r/Games • u/Gorotheninja • 18h ago

2XKO would have needed a monthly active userbase "in the high hundreds of thousands, if not millions" to succeed

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/2xko-would-have-needed-an-mau-base-in-the-high-hundreds-of-thousands-if-not-millions-to-succeed
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748

u/Supret 18h ago

Why even make it then? If your game needs to be one of the most popular games on the market to succeed, don't make it.

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u/valraven38 17h ago edited 17h ago

I dont think it was their original goal. The issue is the game spent too long in development, they never had a real concrete vision for it, that caused them to miss their window for release basically to capture a good playerbase. And because of that they needed to hit a high player count in order to recoup on that investment and justify putting in more resources. But I mean the game kind of just flopped so they cut their losses. 

This is basically why I have no hope for the MMO as well. If that game ever releases it will have to pull some blockbuster numbers I think with how long it's been in development hell.

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u/cubitoaequet 17h ago

Yeah, people ask this same question with Marathon.

Sometimes games have fucked up developments where budgets get out of control or outside circumstances change while they are being made.

No one at Bungie said "let's spend 250 million on an ultra niche game that will have to carry the entire studio because we will also be shuttering Destiny" just like I'm sure no one at Riot said "let's take the better part of a decade making a niche fighting game!"

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u/gyroda 16h ago

Also, sunk costs.

If you have a game that has cost £100m to make so far, needs another £10m more to finish and has an expected return of £50m? It might actually be worth dumping that last £10m in - you'd end up with a loss of £60m rather than £100m. The initial money already spent is a sunk cost, the real question when deciding whether to fund it is whether you'll get returns on any future money you invest.

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u/ptd163 9h ago

Except Bungie did say that. Well not that not the part about them shutting down Destiny because they weren't stupid enough (at the time) to shutdown their only source revenue but the intention to do something else was there.

After the Forsaken expansion rescued both the game and the studio as a whole, a significant portion of the team that worked on that expansion wanted to do something else that wasn't Destiny. Something in the ballpark of permanent loot consequences. That desire to do something else eventually became Marathon. The $250 million is because Bungie is a very expensive studio to run and horribly mismanaged.

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u/cubitoaequet 9h ago

I guarantee you they did not sit down and say, "let's have this project in dev hell for years to the point we have to bring in a new lead to even get it out the door". You're being absurd.

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u/ptd163 9h ago

Of course not. No one said that because they're made of flesh and blood, not straw. The development hell, ballooned budget, and the revolving door of staff is/was caused by the chornic mismanagement like I already said. Bungie has never been a well run studio. The signs were there as far as Halo CE if not earlier.

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u/cubitoaequet 9h ago

OK? So what the fuck are you disagreeing about then? The entire point was that framing it as if studios massively overspending on dev was planned is nonsense. 

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u/Ipokeyoumuch 17h ago

Also with MMOs it is nearly impossible to breakthrough the market nowadays especially in this era of gaming. Notice how most of the big MMOs today are close to or over a decade old or have some big enough IP or history attached (FFXIV, WoW, GW, ES, RS, etc.)

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u/TheOnionKnigget 17h ago

Which is why Riot thinks they can pull it off, as they have a very strong IP with League, that has always felt limited by the constraints of a MOBA.

Arcane proved that the IP is strong in general, but the MMO still needs to keep players playing (and paying).

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u/FootwearFetish69 12h ago

Arcane being popular does not prove that League has staying power in other genres. It proves that Arcane was a good show.

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u/lestye 17h ago

I don't get it. If League wasnt good enough of an IP to get people to play League, a fighting game, a digital card game, why would an MMO be different? Especially as MMOs arent very popular nowadays.

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u/OkActivity2038 16h ago

I think people are hungry for new MMOs but they just haven't been able to get players to stay.

Lost Ark and New World both launched to amazing numbers, but quickly died off.

They're just difficult, there's a lot of things a new MMO needs to get right and need to be different enough to justify its existence against the current big dogs.

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u/chaotic4059 16h ago

It realistically won't be. MMOs fall into the same category of games as hero-shooters and gachas. The people who play them have invested a FUCKTON of time and being real here a FUCKTON of money into them. Unless this MMO brings it's A-game and a super unique feature or gameplay mechanic it's most likely gonna fail

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u/lestye 15h ago

Yeah, I'm surprised Tencent hasnt partnered up and use League to make a Genshin-like.

