No I mean as in gaming in general.
Kids may have most of the free time, but the money is held by those who have jobs. As for the part where you say that ‘younger gamers have the time and disposable income’, that is a bit laughable. Sure, younger gamers are more irresponsible with money and these predatory microtransactions can yield a profit.
But the profit numbers are miniscule when the majority of your playerbase don’t play the newest game that has all the new paid-for content.
Is it any wonder why Halo MCC keeps on consistently pulling players in while Halo Infinite has such dwindling numbers?
Halo players still want to play Halo. Infinite’s misfortune is that while the intentional game design of Infinite is well made, the networking and drip of content is laughable and makes players want to avoid the newer game.
At launch MCC was very much the same.
Why try to play MCC online when the legacy versions had much more stable servers?
Eventually MCC finally got the networking updates needed to become consistent and allow for actual matchmaking and when the Legacy Game servers were shut down; we saw that the players went to MCC.
The main misfortune now is that 343 promised “a couple months” to patch in a Custom Games Browser system… and it took them nearly 40 months to provide CGB for 4 of the 6 multiplayer formats that MCC offers for PvP matchmaking.
If new Halo players truly wanted a new experience, then explain the dwindling player counts of Halo 4? Many of the players that I have spoken with that had Halo 4 be their introduction to the series have stated that they prefer the classic games over Halo 4, with it being no surprise that Halo Reach is their favorite of the bunch since Halo 4 was essentially Halo Reach with 10k mods installed.
Or perhaps it is the fact that younger gamers also want a game that is enjoyable?
Halo 4’s gameplay loop was Halo meets Call of Duty.
Certainly something new.
So why did its player-count only peak to less than half of the player-count of the previous game?
Meanwhile when it came to Halo 5 which was a more traditional Halo sandbox with just some mobility shooter aspects (thank god Wallrunning wasn’t added in with the Spartan Abilities), it resonated well with both the older and newer players… … … … at least when it comes to multiplayer gameplay. Discussion of all other things Halo 5 tends to lead into flamewars.
My point is when you have a working formula that shows clear signs of success, why bother heavily altering it? With sequels you are supposed to make minor innovations and updates.
Take a look at the original Modern Warfare trilogy.
MW1-thru-3 can be played back to back and it feels like you are essentially just playing a single huge game from start to finish.
Could you imagine if Infinity Ward looked at the success of Dice’s Battlefield franchise and forced you to pick loadouts based on what role you could play; limiting your weapons and perks selection based on what class your soldier was in MW3? Wanna run with SMGs? You gotta be a Medic and you cannot have a sniper rifle secondary.
Imagine the backlash from the dedicated fans if a sequel to an already established and consistent lineup of games suddenly didn’t play like the ones that came before?
What if Halo Wars 2 played more like Command & Conquer Generals instead of Halo Wars 1?
What if Halo 3 looked at the success of Gears of War and suddenly the game became a cover-to-cover shooter?
This is essentially what 343 did to Halo 4. Frank O’Connor and the multiplayer director at the time saw the success of Call of Duty, tried to copy it, and failed to succeed.
And to make matters worse, there is an interview during development where the devs even stated that they would NOT be copying the likes of CoD and Battlefield.
To quote Frank O’Connor himself -
- “It’s true you know. I think we’ve only only just crept up above Modern Warfare 2. We compete with them of course but we’re not trying to copy them or trying to chase their tail. What we’re trying to do is make the best possible game we can and that’s what you have to go after. I think if you try and copy what other people are doing and you do it badly, than it’s worse than if you’d never tried at all.”
So the irony is that 343’s Franchise Director stated that they wouldn’t try to copy the success of others… and yet Halo 4 featured CoD-style Loadouts.
I would like to point out that Halo 3 peaked at over 1,000,000 players and Halo Reach peaked at around 900,000 players, with both of their playercounts keeping up with the likes of CoD MW2 and MW3.
