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Business Insider: 'Halo Infinite' struggling

Belthazar

Member
The twitch viewers/players numbers are way more telling than the Steam numbers for a multiplayer game... And those numbers are quite dire.

People got tired of playing, watching and even talking about the game pretty quickly, which is not surprising due to how bad the progression is and how little content is available at the moment. Also, 20 million people having tried the game isn't really impressive for a free entry in a very popular franchise like Halo.

I wonder if Microsoft will be able to draw people back into the game if they manage to fix the problems that pushed them away.
 

kingfey

Banned
Yeah but apparently more hardcore people watch other games, okay maybe twitch only indicates the hardcore factor... That's what we can take from it: halo doesn't have as big of a hardcore following. Por que? I dunno
What I mean is that certain people like to watch other people play. If you see twitch streams, it usually 2-5 hour long stream. That is a long time to watch someone play a game.
 

Shmunter

Member
Concern about console warring in a thread not about consoles? How does that work. Like legitimately you are the first person to bring anything console related into this conversation.

. . .people are snarking at each other (this is NG), but I'm not seeing a whiff of console-warring. Odd take.
When you’re neck deep in it, you see it everywhere. Look at the avatar, even there a passive war shot designed to get the goat of overly sensitive ps fans. 😂

Never stop stopping Bernd Lauert Bernd Lauert
 
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Three

Member
Are BF2042 and COD playable at no additional cost on game pass on something that isn't Steam? 🤔

It's not that Steam doesn't tell the whole picture. In this case, Steam is likely the smallest part of the picture, likely by far.
Fun fact: You apparently could get 12 months of EA Play Pro which includes Battlefield 2042 Ultimate Edition for cheaper than the price of the game.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
As many have already pointed out, Steam is just one of the platforms the game is on, arguably the least populous platform the game is being played on owing to its nature and availability elsewhere.

But the click bait worked, going by the responses in this topic.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
The last time certain people were massively concerned about something Xbox related, we got a console war sticky. I hope this thread delivers :messenger_beaming:

Glad to see you finally noticed after your multiple bans since it's creation.

Marvel Studios Reaction GIF by Disney+
 

Shanomatic

Member
Why because Halo is the perfect game with no issues?

naaaaa I think in context of a declining player base and lack of meaningful updates, they compare just fine. I think you should look up what a disingenuous comparison is before you start throwing stuff like that around.
Nowhere did I say Halo was perfect, nor that it doesn’t have its own issues.

To pretend any of those issues are even close to what plagues Battlefield is the definition of disingenuous.
 

Crew511A

Member
Playing devil's advocate here... the Battle Pass is terribly implemented. You really only make progress if you play modes the game tells you to, or get kills in certain ways. Not fun.

That being said, I finished the Battle Pass yesterday, so it wasn't THAT much of a hassle. But what is there to do now? BTB is my favorite game mode, and matchmaking is greatly improved...but there's only what? 3 BTB maps?

What I'd really like is a casual mode like Warzone or Firefight to return. The MP is good, there just isn't that much of it.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
What a dumb article. Halo's user base has always been console first. Yes there have been pc versions but console is its foundation.
 

Dynasty8

Member
I got bored pretty quickly. I think I lasted 2-3 weeks max... For Halo 2, 3, and Reach... I lasted 2-3 years.

There's a big lack of incentive to play imo. Challenge system is really bad, the "rewards" and cosmetics are pointless and boring tbh. I wish 343 would add some additional PvE multiplayer content...otherwise I can't see myself coming back.
 

V4skunk

Banned
I got bored pretty quickly. I think I lasted 2-3 weeks max... For Halo 2, 3, and Reach... I lasted 2-3 years.

There's a big lack of incentive to play imo. Challenge system is really bad, the "rewards" and cosmetics are pointless and boring tbh. I wish 343 would add some additional PvE multiplayer content...otherwise I can't see myself coming back.
Forge and firefight / horde mode is coming to Infinite. It just should have been there at launch.
Forge should be good on PC, I bet some crazy stuff gets made.
 
The fuck? This game doesn't have that already? The MP, SP, Forge and Co-Op are all separate and came and are coming over time?

Never mind struggling with player base, this game is being piecemealed out, its basically episodic at this point.
subscription gaming:

no incentive to launch with a complete game - the consumer has not paid anything up front and therefore does not have perceived value expectations to meet at initial release
no incentive to release updates quickly - the longer it takes to release updates the longer you have to be subscribed. bought a 12 year sub to play a gaas game? have fun burning 6 months of it waiting for content!
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
If I made a game and it had 15,000 people playing it every day I'd consider that a success. This industry is so disgustingly distorted.
 
