I call this type of game a meme game and I am not surprised at all, this is why I usually wait a month after a release comes out. It lets you know if everyone is still playing it or not.
Everyone raves about Eden Ring as an example but lets be honest, how many people have actually gone "Yeah I like that game, I'm gonna do another play through"? Or did they just ditch it after the first playthrough and never touch it again? I have saved so much money by not paying attention to hype this way and can usually sniff out a meme game within five seconds.
There have been plenty of other titles that have followed the same pattern. Lots of people trying to get everyone to play for about three weeks maximum after release then the chatter about it immediately drops. I agree with your points about player retention though, the stupid games journalist as ever does not understand the market they're writing about as a lot of singleplayer games don't have replayability because they weren't designed for that.
Console numbers obvs. not factored. Also not that surprising since ER has multiplayer and yes, it is more replayable.
I've noticed Avalanche Studios games are very 'content consoom' games where you see the story and cutscenes and then you're done with it. So the idea that the game is losing steam is a bit true but it's also completely expected. This of course is merely the first cycle before the inevitable round of discount promotions and market segmenting, all planned and factored into AAA game sales.
Considering the 3-4 main types of builds (str vs dex, int vs faith) resulting in a pretty high degree of variability in playstyles from game to game, not to mention the huge array of different sub-categories of spells, items, weapons', special attacks, and so forth; builds are practically endless. It's the only game where you can say "I'm going to play a fistfighter who attacks by shooting chaos fire directly into someone's brain". Yeah, it has quite the replay value.
I call this type of game a meme game and I am not surprised at all, this is why I usually wait a month after a release comes out. It lets you know if everyone is still playing it or not.
Everyone raves about Eden Ring as an example but lets be honest, how many people have actually gone "Yeah I like that game, I'm gonna do another play through"? Or did they just ditch it after the first playthrough and never touch it again? I have saved so much money by not paying attention to hype this way and can usually sniff out a meme game within five seconds.
There have been plenty of other titles that have followed the same pattern. Lots of people trying to get everyone to play for about three weeks maximum after release then the chatter about it immediately drops. I agree with your points about player retention though, the stupid games journalist as ever does not understand the market they're writing about as a lot of singleplayer games don't have replayability because they weren't designed for that.
According to Steam charts, more people playing Elden Ring than HW: Legacy (almost double)
https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620
https://steamcharts.com/app/990080
Console numbers obvs. not factored. Also not that surprising since ER has multiplayer and yes, it is more replayable.
I've noticed Avalanche Studios games are very 'content consoom' games where you see the story and cutscenes and then you're done with it. So the idea that the game is losing steam is a bit true but it's also completely expected. This of course is merely the first cycle before the inevitable round of discount promotions and market segmenting, all planned and factored into AAA game sales.
That's interesting, I wouldn't have thought Eden Ring would have that much replayability value, but then again I'm not a dark souls genre fan lol.
Considering the 3-4 main types of builds (str vs dex, int vs faith) resulting in a pretty high degree of variability in playstyles from game to game, not to mention the huge array of different sub-categories of spells, items, weapons', special attacks, and so forth; builds are practically endless. It's the only game where you can say "I'm going to play a fistfighter who attacks by shooting chaos fire directly into someone's brain". Yeah, it has quite the replay value.