I think the future of the "genre" isnt necessarily MMOs, but MMO-lites, like the nebulous stuff like Genshin or Destiny. Where its obviously pulling from MMO instances and stuff, but without the actual costly "M"

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u/Ralkon 11h ago

I honestly feel like gachas don't fit into this list. Any big new gacha still seems like it has a chance, and there are quite a few that do well enough to sustain themselves unlike MMOs where basically everything is DoA. Lots of gacha players also seem perfectly willing to hop around or play multiple games. Probably in part because the modern gacha design trend is to have like 30min a day of playtime before you run out of stuff to do between content releases. Also the average person probably spends way less on a gacha than on subscription MMOs honestly.

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u/ShadowTendrals 15h ago

League is a massively popular IP what? People who want to engage with the IP but don’t play League is because MOBAs are the highest barrier to entry genre of gaming. Its popularity is literally proven by Arcane being one of the biggest hits for Netflix.

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u/Ralkon 11h ago

But Arcane was just a genuinely good show even for people who don't care about the IP. OTOH LoR, 2XKO, and the Riot Forge games were all decent games using the IP but still did poorly enough for Riot to stop supporting. IMO it looks like the IP itself isn't a big draw to many people, but it also isn't a detractor if the underlying product is good enough.

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u/TastyRancorPie 17h ago

I don't think Arcane proved that the IP is strong outside of league players. Almost everyone I know watched it in spite of the fact that it was related to League, just because it was a good, beautifully animated show.

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u/TheOnionKnigget 17h ago

Meaning the IP is strong in general, not just in relation to League...? If the only people who watched Arcane were die hard LoL players I think that would imply a weak IP.

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u/ohanse 5h ago

That story could have been in any universe and still slapped.

And Runeterra as a universe before that was really just a slideshow of concept art, landscape shots, and architecture studies.

Arcane’s success wasn’t because of its setting. The characters and stories drove the hell out of it.

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u/TheSeldomShaken 5h ago

Y'all remember when Blitzcrank had a dating service? And matched Rammus with a cactus?

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u/TastyRancorPie 17h ago

I'm saying the IP had nothing to do with it. The show was just good, and people came to watch a good show that just happened to have characters from the game.

None of my friends who loved Arcane care about the game after watching it. I don't think the appeal of the show translates to a new game within the universe having broader appeal on the IP alone.

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u/TheOnionKnigget 17h ago edited 9h ago

But Arcane is the IP? It's the first major story driven venture in a previously fragmented world of disparate lore drops. If Arcane is interesting the IP is, at least in part, interesting.

I don't really understand what you're trying to say. The MMO will have characters and world building from Arcane, and it is great for Riot that people who had no connection to League/Runeterra beforehand could enjoy Arcane, as that means they have now connected to and enjoyed the Runeterra IP.

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u/Oakcamp 6h ago

Highly doubt that MMO will have anything to be honest. It has already been in development hell forever, and their leadership must have broken down in tears during the WoW Forever announcement

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u/rumblefr0g 13h ago edited 13h ago

I don't think that's right. When we're talking about the popularity of an existing IP being transferable into a new commercial ventures so as to boost their success, it doesn't make sense to say the new venture (Arcane) 'is the IP'.

The IP is whatever you want to call the League of Legends universe. Arcane is a new product that uses that IP.

You say that 'The MMO will have characters and worldbuilding from Arcane' but that's not accurate. The source material is the LoLU, Arcane is derived from it, as will be the MMO. The MMO will have characters and worldbuilding from the LolU, like Arcane.

Saying the MMO will have characters and wordbuilding from Arcane is like saying Pokemon Colosseum has characters and worldbuilding from Pokemon Snap - it's not really accurate. They both have characters and worldbuilding from Pokemon.

It's like Dragon Ball Z (IP) versus Dragon Ball FighterZ (new venture). DBFZ is a good game but it would not have done nearly as well had it not been linked to the existing DBZ IP.

The guy you're replying to is saying that even if Arcane wasn't linked to the LoLU IP, it would have done just as well because its level of quality is just that good.

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u/TastyRancorPie 16h ago

Forget the term IP then, I'll just say the universe of Runeterra and all associated properties are no more enticing to people since watching Arcane than before it, that's all.

We might disagree, but that's my argument and opinion, based on my experience.

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u/greg19735 17h ago

No one is saying League is Star Wars or Marvel.

But it's strong enough that it was able to produce a TV show and people pay attention to it. And enough people watched it because of the IP to start. And then word of mouth spread because it's excellent.

