Games

Lawbreakers Lamentations

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4 January 2018

By Alex Khalil

LawBreakers, the first-person shooter from Cliff Bleszinski, was not the blockbuster that they hoped it would be. But why, we must ask?

Well, publisher Nexon and developer Boss Key, despite efforts to pump up the hype and the player base, still ended up with a bust game. As of now the Steam concurrent players are less than 20, however people have reported better numbers on console. Even so, the hype was non-existent, simply due to the time it came out.

In Nexon’s latest earnings report, they discussed how LawBreakers came up short commercially and suggested that the runaway hit of 2017, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds might have swept the rug out.

Reported by PCGamesN, the report said:

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

The game was released exclusively for PS4 and PC in July, which wasn’t long after PUBG hit the market in April. Its timing could not be more ill. PUBG sored into popularity within weeks of release, leaving LawBreakers in the dust. The game may have also been affected by the launch of Destiny 2 in September, another first-person shooter.

Nexon also accepted the fact they would be taking an ‘impairment loss’ from the game. This essentially means they will be moving on from this loss onto better games. We don’t exactly know hwo much the company lost on the shooter. The company did state that its impairment loss made up ‘the majority’ of its expenses, which totalled about $32.6 million.

Boss Key, the developer, has considered bringing the game to Xbox One and Switch, but no other announcements have been made after that.

It’s unfortunate to see a game fail right out of the gate, especially one that showed promise. However, given the 2017 trend of hero shooters and the fatigue we had from things like Overwatch and Paladins.

Something similar happened in 2016 with Battleborn, which came from the developers of Borderlands. The game was a hero focused shooter, much like Overwatch. But, due to the release window, it failed drastically, in comparison to Blizzard’s, now, poster game.

Oh well.

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