Meanwhile Halo 4 featured a playercount peak of 410,000 players online and swiftly dwindled to nothing. While with the launch of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 we saw Halo 3’s player count drop to roughly 400,000 players online at launch and then recover; with Halo 4 the launch of Black-Ops 2 cut H4’s count to around 200,000 players even and then continued to drop from there.
Here is why I think Halo 4 had such a small peak of players compared to the previous two major entries - marketing presentation.
People saw the visuals of the franchise drastically changed in screenshots and trailers.
People heard the soundtrack’s unusual sound.
People read articles in gaming magazines and heard how the gameplay was altered. I can specifically recall how GameInformer spoke about loadouts being the game.
So with all of this knowledge, the skeptical players stepped aside and waited for the other players that played the game initially to give their feedback.
I can recall that for the next couple of years I could see over a dozen Halo 4 copies littering the discount-section of Walmart whenever I went shopping there, sitting alongside the likes of equally dozens of copies for CoD Ghosts.
Here is the sad truth of the matter.
Had Halo 4 not been a Halo game, it would’ve been successful. Let’s pretend it is a brand new IP, not a sequel to a already established brand of success. Lets change the script to exclude the names of Chief and Cortana, the UNSC, the Covenant, and the Forerunners and exchange them out for new names.
Master Chief is now Master Sergeant Clarke.
Cortana is now named as Cassandra.
The United Nations Space Command is now the UCADF - United Colonies Aerospace Defense Force
The Covenant are now The Conclave
Forerunners are now Remnants
And lets still tell the same story with this barely altered script of pronouns.
“Master Sergeant Clarke and Cassandra are adrift in space and awaken from Cryosleep to find themselves orbiting an artificial world built by the Remnants. Unfortunately they encounter their alien enemy, The Conclave, and are forced into Guerrilla warfare on this artificial world. An ancient evil is released by this conflict and the Master Sergeant reunites with UCADF forces to even the odds. It is discovered that a Remnant Superweapon is going to be used and Master Sergeant has to put a stop to it. Unfortunately his A.I. companion is falling apart due to old age. Master Sergeant Clarke saves Humanity… but at a great cost.”
Had Halo 4 been called something like “Requiem” or “Warmachine”, it would’ve been a much more successful and well-received title; especially if it was a new IP that advertised itself as “a game inspired by both the likes of Call of Duty and Halo”.
Instead however, it was advertised as the next Halo.
Only it didn’t look, sound, or feel like Halo.
It felt like this hypothetical new IP was taken and made to wear Halo’s skin, with the devs left somehow baffled at how such a gruesome sight left people irate and alienated so many players.
It’s good to make games feel new.
That is why sequels tend to innovate slightly on what came before.
But if a new game is coming out and it has not been a decade or more since the last major release of said game, you should NOT reimagine it to be something else.
Take a look at Doom.
2004 marked the last major release of that franchise until Bethesda made their next title.
Doom 2016 came out well over a decade after Doom 3. With it being a decade later, of course you don’t expect to see low-graphics and have it try to play like it was a sequel to Doom 3.
We don’t see Doom Eternal and Doom 2016 being all that different outside of a slight art-style choice change.
But what would’ve happened if Doom Eternal tried to go for a Cyberpunk Dystopian style of art? A soundtrack that was less metal and more industrial dubstep? What if the Knights in Doom Eternal were made to look more like Dark Souls knights instead of the high-tech knighthood we saw? Or the Angels and Demons suddenly going for biblical accuracy?
That is what Halo 4 did.
Drastic change that was uncalled for.
It matters not if you were a younger generation. The previous game was 2 years prior and boasted a playercount that was double what Halo 4 eventually did, with the peak playercounts of a year after launch showing Halo Reach having 25x the palyercount than Halo 4 did a year later.
If it isn’t broken, don’t break it on purpose just so you can try to fix it and show off your craftmanship while trying to act like you did us a favor.
All you did was break the family heirloom, put it back together with duct tape and glue, and then asked for $60 since you got the expensive glue and and duct-tape.
