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There's also a core problem I'm not sure they fully understood making the game, which is that part of what makes XCOM and Jagged Alliance and the clutch of games in this space that have 'made it' is that the story is kept light and the narrative is emergent, and that's what lets the tactical and strategic games mesh together. Layering a Marvel narrative onto the game makes it less engaging, not more.
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Feb 17, 2023 18:00
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Double Bill posted:I doesn't really even matter how good or bad it was. People were expecting a new XCOM but got a licensed Marvel game instead. There was no way Firaxis could win. Yep. As soon as I heard it was going to be a Marvel game I immediately ignored it.
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Feb 17, 2023 18:25
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I was very okay with it being Marvel X-Com. I just wasn't interested in playing a deckbuilder card-combat game.
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Feb 17, 2023 18:30
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Yeah I got it from gamefly and played it a few days. I was almost interested but couldn't get over the deck builder poo poo.
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Feb 17, 2023 18:54
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Midnight suns could have been okay if you didn't play as any of the superheroes. They're boring as hell. I feel like that game robbed us of a potential XCOM3 and now it will never happen.
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Feb 17, 2023 18:54
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Mark Nauta is still at Firaxis for any future XCOM projects. He was the game director for War of the Chosen and Chimera Squad
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Feb 17, 2023 19:00
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Yeah I think XCOM is too valuable an IP to just bin. I would be very surprised if they don’t get started on whatever the next one will look like after they finish the DLC stuff for Midnight Suns.
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Feb 17, 2023 19:05
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Anno posted:Yeah I think XCOM is too valuable an IP to just bin. I would be very surprised if they don’t get started on whatever the next one will look like after they finish the DLC stuff for Midnight Suns. if that nVidia leak is anything to go by, it may well already be in progress. Hell, if they cut their losses on MS, it may even move up in schedule. Edit: in retrospect, MS was doomed from getgo. Poor licence match to market, possible interference from The Mouse, high expectations on sales for the licence, even before the flailing dev cycle or extremely bad market conditions. This wasn't the best possible outcome for the title, but it was close to.
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Feb 17, 2023 19:33
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FrickenMoron posted:Midnight suns could have been okay if you didn't play as any of the superheroes. They're boring as hell. I feel like that game robbed us of a potential XCOM3 and now it will never happen. I have not played Midnight Suns, but a superhero XCOM would be cool, if you're building your superheroes from the ground up (and into the ground) like the soldiers in XCOM
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Feb 17, 2023 19:52
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I mean with the relative failures of Avengers, GOTG and now this, it's pretty clear that people who like Marvel moopies aren't gonna automatically show up for the games. Hell, MT's sales might have even been a run-on casualty of the bad taste the Avengers left in everyone's mouth. Meanwhile, people bought those PS4 Spiderman games I guess because they just thought they looked cool and fun to play, and maybe had nostalgia for the older ones, not exclusively because of the license.
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Feb 17, 2023 19:59
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Avengers was such a titanic flop that it burned GotG - a lot of the reactions to GotG were along the lines of "wow this is actually really good, i expected it was going to be poo poo like Avengers". I'm wondering if the Marvel IP is currently tainted enough in video games that instead of being attractive, it's repellent to some degree.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:02
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With how abysmal Midnight Suns' sales were, I doubt the Marvel license did anything for them. If they made the exact same game but with their own IP it might've even done better.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:06
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That said I doubt Solomon got booted because a single game underperformed, he probably left of his own volition. 