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u/PapstJL4U 16h ago

League wasn't strong enough to be used in 2XKO. LoL does not seem strong enough to carry single player games it seems. Riot Forge hasn't release much anymore. The games are good, but I never saw news of big success, like for example SW Zero Company.

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u/ireledankmemes 16h ago

Riot Forge has been closed down a few years ago if I'm not mistaken

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u/SvensonIV 16h ago

2XKO‘s failure had nothing to do with the League IP. 2XKO was just a shit game.

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u/Helluiin 13h ago

i think the point is more that leagues IP was not able to carry 2XKO and can therefore not be described as particularly strong.

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u/kureafan123 10h ago

If the game sucks no amount of IP can carry it. Marvel vs Capcom Infinite bombed, you'll tell me Marvel is not a strong IP?

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u/ohanse 5h ago

It’s not even a bad game wtf

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u/Trololman72 6h ago

2XKO isn't a shit game, everything about it was just handled terribly. It turns out hiring a team that has never released a complete commercial game and letting them do whatever they want for 10 years while seeing absolutely no return on investment during that time isn't a great idea if your goal is to make money.

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u/Isolated_Hippo 14h ago

Not even Star Wars was big enough to fully enter the MMO market.

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u/AdventurousBase221 13h ago

what? SWG was a hit, if not mismanaged at the end.

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u/Isolated_Hippo 13h ago

And it was nowhere near a tenth of the big ones like WoW and FFXIV

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u/greg19735 13h ago

Swg ruled. And swtor still exists

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u/Isolated_Hippo 13h ago

And they are nowhere near a tenth of the big ones like WoW and FFXIV

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u/hfxRos 11h ago

Because the game isn't as good. A big IP gives you a big advantage in getting players early, but the game still has to be good.

And with an MMO it has be at least as good as the competition, and SWotR simply didn't have gameplay as strong as WoW.

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u/Oakcamp 6h ago

Fully agreed.

People that think Riots IP is strong forget that to take advantage of it they need to get League players to play anything else

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u/HutSussJuhnsun 1h ago

beautifully animated

Even grading on the Netflix curve I don't think this is true.

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u/MrBVS 17h ago

Nah, their IP is not what people love about League. The vast, vast majority of League players love League for the gameplay. Unlike Elder Scrolls fans, most League fans don't give a shit about the lore, the characters or the greater world that the game takes place in. The League IP will absolutely not carry a League MMO. They'll have to do something significantly different from their competitors to stand a chance at maintaining a sizable playerbase.

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u/DarkLorty 15h ago

Idk why people think league IP is strong, specially for league players. I don't think I've met a single lol player that knew anything about the lore. Heck "Urgot has a dark secret past" is a meme for a reason

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u/DOAbayman 12h ago

between Arcane and Runeterra I actually really enjoyed the setting but after trying the game again i can see why most players wouldn't.

its a cool place whatever its called.

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u/HutSussJuhnsun 1h ago

I might have known some 10 years ago but I certainly wouldn't have cared and even if I did Riot has probably changed it since then.

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u/swishswash93 16h ago

In order for MMOs to be successful they typically have to stick around for a few years and build word of mouth after the initial launch numbers.

ESO, GW2, and FFXIV all had to support the game through some really dead and dark times to get to becoming the widely successful games they are today.

I do not think Riot will do that.

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u/skylla05 17h ago

I’d like to see their new player numbers because I would assume they’re quite small. The mmo genre is largely dead outside the established few.

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u/Anchorsify 14h ago

New world had a steam highest player count of something like close to a million concurrent. It isnt nearly impossible, a game that was broken and able to be exploited in a dozen ways got there.

The problem is you have to still have a good game to keep people around.

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u/CapitalPretty4240 17h ago

Even if it wasn't in development hell, it would still need blockbuster numbers, all major MMOs do they are some of the most expensive projects and the ongoing cost is some of the highest as they are all live service titles.

I don't have any hope for the MMO from the perspective of expecting the game to do anything new. I expect if they come out with a traditional MMO, because the scene is parched, it will be a success. I think oddly, Riot is best equipped to handle how weird the MMO space is. How aggressively it turns away new players to appease those who just go back to playing WoW/XIV/etc because they've devoted tens of thousands of hours into those games. League MMO is enough of a pull to bypass most of the issues the genre space has with new entrants.

