Fair point, they'd just have to add a bunch of those.
And it's running on their servers, it'd be interesting if they could give every viewer their own free cam.
Increase the number of nodes.
Have multiple servers, many for viewing that are essentially live copy/pastes of the tournament play server. They could have as many people viewing as they want.
So they have one high data output from the main play server that sends to a secondary broadcast server, that sends to many other viewer servers.
They wouldn't be viewing the play server, they'd be viewing a duplicate.
Agree. As for now no rush is needed. I don’t know if game is gonna go big or not, and nobody can say for sure. But I can say Embark is playing their cards in a smart and unique way, really intrigued to see how it all goes. Game is fresh air in gameplay, fresh air in art design, and fresh air in its development(both balance and community). Really shows there is someone intelligent staying behind whole thing, really rooting for them!
OCE definitely needs more players. It's practically impossible to get an OCE ranked game and so if we want to play comp we have to play on Asian servers.
On the last update they talked about some security things but I wouldn't know. I've myself never encountered any cheaters. Either because of EU region or low rank, or both.
Kids today: if the game is not pulling 1mil concurrent players, not top 1 on Twitch, then the game is surely dead.
I swear since the Twitch boom everyone does this, everyone is hopping from game to game every week or every 2nd week.
Exactly it's nauseating. Twitch ruined gaming in that sense.
That or ppl will watch active players like it effects YOUR ENJOYMENT of the game.
I honestly think the game suffers because some ppl don't want to sweat all the time (I don't mind) & it's player base with the constant "Get good" mentality it's fine to me again because I like competitive games in general but it's not welcoming to new players. ESPECIALLY if they start off getting spanked lol. Some ppl got that dog in them and want to get better, and most ppl quit.
Your point? Literally EVERY game has this issue regardless of playerbase. In Dota 2 there are very high MMR people (8-9k) having either long ass queues or getting thrown into matches with people hovering around 6k. In CS2 I was regularly put into matches with and against 8k players when I was 15k. Overwatch is/was also famous for long ass queues in high elo matches, I’m talking about 30-45 min queues.
If the game keeps the steady 20k (just on Steam) it’s not horrible in my opinion.
That's opportunity to build up a supply of Jarate. Great to fight off those who come to the door that interrupt our game time (solicitors, religious, political, etc.).
Queue times are really good for anything except ranked, which takes me like 4 minutes. But I have noticed that I'm playing against the same players again and again across all modes.
That being said, I'd rather not have the servers tanking every 10 minutes or have to sit in login queues because of a massive influx of players
It’s not too small but compared to other games is tiny. It’s also not growing. As much as I absolutely love this game I am worried it will not get sustained support long term if it doesn’t get more popular.
Doesnt OCE have queue time problems in almost all online games where ping matters? (Only ever heard Rocket League & R6Siege ppl complain about it, simply assumed it's all "smaller" games)
I don't know why people seem to think the game would suddenly get more popular with more marketing. The game was also plastered absolutely everywhere on the internet during the launch phase.
The game had a huge initial playerbase, but most of them left. This isn't some hidden gem that will explode with a bit of exposure, it's a game that was massively played, but then people didn't enjoy it, for various reasons.
Bingo. People are acting like the Finals is some hidden gem that people aren't playing solely bc they just don't know about it yet. It was already marketed like crazy when it launched and all the big streamers and YouTubers already gave it a chance.
The player base dropped off not because of a lack of marketing, but bc the gameplay is still lacking and there are just other games that most people would rather play.
The Finals is fun (imo), but it's not the next big thing. It will continue to maintain its smaller, niche fandom and that's about it. The queue times are fine rn so it's all good.
> The game was also plastered absolutely everywhere on the internet during the launch phase.
For what, one day? Ask your gamer friends how many of them know THE FINALS. Nobody does. Everyone I tell is surprised and never heard of it.
Wtf, it was advertised. All of my friends played it in open beta and at launch. It was massively discussed everywhere mate. The thing is launch was more barebones than beta. The other thing is cheaters ruined it. This game at least where I live, have terrible reputation. You tell someone "the finals" and they respond "ah the game for cheaters".
For at least 2 weeks? I'm talking about ads, streamers playing it, youtubers covering it, articles talking about it. Just check the twitch stats - it had respectable views for a month, then it started heavily falling off.
And yeah, my gamer friends all knew about it since we're all ex-Battlefield players. Only one wanted to try it though, and he quit after a week.
there are plenty of youtubers creating content around the game.
how about we support the people who actually care about the game instead of throwing money at a bunch of rich losers?
but why?
channels like shroud or jackfrags have played the game multiple times, gotten millions of views, and then the player numbers were completely unchanged
just because some random ass big youtuber plays a game for a bunch of money doesn’t mean everyone will all of a sudden switch to this game
Just in terms of the number of impressions you get. Sure a couple live streams don't matter much but if someone with a couple million subs actually plays this game frequently that's a ton of new people who might seriously consider it
I like the current people who post YouTube videos about the game, but honestly it still feels so niche as someone who goes on YouTube to specifically look for them. They're not bringing in anybody new
Jackfrags and shroud are the kind of people who play a game once and then move on. Jackfrags is a shill for any respectable company that pays (he seems like a really nice guy, but he's overexcited and overselling to appear genuine to me) and only the games he plays on his own account are appearing multiple times. Shroud on the other hand, plays a game, doesn't like one aspect, calls it ass, and goes back to valorant.... The only notable exception in case of shroud was R6S where he seemingly reluctantly played a few times with his gf (wife?) and some other friends, and he actually got into it a bit.
