Timothy Sweenus, master of the house Epic, never seemed to learn how to add two and two together and it drives me nuts. Tim Sweeny has been the CEO of Epic throughout it's greatest triumph, the release of Fortnite, and presently you don't even need to know the history of what actually happened with that game to know that every bit of success they achieved was absolutely accidental on Tim's side. I have no doubt that every bit of insight and direction he fed to that game probably went towards building 'Save the World, the nowhere-dead base of the project with shrivelled up like a prune because nobody cared about for the months leading up- and it was the actual down and dirty developers who came up with the idea of the ancillary battle royale add-on to the game which ended up changing the face of pop culture forever.
I know that sounds strange- shouldn't I be giving the literal CEO of the company his dues for being there? Afterall, he kept the company going for as long as it did in order to make Fortnite, he probably had a hand in assembling the team that ended up striking double-platinum- sure, and just as much praise as a good casting director would get for nailing the perfect actors, I'll afford Tim- but as a leader, a visionary- as a voice of our industry the man is painfully awful. He is the very soul of the blind fool who desperately twists his desperation and fading desire into his minuscule world view. Not in the way a trailblazer starts with before making that vision a reality, but in the way a delusional fool does whilst their world crumbles around them.
Let us not forget the war which was fought by Tim Sweeny over his attempt to create a competitor to Steam, literally the most trust-absorbing and widely beloved platform in the world. (Whether or not that trust or love is duly and fully deserved given some of their policies.) Tim made the tiny leap of logic that competition is good in the market- well done Tim, you've attended a single lesson of community business school and listen for 5 minutes, what a trooper! He then proceeded to rush the output of such a Storefront, so it launched with the aplomb of a competitor but with the functionality of bloatware and then tried for years to win over developers with a more favourable revenue split- only for their failure to generate users seriously undercutting any potential benefits of that revenue split. Nowadays the only way they can get one other on Steam is by the single worst thing the PC platform can endure- store exclusivity- which sucks and ruins their reputation and sales potential everytime Epic does it. But this market is Tim's baby, so he insists.
This is the man running one of the most profitable studios in all the industry and it's galling to think the man considers their success in someway due to his wit and leadership. You can tell how self absorbed he is, it truly is pretty nauseating. Still it shocks me everytime to hear just how off-base the takes he makes are, even with the false confidence he instils behind each utterance- and of course, just like the Winter Soilder hearing those words, his latest dribbles have sent me reeling once more into asshole mode. I'm gonna be an asshole towards him right now. Sorry. (Not really, I could care less how I look in the face of that guy.)
"Generational Change!" cries Tim at Unreal Fest in the face of the modern industry; citing the way that consumers are moving away from the way that development is trending in the industry- which is true! And I thought: 'wow, Tim has his head on straight today!' 'A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling." For the briefest of moments I recoiled in shock, is Tim himself going to sing the praises of smaller and cheaper projects? Why, what could have possibly happened in his life to offer the man such enlightenment? Surely not from experience- maybe our man has been abducted and instead of getting the probe was treated to a customary brain transplant from a passing extra-terrestrial who felt bad for him? For a major voice to decry over-bloated game budgets- why, that could set some genuine precedent in the world... Yeah, of course that wasn't where he was going...
Fortnite is ever-growing, lucky Epic, and big budget games are missing sales expectations- to put it lightly. So what does this say? "We're seeing... a real trend where players are gravitating toward the really big games where they play with more of their friends." He- what? Value "grows in proportion to the number of friends you can connect to." that is... head-achingly simplistically dumb, is he serious? As Sweeny struggles to hold his hands right on a inky void of stage, with nowhere to hide his insanity, Tim actually said the words, and I'm so sorry you have to hear this uttered in the year of our lord 2024- "Some people will call it the metaverse." Two more angles fell from heaven at that very moment. "It's new" (not really anymore, mate) "it's exciting" (to investors, I'm sure) "and it's something that's never happened at this scale in the history of entertainment." Once again, well done Tim- you've discovered what Market growth is, dude is a savant, I'm telling ya.
Now given that Tim is talking about Big budget flops, lets put his theory in action shall we. What were the biggest flops of this year? 'Concord', some say it's the biggest flop in the entirety of entertainment history- I say wait until the re-release- but currently, yeah it might just be. "Suicide League collapse under the weight of their own medicority", 'nuff said about that one. "Skull and Bones" I'm putting an asterisk around that one, I'm pretty sure whilst it clearly flew short of expectation somehow the game has enough numbers to keep a small community alive- which is confusing, but shouldn't be dismissed unduly. "Foamstars", that was this year? Yikes! "Star Wars Outlaws" I'm not I'd call it an out-and-out flop, but it did hit short of sales numbers. And it's the first non-live Service game on the list! Point one for Tim! And 'Alone in the Dark'- that one was a shame, I was routing for it. Huh, funny that. Most of those games, the biggest losses, were all online Live Service games that threw as many players together as possible in the hopes they would make a community. Almost as though a game's value is not tied to how many people can play together, hmm... but I can't make that assumption without looking at the biggest success' of the year.
'EA Sports College Football', little limited as far as multiplayer connectivity goes. 'Helldivers 2', that's a little more like it. 'Dragon's Dogma 2', UGC but otherwise no online connections whatsoever. 'Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth' as singleplayer as it gets with a tiny amount of UGC tacked on top. 'Persona 3 Reload', singeplayer RPG, little bit of online suggestion content. 'Black Myth: WuKong' a little early to get definitive sales figures but the game certainly has the buzz- and I personally think it's a masterpiece. Warhammer Space Marine 2- multiplayer content is available, but that's not what got people through the door. Do you see what I'm trying to say here? There is no one-size-fits all hack to success in the art/ gaming world, and over-promised Live Service multiplayer cages seizing at your time and wallet leads to failure more often than success- it's only those out-of-touch execs like Sweeny who desperately insist otherwise and listening to them will be our folly. The more we allow voices like this to speak out and guide our industry, the more face-plants like 'Concord' we're going to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment