Death of a Game: H1Z1

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with none other than playerunknown and create  the world's very first official battle royale   soe has claimed a few of the titles we have  covered on this series already a legendary   mmo and online gaming developer slash publisher  but equally famous and infamous still following   the early successes of dayz and leveraging the  ingenuity behind playerunknown and his idea   for creating a battle royale game and thus the  genre daybreak was looking to cash in themselves   this would result in the creation of daybreak's  very own one part survival one part battle   royale shooter h1z1 as the title would first be  dubbed and launched in early access january 2015.   what happened after that launch was in short  a total rollercoaster of peaks and valleys   h1z1 was able to garner a very successful  population on steam selling over a million copies   and even had its very own fully salaried esports  league and then the game fell off a cliff and all   including the aforementioned esports league and  impressive population for h1z1 took a serious hit   and the game never recovered since it's 2021  now and it's been nearly completely abandoned   what went wrong with h1z1 one part battle royale  one part survival shooter why was the title unable   to garner a long-term sustained success despite  its staggeringly high peaks on this episode of   death of a game we take a look at the mysterious  story of h1z1 a title that went from being a   top-ranked twitch and steam game that sparked many  content creator careers and inspired mini games   to a near completely forgotten and abandoned game  grab your body armor helmet and weapon of choice   detectives for the story behind the world's first  officially launched battle royales sudden failure the story of h1z1 begins back in 2014 following  the overwhelming success of an arma 2 mod dayz   daisy brought zombies and survival elements  to the shooter space effectively creating   its very own genre the survival genre others  would sense the success of daisy and express   interest in following their footsteps regarding  a more hardcore design the concept was simple   a survival game was about having a dangerous  environment and death be a constant element once   your character dies you lose your stuff unless you  can somehow loot it back looting up new weapons   gear and food slash drink survival games might  have a dangerous environment an ever persistent   player versus environment factor but they also  had very prominent pvp aspects hard baked into   the design with finite loot and resources you  would inevitably tangle against other players   as well as potentially allying with some against  other players some like daisy itself would focus   more on the survival elements and exploring  an already fleshed out world others like early   survival games like rust developed by valve would  blend elements of minecraft allowing for buildable   bases and structures but the survival game we  are covering today took another angle as well   well sort of it wasn't immediately revealed but  h1z1 soe's own survival game wouldn't just be   a survival game it would be creating another  genre altogether sony online entertainment in   2014 wasn't quite at peak soe anymore with many of  their successful titles having either seen their   best days or were shut down and probably featured  already on this series a shell of their former   selves at this point but still one with powerful  and impressive ips nonetheless they were still   a powerful company very much interested in the  online world of gaming they used to dominate their   days of creating entirely unique aaa ips however  seem to be a bit behind them with many of their   best creative talents having left already they  weren't ready to give up yet though and were eager   coming off of the failures of their everquest next  project to launch a modern successful online title brynden green better known as playerunknown was  fresh from making a battle royale modded server   in dayz which as we mentioned at the top is a  modded version of arma 2. brynden green often   is credited for being the creator of the battle  royale genre in gaming at least as it existed in   the hunger games previously and even in an older  japanese movie dubbed literally battle royale   but brian hicks who was a lead developer and  prominent figure behind daisy as well was actually   responsible for the survivor games server which  was effectively about a royale server back in 2012   that playerunknown took inspiration from heavily  playerunknown would take these inspirations   aforementioned and create his very own battle  royale server which attracted the attention of soe   who were intent on working with them to realize  his dreams for an actual game soe would bring   player unknown on as a consultant and would  begin development of a survival battle royale   of their own dubbed h1z1 both parts survival and  battle royale something that hadn't been done yet   playerunknowns consulted on the battle royale  portion soe would immediately segment development   of h1z1 into two different projects with  two different teams following green's   contract expiring this was very likely due to the  sort of opposing game designs which one focused on   survival aka persistence and the other more so  on the battle royale craze we mentioned before   still before they were even fully fledged  projects they were already splitting off into   two different projects but still claiming  to be under the same one banner ultimately   h1z1 would be teased to the public june 9th 2014  promising more footage and details to be revealed   at e3 in a few days it's here fans for the first  time could see what was looking to be from trailer   shown a cooperative survival zombie experience  with potential for pvp much like the game they   were trying to mimic and compete against daisy  and gadget had a hands-on with h1z1 at e3 2014   detailing more about the survival shooter much  of what was present in the game thus far was par   on course for the journalists who tested the game  who likened it to rust and daisy as examples the   similarities were quite obvious with thirst meters  food meters and needing to build your foundations   and make your base just like in rust set base  could be crafted by you completely from scratch   or you could choose to take over an existing  structure rust wasn't really a pve game however   not really having much in the way of early on ai  threat which is where h1z1 would borrow more from   dayz instead as ross explains in the article the  lore for the game was rather bare bones making   it quite clear the game was very much  a work in progress or designed to be a   bare bones sandbox experience where players  would do the heavy lifting regarding story   and personal narrative experiences teaming up with  other players to survive in the harsh environment   against the zombies and other possible hostile  players there was still great potential in   these bare bones sort of novel experiences  without much story or narrative to them   in fact the survival genre is sort of built on  this idea after all emerging gameplay created   without much need for developer intervention