http://dbd.game/killswitch
Anyone else think it's our fault there's no competition for dbd?
I'm pretty sure most experienced players will agree that dbd needs competition in order to start actually improving quickly, and there's been a fair few numbers of games that tried. Friday the 13th, Last Year, Predator: Hunting Grounds, Monstrum's trying to get its foot in the door, and Home Sweet Home is the newest contender. Yet with the exception of Monstrum (as the game hasn't even fully released) and Home Sweet Home (which hasn't been alive long enough to die) none of these games still really exist.
Friday got killed by the lawsuit and the other two sorta just died off. I think the reason these games die is because new players to this genre will likely come to dbd since it's the most popular among them but the majority of the old timers won't switch over since we're already so invested into dbd. Causing an endless cycle of wanting competition but those competition never being given the chance to rise.
Maybe I'm just thinking too far into this.
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I wouldn't say it is purely our fault. A lot of these games died because of bad decisions from the developer/publisher. Last Year died because of Discord exclusively, Evolve died because they tried to hard to make it an E-Sport title and they had a bad DLC policy but I think people don't give new games a chance and instandly say "Nah it will die in 2 months" but will also complain about DBD not having any competition. It is a problem on both sides. Devs and publisher decision weren't good and players don't give new games a chance.
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No. This is the same logic behind "millennials are killing industry X", which is just false.
Consumers are not to blame when a business fails to attract customers. That is the true meaning of "the customer is always right"; it means that if your business can't attract customers, it's your own fault for selling an unwanted (or inferior) product.
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I think it really needs the right balance of horror, simplicity and mechanics.
I am following Home Sweet Home: Survive closely. It is the closest (and most fun looking) competition to DBD I have seen yet.
Price point, theme and mechanics are there. Just needs a lot of polish. It is similar to how much polish DBD needed in 2016.
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The reason this game is so well received is because it's so simple when you break it down.
Killers go around and stop gens being done and survivors escaping. Survivors complete gens, help teammates and get the doors open to escape.
Plus they have killers from movies etc that bring people into the game. Most other games that try and replicate this formula just over complicate it instead of keeping it simple like dbd has, which turns people off from playing.
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It's a shame F13 has an on going lawsuit because I found it quite fun to play on occasion.
It has its problems, but I still sinked 100+ hours into it for a few months after release. Now, that's nothing compared to my hours in dbd but I honestly believe I'd have at least a few hundred hours by this point if it wasn't for the lawsuit stopping new content and deterring the Devs from actually improving the game.
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F13th lost 70% of its player base in 2 months, a year before the lawsuit. It was a flop, completely unrelated to the lawsuit.
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The game was nearly unplayable in that time. It was infested with dozens of bugs. That eventually did get better as time went on. But it was never perfect. A lot of people definitely gave up on it very quickly due to those bugs.
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Yes, that's what I said, it was a flop. And it wasn't because of any lawsuit, it was because the product was inferior.
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I'm just saying I don't think it was a flop solely because of it's game design. If there hadn't been a lawsuit I genuinely belive the game would still be alive and receiving content to this day. We were just about to get the Grendal map and Jason X right before the lawsuit occurred.
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No, it's just that all the other new games aren't interesting/good enough. Last game I was a bit hyped for was Last year but since it didn't release on steam besides many other issues, in the end, I didn't bother.
When DBD was comming out in 2016, I was extremely hyped for it, trying to find any gameplay info/footage and it was just really exciting. No other game managed to peek my interest as much as DBD did back then.
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Again, 70% of the players left in two months. The lawsuit came a year after that. You can check the data yourself.
Could the game still be receiving new content to this day, if not for the lawsuit? Maybe. However, there's no denying that the majority of players grew bored with the game almost immediately, long before the lawsuit even became relevant.
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The age of Dead by Daylight is over.
The time of The Evil Dead has come.
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It partly is, I know people left angry reviews on the reworked Hide or Die's Steam release, saying how it was a "DBD ripoff" (The game did things very differently though compared to DBD) or "wasn't DBD" or something, even though Hide or Die didn't sell originally because it wasn't like DBD iirc.
Last Year also had the Steam release, and what actually ended their project for good was Covid ruining their publisher deal. I know because I was in the server, paying attention to updates and that explanation on the future of Last Year made me so sad.
Friday is also surprisingly active last I checked, at least on PS4. Even when updates stopped releasing, people kept playing it.
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It did release on Steam. I suppose you weren't on the Discord server when they did announcements and everything.
It was the balancing issues plus the lack of funding and Covid ruining their publisher deal that ended it for good.
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I know but it was much later and when I tried it, I had to wait in a lobby for almost 1 hour each time + some other issues. Noooo thank you.
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It's a bit self-contradictory to say that it's BHVR's duty to cater to us, but it's our duty to enjoy other games. If those other games are better than DBD, then we would probably elect to play that instead. If not, oh well.