Whatever problems Halo may or may not have, Steam player count is about the least relevant, and using it as any indicator of how "successful" the game is is just thinly veiled fanboyism
 

Blade2.0

Member
We definitely need more maps and different designs for the maps. Especially big team battle. They don't look thematically different. Where's my snow covered stage? Where's my covenant purple stages? It's all tonally bland. Otherwise I love the gunplay and movement but we need more maps. I just get bored of the same three big team battle maps.
 
I played my 20-30 hours and it was great. Had my fun but don't feel like spending my little game time with my buttcheecks clenched trying to play competitive split second timing shooters. Loved the campaign, it was awesome. Enjoyed MP got to high plat and moved on. No problem with the game there are just so many to play.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
What a dumb article. Halo's user base has always been console first. Yes there have been pc versions but console is its foundation.

Halo Infinite has dropped to #6 on XBox Lives Most Played list and we're not even 3 months into its honeymoon period. Its Steamcharts trend hasn't even normalized yet, as it's still losing a decent percentage of players every week.

This will go down as the worst performing Halo multiplayer in franchise history. The only thing that could save it is a big open world PvP mode but the multiplayer tsunami fast approaches and 343i seems to work at a snails pace.
 

Crew511A

Member
Too bad they lost Bungie now. Halo is likely hopeless without the og creators.

I don't know about that. I'm just curious as to what they were doing in the 6 years between H5 and Infinite. Yeah, they reworked the game in the last year, but couldn't they have worked on some additional content during that time?

It seems like the "It's Free 2 Play, so you can't complain" line is going to be used as a shield to cover for shoddy business practices. I don't think 343 is incapable of making a good game. They can clearly do it. But someone is getting a little too greedy, and I don't think it's going to pay off. Not for 343, and not for the fans.

CrossfireX comes out next week, and it's on Gamepass...so if Microsoft wants to keep players in Halo, it needs to give us a reason to stay, and soon.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Halo Infinite has dropped to #6 on XBox Lives Most Played list and we're not even 3 months into its honeymoon period. Its Steamcharts trend hasn't even normalized yet, as it's still losing a decent percentage of players every week.

This will go down as the worst performing Halo multiplayer in franchise history. The only thing that could save it is a big open world PvP mode but the multiplayer tsunami fast approaches and 343i seems to work at a snails pace.

20 million players at launch disagree. Also it's number 5, and it's sitting between some of the most played and most popular games, hardly a failure at all. Your delusional.
 

ZehDon

Member
Halo Infinite has dropped to #6 on XBox Lives Most Played list and we're not even 3 months into its honeymoon period. Its Steamcharts trend hasn't even normalized yet, as it's still losing a decent percentage of players every week.

This will go down as the worst performing Halo multiplayer in franchise history. The only thing that could save it is a big open world PvP mode but the multiplayer tsunami fast approaches and 343i seems to work at a snails pace.
A Battle Royale won't save Halo Infinite, because the foundations of a long-term game just aren't there. No one is sticking around for a game this broken and this empty. The issue isn't the lack of one specific mode that Battle Royale streamers want, the issue is that the game just isn't finished. If they add a Battle Royale, they'll just have Battle Royale fans complaining about everything everyone is already complaining about.
343i need to go back and fix the connection issues, the desync issues, the playlist issues, the progression system issues, the customisation issues, the audio issues, and the optimisation issues. While this is happening, they should also be working on the content issues. As you'll note, that's literally every aspect of the game apart from the core gameplay that needs addressing. Halo Infinite's reputation is already dropping fast (currently with Mixed reviews on Steam). Battle Royale ain't gonna save it.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
It certainly stopped me from playing on PC. The game is a resource hog for no apparent reason. Those small as hell MP maps punish everything but top end CPUs.
And frame rates on SP open world drop faster than an erection after seeing a picture of Rosie o Donnell naked. Maybe we are doing prime 95 runs in the background?
Bonnie Ross and her diversity hires should stop zipping frappuchinos and work on the game They haven't even acknowledged PC issues on the campaign. So much for PC first development...
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
20 million players at launch disagree. Also it's number 5, and it's sitting between some of the most played and most popular games, hardly a failure at all. Your delusional.

20 million people played a free, highly marketed Halo game.

"Half a truth is often a great lie." - Benjamin Franklin.

It's #6, behind Roblox, on the N. American charts as I type this.

Also, I never called it a failure. You did. I said it will probably going down as the worst performing Halo multiplayer in franchise history.

Will be interesting to see where it settles.
 

Shubh_C63

Member
Its not struggling for an average game, struggling for Halo but compared to what, numbers from halo 2009 ?

if only progression wasn't insanely bad I would had stick for little more time.
 

Lupin25

Member
This is fine. Halo doesn't need to retain players, it needs to be there to attract new Gamepass subscribers, and it is serving that purpose ridiculously well. Halo offers a great campaign and doesn't require multiplayer numbers to achieve any modicum of success.