or  interaction but h1z1 had promises of more than   just that with things such as vehicles a growing  non-instance world a virus capable of spreading   amongst players and infecting them zombies never  despawning and some could even grow in power a developer demo would showcase yet more  details concerning the game including   the crafting and inventory system oh for those  chuckling at me mentioning an inventory system   if you play daisy as a mod or even possibly  now you know exactly why that's a big deal   he spends so much time in these games looting  with a poor inventory system that can create many   headaches the crafting system was rather expected  from a survival game combining components you loot   or gathered to create much needed gear weapons  or items as for the battle royale portion it   wouldn't feature any building or serious crafting  the point of that mode was 100 of you spawning on   a map with no weapons or gear having to loot up  and then be the last one to survive this mode   was simple at the core but incredibly addicting  offering for near infinite replayability h1z1   was shaping up to be a proper competitor to  jc for starters it was an actual game not a   mod and it featured an even more robust feature  set such as player housing and proper crafting   it even had more fluid combat while daisy and mini  competitors were mods or community projects h1z1   was set up to be a big budget release game h1z1  was set to launch in early access january 2015   following a number of delays early access at the  time was a new phenomenon where you basically   paid full price for an unfinished game with the  idea or promise that eventually they're gonna   finish it the issue being in this case well soe  wasn't some tiny company who needed crowdfunding   they had launched already a dozen projects or  something this was clearly done deliberately   because getting paid while you develop versus  after is just better business charging a box   price for an early access game is never going to  be well received and understandably but that's   not ultimately why h1z1 would so early on come  under fire from the fans drama would already   surround the new zombie online shooter before  even launching concerning the monetization model   the game would be using early in 2014 when asked  about the monetization they would be using in h1z1   soe ceo smedley stated that we'll be selling  wearables we felt like this would be a good fair   revenue generator we will not be selling guns ammo  food water etc that's kind of the whole game and   it would suck in our opinion if we did that they  also wouldn't allow you to spend real life money   on air drops that would drop weapons this was a  rather fair model that didn't allow for any pay to   win aspects apparently the only problem was well  that wasn't the model that they would be using   they would allow you to actually buy air  drops with real life money and these air   drops would actually drop by items weapons and  ammo this meant that smedley and the team already   had gone back on their word pre-release  merely months after saying the opposite the community response was rather immediate as  cries of patawin hit the web as soon as the game   went live in early access january 15 2015 as  reports of players being able to buy airdrops   which had everything of value inside of them with  real cash came out smedley's response to this was   par for the course really for the american  ceo so far smelly was stated in a reddit   post that players ignored the game was basically  always going to have air drops in this concept   present saying that it was clearly stated on the  website issue being that that was put up on the   website the day the game went into early access  so there wasn't any warning at all and smedley is   blatantly lying here when we have clear evidence  to state that the h1z1 team stated previously that   there's no way you can get ammo any other way  you can't buy ammo right you can't buy guns right   you can't get them out of a crate there's  zero way you have to find them in the world   ultimately smedley's response to the fans who  were angered at this hypocrisy was simply if   you think it's pay to win don't buy it don't play  it now if hearing about soe and smedley's handling   of all of this doesn't leave a sour taste in your  mouth i'm just convinced you don't have taste buds   h1z1's early access launch  would continue on regardless   well up until the servers were brought  down due to a series of technical issues another set of issues plaguing the launch  of what was supposed to be the next biggest   thing in the survival world was issues of login  performance issues no voice chat and apparently   low ai responsiveness were present smedly  and team were exhausted though and they were   unable to easily remedy their litany of issues  while there's a certain level of understanding   given to a newly launched product the state  that h1z1 was at launch was more than just   launch woes following the attempted  hotfixes and patching from soe they   would actually break the game even more  introducing yet more bugs to the game   launch early axis excuse or not was not going  well for soe and what would happen just the next   month would change quite a lot going forward  for both h1z1 and the future of online gaming   in a totally surprising move john smedley would  announce on reddit that soe is leaving behind the   sony roots it was founded on and being acquired by  an investment firm titled columbus nova soe would   now be dubbed daybreak games company effective  immediately smedley reassured fans that all games   in their portfolio would remain and business  would continue as usual the reasons for the   acquisition according to the press release seemed  to be regarding investment needed into the company   soe just like that was no more and that meant a  whole lot in a space that didn't exist without   their name in the first place really i mean eq was  their game remember essoe or daybreak game company   now despite claims of business as usual were going  to look different as a company going forward and   so was online gaming over a few genres really  while they were changing company names though   and effectively their masters their game h1z1  was cracking an impressive 1 million in sales   despite all of the launch issues and monetization  drama 2015 would continue to be an interesting and   overall rather negative year for daybreak as  a company h1z1 had great initial success and   was still maintaining above 20 000 players peak  throughout the summer however the significant drop   in population you see in may and june of 2015 for  the game can likely be attributed to a string of   server down times brought upon the game after  daybreak ceo smedley made it his personal   goal to fight a particular cyber squad of hackers  dubbed lizard squad smelly would go to the hackers   calling them out and in return they hounded the  h1z1 servers bringing them down numerous time due   to ddos attacks all of this would culminate in  smelly leaving daybreak altogether as he would   resign july 23rd 2015. yeah lesson being don't  call out hackers a few months later and there   were reports that smedley was already out there  heading up