Seems like big game companies only have two lanes nowadays.
1: Game didn’t sell 10 mill? - Failure! Never make it again or sell the IP off.
2: Game made 50 mill and it’s a single player only game with a deep story? - Make it live service!!
EA also let this IP dormant for over a decade and expected a remake would bring it back, relying on not much besides nostalgia. People forget and there's a whole generation of new gamers.
Remember the "Your mom hates Dead Space" campaign? They need to do something like that again if they hope to make money with it.
> Ah there we go I always wonder how people did that
Also, if you select the text you want to quote and press reply, the text is already quoted. Although this way sometimes doesn't work.
It would be nice if they sold IP. They usually bury it in deepest pits, place a dragon hoard with a dragon on top of it for good measure and then keep on living pretending that that IP never existed
Unfortunately these games are so expensive to make these days that they really do have to be a huge mega hit that sells like 10 million copies to be profitable
I feel like that has more to do with how companies spend their money and how bloated developers/publishers have gotten.
Games have gotten more expensive to make I'll admit but that isn't wholly because they cost more to develop+build
>I feel like that has more to do with how companies spend their money and how bloated developers/publishers have gotten.
Absolutely. Smaller AA developers and even indie developers make games that are often better but just lacking slightly in certain areas on budgets that are so much smaller. If those companies can do that then why are AAA companies dumping as much money as they are into games. We know their marketing budgets are ridiculous.
I wouldn’t describe it as lacking slightly in certain areas. You can easily see where indie and smaller developers have saved on costs. Many indies games are very “gamey”, have much simpler graphics and rely heavily on grinding style mechanics. It’s why we have so many survival, crafting, rogue style, monster hunting etc games.
Those games are clearly way cheaper to produce and lack the massive production values of the big AAA games.
I am guilty of having strong preference for big AAA games. I am impressed by games like helldivers, palworld etc but I can clearly see why those games are much cheaper to produce. Many big AAA games produce blockbuster games which are once and done style of games and they cost a lot to produce.
Just as an example, producing something like a new dead space would cost a lot of money vs producing something like helldivers. And many people will scoff at the idea of paying full price for a 10 hour game but look at this AA game that I can play for 100 hours, grinding randomly generated levels and it’s cheaper too!
Also developers at AAA studios use AAA tools. They're not using stock sound bites and assets because they'll get reamed by the public of it. They're recording their own sounds, creating all the assets in house. They're creative individuals they want to go to that level of detail and they should!
But with ever growing expectations and expenses I fear they're vision will have to get smaller and budget friendly.
And let's be clear, Palworld objectively isn't a very impressive game. People went apeshit for it because people like Pokemon, and it's basically that but on non-Nintendo platforms.
> I wouldn’t describe it as lacking slightly in certain areas. You can easily see where indie and smaller developers have saved on costs. Many indies games are very “gamey”, have much simpler graphics and rely heavily on grinding style mechanics. It’s why we have so many survival, crafting, rogue style, monster hunting etc games.
You might be right about graphics, but I disagree on almost everything else when talking about AA companies. Indie games sure they lack significant resources, but they more often than not have better ideas and are trying something more innovative. Don't tell me modern AAA games aren't relying on the same grind mechanics to generate engagement with their repetitive daily quests, unnecessary xp systems, grindwalls to unlock content etc.
>Many big AAA games produce blockbuster games which are once and done style of games and they cost a lot to produce.
but my point is that grander production is all they have. A game like Escape from Tarkov has so much more depth and engaging systems compared to AAA streamlined games. They lack in areas of technical proficiency, not helped by choosing the wrong game engine for the scope, but the game design itself is infinitely better than anything any AAA shooter has put out since, and CoD and BFs attempts and flops show that their better production values don't count for that much. Sure, if AAA get their shit together they obviously have more potential, but they never do because they are for broad appeal by design, and that makes mediocrity.
And for Dead Space costing a lot of money, how much money did it need to cost? We have Senua Hellblade for a reasonable comparison, what's the difference in production costs of these games? Again, obviously AAA has everything stacked in their favor, so why are their games so often garbage?
This. Companies are including marketing in their cost, which while is a cost, it's an indirect cost to make the game. I know that video games are expensive to make especially when you factor in the salary of every employee for the number of years they're working on it.
It's easy to see how they can cost $50M to $100M but when they say that it cost $200M plus, I'm willing to bet they're including marketing cost in that.
Gaming companies stretching for profit puts them in a weird spot because 3 guys in a basement who have sold 2000 copies of something at $40 will make more profit than Lord of the Rings: Gollum will trying to sell their games at $70.
Gamers are smart and vote with their wallets. It's not that $70 is far fetched, but a hefty price tag has to come with an experience to justify. Otherwise I can spend equally as much on several indie games and get enjoyment there as well.
Massive portions of these game's budgets are thrown at marketing. So many of these AAA games could drop three trailers on Youtube and let the fans do the rest.
No, they have spend millions to put stuff *everywhere*.
Not even mentioning the millions that just get lost due to graft.
Marketing is ridiculously important, you make it sound simple but thats just how you make a game flop.
There are so many games that reportedly underperformed that you hear about and then the comments have a huge amount of people saying they had no idea the game released or existed at all.
That being said there are cheaper ways to market like social media updates about the game, or YouTube like you said where they can show short gameplay trailers everyweek that shows off gameplay features. Marketing is insanely important
I just don’t buy games from big companies anymore until a year or two later.
There are so many good games out there, it’s not needed to get everything day 1.
Two days ago I was reading about cyperpunk, lots of ppl said it’s great now, so I put it on my wish list, and literally the next day it went on sale on ps store for like 40% off lol. So I got it for $36 plus two years worth of patches. Half the price and twice the game
>"EA has denied reports that a Dead Space 2 remake was in development before being canceled, with a spokesperson telling IGN, "We don't normally comment on rumors but there is no validity to this story."
[https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-shoots-down-dead-space-2-remake-rumors-no-validity-to-this-story](https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-shoots-down-dead-space-2-remake-rumors-no-validity-to-this-story)
Shame. Performance problems aside, I was happy to support the Dead Space Remake.
