So in GAME picking up pokemon for my little brothers christmas present i saw a huge pile of Battleborne PS4 and Xbone copies for £1.99. Owning a Bloodborne interface module i decided fuck it and picked it up. I played through the 'story' missions and dicked around for a few enjoyable enough matches as the cute witch thing with the horrid voice. Still i don't actually get why they thought this would be a hit. The levels and art style are a mess. I can see they wanted to go for some blend of Blizzard meets comic books from the 90's or something but its almost painful on the eyes and in motion portions like the tutorial level are a literal blur. Instead of cutscenes we get these newgrounds circa 2005 flash animations, really and the dialogue is the same none-medy you expect from blunderlands.
I ponied up the price of a cheap petrol station sandwich and still feel like it was a waste. But i still don't understand what the fucking expectation was here. This is a mess. A complete mess that cost "40 times what Borderlands did".
Is this secretly some attempt b Pitchford to crash Gearbox and run with some shekels? Because this shit is trash, Overwatch had nothing to do with this things shelf life at all.
It's just another shitty ASSFAGGOT fps like tf2 and overshit. Made by casuals for casuals.
Isaac Collins
You know what that makes me think of? shit like the tortanic thinking making a wow clone in the 2010's was a solid plan. Its too late, its a knock off and it just runs and looks like shit.
Battleborn is the Swtor of shooters.
Benjamin Thomas
There's nothing special or memorable about it. Battleboring is just another easily forgettable trash game.
Alexander Powell
Maybe they were hoping to pony back off the ASSFAGGOTS craze and thought it would be a viable market on consoles, maybe they wanted to make a multiplayer shooter to "propel them to new heights", maybe they thought that bitchy tumblrists would buy it in droves, I genuinely dont know. Or maybe they thought they can make anything and it will sell because it has "From the makers of Borderlands" on it.
I havent tried it but surprisingly they put out a winter update, though I hear the game is poor on PC especially and has terrible matchmaking.
William Morgan
Do tumblautists buy enough units to counter the reputation of being the studio behind colonial marines and duke nukem forever?
Jeremiah Ross
They're vocal about it and love nerd culture, it must translate into sales right?
Christopher Anderson
...
Jordan Martin
apparently the character artists had to appeal to Randy's tastes above everything else, so you got what resulted. They had an easy time with Borderlands since they just had to keep aping the artstyle they stole from somebody else.
Jacob Flores
Which is funny because i remember the very first teaser of borderlands that was a realistic, gritty looking mad max style game before it went full burchanomics in its writing and visual style.
Jacob Rodriguez
no shit nobody is playing the game
Matthew Robinson
...
Jaxon Perez
Even then with Borderlands it all looked consistent, or consistent enough. I feel bad for the original artist though.
Jason Perry
Let It Die is pretty good too, and it's free pc port fucking when
Landon Wood
...
Nathan Davis
you're supopsed to turn off the console like the title says
Christian Nelson
Never, because Sony apparently struck some plan with Gungho.
Technically I guess you might if you want to get item plans and create shit through R&D. But like Uncle Death says, just climb the fucking tower senpai.
Ian Williams
I fucking hate you for getting to play a game I can't play
Colton Collins
At least you don't have a PS4.
Nathaniel Sanders
I CAN'T MISS THOSE PLANS, THE FUCKING BASE ARMOUR ALONE IS FUCKING AMAZING COMPARED TO DROPS, DON'T BULLY ME KOHAI!
Christian Scott
The game has no waifus. You gotta have waifus.
Robert Barnes
I think some people tried to push the witch thing before it tanked but thats it, compared to overwatches butts alone thats fucking nothing.
Justin Baker
...
Cameron Powell
What I want to know is why did two nearly identical games perform so differently in sales Overwatch was a hit and Battleborn flopped despite both games being the same
Robert Rogers
Overwatch is a 6v6 arena shooter, Battleborn is a shitty linear pve corridor shooter with a moba pvp mode.
Owen Lopez
Doesn't sound that different
Kevin Bailey
...
Ayden Miller
...
Mason Gomez
>without the shooter too
Blake White
No idea but now it only appeals to guro fetishists.
Colton Watson
I wanted to like this game, why did it have to be made by Gearbox of all devs
Benjamin Foster
NIGGA, TELL ME MORE
Carter Rodriguez
Well it's a dead game user. I was making a joke. You know, they called it stillborn and everything. A joke.
