How NOT to Launch a Video Game

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THQ sure knows how to launch a video game! Hire a former scriptwriter to "turn your company around." Brag about the most "pre-ordered title" in company history. Launch the game to massive "meh" reviews. Stock tanks. Someone's getting fired. :eek:

Today's drop puts THQ stock at its lowest level since November 2010, when it briefly saw a surge to a recent high of $6.41 per share. The stock remains well off from a 52-week high of $8.27, reached in April 2010, and a historic high of $36.16 achieved in 2007.
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Do not put two 'h's in http (is hhttp) browsers don't like it.

Remember more is not always better.

:D

Sorry, I couldn't resist :).
 
Why are people surprised the game is crap? Its Kaos the studio that did Frontlines which had a great idea for a story but was a terrible game. I knew from the start Homefront would be the same.
 
lasted maybe 20 minutes before turning it off. This game is just awful.
 
You know, I think THQ is one of those companies that suffers from not greasing enough reviewers' palms.
 
im sad Homefront didnt deliver... i use to love kaos when they were the former Traume studios...
 
Compddd said:
I pre-ordered this game and got Metro 2033 for free.

LOLZ my bad
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Meh, Metro 2033 was pretty good, short campaign, but interesting story. I may be biased since I didn't actually pay for it though.
 
Im little perturbed because every review I've seen says "THE SINGLE PLAYER SUCKS, BUT I HEARD THE MULTIPLAYERS GOOD" I mean fuck guys they made this massive deal about how this game is mainly about the multiplayer. So battlefield bad company 2 has an atrocious sometimes broken single player but gets a pass because "Oh well everyone knows you play battlefield for the multiplayer". What a fucking double standard.
 
i bet they will blame their poor sales on piracy on pc.

First, the game isnt cracked yet on pc and xbox and ps3 versions are already online.
 
piscian18 said:
Im little perturbed because every review I've seen says "THE SINGLE PLAYER SUCKS, BUT I HEARD THE MULTIPLAYERS GOOD" I mean fuck guys they made this massive deal about how this game is mainly about the multiplayer. So battlefield bad company 2 has an atrocious sometimes broken single player but gets a pass because "Oh well everyone knows you play battlefield for the multiplayer". What a fucking double standard.
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That is because Battlefield (whatever version) was designed from the ground up to be multiplayer. A single player campaign was added to give it a little more content...

I am more then willing to forgive a shitty single player game if it has a great multiplayer...
 
The Cobra said:
That is because Battlefield (whatever version) was designed from the ground up to be multiplayer. A single player campaign was added to give it a little more content...

I am more then willing to forgive a shitty single player game if it has a great multiplayer...
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Well my beef most of the reviews dont touch on the multiplayer.
 
More like a training portion of the game than single player. That is perfectly ok for a multi focused fps. What is lol is that they could have done a beta with 20 random people here and found out the most glaring issues in about 30 minutes. I am certain they did beta testing. Question is, did they listen? Seems like the guy in charge, just like in the entertainment business, gave notes on how he/she thought the game should be and screwed it up for the rest of us. Let the gamers make the damn games.
 
Meh, the gameplay videos looked horrible. It's like they trotted out RuPaul to try and seduce you while Battlefield 3 has Kim Kardashian in lingerie.
 
What's wrong with the single player, (haven't read any reviews yet,) so far I'm a couple of hours into it and enjoying it...<confused>
 
So how is the game, really? It has a Metacritic review of 72 which isn't terrible. Is it a COD clone? I was excited about this game but I didn't want to pay for it right away as it's not a "must have".
 
Think I read a quote on here the other day from a game dev and it went something like, "You can no longer make a good game, good is the new bad, you have to make a great game to succeed now"

I have to admit I am interested in Homefront but have not gotten it and probably wont until it goes on sale on Steam. Too many other games I am interested in like Dragon Age 2, Withcher 2, and Elder Scrolls VI. But I would like to check out Homefront because its set in USA settings.
 
Rizen said:
So how is the game, really? It has a Metacritic review of 72 which isn't terrible. Is it a COD clone? I was excited about this game but I didn't want to pay for it right away as it's not a "must have".
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You need to look at the reviews, not just the score. Metacritic is not a reliable way of seeing things since a score average means little, different places score different ways and so on.

Also turns out that's a bit inflated. Reason is that the highest scores are all from reviews before the games release. This means friendly publications that got an early copy and perhaps some "hand holding" to show them "what's great." The post release reviews are less favourable.
 
How is the game?

SP: I'm a couple hours in and enjoying it so far. Kick up the difficulty a notch and it's enough of a challenge to make following the story rewarding. It's a bit too much on rails for my tastes, but the story is worth it.. so far. That's the real gem of SP, the story. I read it's ~5 hours long.

MP: As usual, it seems they underestimated how many people were actually going to play the game they pre-ordered. Last night was not pleasant playing online. It was quite fun when it all came together, but those moments were few. We've been told that it's a capacity issue on the server side. I really hope so.
 
