Momentum matters

Games Halo Infinite
1

I think most people can agree that modern gaming is in a sorry state. Every year AAA games have released with decreasing quality and less content. They know they can get away with it because the stuff still sells well. But I really believe that’s starting to change.

Halo infinite, even with a 1 year delay wasn’t ready for release. Missing many important features and lacks polish. I often wonder if game mangers understand how momentum works in gaming? It’s not a successful strategy to release a half baked game with hopes of patching your way into popularity. People don’t come back. All you get back is returning hardcore fans.

I’m sad to say I believe halo infinites chance to really be a titan in the gaming space are over. It will now just slowly chug along with the remaining dedicated fanbase. It needed to launch with lots of content, options and ways to play. A social experience which drags in peoples friends and the game goes viral very quickly. Prior to a global launch management should have:

  • Massive customizable options for free (S1 most of the slots had nothing to equip!) Giving people lots of choice to customize for free is important to keep people playing
  • Forge with a community browser and file share to make new content discoverable
  • Full offering of playlists (like in every other halo)
  • Have personal stats pages and a meaningful progression system with rewards
  • Rework or removal of the challenge system. A progression system that forces people to play gametypes they don’t want or weapon kills which are limited to specific maps isn’t fun. All it does it build frustration
  • Working custom game
  • Working theatre
  • Action sack or other wacky playlists to give some variety
  • More ranking playlists
  • The sandbox is poor on most maps there’s nothing to pick up and it gets boring. Think about The pit from H3 for example: 2 snipers, sword, overshield, camo, rockets and 2 shotguns. Guardian: Sniper, gravity hammer, shotgun, camo, overshield, bruteshot. What do we have on Aquarius? camo? Bazaar: Rockets, bulldog and overshield? really fun for 4v4
  • More maps. Maps with greater variety. Maps could have been made in forge and voted on by the community and put into rotation. Maps for driving vehicles or tank battles
  • There’s no proper vehicle combat. Gone are the days of coagulation tank vs tank, banshee vs banshee, warthog vs warthog

What we got instead is barebones experience with not much to offer. Which has lead to the predictable decline. The game is without momentum and I believe doomed to stay in obscurity.

8 Likes
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IMO I believe a lot of the content was ready and 343 just decided to cut a lot of it out, just like the campaign. I’m not buying this “they are having problems with their engine”, etc… I believe there is a lot more to this then what we will ever know behind closed doors, that this is more about choices the higher-ups are making for whatever reason, and things are not as bad in some players and 343 are putting things out to be.

343 has had 7 years now and it’s funny how the shop and selling the BP is their main focus and has anyone notice how 343 went silent and no CM has been around for a while now?

2 Likes
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Maybe they’re just waiting to see how the game grows (or not) before making decisions, because of the cost involved at every stage. It’s usually about money. I’ve no doubt they’re sitting on a lot of content, but they want to release it in the right way to make the most money out of it. That explains the radio silence about all the issues raised.

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I think the general story is that the engine was a huge problem and was almost scrapped. The game was then rushed to be released which meant cutting some corners leading to lots of technical debt.

Technical debt which means things can’t be changed easily. Joe staten mentioned the priority for them now is fixing this technical debt, which is the cause of the almost 1 year for any meaningful content

2 Likes
5

No one will really know what is going on and there are too many stories going around that I can’t trust a word 343 says at this point, and everyone else even me is just speculating. It’s expected when any new game is released that there will be issues, it’s just common knowledge. But there are too many things that are just not adding up for how long this game had been in production, with 343 having barely anything to show for it.

So basically if we go by what you’re saying, 343 had no business releasing the game in such a poor stat, and the player base has to suffer because of their poor decisions.

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There was a point in time when the Gaming Industry was laughed at by movie medias and other groups. Then seemingly out of nowhere, video games became a massive hit when analysts found out video games actually make more money than sports or film revenue. Suddenly, any and all markets wanted to be apart of gaming in some way. With money like this involved in the gaming industry, you are bound to attract money hungry, savage conglomerates who have ZERO interest in the products they make. These bloodless, soulless, religiously forsaken individuals only care about one thing, and that is the almighty dollar.

I’ve watched a number of conglomerates buy up some of the best video game companies around the industry these last couple of decades and then suddenly… those same video game companies became cookie cutter developers with all their best employees jumping ship to other companies.

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They really had me hyped with the supposed budget for this game. Not sure what they spent that money on

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Yea I agree, it all started to change around 2008. Investor pressure for more money leads to taking less and less risks. Games catered for mass appeal.

My favourite example is Star Wars battlefront 2016. A game named after a really successful 3rd person shooter with armies of bots in massive battles. Something that was really unique but instead they went for the safe bet to make the most money.

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Hardcore fan…will not be back for the foreseeable future. Never paid a dime for the game.

I have had a renaissance if you will where I have gotten away from multiplayer and shooters and have gone back to the roots with action adventure/RPG single player games.

Let me tell you. It feels good man.

10

Upper management need incentives to turn up for work, like nice big bonuses.

