Hmm …
Looking at AoE 3 DE’s all-time concurrent player count on Steam, I don’t think the F2P release (labelled ‘FT’) inflates the playerbase that much.
Keep in mind, the Trial is likewise limited to Steam and does not exist on the Windows Store.
Why would they hate their own product? I’m sorry but this argument will never make sense.
My bro Floos. I think you have a Toxic positivity syndrome you must address
There are a lot of clues on what and why the company do not lke the game, the community and its supporters. They have a lot of reasons on do not give a shit on us, the game and so
Look how they decieved it, banned, ignored us all on purpose. All with malice in mind. Do you still think they care about Age of Empires III?
They do not care. They do not give a fuck on that matter!
No, I don’t think so.
See, I am willing to believe this point if you can actually bring examples of them “hating” the game.
And no, this infamous example doesn’t count:
bueno quizas la palabra odio no sea la correcta, pero la de no apreciar su producto lo veo plausible, lo excluyen demasiado y no les interesa promocionarlo, asi que veo plausible que simplemente les importa poco lo que le pase, si genera algo de dinero Bien! sino pues nada que hacer, para lo unico que lo promocionan es para las ofertas, para ver si generan unos cuantos dolares xd. Eso no se puede negar Floos quizas odio no sea la palabra, pero la indiferencia es plausible
That’s what I’m saying. To hate something, you need to actively care for it.
Not by much, but considering the low gap between Retold and AoE III: DE, then it’s relevant. It was only meant as a throwaway note / factor anyway. The point was that they’re both similar, and that is more bad for Retold long-term, than it is a business case for III: DE.
(regardless of whether or not I agree with said business outlooks, right)
no tiene sentido, para que te quedarias jugando una demo cuando puedes comprarte el juego base completo por solo 3 o 5 dolares cuando esta en oferta? el “Free trial” es solo una prueba gratuita para ver si te gusta el juego, pero no se si tu lo entiendes pero esa free trial pesa lo mismo que el juego completo, por que carajos tendrias instalado una demo que te ocupa tantos GB de espacio si no vas a comprar el juego completo?
Why not? Storage is cheap. I myself have like 18TB across four drives. Buying a game (even on sale) is a barrier.
I’m not saying there’s some huge free playerbase out there. I’m just saying it adds to the numbers, factually. That’s all.
25%-50% more is barely? Because right now it’s a full 33% more, and it drifts closer to 50% when there hasn’t been a recent sale or DLC.
AOE3 is averaging 4k players online at a time. This is the lowest time of the day.
AOE3 is consistently in the top 5 RTSes on Steam. If we compare it to others in the field, such as Northgard, AOE3DE is newer (2018 vs 2020), has more players (1.7k vs 4.1k), and more sales (3M vs 4M), and Northgard is releasing content DLC twice a month.
No, it won’t win any “most players” awards, but being in the top 250 most played games on Steam is certainly substantial.
My point is that if they’re trying to sell 4 DLCs, including 2 cosmetic packs, for a less popular game, there’s no legitimate justification for refusing to support a substantially more popular game. If they want to sell two cosmetic packs to a less popular game to fuel support, why not one cosmetic pack for a game that frequently has twice as many players.
Market economics dictate going to where there is strong demand, and there’s strong demand for AOE3.
My point is both numbers are relatively low. Like I said: this is more bad news for Retold, than it is good news for AoE III: DE.
The player numbers are, basically, irrelevant to Retold getting the updates it is getting. Retold is getting updates because it is newer.
That’s great news for Northgard then. I’m not sure why it’s relevant to what I was talking about.
I cherrypicked the time of day I posted? Okay.
Newer titles perform better with SEO, don’t tend to get reduced as heavily on-sale, and generally will get you more revenue. Very few games have a long tail. Most games make their ROI on sales in the first year, or less.
After that it’s the depressing equation of “how much money is corporate willing to spend” vs. “how much supporting the product costs”.
