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Why is Rogue Legacy's follow-up considered a 'pretty massive failure?' (Full Metal Furies)
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
OP
OP
I can actually speak from experience here- by the time you're done with a game you're ready to try new things, to move on, and in some cases prove you can hop out of genres into others just as successfully. Other times its fear of expectations, of not being able to capitalize on the existing brand, but really I think its the desire to move on.
Most indie devs go with their passions rather than what makes the most business sense. That's why for companies its very easy to greenlight all kinds of sequels, but some devs have a hard time staying in the same lane for years.
I just made a sequel to my game and yeah, I am sooooooooooo ready to move onto a different type of game, even if commercial wise another sequel would be the surer bet financially.
Honestly, thats more on you than on the game, why would you play a booring and generic game for 40h?
I loved the conzept and the core gameplay. It would have had way more potential (more assets, more different classes that play different, etc.
And yeah, regarding indie sequels:
The strength of indies is creating novel ideas, or niche products.
sequels dont have that trump card, so they have to be refined, bigger, grander and win throu more content and bigger production values.
More content / higher production values cost way more than novel concepts -> The game costs more.
And even here you often read "i wont pay more than 10-20$ for an indie game" or "for indies i wait till there is a sale for a view $".
So yeah, it seems that there is a bigger risk with a sequel for indies than with AAA.
Another exampel: Banner Saga 2. way lower sales, because missing marketing from kickstarter.
As someone who grew up with the original rogue and loves the genre: Please fuck off with that shit.
I stil play Rogue Legacy from time to time and i adore this game and even i haven't hear anything about a new game from those guys.
But hey indies, if you can't market your new game to most loyal fans don't expect good sales to happen magically
A good game is not enough. Marketing, marketing and again marketing.
But hey indies, if you can't market your new game to most loyal fans don't expect good sales to happen magically
A good game is not enough. Marketing, marketing and again marketing.
I thought it was a pretty good game. I played up to a point with my fiancée and buddy of mine until we stopped because of the bugs and online issues we had. If they recently updated it, we'll probably get back on and check it out. I can't imagine it's that fun as single player but co-op is a blast.
It's really pathetic a lot of people couldn't get past the title because they misread it.
Personally I was interested in the game to the point that I would actively look up new info every 3 months.
It wad extremely telling how poor the marketing was beyond the name that they went from 1 article or YouTube video every 6 months to 2 a month close to release.
This isn't how you develop awareness. Maybe they did the exact same thing for rogue legacy but they should of used various metric tracking tools to figure out that potential customers weren't as attracted to this game as Legacy and course corrected within a month after launch.
Personally I was interested in the game to the point that I would actively look up new info every 3 months.
It wad extremely telling how poor the marketing was beyond the name that they went from 1 article or YouTube video every 6 months to 2 a month close to release.
This isn't how you develop awareness. Maybe they did the exact same thing for rogue legacy but they should of used various metric tracking tools to figure out that potential customers weren't as attracted to this game as Legacy and course corrected within a month after launch.
I love Rogue Legacy and had no idea this existed. Admittedly the title sound like Furries right off the bat too and that made me not even want to look at it.
I bought it on day one because I thought I'd be able to play it online. It turned out that it only supports online with people on your friends list. So no random player coop. Also each of your characters levels independently. Each character has their own weapons which level independently, and each of those weapons only levels when you use the corresponding button. There are multiple variations of each weapon that also level independently. There's just a huge amount of grinding. It quickly fell by the wayside and I never went back.
It's because the title makes it sound like it's about this:
Lol yep
I'll be honest, I had no idea this game even existed, and I listen to game podcasts and visit this place almost every day.
Gotcha, thanks.
I won't lie, I get disappointed when my favourite indie games never get a sequel.
Not getting Dust: An Elysian Tale 2 fucking hurt my soul.
I get that, but as fans, it's not usually what we want. When a game like Rogue Legacy hits, people who love that game understandably want more. Go a different direction and you risk alienating those who loved the first game.
Games like Rogue Legacy especially are crying out for a sequel. There's huge untapped potential in the concept. Hopefully once they are finished with this brawler they get started on RL2.
I follow a bunch of youtubers who play roguelites/likes for a living and saw 0 coverage of this. All of them played rogue legacy a ton.
I read it as furries and ignored it.
I read it as furries and ignored it.
?
I did not ask what you played in the past, I just posted facts.
I've never heard of this game. But the title makes me think I did hear of it, then immediately dismissed it as the jpeg in this thread. I even liked Rogue Legacy.
Pick your titles right is my first takeaway here
Pick your titles right is my first takeaway here
Aside from all of the naming and marketing issues, 2 of the game's big issues I could see are:
Genre shift - This game is more akin to a new Castle Crashers than a new Rogue Galaxy. It's what my friends and I were looking for, so I kept an eye on the game and, when it released, I got a couple buddies together and we had a blast playing it together. A lot of people may have contention with the puzzle mechanics, but talking it out with my friends online was a super fun and unique gaming experience for us.