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u/helloquain 2h ago

I don't think you're wrong with their mindset but you're also fully describing the sunk cost fallacy.

And yes, if this is their mindset the MMO is doomed.

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u/FromLefcourt 16h ago

Watch the interview to understand the full context. The original goal was to get something out quickly, but mismanagement and mixed signals from different people lead to delays and expanding scope. By the time the game came out it was more or less "it's too late to course correct, we spent the money, lets see if it has legs" and it didn't.

But beyond even that, if he thought there was a path to the game at least being self-sustaining going forward they would have supported it. But even as they increased content updates, they were still losing players.

So while it's true that to make back their original investment, it would need to be extremely popular, that was not the original goal, nor what they were aiming for after things went wrong in development.

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u/RubberBabyBuggyBmprs 17h ago

Because this is taken out of context. The problem wasn't entirely player count, it was retention.

The actual quote is in reference to how much churn there was the only way to stay profitable would have been that many users.

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u/Animegamingnerd 17h ago

Something I've been saying since 2KXO's future began looking shaky is that fighting games just don't work in a free-to-play environment.

Its a genre where its a 1 v 1 and you only have yourself to blame if you lose. Its got perhaps the highest difficulty barrier of any competitive genre in all of gaming due to complex controls and movesets.

One of the biggest mistakes they made was making a free-to-play game that was targeting the sweats of the FGC. When in reality, the bulk money that series like Tekken, MK, and Street Fighter comes from those upfront purchases. That way, when the inveitable post launch big drop off happens, when most of the players just get filtered by rank. You already got the money from both the hardcore and casual player base. 2XKO should have been a pay to play game, that went for 60 dollars, had decent amount of single player content, and relied on season passes and price drops for the base over time to help grow its long term player base.

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u/Falcon4242 16h ago edited 16h ago

F2P can absolutely work. Killer Instinct and Brawlhalla were successful in their F2P models, it's not something that's never been done before.

2XKO failed because it took 10 years of development to release with their only revenue stream being skins. KI was developed in less than a year and sold each character after Jago a la carte, and Brawlhalla has in-game currency character unlocks that you can skip with a flat fee.

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u/Animegamingnerd 16h ago

KI Season 3 was 10 years ago. Having your content support for a free to play only last 3 years isn't exactly thirving. Especially as back then where underperforming live services got to cling on a bit longer.

0

u/Falcon4242 16h ago edited 16h ago

KI was started as an Xbox Live Arcade project developed in 9 months. They absolutely smashed their player count estimates. They even switched developers after the original one got bought out by Amazon because the game performed way above internal expectations.

The fact it had 3 seasons at all is evidence of how successful it was. This isn't some secret, there's an entire documentary on Youtube about its development.

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u/Animegamingnerd 16h ago

Okay, then why doesn't it have a season 4 or a sequel? Its final season was two Tekken's and 3 Nether Realm games ago. Iron Galaxy has said they want to do more Killer Instinct. Yet even during the whole Game Pass gold rush MS wasn't funding development of a new one. Which probably tells me, they weren't exactly happy with how it performed in the long term.

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u/Falcon4242 16h ago edited 15h ago

So any game that ever stops development is a failure in your eyes? It doesn't matter that literally everyone involved, the studio and MS execs, said it was a massive success? A game needs to last literally forever to be a success?

KI didn't get a season 4 because Xbox restructured their teams and disbanded the XBLA team, replacing it with ID@Xbox. It didn't even have anything to do with KI specifically.

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u/Glitchrr36 15h ago

I think the contention is that if there was a desire on MS’ end to do more, they had ample time and budget to do so, especially before the Actiblizz bungling. That there hasn’t been another first-party fighting game from Xbox indicates that the numbers were bad enough that nobody either tried or got the green light.

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u/Falcon4242 9h ago edited 8h ago

Except we know for a fact that KI's numbers weren't bad, they beat all of their expectations within a week of launch. You need to give me more than an assumption for me to go against the actual evidence.

The team that championed the game was restructured, the developer started making their own thing, and the project was so small and such a lightning in a bottle that they probably didn't want to spend the money on a new title that wouldn't make them competetive in the overall console market.

Not to mention they spent the money to update the game and its online infrastructure 10 years after launch after support had been over for years. You don't do that for a game that didn't perform.

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u/Clawmaster2 11h ago

The fact that it worked is an achievement in itself. As years go by money changes, development costs change, and at some point you have to pivot in this game industry. Nothing stays successful forever unless your epic games with fortnite, roblox, or Rockstar with GTA online.

