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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Evolve [arstechnica.co.uk] is an asymmetrical multiplayer game where a team of hunters chase down a monster. It was made by the hugely talented Left 4 Dead [arstechnica.com] developers over six years before being released early in 2015, and I thought it was great. But publisher 2K, so convinced of the game's quality, put in place various DLC packages and pre-order bonuses to milk what it expected to be an enormous community. The perception took hold that Evolve was ripping off players—who had to buy the "core" game first—and it failed to sell in anything like the numbers expected. Now it's dead.

Rainbow Six: Siege walks a dangerously similar path [arstechnica.com].

Launched just before Christmas in the kind of primetime slot that with hindsight so often looks like a graveyard, Ubisoft anticipated that Siege would achieve lifetime sales of over seven million copies. For many reasons, however, Siege has thus far failed to make a commercial impact. The tragedy is that Siege offers something new and unique in the stalest of genres, the mainstream FPS. At one point it even looked like it might usurp the greats of the competitive shooter world. What's stopped it? Ubisoft.

Siege is riddled with evidence of top-down game design edicts. Prime among them is that the game is sold at a premium price (a rapidly-falling £50/$60), but at the same time includes a layer of microtransactions based around XP boosters—which will help players unlock stuff faster—as well as cosmetic weapon skins and a season pass for future DLC content. That might sound heinous, but it's to the credit of the development team at Ubisoft Montreal that it doesn't encroach too much on the core experience. These microtransactions, however, haven't had a good impact on the game's image, and much like Evolve, Ubisoft is in danger of losing players before they've even given the game a try.

Playing one-handed while typing in credit card numbers doesn't heighten the FPS experience?

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