It's also more complicated that high school economics. The video game market is very vague with its borders; people play both FPS's and DBD. In a sense, DBD already has competition; people who play DBD don't exclusively play DBD-esque games. If DBD starts going down the drain, you bet I'm gonna boot up roblox to 'adopt and raise a cute baby" with my hot roblox gf.
Plus, incentive doesn't necessarily mean that BHVR is gonna do better. It's always a double-edged sword, if competition is an incentive or hindrance. It's only an effective incentive if BHVR is getting complacent, which I doubt they are. Video game companies rarely get lazy, since they're running on razor thin margins, and if one title or project fails to garner enough cash, they start sinking. You can keep whipping the horse, but if it's already going as fast as it can go, you're just committing animal abuse.
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"Last Year" started with a Discord exclusive release. What could possibly go wrong?
The Devs basically did not communicate with their community.
There was almost 1 year of time between the announcement that the game would be coming to Steam and the game actually coming to steam. During that time, they went completely radio silent.
And let's not talk about the last resort release of another title called "Last Year: The Nightmare".
Last Year was doomed from the very beginning. The game looked great though. Still lot's of bad management decisions ensured a really bad start and limited it's potential growth. Covid had nothing to do with it's downfall (yes, I know, we were told that there was a potential "deal" on it's way that could have "saved" LY .... spoileralert: it's highly unlikely that such a deal would have been signed anyway, cause you don't try to catch a falling knife).
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I was actually curious about Last Year, but then they had to launch it on Discord, of all places. They might as well have sold it at a "worldwide" exclusive event (that's only available in most of the USA and two or three cities outside of it, like pretty much all "worldwide" events).
I don't understand why publishers are trying to reinvent the wheel here. Steam works, stop trying to fracture the platform. Or, if you're going to move to a new store and be dicks to PC players, make sure it's actually as good as (or better) than Steam.
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The problem I have seen is they make an Assym game "Early Access" and it's usually SO unpolished it fails because people are like "MEH". F13 got close because they released an actual game (yes buggy, etc) but it was more fleshed out than Hide or Die or Monstrum 2. Some games are fine for EA, but unfinished assyms... not so much.
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I wish to ask you a honest question: Do you think competition is a bad thing? Not trying to be mean or snarky, just a question.
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Not a bad thing, they might have thought Discord was going to be a competitor. They didn't expect the higher ups to pull the plug on the store and subsequently make it impossible to buy or learn about Last Year.
And I will give you the thing about communication, but the communication is one of the only really valid complaints besides the attempt to make money via putting The Nightmare on Steam. I don't recall why they went silent, I assume they were working on the Steam release.
And the thing about them putting The Nightmare on Steam... I think that was during the last few months leading up to them not getting the publisher deal. They were putting up the game to try and stall for time by potentially making some quick cash. I think in the same Discord announcement, they mentioned that the staff was running on fumes and were either being underpaid or not paid at all for a few months.
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I think fracturing the PC platform and forcing people to download a ton of launchers/stores/whatever just to be able to play the stuff they paid for is bad.
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So, a indirect answer. Alright, I suppose you feel my question is simplifying the issue.
The problem that comes from this stance is that this leads to letting Steam have a monopoly on the service, which is almost always a bad thing. Steam could make bad decisions and nobody would be able to go elsewhere because the services are either obscure or not welcome. I can see your point, but surely you can see some major issues that spring from getting mad when someone tries to offer a alternative to Steam?
(Not to mention that... well... "a ton of launchers" isn't exactly happening when it would have been only 3 major things: Steam, Epic Games and (previously) Discord. I know that stuff like the Blizzard launcher exists but that's only for their specific companies. I can see your point though.)
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So, a indirect answer. Alright, I suppose you feel my question is simplifying the issue.
No, I felt it was a loaded question.
The problem that comes from this stance is that this leads to letting Steam have a monopoly on the service, which is almost always a bad thing. Steam could make bad decisions and nobody would be able to go elsewhere because the services are either obscure or not welcome. I can see your point, but surely you can see some major issues that spring from getting mad when someone tries to offer a alternative to Steam?
If Steam became the worse store, people would flock to the alternatives. The problem is that the alternatives know they're worse, but rather than try to improve themselves, they decided to fracture the PC platform and offering "exclusive" content. The same thing is happening with streaming services.
(Not to mention that... well... "a ton of launchers" isn't exactly happening when it would have been only 3 major things: Steam, Epic Games and (previously) Discord. I know that stuff like the Blizzard launcher exists but that's only for their specific companies. I can see your point though.)
- Steam
- EGS
- Blizzard
- Origin
- Rockstar
- GOG
- Bethesda
- Ubisoft
That's just off the top of my head and doesn't even include all the games and publishers that demand you sign up to their websites in order to get the full content you paid for.
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No. All of DbD's potential competitors end up with a terrible new player experience when the survivors figure out how to beat the crap out of the Big Scary Monster. Thats why people stopped playing F13, after all.
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