Crackdown 3 should have been free to play

Troll · Oct 25, 2019

Just release the city as a fee to play playground you can have fun in. Charge $5 for the campaign (about what it's worth) another $5 for coop. Charge for costumes and other cosmetic stuff.

I feel like that could have been more profitable than what they did. Gamepass members have everything but cosmetics unlocked.

throw the multi into the trash. That it's hard enough to make an argument for why the single player exists, but the multi was just a mistake.

SleepSmasher · Oct 25, 2019

It kinda is though, there's a thread here explaining how to get Game Pass for free for one month.

Theswweet · Oct 25, 2019

With how cheap Game Pass has been this year, it might as well have been.

Betelgeuse · Oct 25, 2019

Some change in how it was presented definitely would have been an improvement.

I wonder if it would have been better positioned as a Gamepass exclusive. Part of the reason it was torn apart was because MS presented it as a AAA game that would break new technical ground. It became clear it was neither. If it instead was marketed as a more arcady AA experience without generation-definition destruction, its reputation would have been significantly better. And without that baggage, there is a fun, if barebones game in there.

francium87 · Oct 25, 2019

I liked the campaign, felt it was worth more than the OP thinks.
Not $60, but not $5 either.

Troll · Oct 25, 2019

Betelgeuse said:
Some change in how it was presented definitely would have been an improvement.

I wonder if it would have been better positioned as a Gamepass exclusive. Part of the reason it was torn apart was because MS presented it as a AAA game that would break new technical ground. It became clear it was neither. If it instead was marketed as a more arcady AA experience without generation-definition destruction, its reputation would have been significantly better. And without that baggage, there is a fun, if barebones game in there.

I like that idea. Maybe another game game be exclusive to the service.

Garrett 2U · Oct 25, 2019

The campaign mode was great, I had a blast in coop.

I wouldn't spend $60 on it, but GamePass :)

martincrimson87 · Oct 25, 2019

I loved that game. The moment to moment gameplay was addictive. It's one of the most underrated games of the generation and it can be quite the looker at 4k.

DidactBRHU3 · Oct 25, 2019

It should´ve been $30, but it was $60 to give value to Game Pass.

Deleted member 35071 · Oct 25, 2019

gamepass was free. and i still aint like Crackdown 3

KDC720 · Oct 25, 2019

It should have been like $30 at most. The game is nowhere near as terrible as some make it out to be, but it's also wholly unremarkable (which I guess could be worse depending on who you ask). It's totally competent as a game though, a solid rental if nothing more.

I played it on Gamepass, never even touched the multiplayer portion but I enjoyed playing through the story in the weekend it took me to do so.

Deleted member 21709 · Oct 25, 2019

It should have just been better than Crackdown 1.

DevilMayGuy · Oct 25, 2019

It just should have been worth playing in general
Even free, it wouldn't have captivated pretty much anyone. Better that they suckered some few people into a full price purchase before it faded into obscurity

What would their player retention strategy have looked like? You need people to be playing to buy MTX, and there was nothing there to keep people engaged beyond an hour or two of jumping around the sterile world, locking on to the same few enemy types and leveling your dude to... Continue jumping around the bland world. It's a dud. For free, it would have been the same dud with even less incentive to keep playing once the very thin veneer of "new Crackdown" wears through, as there is no sunk cost fallacy to motivate people with a F2P game. The F2P space is far too full of games that are far superior to CD3 to expect anybody to give it the time of day.

OG_Thrills · Oct 25, 2019

With the amount of free subs being given away leading upto it's release, it kinda was free.

Mr Delabee · Oct 25, 2019

OP's name checks out.
CD3 was good, seems like expectations bit people right in the arse with this one, never really understood what people really wanted.

cgpartlow · Oct 25, 2019

This and Sea of Thieves are perfect Gamepass games. As standalone $60 dollar experiences they don't quit justify the value but as Gamepass games they a perfect. Sea of Thieves is great to go on with friends every once in a while a Crackdown 3 was a fun quick romp. There only game I've gotten 1000gs on this year.

ElNino · Oct 25, 2019

Mr Delabee said:
OP's name checks out.
CD3 was good, seems like expectations bit people right in the arse with this one, never really understood what people really wanted.

I'm sure many just wanted to use it as a whipping boy to argue against cloud gaming. I haven't finished it yet, but I've enjoyed playing it co-op with my son which is exactly what I was looking for.