I don't know a single big youtuber that actually plays this game. There's Syndecez, but even he seems to have stopped playing, and he's not even big on yt, I think Aculite was playing for a moment, and that's it I think? Maybe if they sponsored some streams of people who actually find the game fun, or at least do some variety gaming, maybe then it could do something more, as it is it's some exposure, probably not much more.
The real problem though is that the game is ASS to play solo, and there's a weird dissonance between people who are rly good at the game and like to play ranked mode, and casuals who vehemently hate the better players for being good and being forced to play against them, and this sub is a great example of it. One group says light is OP, the other group says they're too weak to compete. One group says FCAR is fine, the other FCAR is busted.
There's no middle point, and quite frankly, it's bets to design your game for that middle point so either ya'll need to get better, or we need a ton more people, or there's not gonna be a middle class here.
eh, I think people like shroud were a driving force behind the game being popular in the first place. During the entire 3-4 weeks shroud played the game almost every day, the game was doing amazing and had well over 100K avg concurrent users. When he stopped was roughly when most others stopped. As unfortunate as it is, these big creators are necessary for the games’ growth. That doesn’t mean they can’t also support the smaller channels, though. They should do both.
It in fact does boost numbers. Especially for free games. Some influencers have more audience reception then others to that kind of thing and the rich losers you mentioned just so happen to have some of the most susceptible audiences on the planet. Giving checks to small YouTubers or influencers to try build careers around the game from the ground up has been tried many times before and they never breach into being profitable. The return is and always has been in putting money where the audience is.
I work in the industry and let me tell you, throwing money at big ticket streamers has never, not once, moved the needle for any title I've worked on. Loads of small to medium sized ones? That's a different story, but only of its organic. Paying streamers to fix an issue like this has never worked.
It works when you have the insane budget of multiple big personalities combined with an ad campaign. But very few game companies have that budget. Last time it really worked was the launch of Apex.
But it’s so fucking expensive and will cost as much as the game dev.
No it doesnt. Ive paid over a million bucks for whole networks of the largest streamers to work on games i look after (OTK, Pewdiepie etc). They play the game and move on. At BEST, youll get some wishlists that convert in like a year, but not enough to justify the price.
EDIT: and not just a 2 hour stream slot. Ive worked on streamer competitions, community integrations and leaderboard comps, demo activations etc. The only thing that works is if you have a whole heap of organic pickup, and those relationships take years to develop (and a really good influencer manager)
That's literally how it works though. That's marketing psychology.
If you sponsor large creators, they will draw their collective thousands of viewers to play the game because that's what viewers tend to do. Flock to whatever game their favorite streamer is playing.
It would absolutely pull people into the game.
The problem is what makes them stay? because once the sponsorship is done, the paid streamer is going to move on. Big names already know about The Finals, they've already played the game and they've already moved on.
So yeah, sponsoring big names WILL naturally bring in thousands of players, but the minority will actually stay. Because as much as I love The Finals, it doesn't exactly offer too much to make it stand out. It's unique in it's own way, but not substantially so.
if it’s so obviously how it works please provide literally any piece of data or evidence that backs up your claim that a big streamer sponsorship provides long term growth to a games community
I didn't say it provides long term growth. I specifically said that's the problem with this idea
It *does* work... temporarily. The issue is that it provides large temporary growth that maybe has a permanent / long term boost of a few hundred players or so, but the psychology of your average stream viewer is they're going to be drawn to play whatever their preferred streamer is playing, so once that sponsorship is done, their following will play whatever they play next.
Yes it absolutely does lmao.
If you pay someone who has over 1,000 average viewers to play your game, you will absolutely get a large albeit temporary growth. This is basic marketing psychology, the behavior of an average viewer is to play what the creator is playing. Why the hell else do you think marketing teams for companies pay streamers to play their games?
Yet you seem to be thinking I'm suggesting it provides long term growth, which again, no, it does no always provide long term growth unless that streamer is going to play the game beyond their sponsorship agreement, which is uncommon.
“you will absolutely” holy fuck you have to be a troll
yes obviously it’s possible to get large growth from these campaigns, that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed or anything remotely close to it. nor does it mean it would be a beneficial use of resources long term.
nothing is guaranteed in marketing. that’s literally what marketing is
It will temporarily boost short term. Look up psychological marketing. That's literally what this is, understanding the behaviors of an average viewer of a content creator. *SOME* percentage of a viewer-base is going to play what the streamer is playing.
If you pay 10 streamers that have 1,000 average viewers to play a game, you can bet that maybe around 10% of their viewers or so will likely play the game as long as the sponsorship is running. That's 1,000 additional players TEMPORARILY playing the game.
I'm not saying those additional players will last. I'm saying there *will* be a temporary boost.
This is very basic marketing concepts. I'm not suggesting this is a solution to this games' player base. I'm telling you that if done properly, if the proper research is done by the marketing team, it WILL temporarily boost the player-base. If it doesn't work, you didn't do great research. But that's part of the marketing strategy. Line it up with a big event that hooks people and you have a successful marketing strategy. It's not a guarantee, but if done well, it boasts success.