Ryder King
That joke would have worked 400% more with "necrophilia"
Michael Perez
If you think this is true, you never played or seen a trailer or picked any material from either of those games. Their differences are so huge they might as well be entirely different genres.
Well, it's the same Devs, what were you expecting?
Finnaly someone else admits it! Everyone likes to say "muh marketing" as if that alone justifies the sucess or failures of games, as if there was a direct relation between how many billboards and tv ads you have and the games you sell. All because it feels good to believe you're special and enlightened and the only person immune to brainwashing marketing techniques.
Instead, the right question is indeed "Who do you think this was even aimed at" and the answer is: Everyone. As in, they had a lot of target audiences but instead of striking each and every single one in a pinpoint accurate way, they instead loaded all their game in a single shell and fired a shotgun blast to the crowd hoping to at least hit someone.
The game has actual MOBA progression in-game with XP and the shards, it was supposed to appeal to both MOBA fans and those that like light RPG elements. It failed because it's a terrible MOBA (and being terrible at being a terrible game genre is quite the accomplishment) and it failed because the light RPG elements were too simplistic even for casuals. Seriously, 2 upgrades per level and 3 items you activate does not make for good progression at all.
The game also tried to appeal to action and FPS players but it failed because neither likes to have the MOBA and RPG elements screwing their game and there were few characters that actually appeal to them.
It tried to appeal to people that want to feel badass but every "badass" hero in the game is a joke, like the Soldier and "feminism is awesome" or the literal pinhead. It tried to appeal to waifufaggotry but it only has horrible females. It tried to appeal to the weeb demographic (admitted by them even) but it failed because they can't even meet the standards of weebs.
TL;DR The game was aimed at what Gearbox and especially Randy Pitchford believes to be the "gamer audience", a bunch of retarded weeb faggots that just want to pretend they are badass in a videogame because they are too insecure IRL but it failed horribly because it never found that userbase anywhere at all, never even met their low standards and the few stragglers it found, it kicked in the dirt with a buy price and microtransactions as well as locked characters afterwards.
Aiden Green
You'd work better with necrophilia.
Aiden Parker
That still sound like something related to the realm of marketing
Funny enough, I work in a morgue
Joshua King
...
Cameron Thomas
A-user.
Brayden Scott
Because paladins is the same shit and it's free. Jesus Christ Randy.
Elijah Perez
There wasn't any appeal at all, this game is worse in every sense than overshit and because stillborn is not f2p it flopped hard.
It's not even a "cheap alternative" to overwatch, it just sucks so fucking much nobody in their right mind would spend shekels on this game.
Benjamin Lewis
Take pictures, post them here. I'm dead serious, those places are morbidly hilarious
It would be if the problem was marketing not hitting any mark, but the problem was the base game itself. How can you market something that's built wrong on it's very core? This is closer to the real of game design than marketing, as well as Randy's "How do you do, fellow kids" attitude towards his playerbase.
Ian Rogers
I can see that but there is a bunch of games that are bad but still sell, finding the right spin is pretty much the job of the marketing team regardless of the quality of the actual product.
I don't work with bodies tho', I do the equipment maintenance and check the supplies because you don't want to run out of formaldehyde in a critical moment and people drop that shit all the time because is not like that shit is dangerous or something.
Jacob Campbell
Or else what? The stiff gets bored and leaves?
Matthew Myers
You end with a really cartoonish face, eyes pushed out of their sockets and a tongue so out of the mouth, an ahegao face looks tame in comparison
Christian Powell
I wish i worked in a morgue…
Connor Scott
Don't sex the bodies.
Lucas Watson
...
Lincoln Thompson
I can't have this interaction on my digital record, delete this immediately.
Jaxon Garcia
Sometimes, every now and again… there is a god…
Jaxon Cruz
Literally bargain bin trash.
Adrian Nelson
Truly best girl.
Jace Baker
I dunno, what is the appeal of Boredlands, LoLs, Cawadoodies and Battlefields?
Ian Lopez
I wonder how Randy feels about that.
Luke Wood
it's a shitty MOBA with the Tumblr/CURRENT YEAR audience in mind, but Pitchford and Gearbox forgot they don't buy games.
Benjamin Myers
...
Zachary James
This guy gets it. The awakened war machine with a heart of gold always gets me.
