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[Gaiff]

While The Dark Ages is a huge departure from Eternal's mechanics, I respect id Software's ambition to shift the fundamentals with each entry. And I love TDA it's no less than a 8/10 game.

It also boggles my mind so much why it flopped so badly compared to Eternal.

Yeah Game Pass and that 70 bucks are the culprits I can think. Same thing can be said for Indy game too, aint no way a full-fledged AAA Indiana Jones game would only have 12k peak CCU on Steam had the game not been put on Game Pass.

Also Doom Eternal released at the very peak of COVID lockdown so probably the sales got boosted a lot by the lockdown.

I doubt it would have had huge numbers regardless. Look at FH6 still managed over 300K. Without Game Pass, this does what, 20K? Maybe 25?

 

[Metnut]

Phil Spencer's Gamepass strategy and its consequences have been a disaster for the gaming industry.

 

[clarky]

Game Pass killed nearly every Xbox studio, yes

Every xbox studio killed themselves by releasing mid games that took forever to make.

 

[T-Reks]

Very selfishly, I'm glad there is no Quake reboot. Quake, not to mention Q3A, is one of my favorite games ever and I'm not sure I have the heart to see it modernized.

I pushed hard for a Quake reboot after 2016, but now see why it hasn't been done. It's an almost impossible task and no matter what they do they are going to alienate people

 

[NickFire]

Every xbox studio killed themselves by releasing mid games that took forever to make.

There's truth in what you say. But considering they're seemingly firing people based on financial performance, I don't think it's a stretch to assume not actually selling the games caused a lot of damage.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Suffice to say it didn't help the game.
But id didn't deserve to die, not like this.

 

[LectureMaster]

I doubt it would have had huge numbers regardless. Look at FH6 still managed over 300K. Without Game Pass, this does what, 20K? Maybe 25?

Yeah, that's why it baffles me, supposedly the indy game should have huge pulls and it is actually reviewed very well. Similar situation for TDA.

For Forza tho, I would put it in its own territory, much like COD and those sports games, where the majority of casual gamers are the mass buyers.

 

[StereoVsn]

I also think eternal rubbed people up the wrong way. And lost interest because of it.

I know a guy who would masterbate over 2016 but hated eternal.

Yeah, I really liked 2016, and didn't like Eternal with all the platforming and the stupid storyline. And Dark Ages didn't click either.

 

[Durin]

I am going to be honest here Doom is the one game that really does not need a story. Or cutscenes. Or deep characters. It is basically portal-demons-kill satan.

Doom is like Mario to me, you only need enough story to make me want to be in the world, and contextualize your goal.

Otherwise, I wanna just jump across gaps shoot demons. Best part of 2016 when I first picked it up was the game started with a guy gassing your character up to rip and tear, a slap opens with you in it, and you're shooting a demon within a minute. Game just goes, no fat, no bullshit.

Oh, and I forgot losing Mick Gordon is felt through the whole game. Music wasn't bad, but it wasn't nearly as memorable.

 

[Artistic]

It was the third game of the reboot. It should've been the most successful one.

Says who?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Says who?

Trends, usually

 

[clarky]

There's truth in what you say. But considering they're seemingly firing people based on financial performance, I don't think it's a stretch to assume not actually selling the games caused a lot of damage.

Gamepass and the stupid retail prices to make gamepass seem more attractive will do that.

 

[rapid32.5]

I played it through Game Pass and upgraded to the Deluxe Edition after my trial ended.

 

[Alex11]

IMO no and also I don't think it's dead, it's either gonna be a while until the next one or sooner, but going back to basics. It underperformed because of the choices they made.

A big one for me, it doesn't feel like an FPS, I mean I played the whole game with only one weapon and used it as a secondary thing. Just blocking, throwing the shield and punching my way made up the bulk of the gameplay.

It has these large open areas with enemies standing around, waiting for you and matching colors to dodge and kill them. They made a dragon gimmick and while fun and a spectacle, it feels restricted and shallow with the doing left and right to kill stuff.

But it is a fun game, certainly not trash, but not at all a good FPS or DOOM game. It's also way easier than 2016, never mind Eternal and it's not my job to change some sliders to make it challenging or fun.

 

[KanKamAndNob]

He'll to the fuck yes it did. I got it on ps5. You all failed this franchise.

The game is still an 8/10. 2016 and eternal are just 9.5s so yeah it's a drop off but people out here acting like it's some 5/10 woke slop.

Now, Msoft has left you with the new id software team:

Enjoy fuckers.

Doom:TDA was still good and I bought it on PS5 full price. It just didn't land for a lot of people unfortunately.

More importantly, how many miles away do you think their collective stench can be detected?

 

[PlayStaytion]

No, we just didn't expect 50 SSS tier games from this generation.

 

[unclbenn]

After building a new PC the first game I wanted to play was doom the dark ages. Signed up for gamepass that same day

 

[Deerock71]

I hope it sees the light of day on the Switch 2.

 

[Revolutionary]

It's definitely one of the primary reasons why I didn't pick it up day one on Steam like the others.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Its hard to say why Doom Dark Ages didn't light the sales charts on fire.

It was, IMO a great game, but felt it was too much of a departure from Doom Eternal and 2016.

To me this SHOULD have been a Quake reboot.

Would that have given it higher sales numbers? Who knows.

 

[clintar]

Gamepass killed a lot of things

 

[Rambone]

I played a little bit of the Dark Ages before I let my Gamepass sub lapse. I just couldn't get into it for some reason.

 

[Buggy Loop]

IP Fatigue.

It seems peoples are in disbelief of your post but I can agree with that

Devs have the trouble of not understanding when gamers were craving for something, they get a good meal, they're satisfied, but aren't exactly gonna come back to the table because you made sequels.

