What's Going On With Days Gone 2? - Luke Reacts

so apparently there's uh there's drama in the world of days gone now my my Approach and opinion of days gone is that I think it was a game that got a bad rep it was it was a really cool idea and I think it just suffered from a few basic decisions in the early design of the game that just didn't click together so like for example um The Horde system is the coolest thing about days gone but you only really get to sink your teeth into it in the last third of the game you know in a secondary area that you unlock halfway through and that's just a really weird decision you know it's just a really dumb idea in my opinion I just don't think it's it's a a good way to go but they hopefully have learned from that and improved it but as a result like a bunch of people that and Executives over at PlayStation weren't big fans of days gone they didn't connect with it they didn't want to back it up and you see how they approach something like Horizon which sold really well and that they're very proud of versus how they approach something like days gone days gone they basically pretend like it doesn't exist when they do the big posters with all of their biggest PlayStation Heroes on it Deacon is nowhere to be found on it they clearly are just moving on from days gone acting as if it is it just never existed which is weird cuz like there's a cult following for it and so it's one thing if they're like yeah he's on he's on our banners and stuff and we're we're proud of days gone being in our lineup but it's like we're not working on anything that's one thing but they act as though he's been canceled like Deacon's been canceled and the whole game has been canceled and all this and it's really really bizarre now there's a couple of reasons for that I think that some of the directors and people that worked on days gone have ferociously defended the game they've gone after it they've they've spoken up on its behalf they've said the treatment from PlayStation was unfair they said it it wasn't given the opportunities these other games were given so no wonder it didn't perform on the same levels but it's still a game and a franchise people love and care about and it should be given more credit blah blah blah blah people have been fighting for it meanwhile PlayStation corporate is totally uninterested in that and the PlayStation or the the days gone devs are trying to move on to something else but the people that were working on days gone in the leadership roles most of them if not all of them have left Sony Bend Studios out of Oregon and they've gone somewhere else to work on other projects all of this is just drama like there's just a lot of drama with it and I don't really want to get engaged in a lot of the drama I think the game was was solid I think it's underappreciated but it's still not a masterpiece I I think of all the games I think out of 2019 that deserved another I think it was 2019 that deserved a sequel and a chance to expand on their ideas I think days gone was one that deserved a chance but I I just think by itself in a vacuum it's good it's it's not great it's not amazing I'd probably give it like 7.58 out of 10 something like that but I still really enjoyed it even if I've got problems with it I still really enjoyed it however there's been posts by like Kevin McAllister who you can see is community manager over at the studio he I believe got his start being like a community hype up guy um kind of wingman for the game on social media and then eventually was doing such a good job they just decided to hire him that's my understanding at least and so he's been working there and and is a big fan of days gone obviously but he posted this on the 27th I apologize to our days gone Community for continuously getting fed false hope and poor information by people looking for likes it's not fair to you all this I believe is in reference to some people who have kind of planted seeds maybe there's a sequel maybe there's not you know these are some random YouTubers random streamers have said this kind of thing people randomly speculating that they're working on a sequel secretly or or a days gone multiplayer game or something and he's just coming out and been like no NOP it's just not true quote we are currently working on a new IP and when we have actual news to share it will come from our studio and um you know you see people is it multiplayer it is it's live service uh other people are saying no it's not a heard it's open world with multiplayer mode or something nobody really knows my guess is it's live service there's been speculation going both ways but my guess is it's probably going to have some sort of live service component to it so in response there's uh like one of the head honchos that worked on days gone again just getting involved with stuff haha says the dude who hasn't developed a game in his life and only has his job because he was a super fan of the game I made sit down son I'm just reporting on the comments of fans who feel cheated out of a sequel to a game they love I don't make the comments I so I guess maybe he feels he was responding to comments from John and I tried to find the original comments but there's just like so many tweets and stuff I really don't know what he would have been specifically referring to I really am not sure yeah days gone Trilogy plans confirmed by developer and that's just not true uh I think it was this maybe Never Say Never about a sequel after game director says exactly that and it's probably like I don't know I it's just all all very very very much grasping at straws but the fact that these articles exist demonstrate that there is a community that would like there to be a sequel that would like that otherwise there's nobody clicking if it's totally uninteresting nobody's clicking on the article so at the very least that demonstrates that there is some interest in the topic but PlayStation's not interested Sony Bend is moving on whether they intended to or not so I think that that's that's that but it just seems like D's gone