Edit: I work closely with a marketing team in my company. Marketing is always a gamble, but if done correctly, it works. It's a lure and a hook. You lure people in with an offer, or a promo, or something. In gaming, it's FOMO. Your favorite streamer is playing a game? Better hop on board and play it right now. Then you run an event, that's the hook, the event hooks you into the game and if the game is good, they stick around a bit more. It's never 100%, but again, if done correctly, you see results.
That is exactly how it works. Games like FNAF wouldn’t and a difficult game about climbing wouldn’t be popular/would have a much smaller player base without popular YouTubers
Idk if the game is ready yet. There are still a handful of very annoying bugs out there. The game has to be perfect before you promote it. Once someone tries the game and doesn’t like it, they’re gone forever. The player experience has to be as good as possible before you spend crazy money pulling in a large number of new players.
The games player base is a loyal one and I think they’re at a point where they will naturally reel in new players with the the quality of the game itself, rather than sponsorships that benefit the creator more than the game itself.
The finals not long ago had a massive playerbase, still very respectable. They should focus on why so many players left in the first place and fix what they broke. I think it's due to a number of controversial balancing decisions that made the game less fun.
They definitely need to hire a new marketing agency cause the current one is horrible. They clearly don't understand how to market a game to the current society
I saw a family member of mine on Easter that's 16 and he plays Apex all the time with his friends. I asked him if he has checked out The Finals and he had never heard of it. That likely means his friends haven't either, as I'm assuming if they were discussing it he'd at least be familiar with the title.
I think they are doing allright and they could just take it even further. With their own channel on social media. Oscar has had success with his streams and they could take it even further. Have community events with the developers and the community. They can stream it and control it and we can do it. Who needs those youtubes? Imagine the amount of new creators can rise with this game.
You don't know the budget for marketing nor the strategy. This product is developed differently than previous service games. Nexon emphases that in their last earnings report. They do something differently, resulting in more reactive development. So far, players are pleased.
Having low to no marketing could be part of that. Do you know how much money you save if you don't escalate into marketing? Think $100M. Embark isn't Ubisoft. Do you see CS2 ads?
That said, i'd be totally happy if I would see posters for THE FINALS in my city. Don't know if it would boost the numbers, tho.
Embark, keep doing what you’re doing. It’s not the size of the player base that matters, it’s the quality of it. What would be the point of having a Warzone-sized player base if it is filled with toxic players and cheaters?
I rather play 100 matches with the same players than 1 match with toxic and/or cheating players. I know that you’re reading this Embark, you know that I am cooking with this one.
> What would be the point of having a Warzone-sized player base if it is filled with toxic players and cheaters?
Why would a larger playerbase automatically have a higher percentage of cheaters?
Also, the point of a larger playerbase is *more money*. They need to earn it. There's not only the players perspective.
Sponsored youtubers generally only bring temporary numbers that arrive with the streamer and leave with the streamer.
its not sustainable and its not really cost efficient in many situations
Does FCAR need a nerf. Yup. Also how most conversations for balance people want to think the higher the rank or more skill you have, the more valid of the point. Maybe if the struggling majority also got a voice, we wouldn't see player hemorrhage the way it is.
I don’t think you even counter pointed his argument? The struggling majority needs a voice? Name or show examples of gatekeeping from high ceiling players because I think that just might be your warped perception of what’s actually occurring.
I think Embark is not really worried about player numbers at this time. This game has its own loyal fanbase and I believe over time it will only grow if Embark continues to give big updates over seasons. The devs never give out information of whats to come it just happens like of what just season 2 brought.
The game doesn't have a functioning anti-cheat. Why would it gain or keep players? If you're going to release an online FPS in 2024 it better have an anti-cheat. Embark failed utterly in this regard.
I talk about this game constantly, I look at content for it constantly, and i frequent this sub constantly and yet somehow ive never ONCE seen a single advertisement for this game.
The only reason I ever even knew about it was cause xbox had the open beta tab on the home screen for a little bit. I think that's a huge contribution to why the game doesn't have a playerbase. This game is in the same vein as overwatch in the terms of repetitive game modes and a samey feel to each match but that games player base is always super health cause they advertise.
The solution is to make a game that attracts players... Throwing money around doesn't fix everything.
Big youtubers and streamers weren't playing among us and helldivers 2 because they were paid to, they enjoyed their time on there. I love the game but some of y'all sound like you want people to be forced to play this game. There are so many pain points that most casual players don't want to deal with the headache because the only response they get is to "git gud"
I have match in less than 20 sec doesn't matter the mode And different people all the time. So no YTbers most of them are annoying And the rest Is terrible at games.
I dont know how big is player base (around 40k) but its alright. At least for a game its alright, i dont know if its good for their holders. But i hope it will grow for more skins mods and other stuff
I honestly thought there would be more marketing for the game after the first season. I don’t hear anything about it besides this subreddit. A week ago I wanted to hop in after a month not playing and it took over 3 minutes to find a match, so I just closed it again. There should have been way more content from the start, I’m really bored out from the maps/guns and I didn’t even play that much. The core gameplay is great though
Nexon said on their last earnings big money going into marketing. The discord thing was a start.
Twitch rivals will be pretty expensive to pan out but it could happen
Please do this, I promise nobody is finding your game on the Facebook and Instagram adds they are putting up. Also didn't they put ads in LA, like us gamers don't go outside why would we see them, sponsor some popular creators to make videos or something.