Pillars of Eternity 2 was like that. Complete starvation of cRPG genre, PoE goes on kickstarter and becomes huge. Sequel? Blip on radar. Peoples were belly full with the first game.

They should have went with Quake after Doom Eternal, 100%.

 

[baphomet]

100%

It's the reason I didn't buy it.

 

[Gonzito]

Yes.

 

[JayK47]

Too many games. $70 games. $120 for the complete edition. Game Pass. Way too many games. Way too many sequels. I'm tired boss.

 

[A.Romero]

I tried it on gamepass and didn't like it. Wouldn't have bought it anyway.

I didn't think it was a bad game, it just didn't hook me. Felt it wasn't worth my time.

Good games sell regardless of gamepass. This was an ok game with very limited appeal.

I have spent more money on gamepass over the years than what i would have spent on the actual games. I guess their model worked with me.

 

[Lord Malachite]

Gamepass certainly hurt sales of DooM: The Dark Ages. But it isn't the only factor. After the success of DooM (2016), iD followed it up with DooM: Eternal which was a very polarizing game that people either loved or despised with little ground in-between. As someone who couldn't get enough of 2016 and who hates almost every facet of DooM: Eternal and wishes it were forever damned to hell, there is absolutely nothing iD could do to even make me consider spending good money on DooM: The Dark Ages. I did watch a full playthrough of TDA on Twitch, and what I saw utterly disgusted me. They somehow made the gameplay much worse than DooM: Eternal and completely turned the IP into something I no longer even recognize much less care to play.

iD took significant risks with the followups to 2016. Some people enjoyed those, risks, and that's fine. Many others like myself didn't. The sales numbers clearly indicate that they're following the wrong trends with the series and losing touch with the core DooM audience that 2016 revitalized. Something needed to be done. Getting rid of most of the staff would not have been my decision though. What is needed is clear leadership to bring the studio back to its core instead of these continued attempts to turn DooM into games it neither is nor was ever meant to be.

 

[The_Mike]

No. The game did.

The franchise evolved into something a majority never asked from.

I'm a major doom fan. I still play it from time to time.

Doom 2016 was the last great doom.

Doom Eternal did Split the playerbase, and Dark Ages did further. I have zero interest in the game, since it's not really doon

 

[LostDonkey]

Nah, but the fact that it was dog shit probably had something to do with it.

 

[cireza]

I loved 2016 but I lost interest quickly with Eternal. Didn't even want to play this one. Why make 3 Doom games in a row when you can make Quake or Hexen ? Use some common sense.

 

[Pelao]

No, the game is just a bad Doom entry.
I'm glad it flopped, and it's why I don't lament the death of current id software.

 

[Skifi28]

It's not the best Doom game I've played, but it also wasn't bad. Solid mechanics and tech watered down by too much crappy story/lore and mediocre level design. I still don't think that would be enough to kill id on its own. Forcing short SP games to release day one on gamepass and then holding them accountable for sales is just evil.

 

[RPS37]

It was the only one out of the three that I finished, but I probably only played it because it was on GamePass.
The DLC is way overpriced too…

 

[Fess]

Kill it in what way? Gamepass isn't that big part of the industry, any sales cannibalism is tiny, it just means more people outside the fanbase played it. I played the game because it was free but would never have bought it anyway, so no lost sale here just more talk about it.

 

[Sohurmk833]

I didn't have any interest in Dark Ages because Eternal sucked. 2016 was alright but it's not exactly a game i yearn to play again.

Was never that big into Doom or other typical PC shooters to begin with. I'm a Goldeneye guy.

 

[Laptop1991]

Both i think, day 1 gamepass will always have some effect on sales, but the Doom the Dark Ages doesn't seem to appeal to 2016 player's or Eternal fans.

 

[xrnzaaas]

It was definitely a factor, but the game being expensive outside of GP and Eternal being quite controversial also didn't help in attracting people to pay for the next installment. I'm sad to say I'm one of them as I hated some of the major gameplay changes in Eternal and also some of the ideas for TDA like parrying (at least on paper, I will play the game some day to find out).

 

[Panajev2001a]

2016 and Eternal were widely successful. It seems TDA significantly underperformed as it resulted in what is pretty much the closing of Id software. The one noticeable difference is that the previous two games didn't launch on Game Pass day 1.

So, did Game Pass effectively sink it or it would have failed regardless because it diverged too much from the classic formula with too much emphasis on melee combat? Doom Eternal also released at the crossroads of generation, coming out 8 months before the PS5/SX and being available for 6 different platforms vs only 3 for The Dark Ages.

GamePass as everyone already knew or should have lowered the sales on all platforms it was on. Would it have been a roaring success if it had not been on there, difficult to say (maybe it would have gotten a bit more time to bake not to just fit a GamePass slot too), but yes I think it would have sold far better.

 

[Panajev2001a]

It was definitely a factor, but the game being expensive outside of GP and Eternal being quite controversial also didn't help in attracting people to pay for the next installment.

I remember Xbox fans saying it was a great strategy to convince people of the value of GamePass and considering most of those peoples are weirdly in tune with MS PR, maybe MS thought it too.

 

[Clintizzle]

GamePass did 9/11.

Trust me.

 

[Fbh]

It was probably a combination of the mixed word of mouth, lower than expected reviews, launching relatively close to big games that dominated the conversation (Like E33 and Oblivion) and, yes, the fact you could just rent it for cheap on PC/Xbox.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the must play "next gen" follow up to Doom 2016/Eternal that many expected.

 

[GymWolf]

Eternal lovers says it's dark ages's fault
Dark ages\2016 lovers says it's eternal's fault
Xbox haters says it's gamepass fault