Just curious

[LiDyl]

I know you guys just bought the game and are disappointed that you are not able to play due the the Queue times. but at the same time...how many of us saw marketing for this game? how many of us knew helldivers as a franchise existed before this blew up on youtube and other socials. From what i gather the original hell divers had a max of ~6k-9k players at any given time. now when there are 4 MILLION copies sold of this game that is attached to a franchise that used to less than 1 percent of that, how were they able to predict that? how were they able to accommodate the still growing player base? are they suppose to pull servers out of a magic hat and solve all the problems instantly?

They are actively updating the game, and working on server issues. theyve said multiple times that this is top priority and theyve proved that it was because its been the only thing they are focused on at the moment, their updates prove that. So while you wait for these issues to resolve, im sure you have another game you enjoy and would play while you wait for this game to catch up to the nuke of popularity that went off 10 days ago. Your negative reviews wont make it go any faster either.

[Lord Lurk]

Because they revealed the game at various game conventions, plastered trailers for it on youtube and from my understanding Twitch as well. Not to mention all the other various platforms like twitter, the playstation store, etc.

Steam storefront popped it up on upcoming games too, which a lot of people check. While this game wasn't marketed to the levels of say, Diablo 4 or Starfield, it was certainly NOT nothing. For example, here is the PlayStation announcement trailer...with over 500k views alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE7KTE28HrA

They were not 'blind sided', they willingly chose to be. All the signs of the game being at least moderately popular were there.

[Oonue]

Comes with the territory of live service games, underestimating or overestimating server needs is a risk of the model. Had they gone for a traditional release with offline and lan play, their servers wouldn't be getting hit by everyone as soon as the game was launched, and people would be able to play while the issues got sorted out.

[ケツデカピングー]

tldr: OP is cuck on dev bull

[Lunaire]

Originally posted by Lord Lurk:

Because they revealed the game at various game conventions, plastered trailers for it on youtube and from my understanding Twitch as well. Not to mention all the other various platforms like twitter, the playstation store, etc.

Steam storefront popped it up on upcoming games too, which a lot of people check. While this game wasn't marketed to the levels of say, Diablo 4 or Starfield, it was certainly NOT nothing. For example, here is the PlayStation announcement trailer...with over 500k views alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE7KTE28HrA

They were not 'blind sided', they willingly chose to be. All the signs of the game being at least moderately popular were there.

Yeah but the average Joe would still have to be looking for the game itself for it to register.
I got lots of gamer friends who barely knew it existed before release. And even then, all they saw was "Meh another third person shooter... :x".
Actual Gameplay from actual users only came a week or two before release and all you could find of that on Youtube was 2 or 3 videos (TOTAL) even, by specifically typing the name of the game in there.
So, your point is valid but we're talking about modern potential customers here: they got burned so much in recent years that you can have a million trailers... if they don't see actual gameplay by actual users, they won't buy. So this backfired magistrally because it was marketed like crap.(in a modern setting)

[Dwonk The Ronk Jonkson]

OP has never heard of data analytics / marketing & sales projection

[Lunaire]

Originally posted by Dwonk The Ronk Jonkson:

OP has never heard of data analytics / marketing & sales projection

Neither have you, if you think that most companies even have those. :)

[Dwonk The Ronk Jonkson]

Originally posted by Lunaire:

Originally posted by Dwonk The Ronk Jonkson:

OP has never heard of data analytics / marketing & sales projection

Neither have you, if you think that most companies even have those. :)

They do...especially Sony lmao

[Ravenspear]

I mean, looking at data analytics / marketing / sales projections, I would have said that this game would be much less successful than it has been. Just looking at other recent Live Service games from other, much larger developers, their initial server capacity of 250,000 was actively over expectations. Looking at their own previous releases, 250,000 was far over any projections that could have been made there. Yes, the game is published by Sony, who put some money into trailers and advertisement, but there was also no pre-release reviews or early-access launches for streamers/content-creators to show off the game.

There was no real way that I can see that anyone could have anticipated the overwhelming amount of response this game has garnered in the week or so since its release. On the surface, and in trailers, it's your fairly typical 3rd person co-op shooter. The response it's garnered has largely been post-launch, and astonishing, to say the least. 450,000 concurrent players is a dream for 99% of game developers, and these guys have hit that within days of releasing their game.

Does it suck to not be able to log in and play? Absolutely. It's a drag, no doubts about it. But simply blaming the developers for not 'throwing money' at the problem shows a complete lack of understanding of how 3rd party server hosting is managed, especially when we're talking about these numbers, and the backend means of querying said server that were not even originally designed with half a million or more queries in mind. The reason it's currently capped, as they've stated, is that each time they've raised it, it's brought certain issues to light vis a vis matchmaking, mission rewards, or the social menu. They're essentially being forced to rewrite a hefty portion of their backend server infrastructure to accomodate overwhelming numbers of Liber-tea drinking democratic fanatics, and when that's done, they can focus again on the numbers themselves.

They're not running from the problem. They're not taking the money and hiding. If you don't have the patience to support open, and honest game developers who've put out one of the most fairly monetized live service games in the last 10 years, then... well, I suppose you don't have the patience. But I do.

[Dredd]

I was just in a game earlier where all 3 other players were talkinga bout how they had never heard of Helldivers before something on tiktok or facebook. Just laying it out there that the original was completely unknown to them before recently.

[LiDyl]

Originally posted by ケツデカピングー:

tldr: OP is cuck on dev bull

lmao

[LiDyl]

Originally posted by thedreddnought:

I was just in a game earlier where all 3 other players were talkinga bout how they had never heard of Helldivers before something on tiktok or facebook. Just laying it out there that the original was completely unknown to them before recently.

thats what im saying. the trailer for this game had only 500,000 views, which is a lot but not 4 million copies type of views

[McFuzz]

Originally posted by Officer Yorker:

how many of us knew helldivers as a franchise existed before this blew up on youtube and other socials..

i did

[aCidVicious]

Originally posted by Officer Yorker:

I know you guys just bought the game and are disappointed that you are not able to play due the the Queue times. but at the same time...how many of us saw marketing for this game? how many of us knew helldivers as a franchise existed before this blew up on youtube and other socials. From what i gather the original hell divers had a max of ~6k-9k players at any given time. now when there are 4 MILLION copies sold of this game that is attached to a franchise that used to less than 1 percent of that, how were they able to predict that? how were they able to accommodate the still growing player base? are they suppose to pull servers out of a magic hat and solve all the problems instantly?

They are actively updating the game, and working on server issues. theyve said multiple times that this is top priority and theyve proved that it was because its been the only thing they are focused on at the moment, their updates prove that. So while you wait for these issues to resolve, im sure you have another game you enjoy and would play while you wait for this game to catch up to the nuke of popularity that went off 10 days ago. Your negative reviews wont make it go any faster either.

I was lured here by marketing. I am very careful to avoid any advertising, but sponsored content posing as news will occasionally grab my attention.
TBH though i was only even curious to read it because I saw so many people playing in Steam group chats.