Not to toot my own horn, but I'm something of a connoisseur of doomed video games. I can't explain exactly why, but the deeper I fall in love with a new online game, the more likely it is that game will fail miserably. Games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rocket Arena, Crucible, and QC Games'  never stood a chance once they got their hooks in me. I don't necessarily believe I'm some kind of video game harbinger of death,  but I've seen enough games fa♒il that I've learned to pick up on the signs and patterns that indicate when a game is in its death throes. To whit: Marvel's Avengers is on its second to last phase before shutting down for good, with the final phase being, of course, going free-to-play.

I'll break it down for you step-by-step to demonstrate what happens when a video game dies. The first step is the most obvious: Release a busted product. Marvel's Avengers had an 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:undeniably disastrous launch. Crashes, game-breaking bugs, soft-locks — you name it, Avengers had it. The first major patch for the game fixed ✨over 1000 bugs and that still didn't address everything. For PS4 players — possibly the biggest segment of players thanks to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man exclusivity — the poor performance made the game completely unp🧸layable. Many of these early problems have been solved, but that only made it more appaꦗrent how fundamentally flawed th⛄e game is.

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It certainly isn't t𒆙he case that only glitchy, bug-ridden games fail. Rocket Arena, though not technic🌸ally dead yet, is a great example of a fun, polished game that still faded into obscurity. "Busted" doesn't mean mechanically broken like Avengers was, and kind of still is. It means that something about the design, presentation, or execution of the game has failed to retain players.

In Avengers' case, it's a combination of excessive bugs and a lack of meaningful, replayable content. Not only has the roadmap for the game already been extended, with new characters and missions previously promised to arrive "weeks after launch" being 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:delayed until the end of the year, but the content that is there gets real old, real fast. We still don't even have a str🅷ong, replayable multiplayer miss𒅌ion to grind endgame gear. All of the rarest loot is only accessible in single-player missions. Avengers is a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:half baked game that 🍬has yet to prove it can deliver on either quality endgame content or promised re𒁏lease dates.

If the first step is the cause, the second step is obviously the effect: the game has no players. Some games fail to ever find players in the first place, while others — Avengers included — 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:start with lots of players but lose them quickly. The Avengers player base tanked fast and nothing, so far, has been able to bring it back. Just weeks after launch, the 2016 single-player game Deus 🏅Ex: Mankind Divided had more concurrent players on Steam than Avengers did. PC player counts are so low that it's become almost impossible to find other players to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:group up with through matchmaking. According to , Avengers peaked with over 30k players on release but now has less th🦹an 1,000 concurrent.

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Crystal Dynamics is conf♔ident that players wil♔l come back — though I'm not entirely sure why. It isn't entirely unprecedented: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:No Man's Sky made a historic turnaround over several years of content updates and brought tens of thousands back to the game. Avengers also has years of content planned, supposedly, but will Hawkeye's protege 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Kate Bishop bring all the boys (back) to the yard? It doesn't⛎ seem likely.

Which brings us to the third step of a dying game, the step we're currently on: desperationAvengers has been throwing everything from discounts to "apology bundles" at players to try to entice them 🐻to come back to the game. A week or so post-launch, players were given a bundle of rare crafting materials to . Last Thursday, everyone was given  as a "thank you"— but only if you log in to claim it before November 5. This week, .

These are not the behaviors of a game that is thriving. Indeed, every game that eventually died has reached a stage where throwing free things at the players seemed like the only thing they could do to keep anyone interested. Look at Rocket Arena again: the game launched at $30, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:was discounted a week later, and eventually just went 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:free-to-play. A peek at  will reveal frequent giveaways and free friend codes designed to supplement the player base. It definitely seems too soon for Avengers to go free-to-play, but that's certainly the road it's headed do❀wn.

I believe there is still hope for Avengers because the IP is jus✤t so incredibly strong, but as time goes on, more and more games — particularly next-gen games — become its competition. Spider-Man will bring PS4 players back, ౠwithout a doubt, but whether they stick around next time will depend entirely on the quality and repeatability of the content available — if the game can even survive until then.

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