ShapeGSX · Oct 25, 2019

I love Crackdown 3. And to get it for free with Gamepass was fantastic. I had a ton of fun with the game. I think I spent 24 hours playing it and found all of the agility orbs.

MisterR · Oct 25, 2019

It should have been cancelled. I'm guessing it would have been if not for cancelling Scalebound and not wanting more backlash.

Falchion · Oct 25, 2019

I mean it essentially is when you can get GamePass for $1.

dasu · Oct 25, 2019

I thought that the sentiment now is that Crackdown 3 was a good game that had rather old fashioned design sensibilities (if you ignore the abysmal multiplayer).

ElNino · Oct 25, 2019

dasu said:
I thought that the sentiment now is that Crackdown 3 was a good game that had rather old fashioned design sensibilities (if you ignore the abysmal multiplayer).

Basically, that's what I've found. It plays well and the orb hunting is still enjoyable more than a decade later. We enjoy going around a blowing up cars to start chain reactions.

Forearm_Star · Oct 25, 2019

Got it on game pass and still haven't bothered to fire it up.

krg · Oct 25, 2019

MisterR said:
It should have been cancelled. I'm guessing it would have been if not for cancelling Scalebound and not wanting more backlash.

pretty much yeah.

PianoBlack · Oct 25, 2019

MisterR said:
It should have been cancelled. I'm guessing it would have been if not for cancelling Scalebound and not wanting more backlash.

Glad it wasn't. I had a lot of fun playing it. The driving events were the only really bad part of single player, and endgame with the wingsuit and all the fun guns was awesome.

Super Havoc · Oct 26, 2019

francium87 said:
I liked the campaign, felt it was worth more than the OP thinks.
Not $60, but not $5 either.

I agree. I think it's "kewl" to hate on the game due to the delays and such but it's not a bad game by any means. It's not great either but it is fun as hell and the traversal is some of the best in any open world game period.

Spring-Loaded · Oct 26, 2019

That early "destructible portion of the city" demo should've been made public and free-to-play. I would've gotten the game if it meant being able to mess around with that even in limited capacity, no missions, no multiplayer, etc.

Jawmuncher · Oct 26, 2019

It should've just been a budget title like Recore.

Mad_Rhetoric · Oct 26, 2019

Crackdown 3 is great, and the campaign was really fun. Best crackdown game, better than 1. People wouldnt hate it as much if the MP hadnt been downgraded so much.

arts&crafts · Oct 26, 2019

Mad_Rhetoric said:
Crackdown 3 is great, and the campaign was really fun. Best crackdown game, better than 1. People wouldnt hate it as much if the MP hadnt been downgraded so much.

Agreed. I loved it. I don't play the multiplayer and I was never going to just like 95% of the people that were going to buy the game. But to counter the OP, no it should not have been F2P as that wouldnt make any sense but I do think it should have been maybe $30 and not had multiplayer.

Deleted member 51691 · Oct 26, 2019

Spring-Loaded said:
That early "destructible portion of the city" demo should've been made public and free-to-play. I would've gotten the game if it meant being able to mess around with that even in limited capacity, no missions, no multiplayer, etc.

Wasn't that demo completely faked?

The_R3medy · Oct 26, 2019

Disagree, and I say this as someone who's been playing through the campaign sporadically for months. It's a fun Crackdown game, and that doesn't mean it should be free.

AdmiralAdmiral · Oct 26, 2019

Perfect for Game Pass.

B1ggRandall · Oct 26, 2019

Forearm_Star said:
Got it on game pass and still haven't bothered to fire it up.

Same!

Nacery · Oct 26, 2019

It's actually a really fun game and reminded me when I wanted that all games had jump assigned to R3. It was also cheap as hell (12 bucks) in the latest microsoft publisher deals.

Ausroachman · Oct 26, 2019

Had more fun in crackdown 3 then borderlands 3. Still yet to finish b3 because I got bored.

Lots of people have different tastes, as a crackdown game , 3 is fun if not a bit too similar to the old games.

At least its better then crackdown 2. The multi was trash though and maybe that part should have been free (it should have been scrapped from the beginning)

Megatron · Oct 26, 2019

It basically was FTP since practically everyone who played it played it on Gamepass.

but yeah, it definitely should never have been $60.

Kilgore · Oct 26, 2019

Crackdown 3 campaign is actually pretty fun.

stormfire · Oct 26, 2019

The USP was the never seen before cloud-based multiplayer destruction. Turns out that the campaign has more fans than the multiplayer.

Crackdown 3 should have been free to play

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