Publisher blames PUBG for Lawbreakers flopping

LawBreakers publisher Nexon has blamed the game's disastrous fortunes on... PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Nexon's latest financial results include a whopping $32.6m (£24m) expenses hole - "the majority of which" of which was meant to filled by Cliff Bleszinski's unloved game.

In the wake of the financials being published, Nexon's investors understandably wanted answers. Step up Nexon financial exec Shiro Uemura - who blamed PUBG for the failure of its take on the oversaturated hero shooter genre.

"Our results in North America in the third quarter were below our outlook, mainly due to the sales from LawBreakers being below our expectations," Uemura said.

Exact sales numbers for LawBreakers have not been released, although the game's peak online player count has dipped to just double figures.

"LawBreakers is a unique FPS developed for core users. We had very high expectations for its launch," Uemura continued, "however, the timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate, specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds came out right about the same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for LawBreakers."

It's an unlikely argument. LawBreakers never sparked widespread interest - not before or after its launch, and not before or after the arrival of PUBG. A hero shooter, LawBreakers was more overshadowed by genre rivals such as Overwatch and Paladins. No mention is made of them.

LawBreakers' Steam player count was at its highest in June 2017, when it launched via open beta and peaked with 7482 people online at one time. By that point, PUBG had already been hitting peak player counts in the hundreds of thousands for several months.

Last month, PUBG had a peak of over three million people playing via Steam. LawBreakers had 90.

PUBG was certainly the Steam success story of 2017, but you only have to look at the other games that also managed to be successful - even in the same genre - to know there was a lot more to LawBreakers' fate.

Game looked generic to begin with. Not to mention we don't need another shooter like that.

Oh, and Cliffy B sucks.

F2P is the answer. A free game to compete with Overwatch? Sign me in. Never wanted to waste money on Overwatch but if a free alternative came up I would be all over it

And the reception is quite positive from what I'm gathering. I even heard some say that, gameplay wise, is better than Overwatch

Arena shooters are a niche genre. The only time they were big was when PC gaming was tiny and the only shooters you could get were arena shooters. Once games like CS, Medal of Honor AA, and Battlefield 1942 came out, arena shooter's popularity diminished greatly even with the Unreal Tournament series doing well until 2004.

People prefer more team based, class based, and shooters grounded more in reality than they do over-the-top, sci-fi/fantasy, arena shooters. Sure arena shooters may have the most pure of FPS combat and require the highest skillcap, but the average gamer would rather shoot an M16 or AK47 in a game that remains mostly on the ground.

They've failed to captivate anybody properly in the past decade.

What makes more sense? Blaming it on PUBG or that video.

I'm gonna go with blaming it on PUBG.

Never heard of it. Looks boring. About the last thing the world needs is another FPS multiplayer game.

Make It free to play and I'm in. But at its current state I'm not interested in it.

"My game failed because there's another similar one out there, but gamers should have bought mine."

It's called competition, Uemura. Consumers have variety and options to decide where their gaming dollar goes, and we're not all (maybe some are) as susceptible to marketing PR babble as you'd like to think. So it's up to you to earn that slice of the pie. Either look for how improvements can be made (design, mechanics, marketing, etc...), or just accept the outcome of the election (voting with our wallets). Either way, man up and be a professional about it and stop whining like a bitch.

Good game. Bad timing.

Launched at a healthy price. No microtransactions. No pay to win features.

And yet, gamers said nope, don't want any of that. Lawbreakers was fun to watch on twitch, breakneck frenetic first-person gameplay at its finest. But again I think the timing is what sunk it.

That video has nothing to do with it. It's just one channel's commentary on the subject. The core of the issue is competition. Which is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing.

If it's really good enough, players will devote time to it. Back in my heyday, I devoted my time equally to the MP of GLQuake, Quake 2, and Duke Nukem 3D. The first two were online with strangers. Duke Nukem 3D was with friends and coworkers via private servers.

It has microtransactions...

The game is actually pretty good but In this day and age it can easily be overlooked. There are many other games that feature heroes in shooters. Lawbreakers is late to the party. It also doesn’t do anything new or special to make itself stand out from the rest.