a new firm but his time at daybreak   had come to an abrupt end smedley had done a  lot of damage to the reputation of h1z1 and   arguably soe as a whole and him being so heavily  associated with it made it even more problematic   his leaving of the picture was probably actually  a positive all things considered in fact   following his departure the population for h1z1  actually increased back up to 24 795 at a player   peak in august 2015. this could be completely  unrelated but it kind of makes for a funny meme while technically speaking h1z1 was already  two projects smashed into one both the survival   game aspect and the battle royale aspect  existed in parallel within the same game   there was however very little crossover between  these two while h1z1 would receive criticism for   doing such i think that that criticism  is more valid early on in development   by this point though h1z1 did have an issue  of two very different games it didn't really   have a whole lot of crossover one was about  creating long-term bases and teams to survive   a harsh persistent world the other was well about  a real game where it wipes after every last victor   still the news of daybreak's intentions of  splitting their h1z1 game hit the web february   5th 2016. and players weren't necessarily happy  about such there was a certain fear that splitting   them would segment the development and one would  outshine the other naturally and eclipse the other   that's actually a really good idea and isn't a bad  hunch on why daybreak ultimately did it that way   really daybreak would be splitting h1z1's survival  portion into h1z1 just survive and the br portion   into h1z1 king of the kill this would at the very  least help for clarity's sake and the splitting   of populations didn't seem to split the population  much really anyway due to them being interested in   one version versus both here we can see that both  games have their own steam charts now they were   actually rather comparable with just survive  actually eclipsing king of the kill by just   7 000 players peak daybreak proclaimed that they  had just reached more than 2.5 million downloads   of h1z1 before this split quite impressive  for just one year after early access launch h1z1's first producer update came february 26th  2016. it's here you can see that steam players   complained the most about rampant bugs present  in the game another game update came march 9th   fixing some of the more present issues in the game  it's at this point if you were there you probably   remember a very persistent problem but for those  of us who weren't we have to rely on a bit of   clues digging through steam updates comments and  articles what becomes apparent for the first time   really is the issue regarding servers and players  not being ping restricted to certain servers specifically with chinese servers  this became a giant being amongst   the community on streams and youtube as  the game started to explode in popularity   especially in china it understandably  attracted way more chinese players   the issue was that the servers in asia were  very poor performing for whatever reason   this caused the players there to want to queue  elsewhere and thus they started to connect to the   na servers this created a number of issues in both  versions of the game as players with high ping   were now flooding the servers causing more ping  and latency issues for north american players this   meant laggy adversaries and more hit detection  issues resulting in a subpar gaming experience if daybreak wasn't quick to remedy this issue  there could be a repeat of what has happened   in many other hardcore games such as eve the  chinese takeover china number one by may we   have yet another game update but another update  causing yet more issues when added to the game   many players would express issues logging in and  downloading the update due to a blocked game file   the population during this time in both  versions dropped but just survived took   the bulk of the punishment losing nearly  20 000 players of its peak player count   the first combat patch to hit the game was  positively received on july 6 2016 as it   solved many of the game's current issues regarding  hitboxes the shotgun and general weapon polish but   would follow this update up with a devastating  update nearly killing their steam marketplace   economy overnight they removed the ability to buy  or sell older h1z1 crate items on the marketplace   the crate items themselves could still be sold  but that would effectively kill the economy   because now you had to actually purchase the  box no matter what once you opened it you didn't   retain any of the value inside before anyone  jumps to any weird conclusions it's actually   worse for business and making money in general  for them to make this change is that now they're   going to miss out on the transaction fees  which tells us that this was most likely a   decision from an external power influencing  h1z1's design my hunch is that they didn't   want to get involved in a legal battle there or  have to deal with possible litigation or rules   whatever the reasons were this update was  very negatively received by the community   this meant that h1z1 was the only survival  title that didn't have purchased or tradable   skins on a marketplace rust initially had such  and daisy eventually would have such as well h1z1s would have a series of updates in july  through august each of these updates were   received rather positively but there were still  large complaints of the game's poor optimization   lagging on some of even the best machines  and the weekly down time that seemed to   happen as many as two times a week  without an update even scheduled   i don't think i've ever covered a game that  had more server down time than h1z1 and i   find it impossible to not attribute it to why the  game ultimately suffered from a loss of players   the population overall for both versions of the  game had dropped slightly overall not being quite   the same impressive initial numbers but there  was still quite enough players there to salvage on september 20th 2016 daybreak would notify the  public that they would be scrapping their console   versions the xbox one and the ps4 versions to  focus on their pc version this would end up being   a rather risky move especially considering how  big other survival shooters and battle royales got   on consoles but as producer chris wins stated  the studio was simply spread too thin to work   on pc and console versions at the same time which  you can't fault them for ultimately even if it did   limit the growth potentially of their game h1z1  would receive its largest update yet september   20th 2016. the update was largely a quality  of life update besides the new map and newly   updated ui while just survive was hobbling at a  4 000 player peak the br version had a resurgence   following their launch reaching 24 677 players it  wouldn't be a major h1z1 update though if a new   slew of issues weren't added on top of an already  long-standing and existing issue list september 23   2016 we saw more of the same for players as the  servers were hit with more serious downtime it   was like each time daybreak had a positive update  