1 Like
11

Ya the engine is essentially a husk and nothing of worth can be added untill the get features implemented at the base engine level. Hell basic things are still absent wholesale.
They shiuld have gone liscenced by the looks of things. Got some coalition bros to help them along with an unreal halo. But i guess unreal itslef isnt built for the initial vision(s) for the game and wiuld have been lacking in thebopen wprld feature set.
Unless they had a super early UE5 liscence but even then im only guessingnits got better open world feature sets due to CDPR and epics partnership.
Uts possible CDPR will be building most of these tools in house at this point.

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I would rather spend $60 on a game like Halo, it would be easier than buying season passes. And the developer probably would have gotten more income to spend on the game. If 343 sold like 10 million copies that would bring in more money than people paying 20 dollar on a single season pass.
It will take more than a year with 3 seasons to earn that money for 343. 3*20=60.
And if you drop players each season it will take even longer for 343 to make money back.
It was a bad move to make the game F2P, no money no developing.

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I completely agree with you that the $60 option is the better way for consumers , but what you didn’t take into your calculations is the store and the money it makes. I would venture to guess it out earns what the battlepass sales bring in.

If the thought possess is that the store exists in both scenarios therefore cancels out, then the battlepass is still the way to go for the most money because, even after earning that original $60 from players, it will continue to generate income in subsequent seasons.

Again, I’m not a fan of this model, but it is the biggest money maker for 343.

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Yeah.

I don’t really worry about all that stuff. They post on Twitter majority of the time so I can still get updates from there.

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Yeah, I basically agree with OP’s analysis. The way that you make a fortune in modern gaming is generally by creating something broad-appeal at the start and hoping to “catch fire”. You kind of have to loss-lead by frontloading a ton of content. What you can’t do is release bare-bones and then just release piecemeal content and expect it to attract people. Individually, nobody who doesn’t already play Halo cares about a little bit more customization, a single new mode, a single new map.

If the game’s not good at the start, the mass audience is not coming back unless you really explode the content, which we’ve seen absolutely no indication will happen. I mean, we’re still phasing through people with melee and have a single ranked playlist haha, we’re really not in any danger of the game turning out a ton of content and turning into a phenomenon. Maybe when Forge eventually comes out, but I’d be surprised if it’s out before 2023.

But it will chug along a-la Halo 5. Well, hopefully it will eventually reach the level of content Halo 5 had. It’s certainly way, way behind at this point. We will see what the future brings.

2 Likes
16

The problems facing this game are huge, every time I start up Halo Infinite and have to wait for the graphical interface to completely load which can take anywhere up 1 to 2 minutes, it makes me think all the gameplay problems are unfixable, because if they can’t fix the game UI loading properly how are they ever going to tackle the other problems.

First impressions mean a lot and being greeted by a buggy menu system is a turn-off, right away you think amateur. I know we have this mental image of teams of people grinding to get this game working where it should be, but I don’t think so, I think it’s wishful thinking. Maybe it’s possible the few people working on Halo are not getting the support needed, considering the game is in a much worse state than when the game launched.

Every match I play now, I keep thinking holly crap this is fracking bad, I question why anyone would spend money for cosmetics, but that seems to be the shining light for many people, gotta get that helmet, hope I get that color, and people are willing to put up with crappy gameplay just to hunt a cool shinny thing.

Yesterday I played another up-and-coming game still in beta, and it was snappy, everything worked, and maybe the graphics aren’t AAA, but again, everything worked, no lag, no teleporting, no de-sync, and hit detection worked, because it’s a shooter. 343 has looked straight at the problems, and they have turned a blind eye.

I was walking my dog last night and a group of people I see quite often we started talking about games, everyone has an Xbox, and everyone has tried Halo Infinite, but not one person will play Infinite now, and the reason … it is way too buggy, it’s not fun, and they all have the Xbox game pass and could play it for free, but won’t.

This is not an exaggeration, and the thing is I don’t think many people will go back to and try it again, not unless something spectacular happens, but we are 8 months into a game that still plays like a bargain bin game.

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As if you’d be able to enjoy the vehicle combat with these lame vehicles that can’t even climb a pavement or fly in circles.

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Hopefully.

I just want to play some warzone firefight. That’s the good stuff.

19

Im gonna go out on a limb and say this model is more effective than the 60 dollar model for them.
The cosmetics pull in voin and the bps act as streams rsther than a one time investment.
The campaign was used to bolster GP another highly effective rev stream for ms.

The f2p model will prob benefit them again at each major content drop or larger event.

The 60 model isnt really gonna cut it for AAA.
These things cost way more to make and 60 isnt worth what it was in the 00s or early10s and expectations for returns in the wake of BRs and other service games has moved the goalpost when dealing with the non creatives at the top looking at the bottom line.
The return on relatively cheap to make content in the cosmetics is far higher than the 60 upfront for the qhole package.
So essentially you are shooting yourself in the foot here as the advocation for 60 is in reality for 60+store.
The 60 upfront means one time initial investment providing no need or real incentive for development.
As you said no money no development but thats a little off its more like, no revenue stream tied to player retention no development.

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I don’t think it’s malintent, I think the business model we grew up with isn’t working at scale and the ftp mtx model is a means of compensating for the growing costs (time and resources) of development and mostly stagnant profit margins (because, y’know, theirs a hard cap to the amount of people playing/money spent in the traditional model).

But anyway, please continue.

1 Like