Square Enix found success with People Can Fly's cooperative sci-fi shooter, Outriders, which managed to recruit over 3.5 million super-powered soldiers.
From Xbox Wire: "Fight to survive on a hostile planet, a massive fantasy world, or to qualify for retirement care this weekend during Free Play Days. Just Die Already and Outriders are available this weekend for Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to play from Thursday, August 18 at 12:01 a.m. PDT until Sunday, August 21 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. In addition, The Elder Scrolls Online is available for an extended time from now until Monday, August 29 at 6:59 a.m. PDT."
SQUARE ENIX® today announced that OUTRIDERS™ will be available to play for free on Steam from Monday June 20th to Thursday June 23rd.
It's extremely generic. It's not bad but it reminds me of the period between 2007 and 2009 where gears introduced cover shooters so almost everyone went out and made a unreal engine 3 cover shooter.
It feels like that to destiny
For some it is. At launch, I expect more people felt that way. It also had tons of technical issues back then, at least on PC. I tried it after the New Horizons expansion later last year. I found the campaign enjoyable enough, even if not an amazing one. The gameplay was pretty fun, the story was pretty pants (but how many games can say otherwise lol). Still had some bugs even then, though.
I've no idea what is in the newest expansion, but if it ever piqued your interest, I'd suggest giving it a shot. It might give you 20-30 hours of fun before it fizzles out. Maybe I'll look into this expansion, see what's what.
I'm having fun with it.
Originally avoided it having heard of the issues around launch.
It has been sitting on Gamepass so finally downloading it the other day.
I'm about 3 hours in, have my Trickster class at level ten, and it's a pretty good time.
Don't know if I'll end up beating it or not, but I'd give it a solid 8 so far, personally.
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I played through the entire campaign. It was very generic. The story was mediocre and the technical issues on PC were pretty bad. They patched it up quite a bit. It plays better now. I can say the only reason why I enjoyed it was because I missed Division 2-type gameplay but was was tired of running around the same areas in New York. The endgame is just an enemy hitpoint multiplier where a tiny creature has 20,000 HP. It's too bullet-spongy.
Outriders didn't turn a profit throughout 2021 and developer People Can Fly have not received any royalty payments from the game.
Well, with Outriders and Oddworld, maybe now devs will stop shilling how beneficial it is to them to put their brand new day one games on sub services. I remember how People can fly were raving about how beneficial it was to give their game on gamepass day one, now we can see the common sense reality that the game wasn't profitable.
Now customers can talk about their savings on sub services all they want, but developers need to stop talking to people like their idiots. We DO KNOW 2+2=4
The issues isn’t Outriders launching on gamepass. Outriders simply didn’t retain enough players to be profitable during its launch year. The title wasn’t Xbox One/Series exclusive, it was available on PC and PlayStation 4/5.
While that's true, it's the same thing with Oddworld. But the reality is if game creation is as expensive as the industry "claims" it is, then every avenue of revenue would need to be maximized. So if gamepass takes one revenue stream off the board (just like PS Plus with Oddworld), then that one alone could lead to not being profitable.
Outriders was a GamePass title but still was excellent. Oddworld was on PS+ but let’s be real, it was terrible and would have flopped regardless.
@NecrumOddBoy
It doesn't matter which game any of us think is good or a flop.
It doesn't change the fact both games were given "free". And both suffered for it.
One was given on gamepass, one was given on PS Plus.
One is multiplayer, one is single player.
The end result is both stuff lost profit for being "free".
It's worth noting that the Lorne Lanning did not complain about the game not being profitable. He got buyer's remorse after seeing how many people downloaded the game and thought of the potential lost sales versus their initial sales expectations.
I'm drawing the distinction to point out there are multiple potential downsides to these deals. People keep pushing for the industry to hop aboard the Game Pass model (i.e., Day 1 releases) without care or consideration for the potential ramifications. All they know is that they like Xbox, "free" games, or both.