LawBreakers is trash don't blame other games

Oh no I didn't mean, Blaming it on that video. What I mean to say is does "blaming PUBG" or does the video's context make more sense.

In the video I feel like he is kind of just ranting and makes alot points that aren't really concrete, quite frankly Lawbreakers looks like a decent game. But you're right - competition.

Ah, misread context. My bad. ?

I remember when game was at launch there were ads all over this website saying it was for hardcore and skilled players only. With current active players in the double digits... look's like they got what they marketed to.

PUBG took up much of the oxygen in the room, which is what I take from the quote. But Lawbreakers lost the battle for mindshare by not doing enough to distinguish itself from what preceded it. It was intended to pull from the CoD and OW scenes but wound up as an aimless game that retreads much of the rat-maze FPS gameplay the market soured on previously.

Lawbreakers also had a poor art style to relay to the player what was going on during encounters, particularly when things get hectic.

lmao.. couldnt of happened to a bigger virtue signaling cuck than Clifford

Not only that, but Blizz fanboys are simply not going to move on from Overwatch, even if the game may be better than Overwatch. I don't know what it is, but Blizz fanboys are the most dedicated fanboys I've ever seen. I have a friend whom happens to be one, and he buys every single Blizzard collector's edition, even though he only ever played a couple of them for a small amount of time. He says, "If it's Blizzard, I buy it." Lol

Stop making the same shit over and over. Try some innovation, versatility, maybe a whole new genre. Between PUBG & Overwatch they should've knew they were taking that L

Cliff Bleszinski tried to take on Overwatch, just like what Battleborn was trying to do. Both that and Lawbreakers died pretty much out of the gate. Paladins had a longer run because it was free to play, but they screwed that up with pay to win. You can't take down Overwatch because LawBreakers is one year too late and by that time, everyone who played the hell out of Overwatch was burned out already. I pick up Overwatch late and I enjoy it, but that's about it.

The game was actually fun. There was just too many games to get at the time so skipped it to get it sometime later. When I stareted hearing about the games low player count, I knew it was over. Shame. :(

Word? Is that new?

As far as I know they've been there from the start but they're cosmetic only I believe

https://steamcommunity.com/app/350280/discussions/0/2592234299571642616/

I think that the game simply had too poor marketing and Overwatch just beat them to the punch. It’s a shame because the game looks great.

Why not? Its a common sickness with humanity these days. Nobody has to take responsibility for themselves, its someone else's fault. Like the Cows that cry its MSFT fault that Sony charges for MP now. MS employees marched right into Sony corporate offices and bitch slapped those weabs and said "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!!!!"

Yep, you're right. If Cows wanted free MP, they simply should have refused to pay for it. It would have become free just a short while later.

Especially after the Battlefront 2 fiasco, we all see it may be difficult to get a majority to act as one but not impossible. The thing was Sony slid the pay for MP into "look everyone, we're not as bad as MSFT!!!" in 2013 so all them just opened wide and swallowed the sword whole for Yoshida, after years of "its the principle of it!"

Too bad Microsoft screwed up the Xbox One reveal so bad that it made Sony look like innovating angels in comparison without any effort on their part which is what allowed them to get away with charging people for online.

Sony: We're not gonna take your used games away and make you use always online DRM

Gamers: OH MY GOD SONY IS INNOVATING SAVIORS OF GAMING

Sony: We are gonna charge you for online though because we can

Gamers: Still better than Microsoft!

Try googling SW threads from 2013. I was very vocal about MSFT shitting the bed and still am. Yay!

4 years later I read Jim Ryan preaching "Nobody wants to play old games" and within a couple of weeks sold gamers Crash Bandicoot with a fresh coat of paint and plan to, Shadow of the Colossus and Medievil, again.

Please show me where I dispute how Sony played their cards in 2013 correctly. Bottom line is they're both corporations and money comes first. Lets not pretend Sony is so white knight.

Overwatch costs like $30, and it's far superior to any of the F2P alternatives out there.

I think Noodle was agreeing with you and me, here.

LOL DUDE!!!