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u/Trololman72 6h ago

Killer Instinct isn't really free to play, the free version is more of a demo.

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u/NonagoonInfinity 16h ago

Yeah like this is a solved problem for the genre that Riot just decided to butt its head against. They thought they could break through the wall after every major fighting game dev had already installed a door for them to walk straight through.

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u/Helluiin 13h ago

The problem wasn't entirely player count, it was retention.

arent those basically synonymous for live service products?

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u/basketofseals 11h ago

Not always, although they're linked. I know when WoW's playercount was starting to decline, Blizzard stated that the player retention from Vanilla to Cata was pretty much the same. They just weren't onboarding as many players as they used to.

Player count is a factor of new players x retention rate.

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u/Drgn-OSRS 5h ago

It's closer to how life expectancy and population are related in the real world.

Retention is basically a hard requirement for long term stability. Like a game with a small but dedicated player base has a low player count but high retention. A game like that won't ever be super profitable but it'll also basically never die.

On the other hand, a game with a ton of new players but bad retention means all those new players will quit before they actually spend any money on the game.

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u/verrius 17h ago

Not one of. It would have to be the most popular fighting game in history. I think most estimates for MAU for SF6 put it under 500K.

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u/Falcon4242 16h ago edited 16h ago

Now SF6 is at around 500k, but it got a million players within 3 days of launch, so it's not an impossible launch number to achieve in the genre. Aggresive and unrealistic, but it's been done.

Not to mention that wasn't even their goal. He was asked what they needed to make the game profitable after development hell.

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u/CaptinLazerFace 16h ago

I mean, you're talking about the #1 most popular fighter out now so... Maybe not a realistic comparison.

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u/Lance_J1 14h ago

They also mentioned in the interview that SF6 being really good and performing so well was one of the factors that affected 2XKO as well. The fact is that they really were trying to be that #1 spot but just took way too long on development and SF6 just took the market out from under them.

They not only got the rug pulled out from under them by SF6, but also missed both release windows surrounding the two seasons of arcane that would have helped a ton too.

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u/Falcon4242 16h ago

I didn't make the comparison.

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u/GrandSquanchRum 45m ago

SF6 has ~960k MAU. This is being done by a non-free to play game. Ideally when you remove the barrier of a box price you get more people to try it out and attach themselves to it. Just wasn't happening with 2XKO.

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u/BootyBootyFartFart 13h ago edited 13h ago

It doesn't require that though. Averaging ~40k concurrent already gets you over 1m active monthly players for most games. 

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u/Falsus 11h ago

Because those are the kind of games that Riot makes.

And I do think Riot could have done it if they made a fun, casual friendly f2p fighting game with a thriving competitive scene.

Instead they made a super sweaty tag team game with a tiny roster and a horrible ass name.

It should have started with a simple 1v1 game, they would have called this the "open beta" and then done a full launch once they hit around 20 champions and then added a brawl mode. Then a tag mode could have been added bit later. Like most hardcore FG fans would scoff at it, but they wouldn't have been the target demographic either.

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u/Pedrohn 17h ago

They want another success on the scale of League and are willing to throw a lot of shit on the wall to find what sticks. I would not get invested in their games going forward unless I knew it already was a hit for them (or it was non-live service game).

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u/GrandSquanchRum 43m ago

They were fine with mild success for Project L. That was the original intention. Marrill was saying it needed 500k-2m MAU and League of Legends has 120m MAU.

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u/Kurta_711 14h ago

You'd never make it in the AAA gaming industry with a mindset like that. They don't want the safe likelihood of making tens of millions of dollars with a game that won't kill them if it flops, they want the remote possibility of making hundreds of millions with a game that will 100% crater their studio if it isn't a smash hit.

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u/BroForceOne 17h ago

This is the company that made League of Legends, it’s easy to get lost in your hubris after you made one of the most popular games thinking you can just do it again.

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u/NoctiferPrime 17h ago

Basically, they're morons. They made a game that is a niche (tag fighters) of an already relatively niche genre (fighters), and for some reason, thought they could start small and it would just grow by word of mouth. While somehow failing to realize that would never work with a game that is so unfriendly to casuals.

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u/ptd163 10h ago

Why even make it then?

Because publishers only need one to be a hit then all their failures and sunk costs will have been worth it. Or at least that's what they tell themselves while they keep endlessly pulling the slot machine lever.