Networking issues - Won't lie, we had a good amount of difficulty with the online mechanics just dying at times, desyncing and crashing at times. We kept with it and it improved a bit with their first patch, but I can EASILY see that being a huge detractor from the game's WoM factor, as well as it's actual review scores. My friends and I liked the game enough to muscle through it, but it was easily the worst part of it when it decided to bug out.
All that being said, it's unfortunate that they couldn't even break even. The game's a lot of fun and, aside from the internet issues, very polished.
Genre shift - This game is more akin to a new Castle Crashers than a new Rogue Galaxy. It's what my friends and I were looking for, so I kept an eye on the game and, when it released, I got a couple buddies together and we had a blast playing it together. A lot of people may have contention with the puzzle mechanics, but talking it out with my friends online was a super fun and unique gaming experience for us.
Networking issues - Won't lie, we had a good amount of difficulty with the online mechanics just dying at times, desyncing and crashing at times. We kept with it and it improved a bit with their first patch, but I can EASILY see that being a huge detractor from the game's WoM factor, as well as it's actual review scores. My friends and I liked the game enough to muscle through it, but it was easily the worst part of it when it decided to bug out.
All that being said, it's unfortunate that they couldn't even break even. The game's a lot of fun and, aside from the internet issues, very polished.
Yup I bought rogue legscy twice and assumed I would buy whatever they made sight unseen but forced with bots or co-op?I fucking hate that.
I can't speak for anyone else, but as someone who was (and still is interested in it), the fact that you can only tag one other character in and out during single player made me hold off on a purchase. To me that sounds like a compromised experience and I unfortunately would barely ever be able to play with friends locally and don't want to rely on this having a strong online community to fill out the party. If you could still have AI companions to fill out your party in single player, I'd be way more on board. Alternatively, the RPG aspects being pushed didn't gel well with me for a pick up and play couch co-op experience for various reasons.
I didn't know it had released.
I dumped lots of hours into RL, and I heard of this being developed, but there wasn't any noise about it back in January when it released (that I had heard, anyway). Maybe some exposure now will boost sales a bit and help this out.
I dumped lots of hours into RL, and I heard of this being developed, but there wasn't any noise about it back in January when it released (that I had heard, anyway). Maybe some exposure now will boost sales a bit and help this out.
Dammit, I do that all the time. I always mix those 2 names up in my head T~T
It's not Rogue Legacy 2. I'm sorry because that stifles creativity but that's really all I want out of this studio.
Here's the thing, people still don't get how important names are. There is a whole strategy for naming games and even I didn't pay any attention to this game because of the name because I too foolishly just read it as "furries".
Disco Elysium
Who thought that was a good name
Man gamers are the worst
I'm starting to think this is a fundamental disconnect between indie developers and customers. We except iteration and growth of games we love, they want to try something new.
Well...thats marketing for you. Its not even that they have a problem with it, it just more in the way "not my thing".
Im not a sports games fan.
If a 2d topdown action advanture like Hyper Light Drifter would be called
Tomorrows Socker Champion
i wouldnt be interested, because i would think the game is about socker.
And yeah, i know, it is kinda stupid, but furies is a word thats rarely used on the net, compared to furries,
and especialy for a huge amount of the not native speakers it leeds to confusing the two words.
So yeah, these are the problem of marketing agencies all over the world wen making comercials, flyers, clogans or product names.
Happens. Legacy and Galacy sound similar.
For real. I've heard the games title before but didn't know it was from the Legacy guys.
After reading the article I feel even more conflicted.
These ideas could have fit in rogue legacy 2. They could have hidden puzzles in a RL2, and they would have been found organically, and could have been very hype.
But hiding it in a new IP with weird combat, and no exposure, just didn't work out.
I'm very interested in playing the game niw, though, so I feel like the main failure was the name and marketing.
These ideas could have fit in rogue legacy 2. They could have hidden puzzles in a RL2, and they would have been found organically, and could have been very hype.
But hiding it in a new IP with weird combat, and no exposure, just didn't work out.
I'm very interested in playing the game niw, though, so I feel like the main failure was the name and marketing.
I really liked Rogue Legacy and I'd never even heard about this. Sounds like I'm not alone on that, too - so maybe there's the real failing?
There are no bots. WHen you play alone, you have to choose two characters to swap between. This is to keep some of the challenging mechanics in the game.
The poor thing is, I loved Rogue Legacy's title. I thought it was a great wordplay on what the game was about. A roguelike with a twist.
I did recognize FMF was from RL, but only like a few days before it released when checking the store page of the game itself, checking upcoming games on Steam.
I'm no slouch in following the industry and what games are coming. So that I wasn't aware of it at all means there really was only minimal marketing.
I did recognize FMF was from RL, but only like a few days before it released when checking the store page of the game itself, checking upcoming games on Steam.
I'm no slouch in following the industry and what games are coming. So that I wasn't aware of it at all means there really was only minimal marketing.
Whenever solo gameplay is shoe-horned into a game designed around co-op it always suffers immensely.
The only co-op designed game that didn't have this problem was Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, but that's because they literally re-designed every level for solo play.