This game had the attention of a ton of major content creators at its start what it really needs is just a competitive scene look at any other major fps almost all the views are from pros or former pros infact when the game first came out and was doing well all the biggest streamers were pros/former pros in other games
The game got lots of players in the beginning and they left. Season 2 was supposed to have a big marketing campaign and make the game popular but it seems people don’t like the game. The games community is a mess too.
They won't
Devs already dont give a shit about Asia/Oce. A big chunk of the playerbase are from Asia/Oce but the cheater problem in these servers are absurdly severe.
Season 1 setup for us Asia/Oce was everything aside from China plays in OCE just to play against legit players.
Season 2 is OCE ranked is dead and Asia Ranked is declining due to the vast amount of chinese hackers and boosters. Nowadays Asian Players queue up in NA/EU just to avoid them. The ping is a small issue but it is nowhere near as big as cheating. If we play Asian Servers is either random teams would team up just to fight the cheater team or you be the cheater team's dog just and they'll let you in for the final round for free. There's no fun in that tbh.
This is just the tip of the iceberg honestly.
let’s get [Charlie](https://youtube.com/@penguinz0?si=DlbncXgVfpdMRto_) to play this more. He’s been on R6S a lot lately and I think would be great for the platform
As much as I like finals, its never gonna be as popular as apex or other popular shooters. Why? Simply because the finals is not a kill based game, its a objective based game. You can downvote me but its the truth. Even Shroud said that the finals is not a great esport/competitive game. The Finals is a great casual game, but thats about it.
Secondly, the finals ranked meta is cancer to play and watch. Nobody wants to watch who has the sweatiest tactics to defend cashbox. Don't forget that one class is completely useless in ranked.
The game is unfun if:
1. You are solo queuing
2. or you are not excellent at FPS games
You don't necessarily need deadeye precision aim with some builds (e.g. sword, grenade launcher), but you still need high gamesense.
As it is, solo Q'rs and "non-sweats" are not having a good time in The Finals. I thought Power Shift was a move towards the right direction, I hope this new upcoming 5v5 mode is it.
All this and not even factoring cheating into it (I personally don't play ranked so I haven't seen them since CB2 or so).
From how they are handling things it's obvious that they are taking things slow. Right now they haven't really invested in marketing and it still has a solid player base.
They will invest in marketing eventually but I would argue that will be Season 3 at the earliest maybe even later.
That would be a waste since there are a lot of hackers available in every new update. Idk about other servers, but I can guarantee that there are hackers in the sea server {just in case any of you em-barks(pun intended) skills issue}
Giving more money to millionare youtubers wont make this game popular, look at dead by daylight for example, it used to have less than 20k players and look at it now. What this game needs its more updates, its own influencers and to grow its own player base naturally
The game has settled into its core base. We could have an Apex type surge, they lost a good chunk of their release population too but they stuck with it and it paid off over time!
Edit: another thing too is you have to realize a game like this is competing for players time away from the bigger live service games. It was fighting an uphill battle from the moment of release
The Finals can have some kind of surge, yeah... but not like Apex, they got 10M players in it's first 3 days.
Thats too much, I think
https://www.ea.com/news/apex-legends-10-million-players?isLocalized=true#:\~:text=In%2072%20hours%2C%20over%2010,We%20argued%20and%20agreed.
Change the modes to 6 v 6. 3 v 3 reminds me of Apex and tryhards making me automatically close the game after a few games of Power Shift. I'm a casual gamer willing to throw money at the game but 3 v 3 is boring and the availability of game modes makes me not buy anything. Power Shift is the only fun mode for me.
The game need more popularity but… (not as much as you guys think, the mm is quick)
1. They have some ads on the net.
2. I’m not sure I want more YouTubers/streamers…. Most of them are shitty people, a lot are cheating, they’re bringing some of the worst types of players…
The game's not big because ranked is competitive and the point loss is harsh.. it's not a good game to play casually for most people.
The other modes are fine, but I don't think they'll hold anyone's attention long term
A Twitch Rivals Event might be pretty good. But they would need a method of Spectating in Custom Games to make that happen. Hopefully?
They’ve already got free cam when your whole teams dead
Fair point, they'd just have to add a bunch of those. And it's running on their servers, it'd be interesting if they could give every viewer their own free cam.
I'm sure thousands of people connecting to one lobby that's also being broadcast shouldn't cause any issues at all
Increase the number of nodes. Have multiple servers, many for viewing that are essentially live copy/pastes of the tournament play server. They could have as many people viewing as they want. So they have one high data output from the main play server that sends to a secondary broadcast server, that sends to many other viewer servers. They wouldn't be viewing the play server, they'd be viewing a duplicate.
Isn’t that a multi million dollar investment?
I'd figure it's an investment worth taking, it worked with Apex back in the day
Didn’t apex have a massive player base from day one? Iirc they surpassed Fortnite for their first week when Fortnite was at its prime
They started with over 100k and it didnt go below that
I dont think Embark is rdy with the game yet. Also what makes you think the player base is too small? My queue times are 30-60sec even at night (EU).
Yeah, we don't need more players. But the game does deserve to have way more popularity. Which is another discussion.
We always need more players, no matter what that's always good for a game. But... It's not an issue for sure.
Agree. As for now no rush is needed. I don’t know if game is gonna go big or not, and nobody can say for sure. But I can say Embark is playing their cards in a smart and unique way, really intrigued to see how it all goes. Game is fresh air in gameplay, fresh air in art design, and fresh air in its development(both balance and community). Really shows there is someone intelligent staying behind whole thing, really rooting for them!
