This game will fail

[リアンダ]

As a former Conan Exiles player I'm convinced that this game will most likely massively underperform. There's a couple of reasons for it.

1.) The Dune IP is pretty weak:
Most people seem to think that the brandname Dune will help sell this game but I don't think so. Dune has always been a relatively niche franchise with a limited audience of hard sci fi nerds. The recently released Dune movies were the most mainstream and most accessible interpetation of the franchise in decades but they only saw moderate success and weren't able to create a noteworthy ripple in pop culture. Whatever momentum Dune had it will be long gone by the time this game is released.
2.) Poor monetization:
I bought Conan Exiles back in Early Access, played it for hundreds of hours, then dropped it shortly after they introduced the battle pass system. The pricing of Conan Exiles is atrocious and given that Tencent owns Funcom I expect Dune to have a similar or even more predatory monetization system. Unlike Conan Exiles there will be very little player goodwill and player attachment to this game though so most players won't put up with its horrible monetization.
3.) The setting of Dune is a bad choice for an open world game:
While Dune offers a wider universe Arakis is what most players associate with the franchise and where most of the gameplay will take place on. Arakis is unfortunately a pretty dead desert. There's no biodiversity, no unique biomes, no interesting native cultures beyond the Fremen. It's a world that is fun to explore for a few hours in a singleplayer game but not a good setting for an MMORPG as it becomes repitite rather quickly.
4.) No edgy enough:
This may be a bit of a weird point but I believe Conan Exiles did sell well due to being notoriously edgy on release. ♥♥♥♥ sliders, dragging captured slaves back to your camp, gore and nudity at every corner. It played perfectly into the fantasy of being a barbarian in prehistoric times that are as far removed from your boring office job as humanly possible. Dune will most likely be massively toned down in pretty much all of these aspects removing what used to be a mayor selling point for Conan Exiles and attracts a huge Roleplay Community to the game to this day.

Let me know if I missed any points and whether you agree or disagree. Have a wonderful day.

[Explicable]

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

As a former Conan Exiles player I'm convinced that this game will most likely massively underperform. There's a couple of reasons for it.

1.) The Dune IP is pretty weak:
Most people seemt o think that the brandname Dune will help sel this game but I don't think so. Dune has always been a relatively niche franchise with a limited audience of hard sci fi nerds. The recently released Dune movies were the most mainstream and most accessible interpetation of the franchise in decades but they only saw moderate success and weren't able to create a noteworthy riple in pop culture. Whatever momentum Dune had it will be long gone by the time this game is released.
2.) Poor monetization:
I bought Conan Exiles back in Early Access, played it for hundreds of hours, then dropped it shortly after they introduced the battle pass system. The pricing of Conan Exiles is atrocious and given that Tencent owns Funcom I expect Dune to have a similar or even more predatory monetization system. Unlike Conan Exiles there will be very little palyer goodwill and player attachment to this agame thoguh so most players won't put up with it's horrible monetization.
3.) The setting of Dune is a bad choice for an open world game:
While Dune offers a wider universe Arakis is what most players associate with the franchise and where most of the gameplay will take place on. Arakis is unfortunately a pretty dead desert. There's no biodiversity, no unique biomes, no interesting native cultures beyond the Fremen. It's a world that is fun to explore for a few hours in a singleplayer game but not a good setting for an MMORPG as it becomes repitite rather quickly.
4.) No edgy enough:
This may be a bit of a weird point but I beleive Conan Exiles did sell well due to being notoriously edgy on release. ♥♥♥♥ sliders, dragging captured slaves back to your camp, gore and nudity at every corner. It played perfectly into teh fantasy of being a barbarian in a prehistoric fantasy setting that is as far removed from your boring office job as humanly possible. Dune will most likely be massively toned down in pretty much all of these aspects removing what used to be a mayor selling point for Conan Exiles and attracts a huge Roleplay Community to the game to this day.

Let me know if I missed any points and whether you agree or disagree. Have a wonderful day.

"The Dune IP is pretty weak" lmfao not worth reading past that level of ignorance hahahaha.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by Explicable:

"The Dune IP is pretty weak" lmfao not worth reading past that level of ignorance hahahaha.