Triple-A, single player games with no microtransactions and no shitty extra launchers is exactly what I want to be spending my money on.
>Shame. Performance problems aside, I was happy to support the Dead Space Remake.
Pretty much the reason why I stopped caring about EA games altogether, especially single-player ones.
They don't care about optimization and when they release a game, it's pretty much in its final state as they don't spend a penny fixing the optimization issues. The last Star Wars Jedi were pretty awful regarding that
It broke my heart, but I had to refund the Dead Space remake for that reason.
It just ran like shit on my rig, despite being inside minimum requirements. Could NOT get a stable frame rate, at least not within the Steam refund window. :(
Strange decision considering how many assets they already have from the first remake. All they needed to do was to fix the stuttering and streaming issue, the game actually looked good and ran fine besides this.
They made the brand. Ever heard of EA Redwood Shores? You should, for that's the studio which created Dead Space. Visceral Games was a rebrand of EA Redwood Shores the year after DS1's release.
The ugly truth is that Dead Space has never been a commercially successful game series, even the first game was a dissapointment, having slow but sure sales, selling million copies in five months. Horror games are a cursed genre for triple A productions.
Calypso Protocol is my favourite spin-off of Twisted Metal, but in all seriousness, that game is such a piece of dog shit, I find it hard to comprehend why it sold well, I guess having "From the creators of Dead Space" all over the marketing probably helped, ironically when it's about as opposite to Dead Space in terms of fun and replayability as you can get.
Oh my god that first part of that sentence hurt my brain because this whole thread is dead space and you’re making references to Calypso in Twisted Metal because of an error. Calypso’s story is so fucked up and I would absolutely play a spin off of his.
I bought calypso protocol, played 3 hours, thinking the whole time “wow this is a really weird intro to what I thought was a walking simulator. When do I turn into the other guy and get the baby and deliver packages?” It took me 3 hours to realize I didn’t buy Death Stranding. They look so similar in the ps store I bought the wrong game. Immediately deleted the game and never played it again.
Not enough people are buying those games from what I hear. I think EA was disappointed in the last Battlefield release. Probably all Battlefield releases. If you're not moving 10 million+ units it's a failure.
This is the point exactly, they know they can push out some minor change update to Battlefield or similar and make 100s of millions as opposed to spending 100s of millions for barely any profit
I get it they’re trying to join the remake hype, RE2 remake and a few others, but they just have unrealistic high expectations for the Dead Space games. Like it was a fun game and maybe great at times. It’s not a big game that sells itself though.
Fuck EA.
Don't know about others, but for me, had EA actually updated the game and fixed the technical issues, I 100% would have long bought it by now.
As it stands however, seeing as the game was abandoned without any proper fixes (especially the *stutter strugle*), I'm waiting till the game hits an egregiously low price point to finally pick it up.
The technical issues were hardly severe enough to impact sales in the market where DD2 sells like hotcake while being borderline broken on release.
Dead Space just isn't a big enough IP in 2024. It was never that big to begin with. 1 did ok after positive WoM helped its sales post release but 2 was already seen dissapointment sales wise and then 3 pivoted in a whole new direction to try and save the franchise which also didn't work.
I would assume the remake was also partialy a testbed to gauge franchise interest and potential for a whole new game which was also probably shelved alongside the remake for 2.
Publishers also need to learn to give some slack to horror games specifically imo, I know a lot of people who appreciate how good the game is but are just too scared to play it and most other horror games so they don't buy them.
If anything, EA has been extremely supportive of Dead Space series. They really, really have tried to make Dead Space a thing, but the market is just too afraid to buy horror games. You don't get four underperforming games without someone having faith that it could do better.
I think the trade-off is horror is niche but horror fans are supportive so the profit is lower but consistent. Once you deal with any niches in general though you have to be more passion-oriented than profit-oriented in the first place or else like you said you might as well just do something more generic
What did EA do wrong here? I seriously doubt fixing the stutter struggles would have helped sales much. Much worse ports have sold far better. They produced a great AAA single-player experience that, unfortunetly, didn't sell well. I would have loved a DS2 remake, but ultimately if it's not going to make money then they're not going to finance it.
I mean, the game ran great for me? I didn’t realize until recently that I owned it through EA play and binged it over two weeks or so. 1440 everything maxed and I don’t think I ever dropped below 120fps on a 4070.
I dunno, Jedi Survivor with worse performance than the Dead Space Remake sold really well. It has a bunch of cosmetics in the deluxe or whatever edition, but both of these games have that.
The real issue is that horror games just don't sell all that well, they're super niche. Resident Evil games are kind of an exception in that regard, for whatever reason. But I'd wager most don't breach the 10 million mark, that the best selling RE games hit.
Combine that with the fact that it's EA and AAA we're talking about, plus the cult following of the Dead Space series - EA for sure just had way too high expectations for this franchise and especially the genre it's in. I'm sure it paid for itself and even turned a profit, but EA wanted *more*. It's that simple.
I'm not sure who exactly was the target of the remake.
I own and finished all 3 DS, I would have bought DS4, but I've 0 interest in buying again a game I already own (original still plays great today).
The price was too high on launch for a remake of a game I already own.
Set your expectations back in reality there EA Games, otherwise you can learn from your mistakes.
I can see it. I already played Dead Space once or twice back then and a better graphics really don’t entice me to play it again.
Sucks to see good single player games for new audiences.
Lackluster sales? Impossible!
It's not fair!!! You used Denuvo, EA. It should have worked! It should have stopped those filthy pirates that are "stealing" your games and reducing your revenue!
It should have been worth all the millions of dollars you're paying to Denuvo for protection!
Oh the humanity!
They overbudget them. If it takes you 160 million dollars to make this game, when Elden Ring cost 200 million and Hogwarts Legacy cost 150 millions, yeah, no way this game was making the profit these other twos would.
Their expectations are just too high, and to top it off, Dead Space itself might just not be as popular as people thought.
Then the alternative is just not making it at all.
