered and there is not always linearity, sometimes you get quests out of nowhere which doesn’t make sense. There are some short fedex type quests or tasks, too, but at the same time playing Crimson Desert does not feel like a single player MMO. Exploration is fantastic, but you should know that this game doesn’t hold your hand. You are free to do whatever and to discover the mechanics on your own. There are puzzles with no explanation whatsoever. Sometimes you’ll stumble on some hidden area with an environmental puzzle and no idea what to do. The last game like that was last year’s Hell is Us (a highly recommended hidden gem). Crimson Desert is just fun.
Oh, yeah, I definitely agree. A high retention rate is obviously preferable but at such high sales numbers, I’m sure many of them are only gonna be there for a short while. I’m pretty sure not even WoW can retain so many people anymore.
Steam reviews are fairly positive, which is a good sign but I guess it remains to be seen how many will still be playing in a month or two. And how many will be back for the first content patches.
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Denuvo infected $70 game. No fucking thank you.
From videos I have seen of this game, it kinda makes me think of Dragon’s Dogma 2 but bigger and without the Pawn system. And probably not shitty? 🤷♂️
Kinda wanna check it out, but I’m not sure how it’ll run on my PC. Especially since it uses Denuvo which in my experience causes tons of performance related problems until the devs strip it out.
Some fraction of those five million are people who bought the Denuvo-infected PC version.
Shrug… That’s a club I won’t be joining.
This game has no business being as good as it is, like some aspects are real bad (game controls are very poorly thought out/implemented, story doesn’t exist, etc), some aspects are real good (the movement, the combat, the options, the exploration).
Idk, if you like Assassin’s Creed you should play this game. This feels like what every AC starting from Odyssey should have felt like.
Edit: oh, and you can suplex people. You can go full WWE in your Korean single player RPG. What more need I say?
I’m still pretty early in, but the thing that really blows me away is how alive the world feels.
Just moving through nature, there are all kinds of critters dipping in and out if bushes every which way.
On my journey yesterday, I passed through a tannery, a quarry, textile production, and a small encampment that seemed dedicated to charcoal production. Most fantasy RPGs have big cities, small villages, maybe some mines and farmland, and then Wilderness.
Crimson Desert is giving me the impression they really thought out and put in every little logistic that goes to supporting these kinds of societies.
There is a story. Is it the best? No. But it exists and isn’t as bad as it’s generally stated.
I want you to tell me a singular storypoint that requires Kliff to be Kliff.
I would argue that main character being some what plank canvas is more a design thing than anything else.
Player is experiencing the world themself and its not filtered trough the protagonist morals.
Zelda games, especially Breath of the wild does things similary.
Legend of Zelda, believe it or not, does not have individual good stories.
Great games, love me some LoZ — stories are consistently weak across all entries. Robust lore, poor individual narratives— see Dark Souls if you want another example.
That all being said: the game (Crimson Desert) very strictly establishes rules regarding the Abyss. Kliff is the only one who’s allowed to go up there — because reasons! He’s the hero!
I spoil something here so be warned - To reiterate, the game is very strict about letting anyone but Kliff up into the Abyss throughout the entire game. You’d think there’d be some overarching reason for it, right? No, Oongka practically instant transmissions to save you at the end of the game. No explanation for why he’s there, no explanation for why he couldn’t go there before — nope he just pops in and saves you from… it’s still not clear.
Like I’ve beaten the game. The bit I mentioned up above literally made me burst out laughing. If it weren’t for how cool and alternative the unarmed system is, I’d have put the game down right then out of boredom.
Bottom line: you’re allowed to like whatever you want, but Crimson Desert would have been a better experience with a custom character and less narrative. I mean for fucks sake, Kliff literally has a canned goofy ass ‘Yes’ response for random NPC dialogue — it literally would have been better if they just made him not speak.