I literally started answering his post and then was writing a reply to someone else from youtube. It all ended up here!! I apologize to you guys, sincerely. And yes I'm drunk posting again, SW.

?

@Basinboy said:

@DragonfireXZ95 said:

@Basinboy said:

PUBG took up much of the oxygen in the room, which is what I take from the quote. But Lawbreakers lost the battle for mindshare by not doing enough to distinguish itself from what preceded it. It was intended to pull from the CoD and OW scenes but wound up as an aimless game that retreads much of the rat-maze FPS gameplay the market soured on previously.

Lawbreakers also had a poor art style to relay to the player what was going on during encounters, particularly when things get hectic.

Not only that, but Blizz fanboys are simply not going to move on from Overwatch, even if the game may be better than Overwatch. I don't know what it is, but Blizz fanboys are the most dedicated fanboys I've ever seen. I have a friend whom happens to be one, and he buys every single Blizzard collector's edition, even though he only ever played a couple of them for a small amount of time. He says, "If it's Blizzard, I buy it." Lol

?

You have a point. Lol

Still too much for an online only game, at least for me. Never ever will I spent money on a MP only game. I get bored quickly of mp

and it's far superior to any of the F2P alternatives out there.

Probably, idk. But Lawbreakers isnt exactly a F2P game now, is it? I dont know how the game plays but I've heard it can be more chaotic than Overwatch and if it goes the F2P route it could grab some players, like myself, that would never buy a MP only game like Overwatch but would be cool with playing a similar one but at no charge. People like me could grow its community and pull people to it just like what happened with RS Siege... at least, it would be more viable than having a total 30 players playing it. These games are supported by their communities and if there are no communities they'll die a slow painful death

If this was 5 years ago he would most likely have blamed it on piracy

The only thing PUBG is responsible for is causing massive amounts of jelly from cult bovine. :P

It flopped because its trash and Cliff is an idiot

Remember when fanboys were comparing cliff to kojima? Lol.

Cliff screwed the pooch by pissing off his bread and butter audience aka Xbox gamers. if he would have pushed it better and marketed more to the base that made him, he could have probably sold at least 2-3 million.

Now know one wants it and with no player base pretty much kills the point of playing. I hope this does not put him out of business and he comes back with something better, and maybe next time remember what/who got him those 100s of millions.

I saw the vid you put up and to be fair overwatch did well out the gate cause of the massive amounts of money blizzard put into advertisement and character design. I dont know about that personality stuff since its barely in the game and the only way your getting it is going online to find comics and stuff.

Personaly I never blamed MS entirely. I blamed the idiots who first payed for it just like now I blame the idiots who pay for it, independently of the platform.

But MS is still at fault for coming up with this scheme/scam dont try to spin it. Just like with MTX... its because of the idiots who payed for it that the industry is in this state now but lets not deviate from the clear guilt of the mobile game publishers from coming up with this sh*t that now AAA developers are trying to replicate

I like how OP clearly states the Publisher ...........Nexon........is the one bitching here.

But people just need an excuse to rip on Cliffy B.

Nexon has fk'ed up plenty of games in the past, but we'll just ignore all that.

Well to be fair Cliffy is a piece of shit lol.

You guys could have at least protested it but you didn't, hell Sony has even gotten away with raising the price of PSN+ with no resistance what so ever.

Sony has been able to get away with it because Microsoft screwed up their Xbox One reveal so bad that people were much more concerned with losing used games and being forced into always online DRM. It literally took Sony no effort on their part to make themselves look like the saviors of gaming. If you pay attention to their E3 reveal of the PS4 you realize Sony pretty much did nothing of actual effort, all they did was say they wouldn't do what Microsoft was doing and they were lauded as the saviors of gaming so when they announced that PS4 would have to pay to play online no one cared because it was still better than what Microsoft was doing also people try to justify PSN+ by saying Sony gives them "free" games every month. And PSN+ is still inferior to XBL.

If you walk a bit longer on the earth you will realize a lot of people aren't that bright.

The gameplay was pretty good in this game. Shame it was wasted on a modern market of jabronis. When you got goobers going “I couldn’t make things out” you think they would get glasses or something. Blind ass mother fuckers.