has attracted a community into discussion that Sony doesn't want to engage with at all and so they're just kind of shutting it down and pretending like it doesn't exist Colin tweeted out this little video it's a segment from their sacred symbols podcast saying quote days gone came to PS4 5 years ago but drama still surrounds it I thought it was great and would have liked a sequel but the internal Civil War at Bend post- relase jettisoned its biggest Champions and the studio has moved on it's time for everyone else to do the same and this is generally what seems to be the consensus from people that know what's going on the Sony Ben studio is moving on they're working on something new and they they've just shifted away the people who were the furist Defenders of days gone like John Garvin or or other developers and directors of the project they have also moved on leaving the studio entirely and so they obviously cannot be involved in a sequel now it just seems like across the board there's just no there's there's no hope for that so you might as well not get your hopes up too high those guys in Bend are kind of rare in the sense that they're it's a really weird place to have a tripa studio and a lot of those guys know each other and kind of bounce around so anyway I think John garin's a nice guy and I've known him for quite a long I've met him for the first time a long time ago he won't remember a lot of these things but I interviewed him many years ago too and then around days gone is when he started to kind of come more and be more out um and actually speaking to people but it is getting a little weird the public contention that people like him and Jeff Ross who was the lead designer of the game and some other people have about a days gone sequel that didn't happen and really the Civil War at the studio that occurred and I think part of this at least from what I've seen in social media in response to the discussions over a sequel there is a subset of the gaming community that buys into the idea that the reason day gone was not allowed to be successful was because it was like a Gruff white dude um as the protagonist and that didn't fit in with like the Dei desires for this and that in my view I I just don't know like there were articles written where people were like oh the it's just another Gruff white dude that's the last thing we need but at the end of the day if a game is successful because people bought it the game's going to be successful like that it's going to find an audience people will buy it the problem was not enough people bought it you know if if it sells 5 million copies Sony's going to make a sequel like that it just doesn't matter if it doesn't check off these boxes you know so I think it's a bit of revisionist History to kind of look at it through that filter just the game was buggy the game didn't really meet the quality standard people expected from PlayStation and so it reflected kind of poorly on them and as a result a lot of Executives just didn't want to engage with it that much and then a lot of the lead designers and stuff started echoing some of those same frankly conspiracy theories about days gone and about why it wasn't loved by Executives and this and that and I think it's just generally not that it's not that helpful cuz again if the game sold well it would have gotten a sequel but it just frankly didn't people just didn't really connect with it it did well like like auk is saying in chat it did well once it went on sale and once it was included I believe in PlayStation Plus for free then people played it and loved it but people were just not willing to buy it at full price and that's the core of the issue at the end of the day it wasn't because Deacon was white it wasn't because he was a dude it wasn't because he drove a motorcycle it's just frankly because people didn't buy it and that's often all this that this really comes down to I am a little I'm not put off by it because it's interesting but it's just I don't really understand why this is still going on what happened at Bend for people that don't know and a lot of people wouldn't is there was like a major Civil War behind the scenes there and the guy that ended up staying and kind of runs the team now Christopher ree was kind of the guy amongst and his kind of Cadre of people that won out and I think the anger John Garvin Harbors is because degon actually did do really well and it wasn't a critical darling but it did sell a lot and he had noted specifically the the stats I'm guessing colins referring to unless he has numbers that are I've not seen and maybe aren't public the Articles and and stats that show that it sold well and has garnered X number of copies and this and that they also include the copies gained and the players gained through deep sales promotions through like PlayStation Plus things like that so it's really hard to say how many of those people actually bought it at full price versus how many people were playing for free how many people were playing because they got it for 10 bucks on a deep sale you know it's just it's hard to gauge exactly where the players came from from cuz a game can can have a lot of players but again if they didn't buy the game that doesn't mean a whole lot in the context of PlayStation's business with Game Pass of course it's different but bend does not work for for Microsoft on Twitter in this new recent kind of hu that days gone sold more copies than ghost of sushima and I think he was like why did Ghost of sushima get a sequel and we didn't kind of mentality and I kind of get the anger but I think you have to Harbor it within and but again I again unless he's got numbers I don't I've not seen and I've not seen made public it's not sold more copies I think it's specifically it was referring to player counts cuz I can try to find the original article unless I'm just like totally wrong about this but I remember the original quotes and stuff yeah so it's like this one is kind of It kind of bounced around it January of 22 um it was based on a post by this Jeff Ross he was the