Adrian Evans
is that an acutal fact? holy shit.
Jonathan Murphy
They're just mad enough to seriously think this
Hudson Rogers
So, you're saying that Pitchford made a game for himself.
Asher Anderson
...
Gavin Wood
If you own a Bloodborne machine, that thing at least have local coop. For that price, you can have something for kids or for drunk nights.
Aiden Cox
Does this game have pay to win shit or microtransactions?
Jackson Kelly
Realistically that probably isnt far from the truth. Borderlands 1 and 2 were widely successful, and what else do they have to show for themselves now? Brothers in Arms has been long since retired, Aliens Colonial Marines was a massive let down, they have the stigma of releasing Did Not Finish, Duke 3D World Tour was another rerelease but with less content, worse music, and a higher price tag and got rid of the Megaton Edition…outside of the Half Life expansions and Halo PC I dont know what else they have to their name.
Gavin Ward
At least Overwatch made its lesbians hot
Jaxon Johnson
Take a guess Soulsfags will eat it up regardless while complaining about Open World games.
Evan Jones
The art style is a mess because it's a cheap clone of cheap clones of Dota. Dota is a game with a ridiculous variety of characters because it was a Warcraft 3 map like many others, where people would take characters from other games and anime and mythology and whatnot, without much originality.
Not understanding this, dota clones were made with wide variety of characters that nobody cared about and then clone upon clone you get Battleborn and these such games.
Brody Thomas
He's probably written a song about it.
Nathaniel Long
You're gonna need to grind a bit the higher you get. Those 91 thousand kill coin resurrection fees aren't gonna pay themselves.
Joseph Hall
Theres no theme to these turds Its just generic cartoony fantasy with different wacky characters. Thats what pisses me off its part of the reason normalfags like it so much, theres a hero for everyne but not one of them had depth in both their lore/theme/gameplay.
Just like AAA checklists where theres everything from shooting, driving and stealth but not one of them has depth or is done right.
Jackson Peterson
No, they were not aiming at DOTA/LOL/SMITE/WHATEVER They were aiming at cartoons for fucks sake. If you ever commit the mistake of playing the game, you will notice that they were aiming at morning cartoons. The jokes, the enemies, the way the levels start. The problem is, they hired the wrong people to design the characters. They wanted Pixar and Dreamworks characters. Just compare Ambra from Stillborn to the Invisible girl as an example. The things I think would have made this game much more interesting, even with those designs: By the way, imagine if they sell this cheap to some Korean/Chinese company or something like that, and they really try to make it the new Overwatch? Hahahaha!
Logan Williams
Obviously they were not targetting the Dota audience, nigger, I was explaining why the art style is a mess.
Jayden Flores
And that's why I also cited the DOTA clones, can't you read?
Chase Bennett
It has pay for being bad at the game.
There's a currency called death metal that you can buy that does 3 things. First of most important is that expands your storage capacity which is pretty important. Second it can be turned into money that you earn through out the game but actually doing that is a terrible idea as it's easily obtained by just playing. And third, when you die in the game you either are returned to start where you need to go kill your dead character to get him back or pay the non micro transaction money, or pay 1 death metal to revive back to full health.
The starts you with 7 death metal and you can earn it through out the game doing shit. So it really isn't that bad a system just git gud.
Brandon Howard
thats ridiculous. how are games so expensive to make these days? its not like they put that much in to marketing did they?
Jose Hall
i still want to fuck the butler robot
Cooper Bailey
Is that stuff actually cereal?
Xavier Johnson
I know they did one thing with Loot Crate but other than that, I'd heart barely anything about it. It just seemed they intentionally made sure that it wouldn't succeed. They copied borderlands formula, they tried to push it as an e-sport and it was competing with Blizzard's Overwatch. The only possible way they could make it worse financially was if they released it at the same time as Call of Duty.
Elijah Morales
It was trying to be the go-to console MOBA. It was announced during that time that everybody wanted that MOBA cash. The problem then was that by the time of it's release the Overwatch hype was is in full effect. The MOBA base was solidified and "hero shooters" were the cool new thing.
It was the last game on the MOBA train, only the train had already departed and reached its destination.
Also, no waifus.
Carson King
Kek, I know one of the character for this game. Nice guy
Colton Parker
designers*
Joseph Sanders
It's good that he's nice since he has no talent.