Really? Then tell me how many Dune games were released in the last 20 years? Oh, just one. Now do Star Wars, Warhammer, Harry Potter, Marvel, Lord of the Rings. Want another proof? Then tell my why Villneuves Trilogy was cut down to two parts. Maybe it has to do with the fact that their combined box office can't keep up with the median Marvel Movie Box office. But sure, tell me more about how strong of an IP Dune is when you would be hardpressed to find a single piece of merch at Wallmart. Meanchwile I can find a Pokemon related product within 5 minutes of shopping. Dune is a pretty low tier franchise. That's the reason why you only get a movie or game every few years. It simply doesn't have a large enough fanbase.

But I'm curious what makes you think Dune is indeed an IP strong enough to carry games? Then how come "Spice Wars" the first Dune game in 2 decades sold significantly worse than Shiro Game's selfmade IP "Northgard" even though they are very similar products done by one and the same studio?

[VhagarTheLastOne]

Chances are high, Skull and Bones, Redfall, LOTR etc didnt last long. I was simply amazed how dead Skull and Bones was just 3 month in. Even Diablo 4 is at 22k player, Funcom might get 10% of that, like 2.2k player.

I think they should do something out of the box like NFT/Crypto. NFT rewards should attract at least some players?

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by Cyberpunker:

Chances are high, Skull and Bones, Redfall, LOTR etc didnt last long. I was simply amazed how dead Skull and Bones was just 3 month in. Even Diablo 4 is at 22k player, Funcom might get 10% of that, like 2.2k player.

I think they should do something out of the box like NFT/Crypto. NFT rewards should attract at least some players?

The mayority of D$ players are most likely on battlenet and not steam but othe rthan that I agree.

[Menzagitat]

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

As a former Conan Exiles player I'm convinced that this game will most likely massively underperform. There's a couple of reasons for it.

2.) Poor monetization:
I bought Conan Exiles back in Early Access, played it for hundreds of hours, then dropped it shortly after they introduced the battle pass system. The pricing of Conan Exiles is atrocious and given that Tencent owns Funcom I expect Dune to have a similar or even more predatory monetization system. Unlike Conan Exiles there will be very little palyer goodwill and player attachment to this agame thoguh so most players won't put up with it's horrible monetization.

I can theoretically agree only with point 2, but only because I don't like battle pass systems.
That means I am biased.
If many others pay and the system proves effective, then that could actually shape the game in a way that such s system make sense: free to play + payed seasonal battle passes.
And then it fails only for you and me but succeeds overall to those who pay and to Funcom as well.

[ɃƵ Crazy Cat Lady]

I mean, if they can't even make conan exiles fun, what makes them think they can make dune fun? I guess we will see. Maybe when they arent worrying about all of that other stuff they can actually make a fun, balanced, engaging game? There are a LOT of ways a dune survival game can work, and be interesting.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by ɃƵ I got your back brother:

I mean, if they can't even make conan exiles fun, what makes them think they can make dune fun? I guess we will see. Maybe when they arent worrying about all of that other stuff they can actually make a fun, balanced, engaging game? There are a LOT of ways a dune survival game can work, and be interesting.

I guess a good gamedesigner can make any setting work but Dune seems to be one of the most limiting settings I can imagine. It's a desert planet. There are no seasons, the only interesting native lifeforms I'm aware of are sandworms/sandtrouts which is one and the same thing and boring real life creatues like desert hawks, foxes, kangaroo mouses, etc. The biomes are all just rocks and sand, sand and rocks. How do you make these things visually inetrsting let alone in terms of gameplay. In Conan Exiles noob river, the jungle and the north look an feel very different from one another. How would you do that in Dune? These are genuine questions btw, as an amateur game designer I would love to see how more experienced game designers would tackle these issues that come along with Dune's setting.

[NEON]

Who does it interest enough to stick with it? The PvP crowd that jumps on the next big/intersting thing that is trendy or the people who are fans of the novels?

[Zugs]

check announcements. They havent even really started the push... 1 million wish-listed... yeah its going to be a commercial success. Now we'll have to see if its going to be a great game or not.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by Zugs:

check announcements. They havent even really started the push... 1 million wish-listed... yeah its going to be a commercial success. Now we'll have to see if its going to be a great game or not.

