A Cautionary Post-Mortem Of Evolve (The Jimquisition)

[Music] we're easing up a little on the Nintendo bashing you can have too much of a good thing like I said I've got some fun stuff planned but I'm just gonna take a little break just so that we can all calm down get our senses back together and let's be a bit more considerate this week let's do one of my classic post-mortems which I say as if I've done a lot of them only ever did one last year for battleborn but we're doing another 2k game today evolved which i've talked about a couple of times in the past and it remains one of the most fascinating releases this generation at least from a business standpoint so let's look at the rise and fall of well it didn't really rise let's have a look at the fall of evolve evolve remains one of the most interesting video games out there from a business perspective which is ironic because as a game it's not particularly interesting at all total runks monster flavored multiplayer shooter still remains one of the best examples of how the encroachment of cynical business decisions can destroy a game's credibility how releasing big budget games early and patching in content later is poor form and how sometimes you just need to know when to quit I've talked about evolve several times over the years and now reflecting upon it after its brief resurgence and eventual undignified death I feel it's time to pick up the scalpel and cut into this desiccated old corpse evolve was talked about as early as 2011 when Turtle Rock and at the time publisher THQ said it was working on a groundbreaking multiplayer project that would take FPS is to a whole new level which is pretty sad when you think about what finally came out anyway it wouldn't be until 2014 that we'd see something more solid with game informer bargaining for itself one of its exclusive cover reveals almost immediately after that with only a handful of screenshots to its name evolve began the process of taking triple a video game [ __ ] to an extreme it may not have represented the next level of FPS but it certainly took rampant avarice to exciting fresh heights usually we at least see some footage before publishers try and prize our wallets open but evolve skipped straight to demanding the cash upfront this was in January 2014 with nothing for customers to go on but a puff piece in a magazine and yet Turtle Rock already knew it had a Goliath skin waiting in the wings as a pre-order bonus at the time it was an incredible example of how far pre-order culture had come we were already having pre-orders shove down our faces with every game reveal but evolve had taken it one step further by starting the shoving process before we'd even seen a bloody trailer Turtle Rock and 2k games were not done putting the cart full of grasping hands before the horse however as I noted during my first video on this game if all fell out of the [ __ ] tree and hit every branch on the Descent here's a recap of the ways in which evolve poisoned its own well and shredded its credibility in the months preceding its initial release Turtle Rock could cause an uproar in June of 2014 by declaring evolve was designed to support DLC more so than any going before failing in its bid to put a positive spin on The Naked thirst for coin bizarrely it doesn't go over well when you tell people that the game they're being pestered to reserve for $60 is being and I quote built from the ground up to support additional paid content there's something thoroughly unexcited about a premium game promising well ahead of release that you can expect to spend more money after it's finally out the game would next get a kickin for the veritable onslaught of pre-order schemes and special edition tears that Unleashed prior to launch in January 2015 involves website needed to post a thorough breakdown of the different digital versions available and it's just such a messy [ __ ] show to go over that I'm gonna let a more qualified and handsome man explain it here's Jim sterling from January 19 2015 to tell you all about it he's a sexy boy if your pre-order revolve you get access to a monster called the behemoth which 2k games claims has a retail value of $14.99 that's er 15 bucks for a single playable character by the by the standard pre-order gets you that behemoth and the aforementioned Goliath expansion mentioned in January 2014 then there's the digital deluxe edition which 2k is desperately trying to sell you by banging on about how valuable it is and how much value it has all the value it comes with the Goliath plus 3 monster skins and for hunters which will be available at some unknown date then there's the evolve PC monster race edition which is everything meant and so far plus the behemoth and seasonpass an unannounced fifth playable monster two more hunters and four skins the basic message is simple you pre-order the game and you preorder the lavish version at that if you don't want to feel like you're missing [ __ ] oh and if you want better treatment you best pre-purchase it on Xbox one - which is exclusively available to preload now with exclusive early access to the beta and exclusive access to the monster expansion for free exclusive exclusive triple a world premiere exclusive exclusivity [ __ ] I feel bad for saying that people who pre-order the Xbox one got the better treatment now Turtle Rock seemed to show no self awareness about what it was doing whether it was just doing the best damage control it could on behalf of 2k or if it actually believed the [ __ ] it was spouting the studio had to run damage control pretty heavily with lengthy forum posts defending its over saturation of paid content not once did anybody seem to think that if you need to write a lengthy forum post defending your product maybe you [ __ ] it up at least for the more savvy and connected customer evolve had done a lot of damage to itself