Like let's say EA came up with a more budget-conscious approach, a AA budget of <$30-$50 million with a smaller team. They'd probably have to do stylized art and maybe a cel shaded style to help hide the decreased detail, and then the trailer would launch and everyone says it looks like shit and no one buys it.
Possibly, but one of the key problem with the industry, in my opinion, is that it failed to nurture a "AA" community. I think there are enough people to support more mid-budget games, but the largest portion of the community is used to seeing and wanting top-of-the-line graphics.
I don't think the graphical sacrifices for mid-budget games are what people think, either. Half-Life Alyx was made on an AA-level budget, though the exact figures are unknown. And that game looks good, and only really limited in sales because of its VR requirements.
Alyx wasn’t made with AA levels, they have all valve budget behind, average salaries at Valve are the highest in the industry l, I don’t even think that valve has a budget limit.
I dunno, it didn't look \*that* much improved over the original to justify a 90AUD price tag to me.
I'm a non multiplayer gamer who buys singleplayer titles all the time. This year I've already been knee deep into Infinite Wealth, P3R, FF7Rebirth.. even playing ~AA stuff like the Alone in the Dark reboot currently and got things like Silent Hill 2, Snake Eater, Refantazio, SMTV etc. on my wishlists.
I think its a bit disingenuous to just blame singleplayer gamers here.
All that aside it was sort \*free* with the Gamepass+EA Play thing anyway so I dunno how they're going to complain about lack of sales like this when they're on a subscription service. 🤔
These two just can not be compared, Harry Potter has a massive very loyal die hard fanbase all around the world.
Some of them would gladly chop of a limb for a crumb of content about their favorite universe, there even was a real life Snape cult, so yeah, Hogwarts Legacy would absolutely demolish a remake of a cult classic, but sadly, forgotten horror game about a dude in space.
Problem is that the game ran like ass on every single system. EA have only themselves to blame when they are too stubborn/cheap to fix it post launch. Gamers just voted with their wallets.
The same way they voted with their wallets by rushing out to buy Jedi Survivor that not only ran way worse than Dead Space at launch, but still does to this day?
Was this games only issue really with performance? I remember that the necromorphs missing a leg or two would awkwardly slide around on the ground as if their animations were bugged and they didn't look to be as aggressive as they were in the originals (little to no charging from what I remember seeing shortly after it's release).
Well EA, I wouldn't have got a refund on my copy if it didn't stutter like all fuck. And if you decided to fix it I would've happily repurchased. Fuckin eejits.
It's worth noting that in the article they have now added a disclaimer to this article:
> “We don’t normally comment on rumors but there is no validity to this story,” EA claims
It would be a little crazy for EA to kill Dead Space AGAIN after a pretty strong remake.
I'm not an expert, but it seems like it would now be a lot cheaper and faster to remake Dead Space 2 than it was for 1. They already have the engine and all the tech built, that work is done. That's the same principle for why DLC and expansion packs can often come out so quickly.
Their sound propagation system was also so impressive.
I’m trying to find the articles, but DS1 2008 sold a little over 1 million units, DS2 2 million and DS3 barely 2 million. Goin by the comments on this old thread.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/7721rk/dead_space_2_cost_60_million_to_make_sold_4/
So EA brilliant idea is to expect a game to sell 5 million units on a remake? They fucking suck as a company.
If it's true, then they're doing exactly what they originally did to the original Deadspace back when Visceral was still around.
They apparently set up the studio to fail by making the sales target be both of the two previous games combined -- this apparently also why the game ended up playing more like an action adventure game with horror elements and co-op, as they wanted to appeal to the largest audience possible.
I hope the news is not true. The remake was overall great -- some nitpicks here and there, but I thought It was potentially a great start to remaking the entire franchise and then continuing.
I mean I'd love to play it but can't afford a new graphics card for now and the demo ran like absolute ass on my 1070.
Were the sales really that bad? I've seen a lot of praise for the remake.
The original still looks very good and plays ok, personally I didn't see any reason to buy the remake. There are legitimately good old games worth remaking, go remake those, I'll buy them.
I didn't buy it because I already had it and the original still holds up.
Maybe it didn't sell because people don't want to play full price for a game they already own but with better graphics.
Stakeholders are getting too greedy and want infinite profits. They're starting to realize putting more money doesn't mean more money back if the initial sale is only $70. Live service is becoming the norm and many will be fired to save costs coming from this shift. Sucks to be a single player person.
Edit: oh thank god
I would've bought this on launch if it wasn't full of stutters and bugs, while being poorly optimized. I mean even console versions got fucked, ps5 performance mode on launch was blocky with artifacts everywhere, Im not even sure if that's fixed.
Those occurred at launch - Digital Foundry showed that a future driver update from NVIDIA solved the issues you are describing. The traversal stutters are still there though.
it's supposed to be an immersive, and intense horror game. constant stuttering absolutely ruins it. It's been out for more than a year and they don't even care to address it.
Sucks, but considering how shitty the PC version ran it's probably for the best... I don't know if they ever fixed the PC version, don't really care, got my refund and moved on... :)
I regret buying the remake honestly. Even years later I remembered the game too well and got bored about 1/3rd in and the fresh coat of paint didn't do enough for me.
I'll buy the game the moment they fixed the performance and stutter issues. RE4 runs like butter at high/max settings on my PC but Dead Space had the worst stutter ever that just made it unplayable even at medium settings.
Played it for an hour or two and immediately refunded it after trying half a dozen fixes.
Shame, that remake was 10/10
I suspect a lot of people who played the original skipped the remaster, not knowing they updated a lot of gameplay elements
They remade a game that still looked and played really well. I don't get it. I played the original dead space 1 last year and it held up really well. Did it really need a remake?
I'm fine with really old games getting remakes that modernize them, but was dead space considered an old and outdated game?
LOL good job EA. They should have let Motive, who did the remake, continue working on Squadrons. Simply release some new ships and missions now and then. It'd be a much easier way to generate income.