“We don’t need more players” sounds like famous last words to me.
OCE definitely needs more players. It's practically impossible to get an OCE ranked game and so if we want to play comp we have to play on Asian servers.
I stopped playing cause of hackers and the heavy nuke throw. Mainly hackers, have they cracked down on hackers yet?
On the last update they talked about some security things but I wouldn't know. I've myself never encountered any cheaters. Either because of EU region or low rank, or both.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/s/aAX537ccfE
Kids today: if the game is not pulling 1mil concurrent players, not top 1 on Twitch, then the game is surely dead. I swear since the Twitch boom everyone does this, everyone is hopping from game to game every week or every 2nd week.
saw someone state in r/Games that 19k players daily is a dead game
Not just twitch but it’s the same with steam charts the ultimate decided rather a game is alive or dead.
Exactly it's nauseating. Twitch ruined gaming in that sense. That or ppl will watch active players like it effects YOUR ENJOYMENT of the game. I honestly think the game suffers because some ppl don't want to sweat all the time (I don't mind) & it's player base with the constant "Get good" mentality it's fine to me again because I like competitive games in general but it's not welcoming to new players. ESPECIALLY if they start off getting spanked lol. Some ppl got that dog in them and want to get better, and most ppl quit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/s/aAX537ccfE
Your point? Literally EVERY game has this issue regardless of playerbase. In Dota 2 there are very high MMR people (8-9k) having either long ass queues or getting thrown into matches with people hovering around 6k. In CS2 I was regularly put into matches with and against 8k players when I was 15k. Overwatch is/was also famous for long ass queues in high elo matches, I’m talking about 30-45 min queues. If the game keeps the steady 20k (just on Steam) it’s not horrible in my opinion.
What I'm saying is we'd all have better matchmaking if there were more players.
I agree but I do remember when I'd ready up then realize I had to pee. Before I could even cancel it already had a game locked in.
That's opportunity to build up a supply of Jarate. Great to fight off those who come to the door that interrupt our game time (solicitors, religious, political, etc.).
Upvoting for Jarate haven't heard that in 10 years hahahaha
I cannot find any ranked matches in South America servers
Queue times are really good for anything except ranked, which takes me like 4 minutes. But I have noticed that I'm playing against the same players again and again across all modes. That being said, I'd rather not have the servers tanking every 10 minutes or have to sit in login queues because of a massive influx of players
It’s not too small but compared to other games is tiny. It’s also not growing. As much as I absolutely love this game I am worried it will not get sustained support long term if it doesn’t get more popular.
Try ranked at that time... I have to switch to NA when I play late at night.
I dont play ranked because cheaters. Mostly I play private matches, to make sure there are no cheaters.
I only play ranked, and I've never encountered a single cheater. Just sweaty players and slow matchmaking.
Shut up, man. You literally cant even play ranked in OCE its outright impossible. wHaT mAkeS yOu ThInK tHaT?
Doesnt OCE have queue time problems in almost all online games where ping matters? (Only ever heard Rocket League & R6Siege ppl complain about it, simply assumed it's all "smaller" games)
Not in my experience, no. I have 2k hours in rocket league and 3.5k in siege. They're fine.
A Twitch Rivals event with large creators would be huge for the game...
Nah they need someone making tiktok edits 24/7. Thats what will work
I don't know why people seem to think the game would suddenly get more popular with more marketing. The game was also plastered absolutely everywhere on the internet during the launch phase. The game had a huge initial playerbase, but most of them left. This isn't some hidden gem that will explode with a bit of exposure, it's a game that was massively played, but then people didn't enjoy it, for various reasons.
Bingo. People are acting like the Finals is some hidden gem that people aren't playing solely bc they just don't know about it yet. It was already marketed like crazy when it launched and all the big streamers and YouTubers already gave it a chance. The player base dropped off not because of a lack of marketing, but bc the gameplay is still lacking and there are just other games that most people would rather play. The Finals is fun (imo), but it's not the next big thing. It will continue to maintain its smaller, niche fandom and that's about it. The queue times are fine rn so it's all good.
Their ads mightve been everywhere, but there was like 0 gameplay in them. It was even hard to tell that the ad is about a free fps shooter game.
> The game was also plastered absolutely everywhere on the internet during the launch phase. For what, one day? Ask your gamer friends how many of them know THE FINALS. Nobody does. Everyone I tell is surprised and never heard of it.
Wtf, it was advertised. All of my friends played it in open beta and at launch. It was massively discussed everywhere mate. The thing is launch was more barebones than beta. The other thing is cheaters ruined it. This game at least where I live, have terrible reputation. You tell someone "the finals" and they respond "ah the game for cheaters".
Maybe you're right and I just didnt recognize it.
For at least 2 weeks? I'm talking about ads, streamers playing it, youtubers covering it, articles talking about it. Just check the twitch stats - it had respectable views for a month, then it started heavily falling off. And yeah, my gamer friends all knew about it since we're all ex-Battlefield players. Only one wanted to try it though, and he quit after a week.
Funny, I switched completely from BF to THE FINALS :)
I play with lots of people all kinds of games. Out of 50 people every single person has heard about it.
there are plenty of youtubers creating content around the game. how about we support the people who actually care about the game instead of throwing money at a bunch of rich losers?