with its headlong rush toward profit the game was not out and yet it was drowning its potential customers in downloadable content and pre-order bonuses and exclusive exclusives exclusively excluding the release of the game was well it started off well but things didn't go fantastically on February 10th 2015 over a year after it offered its first pre-order bonus evolve finally launched to a less than earth-shattering response now it received some critical acclaim that's hardly saying much for any triple-a release but the notable lack of content imbalanced gameplay and the [ __ ] avalanche of launch day DLC was hard to hand wave away the game itself was OK at best but it got real old real fast with huge lifeless maps and for v1 multiplayer that sounded great in theory but often devolved into a really boring cat-and-mouse game it wasn't helped by the overpowered nature of one of the pre-order monster characters which gave the whole thing a pay2win vibe that DLC though oh my buggered Christmas that DLC evolved a $60 game may I remind you launched with 136 dollars worth of addition downloadable content a slurry of skin packs and [ __ ] that felt extra insulting considering how long and dreary the direct feed of actual in-game unlockables was it seemed as if more effort had gone into crafting the storefront than the actual game since it was certainly packed with a lot more [ __ ] to look at and of course there was a season pass a season pass that actually didn't cover the vast majority of available content because this is a 2k game and also [ __ ] you after spending more time justifying its money lust than promoting the game itself Turtle Rock and 2k games all but confirmed that revolve was a glorified shopping mall a launching pad for the sale of further content on launch day and it was tacky so [ __ ] Tacony despite all this the usual hype and aggressive marketing associated with the ghost triple-a space gave evolve a decent debut it released at number one in the UK charts and was outsold only buy Majora's Mask 3d in the US during February if they're to [ __ ] sight better than battle born did at the very least however despite a relatively strong start player numbers hemorrhaged soon after with steam player counts dropping off exponentially over time once summer at rolled around evolves audience base was not looking good it couldn't practice teams top 100 and between June and August the number of active players dropped from an unimpressive 600 to an abysmal 450 during August evolve would dabble in free weekends and it offered the meteor goliath playable monster to everybody on September 3rd but it seemed nothing was revitalizing the flagging game when the user reviews probably didn't help either dug Kreutz an analyst at the Cohen group estimated evolve only shifted 300,000 physical copies that kind of audience is good for a d-list game pundits stupid internet show and it doesn't account for the many digital versions sold but it's still a poor showing for a big-budget triple-a video game of this level coming in well below the average physical sales for such a title the grotesquerie of its DLC was named as one of the barriers to the game success basically when you put out a $60 game with repetitive half-baked content and drown it in excessive amounts of DLC players don't tend to stick around in fact they might find it [ __ ] repellent weird how that works 2k games refuse to accept any of this by the way and said some retrospectively quite funny things take to president Kyle slate off called it incredibly successful while CEO Straus Zelnick compared the game to red dad Grand Theft Auto and Bioshock claiming it would join all three series as one of the publishers permanent franchises in the real world the writing was on the wall and fairly obvious to anybody with eyes and a working brain barely anybody was playing this thing which is lethal to a multiplayer only game and really bad news for a company banking on season passes and extensive DLC so it was on September 6 2016 the revolve was torn down and rebuilt as evolved stage to a rebalanced experience that was completely free to play at least on PC those who put it on console her evolve 2.0 was pretty good actually they focused on a single game type and got it right with gameplay feeling faster and more regressive the freemium model should have been there right off the bat to making all that gauche DLC much more palatable it was a dramatic and bold move on Turtle Rock spark and an admirable one at that it was a show of authenticity for a game that had been mired and undermined at every turn by pure unfettered cynicism that said it wasn't a problem-free overhaul the removal of certain modes and the changing of features upset some of the more long-term players and the founder system for those who bought the game before it went free was not impressive offering a relatively paltry sum of in-game currency and content for their support oh and people had a ton of questions about the future of the game on Xbox one and ps4 because those who bought it on console were fur despite road bumps evolve stage 2 was a glimmer of hope for turtle rocks once a groundbreaking shooter the play account went from athletic 157 to 25,000 to 167 overnight and it pushed its way into the top 100 at number 17 Turtle Rock admitted the DLC shenanigans turned players off and wanted to make it right things looks good and then things went not good despite accruing over a million new players after it's free-to-play relaunch evolved with shotguns in a face out behind the woodshed just over a month later while servers remained online official support for the game completely ceased signifying the death knell of any release that focuses on continued online play not to mention a newly minted F to be won in a final post Studio co-founder Chris Ashton lamented the constrictions of working for a publisher