People who claim GP is the cause have zero understanding of how business works. Your belief is that the developer gave away most of their ability to make revenue on Xbox for nothing. A developer sells that right to Microsoft for an estimate of what they think they will make from disc sales. They still have the ability to sell disc on Xbox. They will still be selling the game after it is no longer on GP. If it takes $100 million to make a game and you sell day one rights for $25 million you might be making a mistake. It depends on the popularity of the game. If it's wildly popular you probably would have made more waiting. If it's average you might just break even. If it does poorly you might have saved your company. People think these companies have the money to pay for development. They usually don't. They usually borrow money like most businesses. You then have interest on top of the original amount. If you get a cash payment upfront from Microsoft that's less you owe for a loan & interest. If they believe it will be a massive hit, they will pay you more. If a game cost $60 million to develop and you get half from them and you have the other half you don't have any debt. When companies go out of business because of one or two bad launches it's because they didn't have money themselves. They borrowed too much. If you go to GP and you had half the money even after a bad launch you have no debt and your company can keep going. GP gives developers an opportunity. It saves them from potential bankruptcy. It allows them to take chances. GP will mean more developers, more developers will survive and more games. If a developer makes a great product, GP allows them to start making a profit much faster because they are already millions ahead of where they should be and in less or no hole at the start of launch.
^
Developers don't sell anything to Microsoft. It is the publishers that fund development, which blows a big hole in your fantasy about GP saving devs from bankruptcy.
I dont think its as simple as “its gamepass’ fault.” Perhaps they made a bad deal on that, but you also cant discount how the game reviewed and played at launch. It was something of a buggy mess when I played it and the endgame content was anemic.
Meanwhile Psychonauts 2 was Double Fine's best-selling game.
And Forza Horizon 5 is the best selling of the franchise.
And the several other devs that say GP has boosted their sales across the board.
But no, it's totally Game Pass and PS+. Never mind that:
- Outriders is an average GaaS with the same brown-grey color palette everyone got sick of by the end of the 360 generation
- Oddworld released in a very buggy state to very meh reviews, sitting currently with a 66 on metacritic.
Sorry for the devs involved but not every game deserves to be profitable just because it releases or just because you want to spin a narrative if it doesn't.
Edit: "Their idiots". Lol - It's *they're* idiots. Perfect spot for a typo.
Look at it from a logical perspective.
Do you expect people to pay for a sub service AND buy games at $60/$70 a pop?
Right now, people are buying games at the rate it's always been, but do you expect that to continue in the future as more and more subscribe and more and more games go on these sub service day one?
Wasn't Psychonauts on PS4 too? And, Forza, like Halo, gets bought up a lot in these discussions, but no one wants to bring up the fact that both games are struggling to keep players engaged. Just because no one wants to approve those articles, doesn't make it not true.
As for the "several other devs"? Yeah, People Can Fly was one of those devs, but we see what they're saying now.
@Outside Ask that question again in 5 years. As it stands now - yes. Forza Horizon 5 and Psychonauts 2 prove that. Halo sold second only to COD in release month.
@Silly This is about profit and sales, not extended player engagement. Can't speak for FH5 since all the negative hoopla is about Halo, but Halo is what happens when you have a great foundation then the GaaS reality sets in. 343 squandered their opportunity after all the positive buzz from the tech previews.
FH5 is not the best selling in the franchise. FH4 is. Horizon 5 obtained the best launch sales in the series NOT the best sales overall fyi.
https://4freegame.com/forza...
Psychonauts 2 was available for Playstation so your point here does hold up very well. Get your FACTS straight before you call out people. Lol
FH4 sales numbers haven't been confirmed before (only player count) and FH4 was also day-and-date on game pass. What point are you exactly trying to prove with your link from... one week after FH5's release that confirms it's both the best selling and most played out the gate?
Double Fine was a third-party developer that has released dozens of games across all major platforms over the last 17 years. Their best-selling title is one available on 2/3rds of its released platforms through subscription. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove except that... being on subscription did not have a perceptibly negative impact on their sales...
It's hilarious to see people jump back on the "Services killed a game" train again.
Let's not even take into account how when released, Outriders was extremely buggy with huge online issues.
Also, the game released retail on PS and PC, why wasn't it a retail success based off of the huge market share Sony has?
...not even a week ago Psychonauts 2 was a success story here on N4G. most praised it's success because of the PS4...even though that game also released day and date on Game Pass.
So how can GP and services be blamed when Psychonauts 2 being a success but not Outriders and both being day and date?
Outriders was one of them games I was "unsure about". I had it pre ordered but it was one of them I was unsure about n
Once I found out it was going to release on gamepass day one I cancelled the PS5 pre order.
At the time of release I had one of the many £1 a month or 3 months offers Microsoft like giving out. I gave it a fair shot and I just didn't like it.
So as a customer I'm greatful I got to trial the game instead if taking a risk and splash £60 on the game and regretting it. However, I can see how I I'm part of the problem. Double edge sword I guess.