Edit: oh, that’s to say nothing of fucking Yann. When one of the only memorable characters in your story (because yes, everyone involved in the narrative is simply forgettable) is only memorable because the character routinely pisses you off — I’m sorry but your story is cheeks.
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There are games where you watch how protagonist reacts to the world. (The Last of Us)
There are games where you decite how protagonist reacts to the world. (Mass Effect)
Thete are games where player reacts to the world (Zelda, Dark Souls, Valheim)
I feel like Crimson Desert is more of the last category.
My feelings on the Last of Us are complicated. Last of Us in isolation is good, TLoU and TLoU2 together are bad. Way better story than Crimson Desert’s, though.
Mass Effect… I’m sorry but everything past 1 was bad, and 1’s story was good because of the expectations set up for future games. Like Kliff, Shephard is a nothing character — only there’s an actual narrative driven by him/her and the rest of the cast + the events from the previous game.
We’ve discussed Zelda and Dark Souls, but I think Valheim is actually a point against what you’re saying — yes you’re reacting to the world but Valheim has next to no story (I’d say no story but I haven’t played it in a while).
Kliff could have been anyone. You could replace Kliff as the main character with Damiane and the story literally wouldn’t change (only you can’t because the Abyss can only be accessed by Kliff).
Only for >!this to mean absolutely fucking nothing because Oognka goes where he pleases.!<
I think the world is beautiful and you could subtract the entire beginning of the story and filled the game with only side quests and side stuff in the world — it would have been a better experience. Simply deleting the dogshit Yann and Naira quests would make it a better experience. If a game’s story would be strictly better with half of it deleted, I’m sorry but the story is just bad.
Edit: not a huge spoiler but I’m sorry, I meant to be spoiler free.
Edit: Forgot Shephard is unisex.
I forget who said it, but I saw a review that called it the worst game they enjoyed. It’s hyperbolic but I agree on some level. Like I feel like I should have lost interest 10 times by now, but it keeps pulling me back in with new crazy things to find, new systems keep popping up and I’m like 60 hours in.
The story is absolute garbage, like I feel like there had to be an actual once at some point but it got butchered or edited to pieces. There are breadcrumbs all over that feel like there has to be more to the story but every time there’s some big emotional scene I feel like I’m missing some crucial pieces of information.
Tying inventory space to the shitty fetch quests was a stroke of genius though. I’m still doing every one I find so I can hoard more. You need me to ask someone across the country if they liked the stuff you sold them and you’ll give me 3 more inventory slots? Sold.
my wife likes it. I have to admit that seemingly being able to climb anywhere is sorta needs. Does feel more open.
Who cares for sales? You can sell dried colored assholes to people with enough marketing. That’s rarely a good index for anything. Except you’re a shareholder.
But where’s the marketing? Where’s the established franchise to coast upon? Where’s the developer reputation to guarantee sales? Pearl Abyss is a pretty much unknown developer, Crimson desert is a new IP and the only marketing I’ve seen is essentially word of mouth. For a game to organically sell 5 million units is a pretty big deal.
Isn’t this game a spiritual successor to Black Desert Online made by the same dev?
The answer is kinda yes and no but more towards no because it was conceived as a successor to Black Desert and was originally set as a prequel to Black Desert but during development it became its own universe and the final product isn’t even in the same genre as Black Desert. But like Dark Souls isn’t in the same universe as Demons souls either and is still a spiritual successor if you want to consider Crimson Desert as a sort of a single-player successor to Black Desert online I guess that’s probably somewhat true. I can’t really say because I’ve never played Black Desert Online. For me personally MMO vs single-player is a big enough difference to not consider it a successor.
Speaking of lack of marketing did anyone else think was an MMO ? For a long time I thought it was a sequel to Black Desert or a big expansion. I just found out a few months ago it’s a single player game
I just found out literally with this post lmao
I wouldn’t call Pearl Abyss an unknown developer, at least not in the mmo scene.