Ahh yes, a game being supported for possibly the entire generation and more, doesn’t need to “retain players” lol.

Steam isn’t the end all be all, but c’mon.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
20 million people played a free, highly marketed Halo game.

"Half a truth is often a great lie." - Benjamin Franklin.

It's #6, behind Roblox, on the N. American charts as I type this.

Also, I never called it a failure. You did. I said it will probably going down as the worst performing Halo multiplayer in franchise history.

Will be interesting to see where it settles.

Saying it's the worst performing halo ever is devinately implying it's a failure, but sure, let's play that game.

You have very little actual factual information to back that up, I'd it gained xbox 3 million new gamepass subscribers and is racking up microtransactions, and is attracting players to xbox, you saying it's performing "worst" will be meaningless at an epic level.

Also what does free have to with it, seems to me if it's hanging with the likes of roblox, it's massively popular.
 
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Zok310

Banned
I don't know about that. I'm just curious as to what they were doing in the 6 years between H5 and Infinite. Yeah, they reworked the game in the last year, but couldn't they have worked on some additional content during that time?

It seems like the "It's Free 2 Play, so you can't complain" line is going to be used as a shield to cover for shoddy business practices. I don't think 343 is incapable of making a good game. They can clearly do it. But someone is getting a little too greedy, and I don't think it's going to pay off. Not for 343, and not for the fans.

CrossfireX comes out next week, and it's on Gamepass...so if Microsoft wants to keep players in Halo, it needs to give us a reason to stay, and soon.
Halo did not evolve enough it actually went backwards to its roots, not sure how many people you can sell nostalgia to. Especially when the og creators with their current ip(destiny) literally laid out the road map on how to evolve Halo.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
“Please someone come to our website, traffic is extremely down because there’s nothing to talk about until the Horizon reviews in 2 weeks and negativity works so yeah…come on in”
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
Have no problem finding games so I don’t care lol
Haha, yup. The various comments people make about Infinite just blow my mind.

It’s a fun game, and I can start it up to have some fun.

I don’t care about the story, I don’t care about monetisation, I don’t care about new devs, I care if it’s a fun game.

🤷🏼‍♂️
 

Godot25

Banned
All these caveats. Where were they when people were handwringing about BF2042 and COD (which doesn't even have STEAM metrics)? BF2024 has lost 95% of it's audience on STEAM. HALO. . .92%.

. . .like fine, STEAM doesn't tell the whole picture, but now that it's applied to a property/company that people like (as opposed to BF/EA and COD/ACTIVISION) all of a sudden it's "It doesn't tell the whole story. Clickbait!"
Battlefield 2042 is not even a Top 40 on Xbox and that game came later then Infinite.
Vanguard is 10th I think.

So, yeah. It is important fact because it shows you that main audience for Infinite is still on consoles.
 
It's a GAAS title that's barely 3 months old.

Normally GAAS titles from MS are even more threadbare. Sea of Thieves comes to mind.

It will take some time to come into its own. It's solid experience this early in its life cycle.

MS needs to keep putting content and soon it will be generation defining juggernaut.
 

ChoosableOne

ChoosableAll
I don't know if anything has changed recently but it needed much much more content plus decent progression system at launch. It looks like they missed a great oppurtunity. Maybe it can make a comeback like Apex but it seems these guys are not working as fast as Respawn.
 

Vaelka

Member
This reminds me of WoW fanboys high on copium claiming that FFXIV is a dead game because of the steam charts.
Who the fuck plays FFXIV on steam lol.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
It seems fine on Xbox to me, I can always get a game and there’s rarely any connection issues. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a connection issue.

I just play casually, probably less than 5-6 hours a week, and I’m having a blast.
Broken connection systems currently render Big Team Battles unplayable.
They aren’t broken, I play them quite often and they’re fine.
The atrocious challenge system and it’s egregious monetisation forces players to play the game in unenjoyable ways or cough up dollars
No it doesn’t “force people”, stop being dramatic.
The complete lack of a decent or meaningful progression system gives players no reason to come back in a game that relies on large numbers of return players.
I come back to play because it’s fun, I’m pretty sure I enjoy it more because I’m not obsessed with filling up progression bars.
The lack of mode selection, and modes in general, leaves players struggling through modes they don’t want to play game after game after game after game.
I think this is the issue for some people, they’ve become a little addicted to it, and increasingly frustrated with trying to play it in a certain way to fulfil their obligations to the all-important battle pass.

And if you’re adamant that you need to play a specific mode with specific weapons to fill up some pointless progress bar so you can get a different coloured helmet or whatever, it’s no wonder you’re finding it frustrating.

Just chill and try to enjoy the game. You’ve mentioned a few times that 343 try and “force” people to play in a certain way, that’s bullshit.

Ironically it sounds like you have more fun without spending a dime.
 
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