lead designer on the game at the time I left Sony daysgone had been been out for a year and a year and a half and a month and sold over 8 million copies it's since gone on to sell more and then a million plus on Steam local Studio management always made us feel like it was a big disappointment let's see this positioned against Ross revealing Sony management considered days gone sales a big disappointment according to the former Ben Studio director days gone would go on to sell over 9 million copies worldwide Sony being disappointed or with uh with days gone sales isn't exactly new last year in 2021 report claimed that bend tried unsuccessfully to pitch Sony's sequel according to the report a lengthy development and mixed critical reception to the original game had Sony turning down the pitch and instead assigned Ben to help Naughty Dog develop their multiplayer project which would eventually be cancelled Ross went on to reveal other details about the situation surrounding Bend in the replies to his original tweet above while it was originally reported that bend was a scientif to develop naughty doog projects as well as a new entry in the Uncharted franchise Ross seemingly pushed back against this notion responding to a follower that nobody was forced to do anything at the studio additionally Ross also claims to have heard anecdotes about Sony refusing to sell IP rights for days gone quote I've heard anecdotes they won't even sell the IP to another publisher but when have they ever sold IP that that doesn't mean a whole lot to me cuz when has Sony sold IP like that's that's some embracer group crap I don't think Sony does that I mean the tough thing with this is like sold over 8 million copies including the like the the Deep sales because after a game launches with kind of poor critical feedback it's tough to sell it for full price obviously I wonder if I wonder if I can find this yeah so like here this is April of 2020 it's 50% off so again you can say 8 million copies but if a bunch of those were purchased at 50% off like that like every two copies you basically divide the number by two and that's effectively what that means whereas ghost of sushima has been pretty close to full price the majority of the time because it's so uh so well received I wonder what like 2019 they scrubbed it here it takes forever to pull up but see what the sales prices were like unable to find this page so he was saying by a year and a half watch like 2019 like here's the deal I would love for there to be a sequel for days gone I would love it I would be so excited if we saw that trailer drop randomly I would love it I'd eat it up but I think that some of the discussion and discourse around days gone gets fairly conspiratorial and it often takes anecdotes or little pieces of information yeah still remember when games were 60 bucks it takes little pieces of information that are not that helpful and then tries to extrapolate that into a broader conspiracy that Sony does doesn't like days gone and shut it down cuz here's the thing the one thing about corporations is that they care about what money that's the number one thing they care about it's really in in many ways the only thing they care about even the people that get all into like the Dei discussions those people it's still to try and attract investors to get more money right like it's to try to get Black Rock to give them cash so it still always goes back to money and at the end of the day if a game like da gone made a lot of money they would make a sequel apparently it didn't make enough money for them to feel confident a sequel would lead to any sort of significant Kickback that could be for numerous reasons it could be that they just weren't confident in the like in the dev team it could mean that they weren't confident in the dev cycle maybe the game was just taking so long to put together and they wasted so many resources that they're like we just don't know if you guys have it in you um there there were so many potential other factors that go into this it's not that simple to just be like we made a pitch and the game sold okay or even like well or very well once it was put on sale it's It's just sometimes not that simple there's other considerations I would love for there to be some some sequel eventually but I think at the end of the day it just seems more likely to say that days gone for whatever reason was not super profitable didn't actually generate the profits that they were hoping for and as a result they weren't green lit for a sequel and that sucks and they were kind of tossed to the side and I think some of the infighting within the studio also led to them losing confidence in the studio because why would Sony give a team that has a ton of infighting hundreds of millions of dollars like they're probably not that confident that they're actually going to deliver the the project that they want to see so it's just it's really too bad cuz I I just there's little tidbits like this where you see it and you're like okay so why wouldn't they green light a sequel it must be a conspiracy when in reality I think it's because well a lot of these were onale a lot of this just didn't click together and I believe Jeff Ross even has a statement about that yeah Garin who's no longer with Sony Ben was asked if he heard days gone being added to PlayStation Plus collection on PS5 caused a meaningful uptick and engagement and he replied I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest and it might piss some of them off see the general Vibes that a lot of the devs that worked on it are just pretty ticked about how all this went down he said quote if you love a game buy it at effing full price I can't tell you how many times I've seen Gamers say yeah I got that on sale I got it through ps+ whatever I'm just saying you don't but don't complain if a game doesn't get a sequel if it wasn't supported at launch it's like God of War got whatever number millions of sales at launch and you know days gone didn't I'm just speaking for me personally as a developer I don't work for