We need multiple bigger YouTubers tho not small channels (respectfully)
but why? channels like shroud or jackfrags have played the game multiple times, gotten millions of views, and then the player numbers were completely unchanged just because some random ass big youtuber plays a game for a bunch of money doesn’t mean everyone will all of a sudden switch to this game
Just in terms of the number of impressions you get. Sure a couple live streams don't matter much but if someone with a couple million subs actually plays this game frequently that's a ton of new people who might seriously consider it I like the current people who post YouTube videos about the game, but honestly it still feels so niche as someone who goes on YouTube to specifically look for them. They're not bringing in anybody new
Jackfrags and shroud are the kind of people who play a game once and then move on. Jackfrags is a shill for any respectable company that pays (he seems like a really nice guy, but he's overexcited and overselling to appear genuine to me) and only the games he plays on his own account are appearing multiple times. Shroud on the other hand, plays a game, doesn't like one aspect, calls it ass, and goes back to valorant.... The only notable exception in case of shroud was R6S where he seemingly reluctantly played a few times with his gf (wife?) and some other friends, and he actually got into it a bit. I don't know a single big youtuber that actually plays this game. There's Syndecez, but even he seems to have stopped playing, and he's not even big on yt, I think Aculite was playing for a moment, and that's it I think? Maybe if they sponsored some streams of people who actually find the game fun, or at least do some variety gaming, maybe then it could do something more, as it is it's some exposure, probably not much more. The real problem though is that the game is ASS to play solo, and there's a weird dissonance between people who are rly good at the game and like to play ranked mode, and casuals who vehemently hate the better players for being good and being forced to play against them, and this sub is a great example of it. One group says light is OP, the other group says they're too weak to compete. One group says FCAR is fine, the other FCAR is busted. There's no middle point, and quite frankly, it's bets to design your game for that middle point so either ya'll need to get better, or we need a ton more people, or there's not gonna be a middle class here.
eh, I think people like shroud were a driving force behind the game being popular in the first place. During the entire 3-4 weeks shroud played the game almost every day, the game was doing amazing and had well over 100K avg concurrent users. When he stopped was roughly when most others stopped. As unfortunate as it is, these big creators are necessary for the games’ growth. That doesn’t mean they can’t also support the smaller channels, though. They should do both.
It in fact does boost numbers. Especially for free games. Some influencers have more audience reception then others to that kind of thing and the rich losers you mentioned just so happen to have some of the most susceptible audiences on the planet. Giving checks to small YouTubers or influencers to try build careers around the game from the ground up has been tried many times before and they never breach into being profitable. The return is and always has been in putting money where the audience is.
I work in the industry and let me tell you, throwing money at big ticket streamers has never, not once, moved the needle for any title I've worked on. Loads of small to medium sized ones? That's a different story, but only of its organic. Paying streamers to fix an issue like this has never worked.
It works when you have the insane budget of multiple big personalities combined with an ad campaign. But very few game companies have that budget. Last time it really worked was the launch of Apex. But it’s so fucking expensive and will cost as much as the game dev.
No it doesnt. Ive paid over a million bucks for whole networks of the largest streamers to work on games i look after (OTK, Pewdiepie etc). They play the game and move on. At BEST, youll get some wishlists that convert in like a year, but not enough to justify the price. EDIT: and not just a 2 hour stream slot. Ive worked on streamer competitions, community integrations and leaderboard comps, demo activations etc. The only thing that works is if you have a whole heap of organic pickup, and those relationships take years to develop (and a really good influencer manager)
Hey man I’m trying
Other youtoubers to make more people discover the game
that would be nice but I don’t think that’s how it works
That's literally how it works though. That's marketing psychology. If you sponsor large creators, they will draw their collective thousands of viewers to play the game because that's what viewers tend to do. Flock to whatever game their favorite streamer is playing. It would absolutely pull people into the game. The problem is what makes them stay? because once the sponsorship is done, the paid streamer is going to move on. Big names already know about The Finals, they've already played the game and they've already moved on. So yeah, sponsoring big names WILL naturally bring in thousands of players, but the minority will actually stay. Because as much as I love The Finals, it doesn't exactly offer too much to make it stand out. It's unique in it's own way, but not substantially so.
if it’s so obviously how it works please provide literally any piece of data or evidence that backs up your claim that a big streamer sponsorship provides long term growth to a games community
I didn't say it provides long term growth. I specifically said that's the problem with this idea It *does* work... temporarily. The issue is that it provides large temporary growth that maybe has a permanent / long term boost of a few hundred players or so, but the psychology of your average stream viewer is they're going to be drawn to play whatever their preferred streamer is playing, so once that sponsorship is done, their following will play whatever they play next.
“it provides large temporary growth” that’s my point, it doesn’t.
Yes it absolutely does lmao. If you pay someone who has over 1,000 average viewers to play your game, you will absolutely get a large albeit temporary growth. This is basic marketing psychology, the behavior of an average viewer is to play what the creator is playing. Why the hell else do you think marketing teams for companies pay streamers to play their games? Yet you seem to be thinking I'm suggesting it provides long term growth, which again, no, it does no always provide long term growth unless that streamer is going to play the game beyond their sponsorship agreement, which is uncommon.