But maybe you’re right, and it is a bad decision to invest so heavily into Retold. Maybe they have no idea what they’re on about. All I can say is that generally, newer titles receive more support than older titles. Companies often pursue different strategies, so Northgard receiving support is a completely different kettle of fish to MS assigning resources within its AoE umbrella.
Retold gets what it gets. It’s not Retold’s fault. If the market economics were as incontrovertible as you claim, III: DE would still be getting support. It is not, ergo they aren’t.
I guess this is why the mantra of “they hate the game” has gained so much traction (true or false). Because III: DE has to be popular, and therefore there’s no logical reason why it doesn’t have support. Therefore someone must hate it.
Of course, that doesn’t make it true. But I can see the rationalisation. To me it’s not that at all. To me it’s just a corporation making shortsighted decisions to “cut costs”. Retold will meet the same fate eventually. It’s all a bit sucky.
(of course, no game deserves to be supported forever either - the cost of supporting something will always eventually exceed the revenue earned from providing that support - but it’s certainly true that many games don’t get their fair dues, with the industry as it is)
That is exactly the point of no return
Thats why we are very angry, sad and frustrated
Northgard’s support has no relevant to III: DE’s support. Retold’s has more (same studio, same overall budget pot from MS, same people in charge of their gaming divisions at the top), but still less than you seem to think.
If III: DE was released after Retold, the positions would be reversed. That’s all there is to it. Y’all need to stop projecting your anger onto completely unnecessary targets.
Microsoft is not giving the franchise enough resource. Full stop. III: DE was the first to lose support because of this. It won’t be the last.
A very distorted view of things
This reminds me of Elite Rifleman, Skadidesu and others who praise MS and WE decisions
Look what happened with the obnoxious decisions on developing variant half baked and low effort civilizations for IV or making II a Frankenstein Cluttered Monster with 50+civs plus heroes and Antiquity Stuff on Ladder
All MS and WE are plagued of incompetence!
Would love to see the player base numbers for both told and aoe 3 de, we only have steam numbers but there are players on Microsoft store and then you have consoles for the retold game
Steam is the only apples to apples comparison we have. Previous analysis before AOMRs Xbox release showed that the proportion of Microsoft accounts vs Steam accounts in ranked (F2P doesn’t factor into ranked) between AOMR and AOE3DE were both around 10% Microsoft accounts, so it stands to reason that the Steam trend is consistent with Microsoft Store.
XBox and PS players are an unknown factor, but similarly we can expect that if EW had launched AOE3 on those platforms, it would have had a similar level of success when compared to AOMR (meaning twice as many players)
This is me praising their decisions?
I don’t think I’m distorting anything at all. Like I said, wrong target.
I love your optimism, but if you expect too much, you’ll end up like them. @FloosWorld
Well, something tells me they have many more plans for AOM, and by the time the game stops receiving content, I’d say it’s the completion of a project, not an abandonment as such.
de que pais eres? por que que sepas que paises como el mio (Chile) no sale para nada precisamente barato comprarte un disco duro de 1 terabite y para mis amigos de otros paises tampoco
Game projects can fulfil their original mission in the eyes of their developers. They can also continue on beyond that. I think it’s safe to that that II: DE, III: DE and IV all continued well past launch. Retold is a bit over a year old. It’s the youngest of the bunch.
But hey, maybe I’m wrong and Retold is getting all this money thrown at it at the expense of every other project. Good for Retold. Doesn’t stop me disagreeing with what happened with III: DE, nor does it make it Retold’s fault.
These are financial decisions that are being made. This a justification, just an observation.
The UK. Hardware is getting worse globally, and some countries suffer more with logistics, imports, etc. If hardware is expensive for you, it’s expensive for you.
Doesn’t change the fact that you need one to have a functioning PC. A game being F2P lowers the barrier to entry and adds player numbers. I thought rotating civs was a neat way to get people into III: DE myself.