Luis Foster
They only bitch and complain, making free advertising for the game unintentionally.
That gif aint making nuff justice for that vine.
The problem is that they're making them into dyke stereotypes, shitty ass short haired looks but it's approved by the LGBTA+ and it contains antioxidents, so fucking keep fucking
Nathan Thompson
Except it's the exact opposite. SJW's still got triggered because Tracer and Emily were cute and not fat. That and because she's a white female, not a black Muslim
Liam Allen
Also from a marketing perspective it works great. Think about it:
Blizzard may suck at balancing, but they are brilliant at marketing.
Logan Ross
Will forever hate them for destroying tomboys and also for turning my overwaifu into a fucking carpet muncher.
Xavier Peterson
Who else would randy pitchford make a game for? He's too mature to associate with gamers
Jayden Fisher
Battleborn, from its beginnings and early info, sounded like "Borderlands: Tolkien Fantasy Edition". Which, for the novelty, would have been cool to pirate and try out (at least there the loot'n'shoot playstyle/mentality makes sense; the mentality translates pretty easily into a Pathfinder/D&D player's "murderhobo" mindset). They then scrapped everything that sounded interesting about Battleborn in the least, turned it into a MOBA, and made the settling like Borderlands but somehow less interesting. And given that Borderlands' setting is both generic and stuffed with references to literally anything and everything under the sun, this says a LOT.
The character designs are all over the place. Unlike Overwatch's or League of Legends's or DOTA 2's, though, there's no consistency in these varied designs. At least in LoL all the guys belonging to a certain faction look like they belong together; in DOTA 2 the story is pretty thin but it doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is; and Overwatch at least has eye-catching (but not eye-grating) character designs.
Again: eye-catching, but not eye-grating. Every single character in Battleborn is a physical sore to look at except the psychic rapier girl and the chaos witch, and even THEN there's something not right about them that makes them hard to look at. There's no cohesion between any of the groups thematically in Battleborn other than "these guys are dicks" and "these guys are slightly less dicks". People have exaggerated muscles or hair or clothing for seemingly no real reason. It's difficult to tell who's a DPS, who's a support, and who's a tank outside of obvious cues (and sometimes even those don't help). Nothing makes sense.
The UI is a horrid, cluttered mess. The stages are just a pain to learn. The whole game was rushed as something completely different to hop onto the "MOBAs Are Suddenly Very Popular Again" train and ended up falling onto the tracks to get messily cut in half. I genuinely don't know what Gearbox was thinking when they made this game…or rather, when they remade this game into something it clearly shouldn't have been. I tried the damn thing in its open beta and I regret every second that I did. I can probably guess that BL3 will save them from the brink of death, if only barely, and they won't actually learn from their mistake. Like a child getting burnt by a hotplate, but instead of realizing they shouldn't touch things that are hot, they avoid the damned kitchen altogether.
Aiden Scott
Wait, it was basically gonna be fantasy Borderlands? Why didnt they do that to begin with? Because I dont get why this game ended up costing so much and it isnt apparent where they money went at all.
Ryder Wilson
More or less. Early info was just vague enough to allude to that, but not give any concrete info. It was at the time the game was announced, last I remember, a bit after TPS hit store shelves.
A shame. They got so insecure trying something new-ish they doubled down on their old formulas and ended up choking.
Robert Allen
The idea of Battleborn, as said by Randy "the man" himself was: "I want a game where Master Chief, Gandalf and a Jedi Knight fight on the same team" What you were supposed to get was a game where pretty much anything goes as long as it's badass. But guess what? That's every Ideas Guy idea for a videogame.
Randy Pitchford is nothing but an Idea's Guy that somehow got an entire team to actually try and make what he wanted.
David Thompson
Which they stole that from some short film, they even contacted the creator of the film before just diciding to steal it because why bother paying the guy. Plus they embezzled millions from Sega to fund borderlands.
Gearbox are a company of thieves.
Cameron Martin
Witches need to be cute.
Sebastian Johnson
True taste is without form.
Nicholas Rogers
All witches all the time.
Oliver Myers
The kung fu fighting girl looked okay, but that is about it. Given how feminism is prevalent in Gearbox, they don't want to design their female characters to be appealing towards male enjoyment. None of the female characters in Battleborn were supposed to be waifuable.