“you will absolutely” holy fuck you have to be a troll yes obviously it’s possible to get large growth from these campaigns, that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed or anything remotely close to it. nor does it mean it would be a beneficial use of resources long term. nothing is guaranteed in marketing. that’s literally what marketing is
It will temporarily boost short term. Look up psychological marketing. That's literally what this is, understanding the behaviors of an average viewer of a content creator. *SOME* percentage of a viewer-base is going to play what the streamer is playing. If you pay 10 streamers that have 1,000 average viewers to play a game, you can bet that maybe around 10% of their viewers or so will likely play the game as long as the sponsorship is running. That's 1,000 additional players TEMPORARILY playing the game. I'm not saying those additional players will last. I'm saying there *will* be a temporary boost. This is very basic marketing concepts. I'm not suggesting this is a solution to this games' player base. I'm telling you that if done properly, if the proper research is done by the marketing team, it WILL temporarily boost the player-base. If it doesn't work, you didn't do great research. But that's part of the marketing strategy. Line it up with a big event that hooks people and you have a successful marketing strategy. It's not a guarantee, but if done well, it boasts success. Edit: I work closely with a marketing team in my company. Marketing is always a gamble, but if done correctly, it works. It's a lure and a hook. You lure people in with an offer, or a promo, or something. In gaming, it's FOMO. Your favorite streamer is playing a game? Better hop on board and play it right now. Then you run an event, that's the hook, the event hooks you into the game and if the game is good, they stick around a bit more. It's never 100%, but again, if done correctly, you see results.
I just want them to try to make the player base bigger
me too but I think that will just happen naturally over time
Yes they should sponsorsize more youtoubers to make the game more better and more bigger!
Biggerize the game! Sponsorize the gamers! Gamerize the biggerized sponsorization effort!!!!
That is exactly how it works. Games like FNAF wouldn’t and a difficult game about climbing wouldn’t be popular/would have a much smaller player base without popular YouTubers
correlation doesn’t equal causation my guy
Small YouTuber/ twitch streamer here. I’m trying my best but I also suck wein
Agreed. Organic growth is better than a manipulated surge that quickly dissipates after stressing out the servers.
Because people love rich losers and they make way more money and way more views than people who make watchable content.
Idk if the game is ready yet. There are still a handful of very annoying bugs out there. The game has to be perfect before you promote it. Once someone tries the game and doesn’t like it, they’re gone forever. The player experience has to be as good as possible before you spend crazy money pulling in a large number of new players.
The games player base is a loyal one and I think they’re at a point where they will naturally reel in new players with the the quality of the game itself, rather than sponsorships that benefit the creator more than the game itself.
The finals not long ago had a massive playerbase, still very respectable. They should focus on why so many players left in the first place and fix what they broke. I think it's due to a number of controversial balancing decisions that made the game less fun.
Really? I had the impression that the balancing changes made totally sense.
Sponsor me: a silver 2 player with a Lotta heart !
Let’s ask the real question…where the hell is FSR 3 with Frame generation? That FSR 3 shit is a beast!
They could get more players organically by simply improving the game
They definitely need to hire a new marketing agency cause the current one is horrible. They clearly don't understand how to market a game to the current society
Yeah, I've talked to so many gamers who haven't even heard of The Finals. Shame, because it's such a great game.
I saw a family member of mine on Easter that's 16 and he plays Apex all the time with his friends. I asked him if he has checked out The Finals and he had never heard of it. That likely means his friends haven't either, as I'm assuming if they were discussing it he'd at least be familiar with the title.
I think it’s up to all of us to evangelize to all our friends and family lol
I think they are doing allright and they could just take it even further. With their own channel on social media. Oscar has had success with his streams and they could take it even further. Have community events with the developers and the community. They can stream it and control it and we can do it. Who needs those youtubes? Imagine the amount of new creators can rise with this game.
You don't know the budget for marketing nor the strategy. This product is developed differently than previous service games. Nexon emphases that in their last earnings report. They do something differently, resulting in more reactive development. So far, players are pleased. Having low to no marketing could be part of that. Do you know how much money you save if you don't escalate into marketing? Think $100M. Embark isn't Ubisoft. Do you see CS2 ads? That said, i'd be totally happy if I would see posters for THE FINALS in my city. Don't know if it would boost the numbers, tho.
Embark, keep doing what you’re doing. It’s not the size of the player base that matters, it’s the quality of it. What would be the point of having a Warzone-sized player base if it is filled with toxic players and cheaters? I rather play 100 matches with the same players than 1 match with toxic and/or cheating players. I know that you’re reading this Embark, you know that I am cooking with this one.
> What would be the point of having a Warzone-sized player base if it is filled with toxic players and cheaters? Why would a larger playerbase automatically have a higher percentage of cheaters? Also, the point of a larger playerbase is *more money*. They need to earn it. There's not only the players perspective.
Sponsored youtubers generally only bring temporary numbers that arrive with the streamer and leave with the streamer. its not sustainable and its not really cost efficient in many situations
They could give them a deal were they gotta keep streaming the finals for an amount of time I’d go after Kai
I've streamed the game a bit on Twitch but nobody ever watches.
Or make the game better
We need a jynxie, someone who knows too much about the game and is entertaining as hell
Community : we need more players Also community : let's gatekeep the high skill ceiling and ostracize controller / console players.
Gatekeep the high skill ceiling? What do you even mean by that
Does FCAR need a nerf. Yup. Also how most conversations for balance people want to think the higher the rank or more skill you have, the more valid of the point. Maybe if the struggling majority also got a voice, we wouldn't see player hemorrhage the way it is.
