Okay, I am incredibly excited for Brink. You can’t even imagine how close I’ve been following this game. While this year there will be a lot of multiplayer games that interest me, Brink will probably be the one I will be playing next year because SD is a true PC developer.
Non-the-less I must say that Brink might fail. Not fail for me… not fail for other hardcore gamers in this thread. But just overall when we take sales etc. Because if I look at the people talking about it I get really worried. Yes, most are incredibly ignorant. But those ignorant people are the ones who bring the money in. And nowadays you need money. Brink isn’t gonna survive otherwise.
So what exactly worries me…
1. The marketing. Or lack there of. A lot of previews hit recently and there was also that short trailer about guns. Many people said how they had already forgotten about Brink and/or they even weren’t interested anymore. Sure, there has been some info for us who are hardcore about every detail, but overall there has been nothing since E3. Brink has shown up in conventions, but still. The game is gonna be released in a few months. There needs to be trailers everywhere. I atleast hope that about a month before release there will be a ton of videos. Look how BF3 is giving the info in pieces, they hype train for them is rolling very fast. There needs to be in-depth trailers about every class, their abilities etc. And different gameplay montages and so on.
2. This also goes under marketing, but is big enough of a point to be separate. The pre-order deals. I made this picture about different pre-order bonuses: http://i.imgur.com/YWsCN.png
Right now Brink is going to land on the most bottom part. There is not only exclusive items but also WEAPONS. And no player can get them all because it is pieced up between different retailers. I have seen no confirmation that these will later be made available somehow.
SD is now part of Bethesda. They have amazing games coming out this year like TESIV: Skyrim and also id’s Rage. Why not include like a early access to a demo or something with the pre-order. That would drive people nuts and everybody would run into the store.
3. Value. So far there seems to be too much PR talk when it comes to SP and Co-op. It seems like it is still pretty much multiplayer with bots. And the story does have a few cutscenes.
Now I’m okay with paying full money for this. But a lot of people probably won’t be. I mean nobody can blame SD, they atleast gave something for singleplayer. What it comes down to are the maps. There are 8 maps (at least so I have heard of). Only 8. For the same money you might get another game with also 8 multiplayer maps and a 6-8 hour singleplayer game.
Okay, I will admit. I realise that the maps in Brink are much larger and complicated that regular maps in other games. But this is something a lot of people currently don’t understand. This is something Brink needs to advertise. SD and Bethesda need to show how big their maps are.
4. Mod support. SD knows very well that mods are something that still drive games like ET. There needs to be mod support. If not at launch then atleast promise it post-launch. Okay, I can see things from the publishers stand point. Full on mod support means that DLC is useless (in reality I really hope that we aren’t gonna have to pay 15$ for 4 maps) because people will make the maps downloadable. It pains me to say this, but maybe give out mod support after DLC, when most people have already bought the DLC?
5. The date. May 17 is also when L.A. Noire comes out. Rockstars next (although not developed by Rockstar, most people don’t know that tho) open-world experience. And while Brink and L.A. noire aren’t competing for the exact same market then there are regular gamers who will play everything. I know a lot of people are atm are taking L.A. Noire over Brink. But there isn’t much the publisher can do. There are big games coming out all the time, fall would be even worse when to release a game. Witcher 2 also comes out on the same date which might influece some PC gamers.
6. A beta. As a gamer it definetly seems to me like Brink needs a beta. Or it could be a demo. Because people need to play it and realise what it is. If there is a huge beta thingy then it will definetly get people interested (if a tleast the game is as good as I think, and hopefully it is). But it should definetly serve as a beta too. Most games at launch have buggy multiplayer. I know that you guys delayed the game for bug fixes, but still… games need a public beta to test out the waters if there is suddenly a lot of servers with a lot of players. Alas, I realise that a beta would need extra man power. I would still hope that there is some kind of a way to get a beta out.
7. Mode variety. Okay, I am a long time ET player. I realise that the objective-type gameplay is awesome and it is already a mixture of different modes. But Quake Wars proves that a lot of people aren’t ready for that and want more modes. Maybe I have missed something, but so far I have only heard of the 1 mod. And I know that there are abilities that would be totally useless in deathmatch for example, but still. They should just make separate TDM, CTF modes for the people who are gonna whine about this.
Thank you, that is all.
