what up friendos welcome back we're
talking today about a game I didn't even
know existed so a PC Gamer tweet popped
up here and I thought this was mad
interesting uh just as a as an idea EA
reportedly invested 125 million making a
new single player IP with zero
microtransactions no grind a shorter
running time and guess what no one
bought it um now this headline isn't
very good because when I read this
headline what I think they're trying to
say is oh you know EA is Justified in
all the terrible microtransaction
riddled [ __ ] shite games that they
release because they tried to release
something that cost a bunch of money and
it wasn't successful but the article is
actually a little bit more informative
and and better than then you know the
title gives off so a new report by IGN
into the wider topic of Industry layoffs
which worse than they've ever been
contains a fascinating insight about one
of last year's less successful AAA
titles if you're not noticed by the way
the games industry and the tech industry
in general has been absolutely just
[ __ ] inundated with ridiculously
large layoffs uh Riot games just had one
of their maybe their largest layoff ever
like 11% of the company Activision
Blizzard after being purchased by
Microsoft of course have just had a
massive layoff uh pretty much all game
companies at the moment are laying off a
bunch of staff and is it because they're
not making money no the companies are
still profitable but that's
unfortunately not how it works obviously
a lot of what happened during Co was
companies specifically gaming companies
and people like twitch stuff that wasn't
impacted but instead was actually uh
given a boon by the pandemic they hired
a bunch of people started spending a
bunch of money to spin up new projects
and things like that and then uh
obviously Co ended and people moved on
and people started leaving their house
again and those budgets went down
because you know you weren't getting
your multi-year best profit because
there wasn't as many people sat around
you know not doing things not going to
work not going out with their friends
and things of that nature so then you
come to it a few years later and they've
got a whole bunch of Staff they've got
projects that failed they've you know
put money into places that didn't pay
off and then of course they have to fire
a bunch of people and sometimes that
negatively impacts people that were
working at the companies beforehand they
essentially spread themselves to thin uh
so now a lot of people are paying the
price which is obviously talking about
the overall thing not specifically this
situation because these guys were laid
off because the game didn't do well but
we'll get to that one a morals of uh
avom I think that's how you pronounce it
was the debut title from ascendant
Studios released on Steam consoles in
August 2022 came out to mixed reviews
and largely sank without trace a PCGS
Review called a fun magical FPS that
quote fails to cast any new spells on
the way to a 6 8% score now I looked at
this because I I'd never heard of this
game I I'd have thought when a game from
such a big publisher comes out and they
spent
$125 million which I believe is
development cost and then marketing as
well I would have thought I'd have heard
of the [ __ ] game I would have thought
I'd have seen somebody playing the game
I would have thought I'd seen somebody
talking about
it cool cats are just breaking [ __ ] like
usual as soon as I start recording but
i' I'd never this I think I'd heard of
the name or maybe I'm thinking of
Immortals the Phoenix one which is like
a NIS is that a nubis soft one mate we
need more diverse Video game titles cuz
I don't even know at this point maybe a
boomer take but maybe that was a moral
Phoenix rise whatever the one that
people were saying look like uh breath
of the wild when breath of the wild was
kind of uh you know popping off but
models of Avon released in August of
2023 no idea this existed it's now up to
a mostly positive score 71% recent and
you can get the game now for 60% off wow
maybe it's maybe it's decent for that
price so the thing is EA had invested
big in this game and ascendant had some
firm ideas about what the gam playing
public might want from it imortals of
avium had a launch party where Dev were
asking hups about how the game sales
looked and were met with evasive answers
shortly afterwards citing the game's
under performance almost half the studio
was laid off around 50 people in total
now obviously I don't like when people
lose their job but at the end of the day
if you are given $125 million to make a
game and the expectation is the game's
going to be you know make make profit
from that $125 million if it doesn't and
not only it doesn't but it does really
badly yeah of course people are going to
lose their jobs that's this is like one
of the least egregious ones I I think
I've seen in a while again not condoning
people losing their jobs or saying
that's a good thing but at the same time
you can obviously understand from a a
perspective of running a business if the
game loses that much money and and isn't
you know a Smash It success isn't even
really considered a great game like you
can just see he he's just going crazy
he's just screeching for no reason he
does it every every time I stop
recording videos I don't know why I
don't know how I can stop him doing it
uh and then he just runs around
destroying Furniture so quote at a high
level Immortals was massively over
scoped for Studio's uh debut project
said one of EX ascendant employees the
devel cost was around $85 million that's
a [ __ ] that's a large chunker change
for your first game as a studio uh you'd
probably want to have them running like
a a smaller game you know get some
cohesion together see what they can do
and then build upon that success
especially with this being the the first
Immortals of AVM game you know this is
not an IP that came in like Jed Star
Wars Jedi Survivor or something like
that this is not a Lord of the Rings
game this is not a Warhammer game this
is not something that people are already
going to be looking at and thinking wow
you know I I need to play that I love
this universe or whatever it's a brand
new game from a brand new studio with EA
publishing the game you've got basically
the makings of of a complete flop here
so while I applaud EA for putting $125
million into a game and trying not to
you know [ __ ] your ass with monetization
and and just have it be a long-winded
grindy [ __ ] mess man you did it in in
the worst way possible so if you now use
this as like a hammer to beat home the
point that you know why would we we
invest in things like that and because
look at what happened when we did that's
[ __ ] mismanagement that is that you
did that uh you could have you could
have done this way better and then given
it a real attempt and then see whether
or not you could make a bunch of money
not having po monetization by making
good games because realistically that's
all people want they want good games and
they'll pay money for good games I think
EA kicked in 40 million for marketing
and distribution sure there was some
serious Talent of the development team
but trying to make a AAA single player
shooter in today's market was a truly
awful idea especially since it was a new
IP that was also trying to leverage
Unreal Engine 5 what ended up launching
was a bloated repetitive campaign that
was far too long can't really speak on
the game it makes sense though like how
many triaa shooters do you see even come
out and do really well you know you've
got a lot of the shooter Market tied up
in things like Counter Strike Valor and
Call of Duty every year um you don't
really see that many you know big
shooter games come out and and really
[ __ ] blow the market wide open do you
so I I'd not really thought about that
but shooting is kind of like a solved
equation at this point the game sold a
tiny fraction of what was predicted and
while the blame for severe layoffs like
this is often laid at the door of the
Publishers in this case EA some of those
who worked on the title look back with
regret on the style of game they made
another ascendant employee still with
the company references a popular games
industry exp poost that became something
of a meme I want shorter games with
worse Graphics made by people who are
paid more to work less and I'm not
kidding yeah I mean reasonable uh if you
look at a lot of valve games
uh this is kind of the philosophy of why
valve games are so well received they're
paid well they're not really rushed by
anything they don't really go for like
The Cutting Edge Graphics or anything
they just make what they want and and
they come out and they're usually fairly
good games which is the opposite of how
you can see most of the AAA industry
outside of companies like that uh
they're paid less they work to the
[ __ ] bone uh they focus a lot on the
games looking pretty and a lot of the
time want you to buy into basically this
game is going to be the one game you
play for the rest of your life like live
service on everything they want to
basically chain out as much money as
they can from as little effort as
possible so they usually repetitive
mechanics to keep you playing the game
so yeah I'd even I'd even agree with
this even if it is a bit of a meme the
the core idea of it I agree uh well
ascendant staff reckon that was what
they were doing with the morals of avom
it's not SQL or remake says the employee
it doesn't take 400 hours to beat has
zero microtransactions no pointless open
World grinding although not everyone
loved it it reviewed pretty well uh
currently sitting at 74 on open critic
and a mostly positive on Steam no one
bought it yeah I mean like I said I
never heard about the game and I tend to
keep my finger on the pulse a little bit
in you know with gaming being part of my
job uh never even heard of anyone
playing this game or talking about it at
all didn't see it on social media never
saw a review about it never saw it pop
up on the front of steam um so who knows
what I was doing at that time or or
maybe I just missed it or it just didn't
you know where the [ __ ] did that 14
million marketing go maybe my brain just
got caught up on on the other Immortals
game and I just thought it was that and
ignored it but obviously 74 on open
critic is it's a bang average [ __ ]
mediocre game right I'm not surprised
nobody bought if it's just an average
AAA game you know what are you getting
here uh that you wouldn't get from
something else for much cheaper
especially when the game first came out
and it was undoubtedly like $60 or
something like that I'm going to Hazard
guess with it being AAA and EA about $60
with probably some other packages for
more money uh if you're telling me Oh
you know you can pay $60 for this AAA
game that's a debut from a studio that's
published by EA that's a set getting
like a 74 Metacritic review I'm saying
no I I'll pass on that one so I'm not
surprised people didn't buy it think of
how many amazing indie games you can get
that you'll spend hundreds or thousands
of hours for for $60 nowadays like it's
a it's a tough ask to be honest people
will doubtless have strong opinions on
whether a Mot of avium does indeed tick