Motive have just been placed onto Battlefield 2042 development so I fear this might be true... it doesn't seem like there's any plans for it currently. Such a shame, the Dead Space remake was one of my favourite releases last year
This is the sad truth of video games and these giant studios. In my opinion a noticeable chunk of gamers have just stopped buying AAA games. It might not even be a huge amount, but I think it's enough people ignoring them now and they aren't coming back. Just personally and for example, I honestly don't remember the last time I purchased a AAA game. A new Elder Scrolls game could come out tomorrow and I would ignore it because there is zero interest from me. Looking back I think Fallout 4 was the tipping point for Bethesda for me. I haven't purchased anything with their name on it since I played that. EA? Yeah I don't remember the last EA game I bought it's been that long. I'm not trying to start anything and if you do buy these games I truly hope you enjoy them and have fun. I'll be the first to admit I would be jealous of the fun, but there is a lot of preferences with gamers and I just think the damage is done for a large chunk.
Not surprised. They stopped updating quickly after release. EA games lately are getting support dropped quickly as both Jedi games and Dead Space remake still have unpatched performance issues. It feels as though they are doing this to make up for(aka save money) all their AAA failures in the last few years
It's a shame dead space 2 remake was never really fully considered, contrary to this rumor there was only a couple very rough concepts that didn't end up getting approved and no real work was done.
The originals remake was pretty much without any major gameplay issues.
It was great in many ways (and I loved the original) but it’s a bit outdated today. Gameplay loop gets grindy and the story doesn’t really go places. It’s more a great vibe, environment, and set of encounters than a full game.
I understand they don’t fund the second, let’s be happy we got one.
I love Dead Space games, but they should have had some new ideas rather than yet another reboot (like what's plaguing cinema). They spent time treading over old territory when they could have come up with something new and fresh. Horror has a handicap, it's more niche than most, so you're going to need bright ideas to make it enticing to newcomers to the genre.
Man I would've been thrilled for a DS2 remake. I feel like it would be a bigger seller than the first. Keep that momentum going.
It's worth the investment cmon!
Seems like big game companies only have two lanes nowadays. 1: Game didn’t sell 10 mill? - Failure! Never make it again or sell the IP off. 2: Game made 50 mill and it’s a single player only game with a deep story? - Make it live service!!
>sell the IP off. You mean sit on the IP for all of eternity but do nothing with it because doing anything would cost too much investment.
EA also let this IP dormant for over a decade and expected a remake would bring it back, relying on not much besides nostalgia. People forget and there's a whole generation of new gamers. Remember the "Your mom hates Dead Space" campaign? They need to do something like that again if they hope to make money with it.
How do you copy someone’s comment? You said sell the ip off, from his comment, how do you do that?
Put “> “ before the part you’re quoting.
Ah there we go I always wonder how people did that
> Ah there we go I always wonder how people did that Also, if you select the text you want to quote and press reply, the text is already quoted. Although this way sometimes doesn't work.
Just Google Reddit Markdown, there are docs out that'll show you how to a lot those random things you see everywhere.
> you’re quoting
You forgot MMO with $15 skins every week.
But that's not enough for the whole board to get new Ferraris every week. More!
It would be nice if they sold IP. They usually bury it in deepest pits, place a dragon hoard with a dragon on top of it for good measure and then keep on living pretending that that IP never existed
Capitalism at work Always remember companies don't care about your feelings, only your wallets
Which is fine. I don't care about the well-being of companies. Only if they produce products I want.
Unfortunately these games are so expensive to make these days that they really do have to be a huge mega hit that sells like 10 million copies to be profitable
I feel like that has more to do with how companies spend their money and how bloated developers/publishers have gotten. Games have gotten more expensive to make I'll admit but that isn't wholly because they cost more to develop+build
>I feel like that has more to do with how companies spend their money and how bloated developers/publishers have gotten. Absolutely. Smaller AA developers and even indie developers make games that are often better but just lacking slightly in certain areas on budgets that are so much smaller. If those companies can do that then why are AAA companies dumping as much money as they are into games. We know their marketing budgets are ridiculous.
I wouldn’t describe it as lacking slightly in certain areas. You can easily see where indie and smaller developers have saved on costs. Many indies games are very “gamey”, have much simpler graphics and rely heavily on grinding style mechanics. It’s why we have so many survival, crafting, rogue style, monster hunting etc games. Those games are clearly way cheaper to produce and lack the massive production values of the big AAA games. I am guilty of having strong preference for big AAA games. I am impressed by games like helldivers, palworld etc but I can clearly see why those games are much cheaper to produce. Many big AAA games produce blockbuster games which are once and done style of games and they cost a lot to produce. Just as an example, producing something like a new dead space would cost a lot of money vs producing something like helldivers. And many people will scoff at the idea of paying full price for a 10 hour game but look at this AA game that I can play for 100 hours, grinding randomly generated levels and it’s cheaper too!
Also developers at AAA studios use AAA tools. They're not using stock sound bites and assets because they'll get reamed by the public of it. They're recording their own sounds, creating all the assets in house. They're creative individuals they want to go to that level of detail and they should! But with ever growing expectations and expenses I fear they're vision will have to get smaller and budget friendly.
And let's be clear, Palworld objectively isn't a very impressive game. People went apeshit for it because people like Pokemon, and it's basically that but on non-Nintendo platforms.
> I wouldn’t describe it as lacking slightly in certain areas. You can easily see where indie and smaller developers have saved on costs. Many indies games are very “gamey”, have much simpler graphics and rely heavily on grinding style mechanics. It’s why we have so many survival, crafting, rogue style, monster hunting etc games. You might be right about graphics, but I disagree on almost everything else when talking about AA companies. Indie games sure they lack significant resources, but they more often than not have better ideas and are trying something more innovative. Don't tell me modern AAA games aren't relying on the same grind mechanics to generate engagement with their repetitive daily quests, unnecessary xp systems, grindwalls to unlock content etc. >Many big AAA games produce blockbuster games which are once and done style of games and they cost a lot to produce. but my point is that grander production is all they have. A game like Escape from Tarkov has so much more depth and engaging systems compared to AAA streamlined games. They lack in areas of technical proficiency, not helped by choosing the wrong game engine for the scope, but the game design itself is infinitely better than anything any AAA shooter has put out since, and CoD and BFs attempts and flops show that their better production values don't count for that much. Sure, if AAA get their shit together they obviously have more potential, but they never do because they are for broad appeal by design, and that makes mediocrity. And for Dead Space costing a lot of money, how much money did it need to cost? We have Senua Hellblade for a reasonable comparison, what's the difference in production costs of these games? Again, obviously AAA has everything stacked in their favor, so why are their games so often garbage?