Sony I don't know what the numbers are I can tell you that when we were doing siphon filter dark mirror on PSP we got so effed on dark mirror because piracy was a thing and Sony wasn't really caught up on what piracy was doing to sales and we would show them Torrance a torrent site had 200,000 copies of dark mirror being downloaded if I remember it right the numbers could be wrong but regardless I was pissed about it then I was like this is money out of my pocket so I think the uptick and engagement with the game is not as important as did you buy the game at full price because if you did then that's supporting the developers directly to a certain I mean I think he's he's maybe aggressive in how he Des cribes it but like he's right if you want a sequel to a game you got to buy it at launch for full price to show the that you're excited for it it's the danger with something like Game Pass or like Ubisoft games where now it's like a meme people know that if you don't buy a Ubisoft game at launch wait two months and it'll be 50% off like everybody knows it right like everybody knows it and so like that's a problem because people won't buy it at full price because they're just going to wait for it to be on sale so then the sales numbers are lower and then the the profits lower and all this but at the same time there's so many games coming out and the economy is bad and inflation is insane and the price of full price games just went up so now people are even more selective with what they spend 7 freaking Dollar on uh granted this was back when it was 60 before inflation really went crazy this we're talking about 2019 for days gone so it was a different time but in the modern context this is it's just not as simple as well well if you like the game just buy it at full price a lot of people don't uh have the money to do that and there's even stories like there was a really good one um yeah Gabe Newell piracy is an issue of service not price and basically what he was trying to say in this discussion on how to stop piracy and bear in mind this is the guy that runs steam like the greatest counter to piracy like out there like this is the guy that would know the answer he said the easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting anti-piracy technology to work it's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the Pirates the point uh let's see for example new uh noted that valve was warned against the Russian Market due to its massive pirate community in actuality steam offered easier access to games more options and higher quality downloads than its underground competitors thereby turning Russia into the Studio's most lucrative Continental European market outside of Germany quote the point was that people who are telling you that Russians pirate everything are the people who wait six months to localize their product into Russia so that as far as we're concerned is asked and answered it doesn't take much in terms of providing a better service to make Pirates a non-issue which is crazy like that he's just got this total like shut it down attitude with it anyway with with all this games are just more expensive than ever uh people don't have the money to just guess that a game's going to be good and when quality has been a consistent issue it's it lacks uh or it challenges the consist consistency Factor so people become more doubtful people don't want to put all their money um on the line and all their eggs in that basket so they just don't and they wait till they get it on sale it's too bad I I wish days gone I wish that story had ended differently but it just seems like there were a lot of things that stacked and stacked and more than anything people bought the game and when they bought it they ended up liking it but they bought it on a deep sale a year after launch and for getting a squel green lit that just doesn't do the job like for Sony they're comparing days gone to their other games like you know God of War or The Last of Us Part Two like there other PlayStation Studios titles and for those games they sell stupid well at launch for full price and so days gon obviously in comparison looks really bad so they're like H well it didn't perform like those so you don't get to play with the big boys you don't get the big boy budget yeah James I got it free on Playstation Plus well that's what I was trying to find I was trying to find the article cuz I remember reading one we might have even read it on on stream Where They said that the original quote for the 8 Million number and the 9 million number those were players not sales and so because of that people saying that it sold 8 million copies that wasn't actually true there were 8 million copies out there that people had played but a lot of those were probably deep sale or even free through PlayStation Plus so it's just it's not fair to conclude that oh well it sold 8 million copies where ghost to suima sold eight you know after a year or two it's just not the same but this is why you gotta you got to be very careful with the phrasing because 8 million copies sold is very different than 8 million copies played you know um and Matt yeah you're also right Matt it's it feels like we're ignoring an important part of context not taking into account for the budgets uh ghost of sush had a tiny budget for that type of game yeah ghost of sushima is developed by a very small team and they didn't have any of the dev troubles that that um days gone did days gone had a bunch of trouble and was really buggy at launch whereas ghost of sushima apparently was pretty smooth saing it took a while to put together obviously but it was comparatively a cheaper game and it was critically acclaimed which they love I mean Sony loves having a critically acclaimed game that's it's kind of their their primary concern it seems like a lot of the time he took my thing red flag red flag 16 times the detail [Music]

Channel: Luke Stephens LIVE

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Length: 23min 52sec (1432 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2024