Just because the space Sim crowd knows who Frontier Developments is doesn’t mean the rest of the gaming space knows who they are. Pearl abyss may be known in the niche they were in before but they’ve made a game with mainstream appeal and for many people Pearl Abyss is a name they’re hearing for the first time.
Yet if you’d said Elite Dangerous it would be much more recognizeable, just like BDO is with Pearl Abyss.
Plus, Pearl Abyss has been working to get people to play their mmo for quite some time — Shroud played it for a bit and I know some other popular mmo streamers played it. All of this to say, Crimson Desert’s success is not wild — and using Marathon as a metric is just the worst thing you could do because Pearl Abyss hasn’t been shitting themselves reputation-wise.
My point is that if you took a normie gamer and asked them who Pearl Abyss is they wouldn’t know just like they wouldn’t know who Frontier Developments is. They might know if you mention BDO or ED but that’s not the same as asking who the studio is. If you ask who Bungie is they will know.
The comparison to Marathon was explicitly to debunk the idea that you can sell 5 million units simply by doing marketing. That was the extent of the comparison. But to bring it back to my point here, the reason we’re even talking about Marathon is because of Bungie. If Pearl Abyss had made Marathon we wouldn’t be talking about it because nobody would be giving a shit about a failed extraction shooter. People gave Marathon a chance because it’s made by Bungie. Some people bought Marathon only because they believed Bungie is going to pull out another banger.
And my point is that if you asked your normie gamer, which really didn’t exist in the same form, in 2005 who Bungie is — you’d mostly get question marks.
This would be relevant except that Marathon only sold as well as it did because of the heavy marketing push. If you’ve been following what Bungie has done with Destiny 2 then you should know it’s fucking amazing anyone bought into that soulless trash. They have burned so many bridges with their community. Had they released Marathon before Bungie was sold to Sony it would undoubtedly have sold better. They literally needed the marketing push.
I doubt it. By 2005 people already knew Bungie. Halo was a critical and commercial success and Halo 2 had released a year prior and not only was highly anticipated but ended up as a system seller for Xbox. If you were gaming in 2005 you’d know about Bungie. Had it been about Bungie in 2001 then a normie would give you question marks because at that point Bungie was pretty much unknown. Marathon games were on Mac, they made a RTS game and Oni, which wasn’t all that big of a hit. Halo is what put Bungie on the map and Halo 2 made them very much a household name.
And that’s my point with Crimson Desert as well. Pearl Abyss made BDO before, but they’re still very much an unknown developer. They don’t get the kind of benefit of doubt Bungie or Bioware or Blizzard tend to get. Crimson Desert is the hit that puts weight behind the Pearl Abyss name. The next Pearl Abyss is going to get more eyes because of Crimson Desert.
Again, that’s largely my point. You can’t market a game and just sell 5 million units. Marathon sold 1.2 million units because a) it’s a Bungie game so people would be paying attention to it and b) it had heavy marketing behind it. It would’ve sold even less without those two things, but that’s besides the point. The idea that you can just sell 5 million units through marketing is simply not true and Marathon proves it.
Word of mouth my ass. Heard absolutely nothing about this game for years and then suddenly a few weeks before launch ( and even now) reddit and youtube absolutely exploded in “can’t wait for this!” and “this is the greatest game ever!” posts. To me that smells of astroturfing. I don’t doubt it’s a good game and might pick it up when/if they drop denuvo, but it was definitely not “organic”
You can argue everything before launch wasn’t organic if you want to, I don’t care enough to argue over your cynicism, but post-launch it has been organic. If the game was a steaming pile of shit none of the before release “astroturfing” would matter a month after release, the game would have a player count nosedive like Highguard and it would be what people consider “a dead game”. But it’s not having that nose-dive, it has a fairly small decay considering last sunday peak playercount was almost the same as the first peak after launch. Furthermore the reviews have gone from mixed at launch to very positive. Those things don’t happen when the hype is manufactured.
