The bad press thread

PocketGamer review - Godus for the iPad

"As a game it's vaguely interesting, but not especially entertaining. And there is, perhaps, no worse criticism you can make of a game than that."

Not all bad in this review though. He describes as a reasonable way to spend a few minutes while you're multi-tasking. Here's an interesting quote from the comments:

"I would have enjoyed this game MUCH more if it would have cost $5 or $10 but had none of the 'freemium' pay-to-win annoyances. " I wonder how many other mobile gamers feel this way? Game designers seem to regard mobile gamers as if they're easily-amused idiots with an inifinite amount of time on their hands. Maybe they should try showing their customers some respect.

From twitter:

Isn't it obvious? This is clearly a minority who just do not understand the joys of zen-like delicious gaming.

Will this actually hurt them that much, I wonder? Godus is often derisively compared to games like Farmville, but Farmville, despite being designated by Time magazine as one of the "50 Worst Inventions" and being heavily criticised for various evils, has been an enormous financial success. Zynga is having some issues right now but it can't be denied that Farmville struck gold.

At the very least, 22Cans is going to be looking at a big revenue spike while mobile gamers test the water. I don't know how long this might last - they're going to really have to get a move on and go live with Hubworld while Godus is still ranking highly and drawing people in. They obviously put in a lot of effort to make a big splash with their global release, but I don't expect they can hope to relive that glory with any single future update, even if it's a substantial one. It would have been much more sensible to include Hubworld in the global release, and I can only think something went wrong to prevent this from happening.

I've been keeping an eye on the rank of Godus in various categories, through this site: Top App Charts

Godus did really well in rankings on its first day, getting higher rankings than Dungeon Keeper (I don't know much about mobile games and that's the only one I could think to compare it to) and reaching #1 and #2 in all relevant categories. It's starting to slip down down, which is probably normal in the days following a big release. iPad rankings are holding a little stronger than iPhone rankings.

Here's another interesting site I just came across: Godus Revenue Estimates

I have absolutely no idea how accurate these numbers might be. They are only estimates. But it certainly looks like a strong start. The next month or so are likely to be critical, because I imagine the mobile market is awfully fickle.

I think we'll be in a better position to judge in a month or so, sure. At least in terms of it's fiscal success. Will it hurt them? Depends on what your goals are. If it's just financial, sure. Godus can be a success much like Farmville was. For me, I would argue just considering financial success is a real short-sighted way of looking at things. After all, like you say, Farmville was a financial success.

To draw an analogy from a different field entirely, Justin Bieber is a huge financial success. Does anyone think he'll be remembered as a fraction of the musician, say, Frank Zappa was?

To be honest, in my opinion, some of the business practices by 22Cans for this project are things I'd at best characterize as unethical, and I think the hit to their reputation is pretty much set in cement. I've already bought the product, but I can guarantee it'll be the only one from this company that I buy. For me, this would be the case even if the game were amazing, which, clearly, it's not. I very much doubt I'm alone in this, either.

So, will it hurt them? That all depends on how you want to look at it. Time will tell, I suppose.

I personally like the Marvel Avengers Alliance F2P model, for the most part. I do think they price things a little high. But over all if your willing to invest some time you can get just about anything in the game. Also you have many ways to earn gold in game. Level up get a gold, when a boss battle get a chance 1 to 10 gold. You can spend gold on weapons, that are not required but can make a hard fight easier. You can recruit hero or a heroes alternate Costumes for your heroes. There is nothing to really make you wait or stop you from playing, but still plenty of items to spend you gold on. Only I the PvP section might you be required to spend gold, but that is because so many other people have spent gold for the PvP bonus items, but that is only if you want to try for the very best of rewards, that are again for the most part not required but are nice to have.

I am thinking ONLY in terms of the short-term financial success, and so (in my opinion) is 22Cans. Here are my reasons:

• 22Cans is a company and so every activity it undertakes is underpinned by the need to maximise shareholder wealth.
• 22Cans enlisted the support of DeNA, known for the very kind of insidious business model with uninspired freemium mechanics that have been realised in Godus. Despite PM's strong expressions of Godus breaking the mould in this regard, the game speaks for itself.
• After milking Kickstarter and Early Access for all they were worth, 22Cans lost interest in the less-profitable PC build and focused on the mobile. I bet if you visited the studio on any given day you'd think the game was mobile-only.
• The majority of 22Cans employees have share options in their remuneration packages. These can only be exercised when 22Cans is sold or listed. Therefore it is in the employees' personal interests to make 22Cans as profitable as possible in the short-term then sell/list so they can cash in.

As for reputational damage? PM seems to have weathered that particular storm before, on more than one occasion. Even if Godus is a step too far he'll have made his money. I doubt the other employees will have to deal with too much fallout since, for better or for worse, they've delivered exactly what was asked of them and that is all a prospective employer is going to look for.

I think I DO believe that PM genuinely wanted to make an incredibly awesome game in Godus, and he wasn't simply driven by greed. That's all probably DeNA's influence coming through. But I think you're absolutely right that he has approached the project with immense naivety and lack of foresight. I imagine in a few years he'll admit he made a mistake, but in the meantime he's going to keep insisting that this is all working out exactly according to plan...

If you ask me, there's a bit if a conflicting action going on here.
Does/did PM believe he would be making an awesome game? I reckon so.
Did the effect of DeNA and other mobile elements harm that intent? Most definitely.

However, PM also pointed out that he wanted to create a game that is functional for everyone.
Effectively claiming that he could bring the serious attitude of PC gaming into the casual crowd and maintain a game that would interest everyone equally.
Which, if you ask me, is definitely putting the bar incredibly high. The goal set for Godus (as it was described through later interviews) just isn't something you can reasonably expect to obtain.

Getting mobile and PC to function in an online fashion on the same footing?
Creating a game that is both in-depth enough to satisfy core PC players but at the same time casual and easy enough to not scare away the mobile crowd?
Add in a variety of the typical over the top PM promises?

It all comes down to a very sketchy situation.
And the fact that they (not just PM, but everyone involved) kinda just let things run its course for so long. Not taking action in solving some of the issues.
That all combines into the problems at hand. EVEN when you are considering business relations, contracts/agreements and more.
It was a mistake to not take the customer seriously.

Effectively what has happened is that the backers and supporters have never been viewed as a viable part of the business equation.
Because legally speaking they aren't. Thus we get DeNA who ends up pushing their interests in and the interests of the original backers being put on the backburner.
Worrying about B2B reputation resulted in totally burning most bridges with your actual audience.

Is that the end of the world? Probably not, afterall companies rise and fall on a daily basis.
Did it harm both PM's future prospects aswell as those of other potential gems coming in through crowdfunding or early access?
Most definitely. Just the fact that so many are now hesitant to even CONSIDER backing a game and would rather just wait untill its release is directly caused by people such as PM making bad decisions in trying to create their game. Not exclusively, but definitely these elements play a part.


So at the end of the day, I don't believe it was intentional malice. More a combination of third-party greed, naïve/ignorance caused decisionmaking and bad prepwork.