they also took an eternity to actually bring the   update to the servers and were then raked over the  coals for it by the end of 2016 it was clear with   another update for h1z1 that there were still many  bugs and issues present in the game but h1z1 was   going to try to keep reaching for more through  creating and adding more content to the game   advertising and etc over polishing what they had  to a fine smoothness first this could result in   more players in the short term but it would then  be a race of trying to fix your previous issues   and the new issues brought on by the new content  that you're continuously adding to the game   to stay competitive sure maybe you get the results  out of the product but how long can it last the golden age of h1z1 king of the kill was  january 24th 2017. this update added game   leaderboards but primarily focused on doing  just what i previously said daybreak as a team   hadn't done previously before polishing pre-season  3 h1z1 king of the kill was the best version of   the game because it was the most confident version  of the game it's the version of the game that the   developers stuck to their guns on the design with  and the players supported them the core design is   good and there's no extra fluff it's just solid  arcade br shootery h1z1 king of the kill was an   arena shooter br or arcade shooter vr with crisp  movement and precise aiming much like halo was   to the shooter scene was a breath of fresh air  really with things like bullet drop armor helmets   limited ammo and weapons to add to the uniqueness  all the while maintaining the movement that you   would expect from an arcade shooter rather than a  realistic one like daisy this was one of the few   and rare times the community and the developers  had been in agreement h1z1 king of the kill would   change its name yet again this time rebranding to  just simply h1z1 while the survival version would   be called just survive speaking of just survive  at this point in 2017 the population is up and   down but never eclipses its launch numbers it  very clearly wasn't the popular version anymore   back to h1z1 coming with rebranding was also  the announcement of a major tournament aired on   the cw network with a prize pool of 300 000 they  wouldn't just be showcasing one tournament either   it was a docu-series dubbed fight for the  crown that would follow the echofox pro   players in h1z1 a team purchased by rick fox back  in december of 2015. the tournament would also be   hosted in ran by daybreak in partnership with  twin galaxies recently acquired and owned by   monolith founder and youtube wow video star jace  hall peak population for h1z1 had soared up to 97   404 players peak incredibly impressive in topping  the very steam most played charts even that didn't   mean that there weren't issues still present  but compared to launch and other points of the   game there were just far less of them the biggest  issues we have already covered and unfortunately   daybreak had little solutions for those as the  chinese players were still playing on na servers   in fact in a hilariously insulting post they were  super aware of such february 23 2017 when their   solution was basically hey guys uh can you play on  the right server thanks noted and probably ignored it wasn't just a matter of more eyes seeing h1z1  and seeing it played on tv that was getting new   players involved into the game h1z1 also blew  up on twitch streaming giving birth to many of   the biggest stars still in today's streaming world  doctor disrespect and lyric and also featured many   of the popular streamers such as tim the tatman  ninja and summit daybreak had a quality game in   their hands now and was adding even more in ways  of a wanted spectator mode hit registration fixes   and shotgun balancing this would result in h1z1  peaking at its all-time high impressive population   of 150 179 players in the month of july 2017. this  is one of the highest peak numbers we have ever   covered on the series even if h1z1 couldn't  maintain it for very long it's still pretty   impressive h1z1's momentum would take a hit going  into august of 2017 though when a scheduled update   would cause yet more significant downtime for the  game as well as yet again not properly install for   some players causing issues and not allowing them  to play period daybreak would follow this update   up with an introduction of a never asked for a new  weapon an smg dubbed the hellfire 4-6 the new smg   effectively made rushing far more meta as it was  able to kill targets at staggeringly fast rates   why they added this who knows really but adding a  new gun wasn't needed competitively and it wasn't   really being asked for casually either from  this point on h1z1's population starts to take   serious hits and there's a number of reasons  we have already covered for this as well as a   big reason we will be discussing shortly but  switching back to just survive for a moment   that version of h1z1 would receive a much wanted  and needed game update the update however wasn't   adding content as much as it was removing it  daybreak would be removing the ability to do   player housing and just survive now you needed to  build or defend specific points called strongholds   according to just survive's creative director  ben jones the reasoning was because previously   the map would just be littered with hundreds of  player-made homes which could lead to performance   problems on busy servers i have to admit this  sounds like pretty lazy development to me because   although i can't deny the previous method  of building structures definitely would   tax the server more why not just develop a  system to get rid of abandoned structures   rust already had a tc or tool chest system like  this where you had to fill it with resources   to keep your structure from deteriorating so  you couldn't just afk justify's population would   take a big hit dropping down by september 2017 to  3481 players peak h1z1 would keep touching combat   despite people warning them not to august 29 2017  with another combat update updating the spray   patterns for a number of their weapons a good  analogy that content creator made regarding this   is how crazy this would be to do say for example  during a competitive season of counter-strike   imagine if valve changed the spray patterns on a  gun three or four times there would be an insane   crazy outcry and people would mask with the game  instead of changing a core game mechanic like a   spray pattern daybreak would have been better  off tweaking things like better recoil control   changing things like spray patterns and movement  were going to fundamentally change the game   in a way that potentially the core fanbase wasn't  going to enjoy anymore the community responded   very negatively to the changes and the peak  population numbers dropped down to 105 000 and 111   players peak the combat update of august 2017 for  many players caused the most damage to the game   well probably up until september's update came  which was an even bigger slap in the face to the   loyal fan base of h1z1 not so quietly back in  march of 2017 playerunknown had teamed up with   bluehole studio to make his very own br titled  playerunknown's