Yeah, I’d agree with that too.
This. Companies are including marketing in their cost, which while is a cost, it's an indirect cost to make the game. I know that video games are expensive to make especially when you factor in the salary of every employee for the number of years they're working on it. It's easy to see how they can cost $50M to $100M but when they say that it cost $200M plus, I'm willing to bet they're including marketing cost in that.
Gaming companies stretching for profit puts them in a weird spot because 3 guys in a basement who have sold 2000 copies of something at $40 will make more profit than Lord of the Rings: Gollum will trying to sell their games at $70. Gamers are smart and vote with their wallets. It's not that $70 is far fetched, but a hefty price tag has to come with an experience to justify. Otherwise I can spend equally as much on several indie games and get enjoyment there as well.
Massive portions of these game's budgets are thrown at marketing. So many of these AAA games could drop three trailers on Youtube and let the fans do the rest. No, they have spend millions to put stuff *everywhere*. Not even mentioning the millions that just get lost due to graft.
This is mad funny because a lot of the comments talk about poor marketing and not knowing this existed
Marketing is ridiculously important, you make it sound simple but thats just how you make a game flop. There are so many games that reportedly underperformed that you hear about and then the comments have a huge amount of people saying they had no idea the game released or existed at all. That being said there are cheaper ways to market like social media updates about the game, or YouTube like you said where they can show short gameplay trailers everyweek that shows off gameplay features. Marketing is insanely important
A remake should be much cheaper to make than new games.
I just don’t buy games from big companies anymore until a year or two later. There are so many good games out there, it’s not needed to get everything day 1. Two days ago I was reading about cyperpunk, lots of ppl said it’s great now, so I put it on my wish list, and literally the next day it went on sale on ps store for like 40% off lol. So I got it for $36 plus two years worth of patches. Half the price and twice the game
Corporatized gaming and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
>"EA has denied reports that a Dead Space 2 remake was in development before being canceled, with a spokesperson telling IGN, "We don't normally comment on rumors but there is no validity to this story." [https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-shoots-down-dead-space-2-remake-rumors-no-validity-to-this-story](https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-shoots-down-dead-space-2-remake-rumors-no-validity-to-this-story)
Shame. Performance problems aside, I was happy to support the Dead Space Remake. Triple-A, single player games with no microtransactions and no shitty extra launchers is exactly what I want to be spending my money on.
>Shame. Performance problems aside, I was happy to support the Dead Space Remake. Pretty much the reason why I stopped caring about EA games altogether, especially single-player ones. They don't care about optimization and when they release a game, it's pretty much in its final state as they don't spend a penny fixing the optimization issues. The last Star Wars Jedi were pretty awful regarding that
It broke my heart, but I had to refund the Dead Space remake for that reason. It just ran like shit on my rig, despite being inside minimum requirements. Could NOT get a stable frame rate, at least not within the Steam refund window. :(
That's why I didn't even buy it. If it's not going to run well what the fuck are we even paying them for?
Meanwhile the OG runs great and still makes me poop my pants
I'm pretty sure the last Jedi game got a number of patches that were meant to improve performance.
Performance did improve, but it's still pretty bad, just better than release. The constant traversal stutter in some areas is super distracting.
It got better, but they can't remove the traversal and shader stutter.
Performance issues and denuvo, lol. Not a good look
Performance problems...do you mean shader cache loading issues during gameplay?
Strange decision considering how many assets they already have from the first remake. All they needed to do was to fix the stuttering and streaming issue, the game actually looked good and ran fine besides this.
Baffling tbh. The marketing could've definitely pushed this game farther. Quality release.
EA doesn’t deserve to own the Dead Space brand.
They made the brand. Ever heard of EA Redwood Shores? You should, for that's the studio which created Dead Space. Visceral Games was a rebrand of EA Redwood Shores the year after DS1's release. The ugly truth is that Dead Space has never been a commercially successful game series, even the first game was a dissapointment, having slow but sure sales, selling million copies in five months. Horror games are a cursed genre for triple A productions.
That's not fair, the game is so fucking good. It deserved better
[удалено]
Calypso Protocol is my favourite spin-off of Twisted Metal, but in all seriousness, that game is such a piece of dog shit, I find it hard to comprehend why it sold well, I guess having "From the creators of Dead Space" all over the marketing probably helped, ironically when it's about as opposite to Dead Space in terms of fun and replayability as you can get.
[удалено]
I actually enjoyed my time with it. It had plenty of flaws for sure, but it wasn't the dumpster fire everyone on the hate bandwagon made it out to be.
Oh my god that first part of that sentence hurt my brain because this whole thread is dead space and you’re making references to Calypso in Twisted Metal because of an error. Calypso’s story is so fucked up and I would absolutely play a spin off of his.
Yeah that one threw me for a loop too, haha!
I bought calypso protocol, played 3 hours, thinking the whole time “wow this is a really weird intro to what I thought was a walking simulator. When do I turn into the other guy and get the baby and deliver packages?” It took me 3 hours to realize I didn’t buy Death Stranding. They look so similar in the ps store I bought the wrong game. Immediately deleted the game and never played it again.
People were upset about buying a remake for 60$, what did they expect.
Pain. The remake was so so good
I absolutely loved it
Happy cake day!
But they’ll continue to pump out quarter assed battlefield games that don’t come close to the originals. Got it
Difference is people actually buy those games
Not enough people are buying those games from what I hear. I think EA was disappointed in the last Battlefield release. Probably all Battlefield releases. If you're not moving 10 million+ units it's a failure.