The single player campaign's story is pretty decent so far. It's pretty much Red Dawn: The Game. As far as the gameplay, your squadmates are mentally retarded and rarely actually kill anything. My biggest complaint about the gameplay is that the instant you stick your head up, the enemy AI drops what they are doing and focus fires on you. It's annoying as hell.
 
fattypants said:
You know, I think THQ is one of those companies that suffers from not greasing enough reviewers' palms.
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I actually think this is precisely the problem, have a read of some of the reviews and you will see that virtually all the complaints made about homefront are also issues which have plagued every call of duty iteration since modern warfare 1 (linear short SP campaign, endless spawning enemies, questionable AI, corny narrative, etc) but yet are suspiciously ignored in those reviews.

Have to wonder if the scores would have been appreciably different if THQ had gone through the hoops to pamper reviewers in the same way Activision does, eg:

"Two weeks before the game's launch, I was flown from San Francisco to LAX; from there, I was driven to Santa Monica airport where I was given a flight helmet customized with my gamertag," Tae Kim wrote about his experience reviewing the game. "I was then put into a helicopter and flown to Ojai, California, a small town about two hours north of Los Angeles. After landing in a field, I was driven to the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa, where I was given a posh suite to stay in for three days." The suite had a 360, a copy of the game, and a nice 3D television hooked up to a surround-sound system.
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http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...ack-ops-review-event-press-gifts-detailed.ars

That disclosure has now been suspiciously removed from the original article. I really have little faith in the integrity of game journalists these days, the industry is becoming so corrupt as a result of this type of behavior, which has become even more acute with review sites also now peddling the very games they review. In any other industry that would be considered a conflict of interest.
 
Some of the worst reviews (the 50's and 60's) came from places that DID have pre-release copies. Eurogamer, Edge, every one of those places had pre-release copies.

So, yeah, that tinfoil hat theory ain't really holding up.
 
What does access to pre-release copies have anything to do with showering reviewers with extravagant gifts, perks and freebies?
 
What does access to pre-release copies have anything to do with showering reviewers with extravagant gifts, perks and freebies?
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People have been implying that THQ didn't provide copies prior to release for places they thought would review the game badly, and also implying that the positive reviews were all from pre-release sources that must have been bribed.
 
I havent bought a THQ game since Titan Quest. I was rather disappointed in the number of bugs upon release. Couldnt even play multiplayer unless you used hamachi. Sad. Several patches later I heard it finally worked. Too bad it was too late.
 
Sad looked like a decent game. I might just have to wait until it drops down in price substantially then try it out.
 
It's their fault for releasing a game in such a crowded market. It tries to be like CoD and BF but it seems as if It ends up falling short of both. All the game play I've seen looks just like duty + bf's vehicles. It even has the little hit blurb that CoD has had.

Ever since CoD4 everyone wants a piece of the modern shooter pie. BC2 and CoD fill up your arcade style of game, and things OFP and ArmA lean on the more tactical side. That's not really leaving much room for anything. They don't have the brand recognition that CoD and BF do.

They also released it at a poor time people are still playing BlackOps and BC2, DA2 just released. Crysis and Brink are just around the corner, two original non-modern shooters (Brink more-so than Crysis 2). I gotta say I feel bad for the team at Kaos from what it sounds like they worked hard and THQ forced them into "Crunch" mode which could of potential hurt the quality of the final product and wasn't really a classy thing to do on their part. They'd of been much better of spending more time on the game working regular hours and releasing it in say late April after everyones played Crysis 2, Brink and Portal 2, I feel people would of been ready for a new shooter modern or not.

I knew this would happen, and I was actually looking forward to this game until I watched more and more. I haven't played it to be honest with you so this is all sort of bias but I'm certainly not spending $50 on it when I can pick-up C2 next week.
 
defiant007 said:
I actually think this is precisely the problem, have a read of some of the reviews and you will see that virtually all the complaints made about homefront are also issues which have plagued every call of duty iteration since modern warfare 1 (linear short SP campaign, endless spawning enemies, questionable AI, corny narrative, etc) but yet are suspiciously ignored in those reviews.

Have to wonder if the scores would have been appreciably different if THQ had gone through the hoops to pamper reviewers in the same way Activision does, eg:



http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...ack-ops-review-event-press-gifts-detailed.ars

That disclosure has now been suspiciously removed from the original article. I really have little faith in the integrity of game journalists these days, the industry is becoming so corrupt as a result of this type of behavior, which has become even more acute with review sites also now peddling the very games they review. In any other industry that would be considered a conflict of interest.
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Which is sad, review sites must get all that or you can expect your stock to tank.
 
Here's my take on it:

I think the overwhelming majority of the bad reviews are complaining about not being able to play multiplayer right away. I agree, it sucks that they underestimated the server capacity that they needed, however, they at least quickly started to bring more servers online.

Single player has an interesting story. It's one of the few games where I actually watched the videos between stages. It didn't take too long to get through, though.

Multiplayer is interesting. The maps a really big and there are a good number of players. I find it much more challenging than say COD because it is much easier to get around someone since there is so much more room on the maps with a lot of obstacles. You really need to try to keep your eye on everything. Like other similar games, I feel as if sometimes it works fine, and other times I put 10 bullets in someone, they shoot me and I die, but again, that appears to happen on many shooters at times.

All in all, I'm happy with it. I think that it does provide something different. Having the dedicated servers is a nice touch too since it avoids the occasional host migration interruption that happens once in a while on COD.

Anyway, that's my $.02
 
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