battlegrounds the success was   immediately a rocket and the game would make 11  million in just three days pubg would eventually   by september of 2017 be projected to increase its  publishers company value by 4.6 billion dollars   and generate more than 712 million dollars of  sales that year after selling more than 30 million   copies needless to say it was impossible for h1z1  to not feel pubg's success as it completely and   utterly dwarfed h1z1s and anything it was ever  capable at even its height but h1z1 didn't need   to beat pubg if anything pubg expanded the market  even greater just like fortnite did h1z1 had a   healthy niche it could potentially operate in the  more arcade shooter niche as it still offered far   more of an arcade shooter type perspective  than any of the aforementioned titles but   daybreak took the bait like most investment ran  companies really they saw an opportunity to copy a   successful design in an attempt to save their now  dwindling game and take some of the newly created   market share revenue september 1st for h1z1 would  be the pubification of the game changing even more   huge core aspects of the game such as movement the  apparent goal was to put more emphasis on fighting   and power progression versus tedious looting why  that had anything to do with the movement exactly   i'm not really sure daybreak would have enough  awareness to state that it was indeed a risk what   they were trying to do pushed the game towards  more of an aggressive action-packed experience   with less tedious looting as they put it it was a  risk them doing that but they believed it was the   best way forward for their game the population  would yet again drop a similarly devastating   amount of 40 000 players with peak player counts  now at 63 253 players what major success daybreak   had was slipping through their fingertips most  players posting on the updates that came october   2017 were all echoing the same sentiments copy  passed as regarding a desire for the game to   return to a prior form the preseason 3 golden  age form instead of trying to poorly imitate pubg h1z1's population might have been faltering but  it's almost like they weren't really completely   bothered by it on october 11 2017 daybreak  would announce the launching of their very own   professional league for the game the league would  have 15 teams with no buy-ins required for any of   the teams each player would be paid a minimum  salary of 50 000 with a 10-week competitive   split introducing details about the league itself  was none other than jace hall of twin galaxies   who would be serving as the co-chairman for  the league we've invested heavily in this   we believe the audience is ready we know the  players are ready the game is ready we're ready   to do this h1z1 is a fun game and whether it's  early access title or not those are things we'll   deal with independently while i'm sure pros and  hopeful pros of h1z1 were excited about the news   i have experience with such things i don't believe  you should artificially create an esports scene i   saw guild wars try to do that first hand as a pro  player in that game and it didn't work you need   a certain level of organization leagues teams etc  for a proper esports league and competition but in   the case of h1z1 at this point how are they even  going to pay for this most leagues are funded by   sponsors and how are they even going to convince  any sponsors when the game's population was public   and was clearly taking serious hits month by  month h1z1 would have a very successful event at   twitchcon dubbed the h1z1 invitational averaging  51 000 viewers and peaking at 173 000. successful   event or not the whole creation of a pro league  seemed a bit too late to properly capitalize on   the success of h1z1 by the end of 2017 the game's  population had dropped back down to 2300 231   peak players numbers that they had back at launch  it's clear in hindsight with testimony from those   involved with the pro league that it was a gamble  if it worked and attracted the right attention   like the cw tv series did it could inject much  needed players back into the game and get h1z1   partnered with the right sponsors the only  problem is it wasn't the same h1z1 anymore   and the marketplace wasn't the same anymore there  was far more competition it only took them nearly   three years but daybreak recognizing the success  of their product in china finally for team up with   mega chinese game publisher tencent to bring h1z1  to china this was unfortunately a bit too late as   pubg had just officially launched in december of  2017 at the same time of the announcement and they   had the advantage of being from an asian company  in the asian market pubg would end up accumulating   a monster 1 billion overall downloads and grossed  4.3 billion dollars in revenue it's impossible to   say a large portion of the success didn't come  from china itself when china was its biggest   market which really makes h1z1 being so unable to  capitalize on their early success in china with   chinese gamers that much more painful in the  end there never was a push for h1z went into   china i genuinely have no idea why there was never  even a follow-up announcement or article about it h1z1 would finally leave early access three  years after it first entered february 28th 2018.   to accompany the official launch daybreak would  include a new game mode altogether dubbed auto   real it would be exclusively played in a vehicle  and added as an additional mode to the base game   auto real was actually rather positively received  as it offered a much needed change of scenery to   a game in a fun and casual team-based way within a  few weeks h1z1 would be shedding its 20 box price   that was only apparently for the early access  access as the game was intended on always being   free to play free to play would go march 8th  2018 before launching its first official ranked   season march 14th 2018. this would result in the  population going up from a very low peak player   amount to 14 518 players to a far more impressive  amount to 41 891 players but the player count   would quickly drop back down in under a month to  just 14 339 players while h1z1 was faltering in   the light of the sun the company behind the game  daybreak games was under heavy fire as well the   company had ties to columbus nova the company who  originally purchased them apparently was owned and   operated by a russian oligarch who had just been  sanctioned by the us treasury department frozen   assets and all what was most bizarre despite all  of this having something to do with michael cohen   trump's former lawyer which is bizarre in its own  right was daybreak denying any involvement with   columbus nova at all the reason that this is  such a crazy situation is because well even in   their press release announcing the acquisition of  the company they mentioned columbus nova by name   h1z1 would be announced on ps4 again in april of  2018 with a launch set to be the following month   this launch would also end up being delayed and  instead an open beta would take place june 2018   reaching over 10 million players despite projected  possible successes from ps4 this wasn't enough to   save off the