revealing it was 2k games his decision to abandon evolve and that turtle rocks wish to continue improving and supporting it whilst not meant to be that was that really that was the tumultuous life of a vowel from its underwhelming pre-order back to reveal in 2014 to it's sudden and unceremonious fall two years later and what's to be learnt if anything well evolved remains perhaps the finest example of what can happen when the wide eyed ruling of publishers drowns a game how overbearing business decisions that put quick returns ahead of everything else can cut a game's legs out from under it before it's even hit store shelves many Triple A products can and do get away with greed fueled excesses and wants and customer contempt but this should be seen as a warning that it doesn't always work and the results are [ __ ] it up can be fatal the failure of evolved stage 2 compounds this in the video game industry you only ever get one launch one first impression one day to make a game truly count this incidentally is the price of game pays by releasing on early access sure you can make back your dev costs while still making the game but you've effectively spent your first impression token on an unfinished product and you'll never get the same media attention or word-of-mouth when the games finished and attempts a second launch similarly when Triple A games release unfinished or slapdash work and expect patches and DLC to plug in the holes it risks turning its players away with a pour in experience and that's something you can't undo if you handle that badly enough has evolved it no amount of relaunch grands you can save it cuz it already had its launch day it's one problem filled negative disappointing launch day that was it's one big chance to get attention and set the tone for its future performance which it did a terrible sad performance despite my continued distaste for evolve cynical story I do respect the Turtle Rock put in so much genuine effort to make the game successful not just commercially but creatively it was too little too late but they put it in it's a big thing to reach all the game so dramatically and effectively admit you cocked it up the first time unfortunately sometimes a [ __ ] game is just a [ __ ] game and like those people who bought evolve on console this mishandled mistreated little release was well and truly and that's evolve a cautionary tale perhaps a sign that yes the triple-a industry can go too far that the audience goodwill is not some infinite resource that can be tapped at will because it isn't there our breaking points and you can turn the audience off when you just when you just give in to that sort of one turn excess and that's evolved that was the canary down the mineshaft of excess of going too far of putting your cart before your horse and and we all saw what happened and I wish I could say that it won't happen again but it will it might even be to K that does it again because because we don't talk about to K very often on this show but when it comes to the whole season pass and and DLC and and all the Associated [ __ ] they are fond of it and they do seem to strike out more than because they they have some really big successes obviously GTI Red Dead Bioshock we will mention that in the show but when they try and make a brand new one and deliberately set it up to be a brand new one it doesn't seem to work and also evolve is a wonderful lesson in when you design a game to support DLC first and foremost you can't really in your right mind expect the game to be very good on its own merit you've built it for this future stuff you've built it to sell us things later down the line and when that's your priority when that's your focus you ain't gonna make a good game your head's not in the right place you're not focusing on the bit that matters making that good first impression so that's that that's all I'm here to say and that is why you thank God for me because I'm right always and except those times where I've been wrong [Music] Oh Oh Ubisoft the divisions getting microtransactions we should hardly be surprising at Ubisoft Ubisoft loves [ __ ] microtransactions but it's interesting that the games been out for so long and now they've surreptitiously snuck them in not that they're calling the microtransactions this is something I've been noticing in the game industry they don't use that word anymore they try and avoid it as best they can as they still try and normalize the idea of microtransactions while sidestepping all of the bad publicity associated with them so they've mentioned the premium currency you can get a premium currency in the division which of course is just for cosmetic items which I've talked about in the past and you can go look at previous episodes if you want to have that argument the usual excuses are in play for these premium credits we're providing more ways the players can express themselves and customize the look of their character that's how it's always presented its choices we're just offering choice that's what makes our game so valuable it's got bells on your cynical [ __ ] just admit you're want more money I'd respect that a lot more anyway that's it nothing groundbreaking but this this little sub series is called oh you be soft we're rolling our eyes because we're not surprised oh-ho Ubisoft

Channel: Jim Sterling

Views: 944,408

Keywords: Evolve, 2K Games, Take-Two, Take-Two Interactive, Turtle Rock, FPS, First-person Shooter, Multiplayer, Online, Xbox One, PS4, PC, Evolve Stage 2, F2P, Free-to-play, Freemium, Steam, Rerelease, Controversy, DLC, Downloadable Content, Pre-order, Money, Industry, Bullshit, The Bullshit Tree, The Jimquisition, Jim Sterling, Post-Mortem, Commentary, Criticism, Games, Game, Gamer, Gaming, Videogame, Video Game

Id: ojyncMthoY0

Length: 17min 43sec (1063 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 23 2017