It is hard to say howmany wishlist translate into actual sales but all numbers I could find were in the single digits. Wishlisting means nothing if the game isn't good. They will probably sell the game at a relatively low price and try to make back money via mictrotransactions which only works if the game is good. So yeah, player numbers 1 year post release is porbably where we can see whether or not teh game was succesful or not.

[Zewtastic]

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

As a former Conan Exiles player I'm convinced that this game will most likely massively underperform. There's a couple of reasons for it.

1.) The Dune IP is pretty weak:
Most people seemt o think that the brandname Dune will help sel this game but I don't think so. Dune has always been a relatively niche franchise with a limited audience of hard sci fi nerds. The recently released Dune movies were the most mainstream and most accessible interpetation of the franchise in decades but they only saw moderate success and weren't able to create a noteworthy riple in pop culture. Whatever momentum Dune had it will be long gone by the time this game is released.
2.) Poor monetization:
I bought Conan Exiles back in Early Access, played it for hundreds of hours, then dropped it shortly after they introduced the battle pass system. The pricing of Conan Exiles is atrocious and given that Tencent owns Funcom I expect Dune to have a similar or even more predatory monetization system. Unlike Conan Exiles there will be very little palyer goodwill and player attachment to this agame thoguh so most players won't put up with it's horrible monetization.
3.) The setting of Dune is a bad choice for an open world game:
While Dune offers a wider universe Arakis is what most players associate with the franchise and where most of the gameplay will take place on. Arakis is unfortunately a pretty dead desert. There's no biodiversity, no unique biomes, no interesting native cultures beyond the Fremen. It's a world that is fun to explore for a few hours in a singleplayer game but not a good setting for an MMORPG as it becomes repitite rather quickly.
4.) No edgy enough:
This may be a bit of a weird point but I beleive Conan Exiles did sell well due to being notoriously edgy on release. ♥♥♥♥ sliders, dragging captured slaves back to your camp, gore and nudity at every corner. It played perfectly into teh fantasy of being a barbarian in a prehistoric fantasy setting that is as far removed from your boring office job as humanly possible. Dune will most likely be massively toned down in pretty much all of these aspects removing what used to be a mayor selling point for Conan Exiles and attracts a huge Roleplay Community to the game to this day.

Let me know if I missed any points and whether you agree or disagree. Have a wonderful day.

One look at this turds posting history tells you all you need to know about his lack of any game knowledge. He's just a posting troll.
All his posts are all about game XXX is going to fail because YYY.
Everyone just block him now and save yourself the grief and headache.

[Rossmary]

It will fail because the developer Funcom is a disaster, which keeps its games full of bugs, abandoning Conan a long time ago and releasing patches that ruin everything

[Indigo_Sun]

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

As a former Conan Exiles player I'm convinced that this game will most likely massively underperform. There's a couple of reasons for it.

Dune has always been a relatively niche franchise with a limited audience of hard sci fi nerds.

You have absolutely no idea what hard SF is.

[graveisthis]

oh fun ARK has a new season THE SAND lol

[Bjørn]

Originally posted by ShakingZealot:

Originally posted by Zugs:

check announcements. They havent even really started the push... 1 million wish-listed... yeah its going to be a commercial success. Now we'll have to see if its going to be a great game or not.

It is hard to say howmany wishlist translate into actual sales but all numbers I could find were in the single digits. Wishlisting means nothing if the game isn't good. They will probably sell the game at a relatively low price and try to make back money via mictrotransactions which only works if the game is good. So yeah, player numbers 1 year post release is porbably where we can see whether or not teh game was succesful or not.

There is a 'wishlist calculator' that was a bit interesting, but how accurate it is I've no idea... Fun anyway!

It bases day 1 sales at 5% of wishlist numbers, which I've seen is common to use on other statistics sites as well.

https://impress.games/steam-wishlists-sales-calculator

There isn't an MMO category, but when setting RPG and a price of 50 dollars (rest default), it shows a lifetime revenue of 50 million.