layoffs that hit the company april  26th 2018 where as many as 79 workers were laid   off at the san diego headquarters even if your  team is likely in the hundreds at the scale of   a company like daybreak losing 79 of your workers  can't be hand waved is anything more than trimming   the fat to keep investors and the board happy  and your product lean as it's kind of faltering   daybreak though potentially took out a fifth  of its workforce in a single layoff spree at this point nobody watching is surprised of  the shocker that hit the web september 6 2018   but fans of h1z1 were certainly shocked as news  hit the web that networks and investment company   had taken a controlling interest in daybreak  networks would form a new joint venture with   daybreak dubbed nant g mobile and co-developed the  game networks was founded by a billionaire chinese   south african who was also a very well-known  surgeon in america like the story seems straight   out of a video game but nope just a real life  story about a video game patrick soon xiong's   plan with the acquisition of daybreak games was  to leverage their game h1z1 and his newly built   100 000 square foot facility adjacent to the la  times center headquarters the idea was imagine   if you took this game which has reached this level  of popularity with millennials and then integrated   with a large amount of technology that we have  built they wouldn't just play and develop h1z1   events in their giant facility either they would  be simultaneously creating a digital production   studio with their own fiber optic network name  studios and nant mobile as previously mentioned   it's in this article for the first time we see  the mention of the exact development team size   for daybreak by september of 2018 daybreak  still had an impressive 300 workers at their hq coming as not much of a surprise to fans of the  time even just survived fans to an extent was news   in august of 2018 that daybreak would be shutting  just survived down with the peak population at a   low of 1036 players daybreak didn't see enough  of a financial reason to stick out the continued   development of the game and would be shutting  it down in october while i would usually give a   company like daybreak the benefit of the doubt  and recognize the giant elephant in the room   which is that just survived might have started  as the core idea for h1z1 and was even the more   popular mode initially but if you're wondering  why i've been barely talking about that version in   this video it's because well there's not really  that much to talk about all of the updates of   just survive were scrubbed you can't even see or  track any of the changes anymore really it really   did feel like daybreak after sniffing and tasting  some of the success of their br moved on from just   survive the worst part is just survive actually  had a loyal fan base that even after having not   much development focus stuck around and still  played the game daybreak effectively not only   abandoned this audience in the end they strung  them on for years at this point just survive   was the part that tried to actually compete with  daisy and needless to say it never got even close   straight out of the death of a game playbook  h1z1 likely in a bit of a last-ditch effort   to grab some of the success of the console  market like fortnight and pubg were sharing in   would launch on ps4 august 7 2018 and introduce  new weapons a new vehicle and more but although   h1z1 celebrated early success in open beta on  ps4 when the game launched it wasn't making   any waves perhaps if h1z1 originally launched  on consoles like promise there would have been   a better reception but in august of 2018 people  weren't really looking for it anymore this might   seem like well they were just doing that to cash  out anyway so it's not like some big failure right   well actually daybreak had nearly their  entire team working on the ps4 version   a version as said in the release article made  uniquely for the ps4 so it wasn't deport h1z1 had   to work on ps4 for daybreak and nantg mobile now  otherwise they were out all that time and money   without a whole lot to show for it especially  on the pc platform they sort of abandoned   remember jace hall yep that jason well  more accurately a long time developer   and a original founder of monolith memes aside  jace hall was the chairman of h1z1 pro league   as he was the ceo of the company twin galaxies  who was responsible for hosting the tournaments   august 9 2018 nancy and daybreak saw fit to  promote him to lead the entire project and   jace was wasting no time doing such immediately  he made waves when he proclaimed that if the   community wanted something they would simply  get it something that kind of sounds great in   practice but becomes a never able to satisfy  expectation and at the end of the day you know   your game design picking what the audience  wants is kind of what got h1z1 into this   mess in the first place jace would also espouse  that h1z1 could be something like counter-strike   of the battle royale genre how is it  really like counter-strike really at all   you can change perspective you loot up and  there's way more movement involved in the game   it's an arcade game not counter-strike this  misunderstanding of the product could just be   from jace but i'm convinced it was the entire  team behind h1z1 to a certain extent did they   think making h1z1 more like cs was the play after  all big promises were being made but how could   h1z1 possibly recover at this point with all of  its previous bad publicity and loss of players the h1z1 pro league the league and effort daybreak  nanji and jace hall all gambled on as reported   by espn themselves would close november 16 2018  shuttered over payment issues allegedly daybreak   was supposed to pay each team four hundred  thousand dollars per year adding up to six   million dollars across 15 teams the payment was  scheduled to be made july 28th but no payment   was made some bigger esports teams continued to  pay their players anyway like tsm cloud9 clg and   more while others were unable to pay their  players forcing some of the teams to even   just withdraw from the league altogether despite  that payment deadline and more being missed jace   hall maintained that the payments would be made  eventually and they were still working to resolve   the matter but this was completely doubtful  because as we postulated earlier in the video   how are they even going to raise the money in  the first place how are they going to be able   to sustain paying teams 400 000 a year when their  population known november was 8534 players peak   and their average viewer count for the year for  the pro league tournament was only 7052 players   well they clearly weren't and that was tragic  because people were going to lose their jobs over   it careers and even homes the viewer count not  being so impressive can be explained in a very   simple but hilariously sad way facebook streaming  yes facebook streaming the pro league had an   exclusive deal to stream only on facebook so  that player count was actually impressive back   in facebook live streams in 2018 but not at all  impressive for a league of the scale and size   