all those boxes but that last line is
Stark indeed and it does make you think
about how easily layoffs like these are
put of the door of the money men when
really with something like this it's
just called hard hard economics yeah
yeah yeah I completely agree for once
there's plenty of layoffs uh due to
gross mismanagement agreed true but
there's also plenty that happen because
this is a stupidly volatile Market that
requires mountain mountains of capital
to participate in at a professional
studio level says the ex ascendant
staffer quote for all the things
ascendant did right paying people well
an entirely remote Studio little
overtime until the end chill environment
with lots of freedom to grow respecting
qway H hiring Juniors Etc it did not
work out yeah I mean it obviously sucks
when this is the case and it takes a a
lot of people don't really understand
how [ __ ] hard it is to make good
games and that's why you'll see these
big companies cheering out game after
game after game that is the same formula
it's repetitive because they know that
that works so why would you change you
know why would fix what isn't broken if
it's selling if it's making money of
course that's the the the Baseline of
what a company wants to do so they're
going to keep making it and it sucks
because I personally like Innovation but
they they tried with this and and they
[ __ ] failed I would say that
obviously this was a just a poorly
handled uh proposition if somebody told
me you know we're going to make our
first game ever and it's going to be a
AAA single player shooter game I'd be
like H you know don't know about that
one Chief but senent Studios remains AC
acve though there's no news on its next
project and work on a m ofum seems to
have wrapped up whatever else can be
said about the game and whether those
employees estimates of the investment
are accurate it represents one of the
big Publishers betting on a new IP
without all the live service nonsense
that the audience claims to hate it
represents a AAA Studio running the way
that the games industry Twitter hive
mind thinks they should be run none of
this helped the game break through or
sell enough to keep its makers employed
so this is the part of the article that
I just complet I don't know why the [ __ ]
this is here I I don't really understand
because this is kind of like saying you
know at least the way I read it and I
could be wrong maybe this is not how the
author intended it this reads as if
they're saying you know you you people
are wrong for wanting these things and
not liking these things because look
they tried it and it didn't work out so
you know haha I got you uh check my
atheists but I I don't think that has
any bearing on anything whatsoever this
this doesn't change [ __ ] um again maybe
I'm just reading between the lines here
in some something that that they don't
mean but it it does read like that to me
because obviously we have loads of
examples of of games that have done
super well that have not done all the a
ea things all the Ubisoft things or the
Activision things so it just seems like
a weird way to frame something that
happened in an article uh to be like ha
consumers who who want better you know
they tried to do better in a wrong way
and and they didn't manage it so you
know so yeah gotcha or something I don't
know bro it's [ __ ] weird so I just
wanted to look real quick at the
Immortals of AVM like steam DB and see
how many people played
this oh my God bro that's way worse than
I thought it was going to be bro a game
that cost
125 million doll development M that
would have been multiple years of course
of development peaked on release day at
751 concurrent players wow I've seen
[ __ ] hentai games on Steam that
probably took like a week and [ __ ]
$15 and and two packets of Hot Pockets
in the basement to make have a higher
concurrent peak of a game release than
this holy [ __ ] that's [ __ ] rough uh I
can understand why e yeah you were
pissed now [ __ ] he has a current
concurrent play count of 74 players uh
yeah I mean I don't even live stream on
Twitch ever and I've had higher
concurrent user live streams than the
this $225 million game had on release
for their $60 Bo box price that's a
[ __ ] that's a real real bad return on
investment cuz this is maybe they sold
thousands of copies for this you know in
the maybe in the tens of thousands uh if
they're lucky for $125 million game man
I can understand now why EA is pissed
better release another [ __ ] [ __ ]
football game and and charge people to
open packs uh which is is essentially
child gambling so that they can just
release another game next year and have
them do it again cuz they they love
getting kids addicted to gambling so
that they can make their billies you
know $125 million I I've got to laugh in
away at corporate for this because you
know [ __ ] you you you do all the bad
things so you do deserve some some L's
here and there um and it is EA one of
the worst companies in video gaming for
you know decades but yeah there we go uh
that's a that's a funny one either way
thanks for watching you can buy gamer
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Immortals of Avon but thanks for
watching appreciate it and uh look out
for another YouTube channel I'm going to
be releasing in the next couple of days
if you're a fan of Magic the Gathering
cuz I am going to be making a magic the
Gathering Channel cuz [ __ ] it I don't
have any free time as it is with the two
channels I currently manage so why not
make a third one and just never do
anything ever again so thanks for
watching see you next time peace