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Feb 17, 2023 20:06
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I think at least part of it is also that they're not really making games that tap into what the audience wants? Like the Spider-Man games or the Batman Arkham games partially succeed because they offer a kind of wish fulfillment. You get to be (Spider-man or Batman) and the gameworld and game play are all designed around that power fantasy. Meanwhile in Avengers or Ultimate Alliance 3 or Midnight Suns you really aren't? You don't really feel powerful or cool and it smooths out all the characters so they're interacting with the world in similar ways. People want big bombastic setpieces that make you feel like you're playing as the Superhero and they don't really offer that
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Feb 17, 2023 20:07
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Mordja posted:That said I doubt Solomon got booted because a single game underperformed, he probably left of his own volition. Issue is that both the IP was likely ruinously expensive, and the the dev cycle was an expensive flailing mess, with at least one major overhaul. In many ways, MS may have been the biggest disaster to strike the outfit during Solomon's tenure.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:11
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Zore posted:I think at least part of it is also that they're not really making games that tap into what the audience wants? Like the Spider-Man games or the Batman Arkham games partially succeed because they offer a kind of wish fulfillment. You get to be (Spider-man or Batman) and the gameworld and game play are all designed around that power fantasy. MS was extremely good at that though.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:11
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ImpAtom posted:MS was extremely good at that though. Not... really in gameplay. Some of the cutscenes were great for that, but the game itself had a weird disconnect especially as it went on with how enemies scaled. And some heroes just absolutely sucked rear end because they specialized in things that didn't scale *coughSpider-mancough*, or had their whole decks nearly completely invalidated by the way the game rewarded stacking damage and avoiding it at all cost.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:14
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StratGoatCom posted:Issue is that both the IP was likely ruinously expensive, and the the dev cycle was an expensive flailing mess, with at least one major overhaul. In many ways, MS may have been the biggest disaster to strike the outfit during Solomon's tenure. I don't know if he was there for Civilization: Beyond Earth, but that one was a pretty spectacular failure (compared to other Civ games) and still sold multiples more than MS.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:18
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Double Bill posted:I don't know if he was there for Civilization: Beyond Earth, but that one was a pretty spectacular failure (compared to other Civ games) and still sold multiples more than MS. BE wasn't AAA either, unlike MS. MS has likely left a hole in in the studio's finances and talent lineup that will be *years* filling in again, at best.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:21
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I've had Marvel XCOM on my wishlist for a while, but when I saw a 60 dollar game launched alongside 70 dollars worth of DLC, that just immediately triggers my 'wait for a big sale' instinct. Because I know if I give it a year or two they'll release some GOTY full version and I'll eventually be able to pick it up for a fraction of that price. In general, it's rare that I buy a full priced new release unless it's really interesting. In this case the developer's history might have pushed me over the line, but the pricey DLC was enough to cool my interest. Can't stand buying half a game. My point being, I wonder how many other folks were interested but got turned away by sticker shock, and if that contributed to poor sales.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:29
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The financial problem with a licensed game is that 30% (generally) of the revenue goes to the licensor. Add that to the 30% that Sony/MS/Steam charges and 60% of your revenue is gone before it gets to the publisher, who then take their cut before it gets to the studio. You're depending on the IP's reach to add more sales that make up for the 30% cut, and Marvel clearly isn't that these days. Add in the odd genre-mashing and the weird antipathy towards anything with "cards" involved and there's a whole lot of people who would love the game that aren't playing it. I'm really glad this weird game got made and I'm sorry it won't get further development. I don't think this means XCOM is dead. Mark Nauta's been working on "something" that isn't Civ or Midnight Suns for a while, and I would assume that's prototyping the next XCOM or something similar in gameplay with a small team and Firaxis is going to roll people from Midnight Suns onto that next. I think we might see Civ 7 first, but I can't imagine they're going to abandon the IP because a different IP did poorly.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:32
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Tricky Ed posted:The financial problem with a licensed game is that 30% (generally) of the revenue goes to the licensor. Add that to the 30% that Sony/MS/Steam charges and 60% of your revenue is gone before it gets to the publisher, who then take their cut before it gets to the studio. You're depending on the IP's reach to add more sales that make up for the 30% cut, and Marvel clearly isn't that these days. Hell, they may move up the sced on that if they deep six MS's further DLC and need to fill in the hole it left in their finances.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:33
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Also if they're still selling a 50 dollar season pass for a game that won't get any more DLC then lol. lmao.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:53
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BobTheJanitor posted:Also if they're still selling a 50 dollar season pass for a game that won't get any more DLC then lol. lmao. There's DLC coming next week and we've received no signs that they're not going to finish the season pass. Solomon actually said recently that he was wrapping up work on the last DLC character so it's likely he left/was outed because everything he could contribute to MS is done with.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:56
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I just got MS for free with a new video card, I certainly won't be buying the DLC but I might give the base game a try.