Angel Jackson
ALL UNITS BE ADVISED - FEMINISM IS AWESOME!
John White
Battleborn's characters look more appealing in the art than ingame.
Owen Allen
It's hilarious how misinformed these kinds of people are, if they actually interacted with real women and not turbo-dyke tumblrites they'd know the majority of women out there enjoy attractive characters as much as men do.
Practically every single women I've ever played video games with has always opted for the best looking, sluttiest character possible.
It's almost as if, regardless of gender, we as a species are geared towards enjoying things that look attractive.
Nicholas Martin
while true to an extent, i hope you don't imply that the character art is good, at most it's bearable tilting to mediocre. When your art has nothing to show for the dude in charge of translating that drawing into a 3d model has no pointers and ends up doing whatever he feels like.
I mean look at the picture, two poses full body, front and 3/4's, and the same for face, just front and 3/4's with a bunch of meaningless shit alternate costumes.
Elijah Rogers
i think shes kinda cute. just also gross.
Jason Evans
You can rightfully shit on Borderlands for its writing, but design-wise even their rainbowhairs where more appealing in comparison to this. I also remember they were not afraid to objectify their characters either, since they made a wanted poster focusing on Lilith's chest.
Jacob Adams
TF2 2.0
Juan Kelly
...
Christopher Torres
OGBorderlands was so different it may as well have been done by someone else. Hell, it didn't even get included with their remake double pack Probably for the better. Also Gaige, Kreig, and through no effort from Burch, Handsome Jack are the only things worth a damn in BL2
Logan Ortiz
I want stuff like MNC or SMNC. Any suggestions? I had hoped the overwatch craze would get me what I wanted but evidently not.
Owen Flores
They wanted the League of Legend money.
They honestly thought they were tapping into a new market with the FPS angle of a Moba.
Their mistake was; 1) MASSIVE lack of advertising to what their game actually was
2)SJW pandering (ugly designs)
Nolan Thomas
People who had shit taste enough to want to play Overwatch, but specifically not Overwatch.
Angel Ramirez
THIS. Back in the days of Everquest. The female dwarfs had BEARDS, the female ogre and trolls were BUTT UGLY – and every single time; they'd play as a MALE version of those races. Because the males actually looked 'cool' or appealing instead of transparent garbage bag full of dog turds.
Luke Rogers
Raiden, turn the game console off right now! The mission is a failure, cut the power right now!
Lincoln Peterson
Neither TF2 or Overwatch have aeon of strife style maps you fucking 10 year old.
Jaxon Williams
Art made by SJWs or art made to cater to SJWs is usually ugly. It's the same problem with modern art. They don't have any standards on what constitutes beauty and it's almost as if they want to accentuate the ugliness of their work. I guess in their mind they want to "dumb it down" to where it will be "inclusive" and "non-confrontational" where everyone will like it but it's all at the cost of discipline, complexity and a lack of general direction that it ends up being the complete opposite.
Austin Johnson
SWTOR actually made enough money to be considered profitable. Battlebore was a financial disaster it only grossed 18 million dollars while it had a budget of at least 50 million. It's probably going to destroy the company.
Elijah Morgan
One can only hope.
Joseph Rogers
I can't stand this.
It makes it seem like 3D Realms had some kind of good game before shitbox came along. This is something I will always defend gearbox on as anything that takes responsibility from George Broussard needs to be addressed. That fat fuck squandered millions of dollars on fucking nothing. The stories from previous employees read like a fucking comedy, where people spent their entire careers there working on a single level, changing it and remaking it dozens of times because George played a new game and wanted to incorporate something from it with no rhyme or reason. The final product is entirely his fault.
Adrian Kelly
Gearbox just finished the game and produced it. Other than that, it was entirely 3D Realms.
Julian Long
I am not saying the game was especially good, but it sure as hell had more value than Paladins or Overwatch.
Some of the characters felt genuinely fun to play.
Alexander Gray
fuck off Randy
Dominic Hill
She is basically Tiny Tina, and Gearbox tried to make Tiny Tina into a "lolrandumb" waifu for pedos. I think the bird rocket launcher got more porn than her because furries.
Any news of Gearbox since the commercial flop? I expect some layoffs by this time.
Ethan Price
I thought her concept was kind of cute, but then she opens her fucking mouth and it's Ashley Burch doing her Tiny Tina voice but the dial set to 11.