People aren’t making Youtube videos on Crimson Desert combos or puzzle solving videos or why you should engage with the camp management system or etc because Pearl Abyss is paying them, the videos get made because people want to make those videos and talk about the game. You don’t get a RDR2 artist glazing the water simulation (which BTW is a video I very much recommend watching because it’s a nerd nerding out about nerdy things and IMO those are always the best videos) unless there’s something to glaze, Pearl Abyss isn’t going to pay their competition to glaze them.
It’s totally astroturfed. I never heard of this game until two days before release, and most comments about it are “it’s good if you ignore the story and gameplay”.
My YouTube feed has a million videos on this game. Every major media outlet has done multiple videos on this game and the bugs and the launch. I’m pretty plugged into the games industry and I hadn’t heard of it until it launched but since then it has gotten a ton of press and I doubt it’s just “word of mouth”.
They did a pretty significant marketing push on Twitch for Crimson Desert, but in financial terms I don’t know if that is all that expensive, and certainly not in relation to 5 million copies sold.
I actually just assume marketing to sell 5m copies. As I don’t consume social media or YouTube I have no idea.
But even if that sounds impressive then, it’s still no index for quality IMHO. Buuuut consideting that it’s already released and reviews look good my point is worthless here.
As it uses denuvo I haven’t checked myself yet. When they remove it it’s an instant purchase.
Marketing doesn’t guarantee 5 million sales. Just look at Marathon. Insane marketing push for a game made by a beloved studio sold only 1.2 million units. And the marketing was excellent, clearly better than the game itself. This is a piece of art.
Well, Marathon is a supremely bad example as Bungie has been doing everything they can to make the people who have supported them throughout Destiny hate them. Pearl Abyss might have scummy mtx but they’re honest about it and ultimately make a pretty good game. For Korean devs. Who develop games for Koreans. Who are born with a third invisible spirit arm that they use for extra inputs.
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You’re right but I think it might be relevant for retention? If they retain 10% of players 500k vs 5 mill sales makes the player base size quite different.
Why are you talking about player retention in context of a single player game? Perhaps you mixed it with their previous game — Black Desert – which is an MMO.
Oh crap. I didn’t mix them up, I did assume, however. Wasn’t expecting it to be single player. I thought I was basically black desert 2. My bad
It technically started as an MMO. That was their initial idea, but after they started development, they changed direction. That shows in the game to some extent, because the quests are kinda scattered and there is not always linearity, sometimes you get quests out of nowhere which doesn’t make sense. There are some short fedex type quests or tasks, too, but at the same time playing Crimson Desert does not feel like a single player MMO. Exploration is fantastic, but you should know that this game doesn’t hold your hand. You are free to do whatever and to discover the mechanics on your own. There are puzzles with no explanation whatsoever. Sometimes you’ll stumble on some hidden area with an environmental puzzle and no idea what to do. The last game like that was last year’s Hell is Us (a highly recommended hidden gem). Crimson Desert is just fun.
They both sound cool, will wishlist them and keep an eye out, thanks !
Kinda true. But also depends. A shitty game selling 5mio and retaining 5% is worse than a great game selling 100k and retaining 50%
I’m extremely fast at math, but horribly bad, so…just assume the numbers match the point 😁
But yes of course. For an online game, sales can give a rough estimate of success.
Oh, yeah, I definitely agree. A high retention rate is obviously preferable but at such high sales numbers, I’m sure many of them are only gonna be there for a short while. I’m pretty sure not even WoW can retain so many people anymore.
Steam reviews are fairly positive, which is a good sign but I guess it remains to be seen how many will still be playing in a month or two. And how many will be back for the first content patches.
True. I haven’t even seen that it already released, and yes, it looks very good.
Also true for wow…though there are still many players. Interestingly, as nothing much did change over the last, I dunno, 500 years since its release