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Feb 17, 2023 20:58
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Disney ruins everything they touch. it was a devil's bargain.
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Feb 17, 2023 21:01
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Pirate Jet posted:There's DLC coming next week and we've received no signs that they're not going to finish the season pass. Solomon actually said recently that he was wrapping up work on the last DLC character so it's likely he left/was outed because everything he could contribute to MS is done with. My feel is that they probably had more planned after that season pass, but it's officially been deep-sixed.
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Feb 17, 2023 21:02
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Zore posted:Not... really in gameplay. Some of the cutscenes were great for that, but the game itself had a weird disconnect especially as it went on with how enemies scaled. And some heroes just absolutely sucked rear end because they specialized in things that didn't scale *coughSpider-mancough*, or had their whole decks nearly completely invalidated by the way the game rewarded stacking damage and avoiding it at all cost. I am not sure what MS you played but Spider-Man was kicking ads for me throughout. Easy repositioning and environmental effects go a long way. More to the point the game actually made things feel impactful and adhered to the character's abilities incredibly well
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Feb 17, 2023 21:23
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ImpAtom posted:I am not sure what MS you played but Spider-Man was kicking ads for me throughout. Easy repositioning and environmental effects go a long way. More to the point the game actually made things feel impactful and adhered to the character's abilities incredibly well His unique gimmicks start falling apart as you ratchet the difficulty up to extreme levels and the optimal strategies begin to narrow, but that's true of about 2/3rds of the cast.
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Feb 17, 2023 21:25
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It is a free weekend on steam for Midnight Suns. I would like to say play it and then come back with fresh hot takes. Even if it does take at least 15 minutes before you can personally experience the annoyance of not being able to do stuff from a menu.
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Feb 17, 2023 21:41
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All the MCU and card game aspects adds a layer of irony considering Snap is very successful.
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Feb 17, 2023 21:59
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Gyoru posted:Mark Nauta is still at Firaxis for any future XCOM projects. He was the game director for War of the Chosen and Chimera Squad XCOM 2 was tight out of the box, but WoTC took it up a couple of levels. I can't imagine playing the game without War of the Chosen. If Mark is the director for XCOM 3, even without Jake, I'm optimistic. That said: I just didn't take to Chimera Squad at all. So...
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Feb 17, 2023 22:16
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Chimera squad felt like a card game by stealth. It was fine, but very astutely price pitched and a couple of the bespoke missions with infinite spawns were complete bullshit.
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Feb 17, 2023 23:02
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Chimera Squad got me invested in the new XCOM world harder than any prior game because they doubled down on their own identity and gave me a lot of characters to watch bounce off each other.
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Feb 17, 2023 23:08
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XCOM just doesn't work for me if you don't start with a bunch of random expendable chumps who gradually grow on you the longer they survive.
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Feb 17, 2023 23:20
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StratGoatCom posted:My feel is that they probably had more planned after that season pass, but it's officially been deep-sixed. It's rare for even the most successful, non-GaaS games to get more DLC content beyond what's in its first season pass. Double Bill posted:XCOM just doesn't work for me if you don't start with a bunch of random expendable chumps who gradually grow on you the longer they survive. Yeah Chimera Squad was a cool side game but I absolutely do not want main-series XCom to go in that direction, there's a reason I play XCom and not Fire Emblem.
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Feb 17, 2023 23:24
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Freedom Force was a pretty cool game
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Feb 17, 2023 23:25
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Runa posted:Chimera Squad got me invested in the new XCOM world harder than any prior game because they doubled down on their own identity and gave me a lot of characters to watch bounce off each other. I spent a fair amount of time zooming in on the posters on walls and furniture. There's tons of interesting little details.
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Feb 17, 2023 23:34
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Pirate Jet posted:It's rare for even the most successful, non-GaaS games to get more DLC content beyond what's in its first season pass. This was based off past Firaxis perf on XCOM, where there was basically a season pass level of DLC followed by a proper expansion.
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Feb 17, 2023 23:39
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I would like XCOM to have more soldiers to work with, not less, so i am on board with a change of direction back to having tactics again.
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Feb 18, 2023 00:10
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