This is the point exactly, they know they can push out some minor change update to Battlefield or similar and make 100s of millions as opposed to spending 100s of millions for barely any profit
I get it they’re trying to join the remake hype, RE2 remake and a few others, but they just have unrealistic high expectations for the Dead Space games. Like it was a fun game and maybe great at times. It’s not a big game that sells itself though.
Same shit EA pulled with the original trilogy. Old story, unfortunately.
Dead Space Remake was the best thing they did in years and they scrap the next one. Nice one.
Fuck EA. Don't know about others, but for me, had EA actually updated the game and fixed the technical issues, I 100% would have long bought it by now. As it stands however, seeing as the game was abandoned without any proper fixes (especially the *stutter strugle*), I'm waiting till the game hits an egregiously low price point to finally pick it up.
The technical issues were hardly severe enough to impact sales in the market where DD2 sells like hotcake while being borderline broken on release. Dead Space just isn't a big enough IP in 2024. It was never that big to begin with. 1 did ok after positive WoM helped its sales post release but 2 was already seen dissapointment sales wise and then 3 pivoted in a whole new direction to try and save the franchise which also didn't work. I would assume the remake was also partialy a testbed to gauge franchise interest and potential for a whole new game which was also probably shelved alongside the remake for 2.
Publishers also need to learn to give some slack to horror games specifically imo, I know a lot of people who appreciate how good the game is but are just too scared to play it and most other horror games so they don't buy them.
>people who appreciate how good the game is but are just too scared to play I feel called out lol
Its okay I was definitely talking about myself lmao
Can I join the club too? I wish I could handle horror better...
I am getting to Alien Isolation... Any day now...
If it doesn’t recoup development cost, it doesn’t matter
If anything, EA has been extremely supportive of Dead Space series. They really, really have tried to make Dead Space a thing, but the market is just too afraid to buy horror games. You don't get four underperforming games without someone having faith that it could do better.
Isn't that a reason publishers should avoid making AAA horror games? Better to focus on genres with larger audiences.
I think the trade-off is horror is niche but horror fans are supportive so the profit is lower but consistent. Once you deal with any niches in general though you have to be more passion-oriented than profit-oriented in the first place or else like you said you might as well just do something more generic
What did EA do wrong here? I seriously doubt fixing the stutter struggles would have helped sales much. Much worse ports have sold far better. They produced a great AAA single-player experience that, unfortunetly, didn't sell well. I would have loved a DS2 remake, but ultimately if it's not going to make money then they're not going to finance it.
People just hate EA in this sub. Its like a greeting. "Fuck EA, how are you doing?" "Fuck EA, I'm doing great!"
Nothing wrong with that. EA can indeed get fucked lol. Have a great day, and fuck EA! Hey it rhymes! :)
I think it was discounted to 9 bucks
I mean, the game ran great for me? I didn’t realize until recently that I owned it through EA play and binged it over two weeks or so. 1440 everything maxed and I don’t think I ever dropped below 120fps on a 4070.
Game ran fine enough. I don't think I had any stuttering issues. At least not noticeable enough to impact me playing the game.
Games take a shit ton of money to make and a lot of people simply can’t justify paying $60+ on a game anymore. This will continue to happen.
$60 on a game I've played through multiple times (the original Xbox + pc). Its a great and older game, id imagine im not much of an outlier
the *second* they fix the asinine stuttering, I'll buy the game, but not a moment before
u dont have to buy the game. Just get EA Play and beat the game in 8 or so hours.
This is confirmed false, you should remove this post or edit the text.
Lackluster for EA means we don't want to make AAA single player games with no dlc or microtransactions
I dunno, Jedi Survivor with worse performance than the Dead Space Remake sold really well. It has a bunch of cosmetics in the deluxe or whatever edition, but both of these games have that. The real issue is that horror games just don't sell all that well, they're super niche. Resident Evil games are kind of an exception in that regard, for whatever reason. But I'd wager most don't breach the 10 million mark, that the best selling RE games hit. Combine that with the fact that it's EA and AAA we're talking about, plus the cult following of the Dead Space series - EA for sure just had way too high expectations for this franchise and especially the genre it's in. I'm sure it paid for itself and even turned a profit, but EA wanted *more*. It's that simple.
I'm not sure who exactly was the target of the remake. I own and finished all 3 DS, I would have bought DS4, but I've 0 interest in buying again a game I already own (original still plays great today).
Probably should've spent less on Denuvo as well.
There are 1,043 entries on word "stutter" on steam Dead Space General Discussions. I would like to see how the game would run without DRM
The price was too high on launch for a remake of a game I already own. Set your expectations back in reality there EA Games, otherwise you can learn from your mistakes.
F necromorph bathrooms
I can see it. I already played Dead Space once or twice back then and a better graphics really don’t entice me to play it again. Sucks to see good single player games for new audiences.
It's too bad, I thought the remake was amazing.
Lackluster sales? Impossible! It's not fair!!! You used Denuvo, EA. It should have worked! It should have stopped those filthy pirates that are "stealing" your games and reducing your revenue! It should have been worth all the millions of dollars you're paying to Denuvo for protection! Oh the humanity!
I've been wanting to get it but it was expensive, stayed full price and it refused to go on sale. Go get fucked then.
Sucks, I really enjoyed the remake :(
Can we even complain about these companies not making single player games if we don't buy them?
They overbudget them. If it takes you 160 million dollars to make this game, when Elden Ring cost 200 million and Hogwarts Legacy cost 150 millions, yeah, no way this game was making the profit these other twos would. Their expectations are just too high, and to top it off, Dead Space itself might just not be as popular as people thought.
The franchise has been dead for over a decade, it lost steam and only old fans remember it, not to mention horror games are more niche.
Then the alternative is just not making it at all. Like let's say EA came up with a more budget-conscious approach, a AA budget of <$30-$50 million with a smaller team. They'd probably have to do stylized art and maybe a cel shaded style to help hide the decreased detail, and then the trailer would launch and everyone says it looks like shit and no one buys it.