of h1z1 pro league speaking of scale and size the  budget for the pro league was allegedly 27 million   after the collapse of the pro league details  came out concerning the league why it failed   the budget issues and jace hall as the frontman  for all of it twin galaxies and their investment   company vision esports teamed up with daybreak to  put together a pro league for h1z1 originally twin   galaxies then got an exclusive streaming deal on  facebook daybreak and twin galaxies then secured   a 27 million dollar investment for the league but  hall refused to ever show the financial documents   simply speaking players were wondering how  on earth they even funded the first season in   the first place let alone even created and funded  the league hall would allegedly spend 2.5 million   dollars on guest appearances for content creators  in an effort to drive players and viewers to their   game shroud summit and even an actress michelle  rodriguez all made paige streaming appearances   alright michelle rodriguez is a gorgeous latina  actress and all but what on earth does she have   to do with h1z1 and for 254 thousand dollars  alongside these influencers and actresses   were parties with open bars rented rooms and more  costing as much as seven thousand dollars a night with rampant and effective inefficient spending  the h1z1 pro league was entirely reliant on   smashing it out of the park and then some to  create the next level of success for the game   there was so much writing on all of it but when  jace hall decided to stream the league exclusively   with facebook most of the community was completely  perplexed as youtube and twitch dominated the   streaming space according to a former employee at  twin galaxies though this could possibly elucidate   why they used facebook facebook they admitted were  shady but allowed them to boost with a 200 000   advertising credit boosting their advertising on  facebook was allowing them to inflate viewership   numbers in a way to make them look more favorable  with better viewership the only reason they   couldn't keep doing this in the end was facebook  uncovered the link between daybreak and those   aforementioned russian oligarchs according to  multiple sources though many of the streaming   viewership statistics giving to them were just  straight lies speaking of lies there were even   more of them and one of them placed visibly in  hindsight each of the pro league matches took   place at las vegas at an event center meant to  drive more revenue sort of like a sporting event   twin galaxies was having difficulties filling the  seats though and started giving away drink tickets   basically guaranteeing you some free drinks  but they wouldn't stop there twin galaxies and   daybreak actually contacted a nearby staffing  agency to pay them to be audience members   i don't know why maybe because i used to work for  a staffing agency but the idea of staffers being   paid to care about h1z1 esports is just hilarious  on top of the straight lies extravagant over the   top parties and more were reports of jace hall  himself being abusive and difficult to work with   one former employee described him as narcissistic  abusive and devoid of any work ethic another said   that he shifted blame from himself to others so  much so that one night he fired his whole staff   the h1z1 pro league was a total [ __ ] show  one that jace hall was front and center of   no matter how much blame was shifted people lost  their jobs homes and all of it was built on false   promises and over-exaggerated claims of success  are possible successes the thing about h1z1 pro   league is that it very clearly was an example of a  forced esports league there wasn't enough organic   growth there with the player base to do it so they  had to force things lie and inflate their viewer   counts to stay afloat they should caution even  big companies on doing such things in the future   especially when esports doesn't really make  money yet most of the largest esports companies   lose money all the time on esports hell riot has  admitted before that esports doesn't even make   them money what it does give them is exposure  to sell skins but that's a long-term investment   and a long-term gain you have to survive long  enough to get there but trying to skip to the end   and just become a professional league when you're  clearly not able to based on your game's interest   in player base alone was always destined for  failure especially when it wasn't just a risk   it was betting the house on a color you have just  decided to wake up and wear that day there wasn't   ever a need for things to be so risky but jace  hall and those involved in h1z1 wanted to become   the next halo esports or more all we got in the  end though was a litany of lies and manipulation   and worst of all a massive fumble and  damaging affair for h1z1 as a whole jace hall would respond to the allegations  admitting to some ignoring some and outright   denying some jace didn't deny the spending  on content creators and influencers though   but rejected the extravagant framing hall  stated that they were in the marketing budget   regarding the payment fiasco with the pro league  jace hall said that they were still within the   window to pay that year but i'm just gonna  call [ __ ] on that yeah maybe if you guys   could have paid it back you're within the  window but clearly you can't make the payment   and so you're gonna put it off as long as  possible it's not a proper legal support system   if you suddenly stop paying your teams though  imagine if a professional sports league did that   most bizarrely was jace's response to the claims  of harassment or abuse which basically amounted to   people are mad cause bad which literally makes the  guy sound like a comic book or anime character or   maybe the character that he portrays in his wow  video if any they make many of the not address   claims and not properly denied claims seem all  that much realer jace hall might have brought   some buzz and popularity to h1z1 but overall  caused far more damage to the battle royale following the collapse of their pro league  daybreak would be met with more layoffs   december 7th 2018 when 70 employees lost their  jobs this time the population also would shrink   down to 4 000 10 players peak through multiple  launches early access and multiple name changes   h1z1 would look to shed its tag yet again at this  point it can't not look like a move to avoid the   negative conversation with the name right h1z1  would be rebranded to z1 battle royale now with   the name change actually came quite a surprising  and wanted update at least like three years ago   accompanying the name change was an update that  would bring the now dub z1 battle royale back to   its previous preseason 3 state the state many fans  had been asking for return to now for three years   nanji was trying to bring back the game to its  roots and restore an arcade feel there were some   new bells and whistles there too such as the  mission system allowing for more unlocks the   population would be jolted back into the living  jumping back up to 12 731 players peak following   the update but how long could they maintain the  audience would be another question