Short Thought: What Killed Evolve?
At GameGrin we liked Evolve. To be honest, we loved Evolve. Unfortunately, like an abusive partner, just because we loved it didn’t mean that it was good for us.
I still receive mockery from fellow GG staffers about the fact that I, a man who is staunchly against the act of pre-ordering video games, became incredibly hyped for the release of Evolve and pre-ordered it. I haven’t been this wrong about a game since I said that Brink was going to change the FPS genre (yes, I know, I know).
When it launched in February, Evolve had almost 10,000 people playing it daily – enough to keep it in the top 10 games on Steam at the time. That number has dropped cataclysmically to just 500. Let that sink in for a moment. The amount of people who play Evolve at peak times wouldn’t fill up the House of Commons.
What killed Evolve? Most would immediately say it was devs Turtle Rock’s DLC policy, whereby the game launched with more premium, elite and pre-order bonuses than you could count. That soured the gaming community’s opinion of the game heavily when many were already questioning its replayability.
The problem isn’t the gameplay, either. I remember starting up Evolve on day one and being happily surprised that there were no major issues, bugs or glitches. The game looked great and I could get into games with players without any hassle whatsoever. Some people decry its repetitive nature, and perhaps they may have a point – trying to release new maps and characters (free or not) down the line as downloads is not a great way of retaining a rapidly diminishing player base.
Though some may think Turtle Rock and 2K deserved it, I can’t help but feel a tinge of regret when I see the greyed out Evolve on my Steam library list. You could have been a contender, Evolve, you could have been somebody. Instead, you have this slow decline into obscurity.
Requiescat in pace.
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COMMENTS
domdange - 10:54am, 15th July 2015
Your hype killed Evolve!
But seriously, it was an odd experience, one that required a lot of team work, and when you're playing with LongDongSilver69 or whatever idiot you've been match made with, it made it that much more difficult.
Monsters FTW
Platinum - 04:38pm, 15th July 2015
Long Dong Silver :D
LocoPojo - 06:23pm, 15th July 2015
What even makes you say Evolve's dead? I mean, matchmaking still works. I'm still playing it. That 500 concurrent players is still 37,000 unique players every two weeks, if you believe steamchart software at all. (http://steamspy.com/app/273350) - and that's just on the PC, the smallest and most fickle market. Hunters are still being released, the game is still being updated and balanced, content is still being produced, copies are still being sold. It was a financial success, too, despite all the despicable DLC practices. 2K sold in 2.5 million copies, over 1.5 million of those have been sold out - and all of that after buying it on the cheap from THQ and paying for only a year of development time. They've announced they're keeping it as a permanent franchise, so TRS is either going to continue producing hunters and maps LoL-style or there will be a sequel. So if the franchise is permanent, the game is still being played, the game is still being made, and the game made a huge profit - why would you say it's been killed? Because you personally uninstalled it? Hell, fire it back up again sometime, I'll play with you. If you're a monster race preorder, you should have Behemoth, the T4 hunters, and Lennox to play with now, and they're all awesome fun.
Foulerfire - 12:18am, 16th July 2015
500 concurrent players is enough to say the game has killed itself imo. I agree with Alex that the Dlc was far too much and while you say they are continuing to add hunters and monsters doesn't mean the game is succesful, it means the company refuses to let the game die. As for a permanent franchise I think TRS is going to see very disappointing sales when they release the second instalment of evolve.