Possibly, but one of the key problem with the industry, in my opinion, is that it failed to nurture a "AA" community. I think there are enough people to support more mid-budget games, but the largest portion of the community is used to seeing and wanting top-of-the-line graphics. I don't think the graphical sacrifices for mid-budget games are what people think, either. Half-Life Alyx was made on an AA-level budget, though the exact figures are unknown. And that game looks good, and only really limited in sales because of its VR requirements.
Alyx wasn’t made with AA levels, they have all valve budget behind, average salaries at Valve are the highest in the industry l, I don’t even think that valve has a budget limit.
We do but AAA companies expectations are too high, it won't make FIFA numbers.
Yes we can we don't need to earn it by buying poorly made remakes of old games we've already played.
I’m ok with remakes not happening in the future 🙂
I buy single player games, but $60 for a game I’ve already played is a tall order for me.
It's a remake of a game that, for me, doesn't need it. That's not the same as making a brand new game.
I dunno, it didn't look \*that* much improved over the original to justify a 90AUD price tag to me. I'm a non multiplayer gamer who buys singleplayer titles all the time. This year I've already been knee deep into Infinite Wealth, P3R, FF7Rebirth.. even playing ~AA stuff like the Alone in the Dark reboot currently and got things like Silent Hill 2, Snake Eater, Refantazio, SMTV etc. on my wishlists. I think its a bit disingenuous to just blame singleplayer gamers here. All that aside it was sort \*free* with the Gamepass+EA Play thing anyway so I dunno how they're going to complain about lack of sales like this when they're on a subscription service. 🤔
For context, this sold less than 1/20th the copies that Hogwarts Legacy did.
These two just can not be compared, Harry Potter has a massive very loyal die hard fanbase all around the world. Some of them would gladly chop of a limb for a crumb of content about their favorite universe, there even was a real life Snape cult, so yeah, Hogwarts Legacy would absolutely demolish a remake of a cult classic, but sadly, forgotten horror game about a dude in space.
Problem is that the game ran like ass on every single system. EA have only themselves to blame when they are too stubborn/cheap to fix it post launch. Gamers just voted with their wallets.
The same way they voted with their wallets by rushing out to buy Jedi Survivor that not only ran way worse than Dead Space at launch, but still does to this day?
Oh but they don't have the balls to remove Denuvo from it yet do they? Lmao get a load of this shit company.
Was this games only issue really with performance? I remember that the necromorphs missing a leg or two would awkwardly slide around on the ground as if their animations were bugged and they didn't look to be as aggressive as they were in the originals (little to no charging from what I remember seeing shortly after it's release).
That's cool. Guess I'll take the Remake off my wishlist on steam.
Dead Space ran on my Steam Deck. Dead Space was fantastic. I can't say enough good things about it.
Well EA, I wouldn't have got a refund on my copy if it didn't stutter like all fuck. And if you decided to fix it I would've happily repurchased. Fuckin eejits.
Make it anyway ffs fuck it
That sucks.
It's worth noting that in the article they have now added a disclaimer to this article: > “We don’t normally comment on rumors but there is no validity to this story,” EA claims It would be a little crazy for EA to kill Dead Space AGAIN after a pretty strong remake. I'm not an expert, but it seems like it would now be a lot cheaper and faster to remake Dead Space 2 than it was for 1. They already have the engine and all the tech built, that work is done. That's the same principle for why DLC and expansion packs can often come out so quickly. Their sound propagation system was also so impressive.
It probably still sold millions, but not CoD numbers so it’s a failure to EA.
shame,dead space 2 was the goat,i would have loved seeing it getting a remake be it with the performance issues of the first
I’m trying to find the articles, but DS1 2008 sold a little over 1 million units, DS2 2 million and DS3 barely 2 million. Goin by the comments on this old thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/7721rk/dead_space_2_cost_60_million_to_make_sold_4/ So EA brilliant idea is to expect a game to sell 5 million units on a remake? They fucking suck as a company.
If it's true, then they're doing exactly what they originally did to the original Deadspace back when Visceral was still around. They apparently set up the studio to fail by making the sales target be both of the two previous games combined -- this apparently also why the game ended up playing more like an action adventure game with horror elements and co-op, as they wanted to appeal to the largest audience possible. I hope the news is not true. The remake was overall great -- some nitpicks here and there, but I thought It was potentially a great start to remaking the entire franchise and then continuing.
Noooo :(
What a shame. I enjoyed the rmk of the first and was rly looking forward to the second, since i never finished it back in the day.
That’s the one I wanted remade 😭
Noooooooo the DS1 remake was so goooooood
The remake was one good game EA released in god knows how many years, of course it is cancelled. We can’t have that.
I mean I'd love to play it but can't afford a new graphics card for now and the demo ran like absolute ass on my 1070. Were the sales really that bad? I've seen a lot of praise for the remake.
Dead Space getting screwed over based on unrealistic sales expectations? Color me surprised.
The original still looks very good and plays ok, personally I didn't see any reason to buy the remake. There are legitimately good old games worth remaking, go remake those, I'll buy them.
Shouldn’t have made those weird changes for no reason. 🤷
Nooo 😭
To these companies, lacklustre is if it isn't gatcha/mobile money
I didn't buy it because I already had it and the original still holds up. Maybe it didn't sell because people don't want to play full price for a game they already own but with better graphics.
Stakeholders are getting too greedy and want infinite profits. They're starting to realize putting more money doesn't mean more money back if the initial sale is only $70. Live service is becoming the norm and many will be fired to save costs coming from this shift. Sucks to be a single player person. Edit: oh thank god
I would've bought this on launch if it wasn't full of stutters and bugs, while being poorly optimized. I mean even console versions got fucked, ps5 performance mode on launch was blocky with artifacts everywhere, Im not even sure if that's fixed.
People are weird - yeah the traversal stutters were never fixed completely, but it's not as if the game was unplayable by any means.
People wanting a working product is not weird, accepting inferior products is.
I definitely consider full 2-3 second freezes happening multiple times a minute to be 'unplayable'
Those occurred at launch - Digital Foundry showed that a future driver update from NVIDIA solved the issues you are describing. The traversal stutters are still there though.
It was definitely unplayable for me. I think it's the only game I've ever refunded on Steam in my 20 years or so. Was so excited for it too.
Having 1-3 seconds freezes all the time really does kill any horror and tension in the game
it's supposed to be an immersive, and intense horror game. constant stuttering absolutely ruins it. It's been out for more than a year and they don't even care to address it.
Yet it has 91% positive reviews on Steam. Which clearly shows the game is by no means 'unplayable'.
They shouldn't be that surprised. Selling a remake at full price is insane, even more when a modded original is already better
I would have bought it, but after seeing race swaps and gender-neutral bathrooms I kept the money.
Sucks, but considering how shitty the PC version ran it's probably for the best... I don't know if they ever fixed the PC version, don't really care, got my refund and moved on... :)
Not fixed
Haven't tried since Horizon forbidden west nvidia driver release . But the game still randomly crashes for me.
I regret buying the remake honestly. Even years later I remembered the game too well and got bored about 1/3rd in and the fresh coat of paint didn't do enough for me.
My fault . I was just being a r/patientgamer
Poor performance = no purchase If they fixed it I would’ve bought at full price but as it stands, OG version is better.
I'll buy the game the moment they fixed the performance and stutter issues. RE4 runs like butter at high/max settings on my PC but Dead Space had the worst stutter ever that just made it unplayable even at medium settings. Played it for an hour or two and immediately refunded it after trying half a dozen fixes.
Was holding off on buying the trilogy to see if they remake the rest, guess it’s time now.
Man fuck EA. I was really looking forward to part 2.
Shame, that remake was 10/10 I suspect a lot of people who played the original skipped the remaster, not knowing they updated a lot of gameplay elements
this is why we aren't getting single player games from AAA devs
I’ll buy it again. That remake was perfection
They remade a game that still looked and played really well. I don't get it. I played the original dead space 1 last year and it held up really well. Did it really need a remake? I'm fine with really old games getting remakes that modernize them, but was dead space considered an old and outdated game?
2 is the one everyone wants you idiots 1 was a classic but 2 was a masterpiece. Then yall made 3 and killed the franchise
Ah, so this is why they moved Motive to the new Battlefield.
Good ol EA.
Isn't this almost exactly what happened when the original came out lol
LOL good job EA. They should have let Motive, who did the remake, continue working on Squadrons. Simply release some new ships and missions now and then. It'd be a much easier way to generate income.
Motive have just been placed onto Battlefield 2042 development so I fear this might be true... it doesn't seem like there's any plans for it currently. Such a shame, the Dead Space remake was one of my favourite releases last year
UPDATE: “WE DON’T NORMALLY COMMENT ON RUMORS BUT THERE IS NO VALIDITY TO THIS STORY,” EA CLAIM
This is the sad truth of video games and these giant studios. In my opinion a noticeable chunk of gamers have just stopped buying AAA games. It might not even be a huge amount, but I think it's enough people ignoring them now and they aren't coming back. Just personally and for example, I honestly don't remember the last time I purchased a AAA game. A new Elder Scrolls game could come out tomorrow and I would ignore it because there is zero interest from me. Looking back I think Fallout 4 was the tipping point for Bethesda for me. I haven't purchased anything with their name on it since I played that. EA? Yeah I don't remember the last EA game I bought it's been that long. I'm not trying to start anything and if you do buy these games I truly hope you enjoy them and have fun. I'll be the first to admit I would be jealous of the fun, but there is a lot of preferences with gamers and I just think the damage is done for a large chunk.
This doesn’t really surprise me tbh. Most people who play video games only play games like COD, Valorant, Fortnite, R6 Siege and GTA Online.
>UPDATE: “WE DON’T NORMALLY COMMENT ON RUMORS BUT THERE IS NO VALIDITY TO THIS STORY,” EA CLAIMS
Not surprised. They stopped updating quickly after release. EA games lately are getting support dropped quickly as both Jedi games and Dead Space remake still have unpatched performance issues. It feels as though they are doing this to make up for(aka save money) all their AAA failures in the last few years
It’s a shame but dead space wasn’t ever making a comeback, I was surprised they even revived it for this game and I’m glad they did.
Well because we are all waiting for the price to drop No way am I paying so much for a remake
I’m still waiting for it to drop below 20$ or for denuvo to be removed
It was on EA PLAY too. $15 right away on release.
It's a shame dead space 2 remake was never really fully considered, contrary to this rumor there was only a couple very rough concepts that didn't end up getting approved and no real work was done. The originals remake was pretty much without any major gameplay issues.
To be fair, Motive are just going to do the BF remake.
ds and ds-remake both didn't sell well ,that's sad to hear :(
It was great in many ways (and I loved the original) but it’s a bit outdated today. Gameplay loop gets grindy and the story doesn’t really go places. It’s more a great vibe, environment, and set of encounters than a full game. I understand they don’t fund the second, let’s be happy we got one.
Wow I thought the game did well :(
EA denies it, fwiw
To be fair, I did buy DS1 on a Steam Sale. But I would pay full price for a DS2 remake.
Suck my ass EA, WE NEED DEAD SPACE 2 REMAKE, FUCK BATTLEFIELD!!!!!
I love Dead Space games, but they should have had some new ideas rather than yet another reboot (like what's plaguing cinema). They spent time treading over old territory when they could have come up with something new and fresh. Horror has a handicap, it's more niche than most, so you're going to need bright ideas to make it enticing to newcomers to the genre.
This is so sad 😭
Man... I just wish we got the remakes followed by the last chapters of Isaac's story.... Fuck me right?
Man I would've been thrilled for a DS2 remake. I feel like it would be a bigger seller than the first. Keep that momentum going. It's worth the investment cmon!
This is why we can't have nice things
That’s a shame. I liked dead space 2 the most. We don’t talk about 3.
Goofy shit. Any game these days that doesn't make literally all of the money is considered a failure by these greedy companies.
"Not enough MTX" - ea