Why AGony failed?

Good day, sgach! Recently I came out the long -awaited one Agony And … her output turned out, frankly, sad – at the time of writing the text in Steam only 49% of positive reviews, and on Metacritic 46 out of 100 (4.9 among players). And there is something to scold it for: disgusting graphics, boring gameplay (even for the walking simulator)-even the promised cruelty does not save (it was partially cut, but I really doubt that her return will somehow correct the situation). And the people have already grabbed the torches and pitchfork with shouts “Disappointment!”,” Return the money!”,” The game has failed!”. Really developers from Madmind Studio and really deceived the people?

In fact, everything is not as simple as it seems. If you analyze the trailers with which Madmind fed people honest, then, in principle, nothing else was expected. Yes, cruel. Yes, vile. But the point is that, in addition to the concept, about the game, we did not know anything-neither about the game mechanics, nor about the script, nor at least the background. Everything was silent and was concealed, as if … there was no one at all. I am convinced that Madmind From the very beginning they wanted to create a product as it appeared before you. Yes, I repeat, some of the moments were cut out for the sake of censorship, but it would have changed anything at all?

On the screen, fun is still going on: sex and rape, killing babies, murder with particular cruelty, guts, corpses – all this is present in almost complete.

I repeat, the game came out as it was originally, https://www.trsports.co.uk/open-betting-tips.html and in fact no one was deceiving anyone – there was an ordinary overestimation of expectations from the players (I specially repeat for especially gifted ones: the carved content would not correct the situation, because the problem lies in the mechanics of the game, and not the absence of another demonic pussy). And the problem here lies not so much in the developers, how many players in ourselves. Understand correctly, I do not justify the developers now – they need to give a separate pendal for the fact that they decided to go to Guro, and not on a high -quality game – I say that the gaming community was once again unleashed that it was not even for Kickstarter-then go (I’m silent about the exit of the game). All the jambs that now condemn could be seen in trailers: the darkness that hides bad graphics, the animation curve, the gameplay in the worst traditions of modern indie chorror (run and hide from a terrible freak)-however, the players did not want to notice this. Although … partly I understand why. In the era of universal tolerance, which got to the games, people are desperately waiting for something hard, bold, something that can turn the game industry from their heads.

At one time, for example, this was done Serious sam or Postal 2 – When everyone tried to mow under Half-Life, Creating serious plots, Croteam made an old meat grinder with huge arenas, led by a very charismatic Sam, which will stop the skeleton from the clergy and will stop in the burning pyramid. Running with Scissors In general, they openly spat in the face of the whole society, mocking it and ridicuating all their shortcomings in their Postal 2, And they answered all the cries of extreme cruelty, they say the game and does not force you to kill, you can calmly go through the game without killing anyone at all, so this is your problem at all.

Something like this was expected from the game Inner Chains 2017, which at the time of writing the text has 45% of positive reviews in Steam, 40 points for Metacritic (5.0 from the players) and is included in the list of the site of the same Metacritic “The worst video games of 2017”, taking there 7 place. Only there the action, unlike Agony, It took place in the distant world of the future, with hints of biopank, Giger and so on-suel. The result is the same. And again, people expected a quality product, but got shish with butter, although in trailers the developers, except for setting and graphics, could not offer anything. Feel in touch? IN Agony Exactly the same situation – people see a trailer, see cruelty there and begin to imagine what a cool game is cool. They cannot be blamed for them completely in this – you always want to expect more and the best, and I want these expectations to be met.
Or remember No Man’s Sky. The situation is the same: Hello Games She did not deceive the players when she showed an endless scanning of animals or constant flights in space – they deceived only only with a multipleor (and they already introduced it, albeit in a cut form), but he could save a obviously empty game with a complete lack of content as such?

What is the problem?
And the problem lies in the fact that people forget to relate to games more critically. And this despite the fact that now it is customary to criticize absolutely any AAA-The project is already from the moment the trailer was released – and do not care how well or bad is the game there. Players can be understood: when giants like EA or Ubisoft Once again, the games on DLC and HD transformations are cut, you stop trusting large companies. However, to indie development among gamers, the credit of trust in automatom is very high, because they imagine that indie developers do everything exclusively for the idea, which means that the game cannot be bad. But these same gamers forget about the notorious Steam Greenlight -a service created for those very indie developers so that anyone can sell their brainchild for money. It can be said, they say, although they are full of such games, they are unknown to anyone, and they benefit the economic-the games themselves cost 20-30 rubles, and the cards in them can cost 50-100 rubles in total (or even each separately). Through GreenLight Sometimes quality products passed: Starbound, Rimworld and many more games, but a huge part was a non -juracy from free sets in Unity \ RPG Maker \ FPS Creator \ Rgm \ UE3 \ UE4 and so on. Now the Green Light is already closed, and instead appeared Steam Direct with more strict conditions, but the trend of cheap indie games has not much left: all the same in the section “soon come out” no, no, and some heresy flashed this.

In fact Agony, Inner Chains And No Man’s Sky have one very similar detail: their marketing was not built at the show of game mechanics and capabilities, but on concepts, idea and setting. Similar incidents should teach players that if trailers show exclusively peace and graphics, and the developers themselves promise “previously unprecedented setting” and “bold solutions”, but they freeze about the game process, then it is worthwhile to seriously think about what the game can actually be: an interesting game with good gameplay or another walking simulator?

Who is to blame?
Yes, everything is a little. The large developers of the AAA-Urovnya are also to blame, which buried the trust in the Lutboxes, microtransactions, cuts of games and a disregard for the player, which is why many players are increasingly leaving Indie, fundamentally abandoning AAA projects. Indie-developers who have an ambition and enthusiasm are also guilty of their possibilities in creating games, because everyone wants to become the second Codzima or Ken Levin, and you can understand-I want to do what you want, and even get money for it. And of course, the player himself is to blame, who, seeing the efforts of an indie developer, comes up with an ideal game in his head, and when he is faced with cruel reality, he is indignant and asks for a refund. And it is impossible to single out one of one specific-this is an equilateral triangle of destroyed expectations, and here the wine lies, I repeat, on each side of this very triangle.

On this, I have, perhaps, everything. If you do not agree with my opinion – Necessarily Write in the comments why I’m wrong.