altogether and   a difficult one to ask in march of 2019 finally  dealing with one of the biggest issues at the   head of the company jace hall would step down from  his leadership role in z1 battle royale and stop   consulting on the project altogether jace hall's  exit is as dubious as his entrance in many ways   suddenly he's there and then suddenly he's  gone within a month the success brought by   the reversion to the preseason three state was  basically gone population was backed down to 4694   and nant g was throwing in the towel nancy  expressed challenges precluding them from   having long-term successes including large the  confusion over them in daybreak sharing the game   development of z1 itself which just kind of sounds  odd right because at the end of the day daybreak   were the original devs if nanji was going to  acquire the company and take it over it seemed   aware that they created their own company and  then started to work in parallel nancy would go   back to focusing on their core mission of mobile  games and hand over z1 back to daybreak games   somehow like a zombie featured in the game  h1z1 i mean z1 kept clawing back to life was there a path ahead for daybreak now though  after reassuming control in the summer of 2019   as we mentioned previously due to the clues but  now with actual confirmation the ps4 development   of h1z1 had taken the majority of the company's  focus daybreak now had to completely refocus the   team on pc but unfortunately the writing was  already on the wall for the title as by july   of 2019 the peak population for z1 battle  royale had dropped to 1018 an all-time low   daybreak would be hit with yet more layoffs in  october of 2019 this time for an undisclosed   amount of employees the rest of 2020 would be  rather quiet a little thing called the pandemic   certainly contributed but z1 battle royale  straight up had no updates after october 21st   2020 well unless you count the season 6 kickoff  and server update that happened november 7th 2019   which always helps in bringing back players and  that it did when the population would jump back up   to 28 players peak up double from the month before  but every time some level of success would hit   daybreak and z1 battle royale something else more  damaging or worrying would happen or transpire   and sort of backstep all of that progress well  they were due for a new one and that came in the   form of daybreak itself being bought by a swedish  games company dubbed enab global 7 for 300 million   dollars that meant that alongside with their other  stable of ips z1 battle royale was now an in-ad   global product 2. z1 battle royale following the  acquisition though was like the last kid getting   picked on a team during fieldsports there's no  mention of them in the press release that detailed   all kinds of financial information literally at  all no mention it's like they didn't even want z1   on the team anymore this was a very damning blow  to z1 battle royale and its longevity as a product   because if the people that recently just bought  you don't care about you it means that they   probably don't see you worth their time to make  money with the playerbase understandably following   the sale drops down to an incredibly low 412 peak  players 364 times less players than they had at   their peak for reference by the way matters looked  worse when daybreak effectively ghosted their   next competitive rank season december 2020 the  season ended with no mention of a new season and   no mention since at this point like the article  states though lobbies were as small as 25 players   nobody was really playing the game anymore z1  royale seemed completely abandoned by march 2021.   six years of live service later if z1 battle  reality isn't coming to an end soon it would   only continue to barely hobble on until not even  a single match could be played out by august of   2021 the game barely had 244 peak players and  114 on average meanwhile elsewhere jace hall   and former lead vet anthony castoro from h1z1  would form a company to work on a genre-defining   metaverse project which just goes to show you you  can basically fumble an entire video game project   live in front of everybody publicly  and still get employed hooray the last thing we've heard about h1z1 z1 or  whatever name you prefer to call it at this point   was just recently in august of 2021 when  dr disrespect who's in the process of   building his own video game studio to either  develop his own project or work with another   developer to develop a game expressed interest in  creating a sequel to h1z1 and what else comes to   mind in h1z1 which gave him the gasoline needed to  ignite his entire career doc's the kind of person   who could or would actually attempt such a thing  and with former developers contacting him and   letting him know they would do an h1z12 there's  still a sliver of hope left for fans of rkdbrs   without all the building stuff z1 battle royale  as of september 2021 is still existing but in no   better shape than we have mentioned previously  whether or not enab global decides to take the   game out to the back woodshed or not h1z1's  time in the sun has surely gone it passed so let's waste no more time detectives in  case you weren't paying enough attention   our deduction sequence is coming  soon and is designed to catch   everyone up on the clues and evidence  obtained thus far tom start the music a buggy and poorly optimized  title since early access launch   rampant server downtime accompanying every  update and maintenance h1z1 changed core   design way too many times and had a constant  crisis of identity having two games within one   jace hall was a massive risk who took massive  risks and they didn't pay off esports for h1z1   was a massive and expensive endeavor that  didn't really pay off loss of trust and   respect with their audience competition like pubg  especially put a serious hurt on h1z1's chances well detectives we've reached the end of this  video what a case right well nonetheless a case   we can surely put to bed now h1z1 story of success  failure and everything else in between is one   that more developers should study it's not some  obscure title that struck her to figure things out   or a title that never had its day in the sun  no h1z1 was at one point on top of the world   and then they weren't but as much as you can blame  the failure of the game on just better competition   h1z1's problem was ultimately another tale  of a video game that after having success   as being itself decided to just switch designs  into being an inferior version of another game   they weren't the first to do it and they won't  be the last the allure of a bigger pie is simply   speaking too alluring for some especially an  investment company thanks for watching detectives   we're too late this entire city must be purged you

Channel: nerdSlayer Studios

Views: 922,887

Keywords: gaming, videogames, video, game, multiplayer, online, massive, new, hd, nerdslayer, nerdslaying, nerd, slayer, slaying, critical, analysis, content, opinion, critique, life, of, death, character, look, back, at, mmo, mmorpg, n.s.

Id: SX3dxkC6gVo

Length: 57min 50sec (3470 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021