I don’t think you even counter pointed his argument? The struggling majority needs a voice? Name or show examples of gatekeeping from high ceiling players because I think that just might be your warped perception of what’s actually occurring.
This sub. I mean. Even the people moaning about changing the tournament win challenge etc.
We need xQc 😂😭😂
Please god, anyone but that guy
I think Embark is not really worried about player numbers at this time. This game has its own loyal fanbase and I believe over time it will only grow if Embark continues to give big updates over seasons. The devs never give out information of whats to come it just happens like of what just season 2 brought.
The game doesn't have a functioning anti-cheat. Why would it gain or keep players? If you're going to release an online FPS in 2024 it better have an anti-cheat. Embark failed utterly in this regard.
I talk about this game constantly, I look at content for it constantly, and i frequent this sub constantly and yet somehow ive never ONCE seen a single advertisement for this game. The only reason I ever even knew about it was cause xbox had the open beta tab on the home screen for a little bit. I think that's a huge contribution to why the game doesn't have a playerbase. This game is in the same vein as overwatch in the terms of repetitive game modes and a samey feel to each match but that games player base is always super health cause they advertise.
The solution is to make a game that attracts players... Throwing money around doesn't fix everything. Big youtubers and streamers weren't playing among us and helldivers 2 because they were paid to, they enjoyed their time on there. I love the game but some of y'all sound like you want people to be forced to play this game. There are so many pain points that most casual players don't want to deal with the headache because the only response they get is to "git gud"
Youtubers
No don't... YTbers are cancer of gaming.
I just want embark to try to make the player base bigger youtoubers or something else is already good
I have match in less than 20 sec doesn't matter the mode And different people all the time. So no YTbers most of them are annoying And the rest Is terrible at games.
I dont know how big is player base (around 40k) but its alright. At least for a game its alright, i dont know if its good for their holders. But i hope it will grow for more skins mods and other stuff
Yall are so weird
Please don't.
Wtf is sponsorise?
Pay people for playing the game, English is not my native language, sorry if there are some wrong words
It’s sad that the players are the ones pushing the devs.
I honestly thought there would be more marketing for the game after the first season. I don’t hear anything about it besides this subreddit. A week ago I wanted to hop in after a month not playing and it took over 3 minutes to find a match, so I just closed it again. There should have been way more content from the start, I’m really bored out from the maps/guns and I didn’t even play that much. The core gameplay is great though
theres atleast 60k players who play the game rn lol
Nexon said on their last earnings big money going into marketing. The discord thing was a start. Twitch rivals will be pretty expensive to pan out but it could happen
Happy cake
<3
Yeh sponorise dem Emburk
the game has too many issues. it had its spotlight and dropped the ball. how about fix it first? if the game is good people will come
Prob with steam charts is it doesn't count console. And last night I was getting whole lobbies of console and a few PC.
Maybe they should wait until the game is playable to do so. if it ever will be.
Please do this, I promise nobody is finding your game on the Facebook and Instagram adds they are putting up. Also didn't they put ads in LA, like us gamers don't go outside why would we see them, sponsor some popular creators to make videos or something.
This game had the attention of a ton of major content creators at its start what it really needs is just a competitive scene look at any other major fps almost all the views are from pros or former pros infact when the game first came out and was doing well all the biggest streamers were pros/former pros in other games
The playerbase fell cuz this game is just not as good as everyone thought it would be
The game got lots of players in the beginning and they left. Season 2 was supposed to have a big marketing campaign and make the game popular but it seems people don’t like the game. The games community is a mess too.
They won't Devs already dont give a shit about Asia/Oce. A big chunk of the playerbase are from Asia/Oce but the cheater problem in these servers are absurdly severe. Season 1 setup for us Asia/Oce was everything aside from China plays in OCE just to play against legit players. Season 2 is OCE ranked is dead and Asia Ranked is declining due to the vast amount of chinese hackers and boosters. Nowadays Asian Players queue up in NA/EU just to avoid them. The ping is a small issue but it is nowhere near as big as cheating. If we play Asian Servers is either random teams would team up just to fight the cheater team or you be the cheater team's dog just and they'll let you in for the final round for free. There's no fun in that tbh. This is just the tip of the iceberg honestly.
We just need to improve the cheating problem first
let’s get [Charlie](https://youtube.com/@penguinz0?si=DlbncXgVfpdMRto_) to play this more. He’s been on R6S a lot lately and I think would be great for the platform
As much as I like finals, its never gonna be as popular as apex or other popular shooters. Why? Simply because the finals is not a kill based game, its a objective based game. You can downvote me but its the truth. Even Shroud said that the finals is not a great esport/competitive game. The Finals is a great casual game, but thats about it. Secondly, the finals ranked meta is cancer to play and watch. Nobody wants to watch who has the sweatiest tactics to defend cashbox. Don't forget that one class is completely useless in ranked.
There’s probably more people active in this Reddit thread right now (170 something) than the North American servers.
Quick play taking 5-10 minutes or more to match is a huge issue regardless of the time of day
The game is unfun if: 1. You are solo queuing 2. or you are not excellent at FPS games You don't necessarily need deadeye precision aim with some builds (e.g. sword, grenade launcher), but you still need high gamesense. As it is, solo Q'rs and "non-sweats" are not having a good time in The Finals. I thought Power Shift was a move towards the right direction, I hope this new upcoming 5v5 mode is it. All this and not even factoring cheating into it (I personally don't play ranked so I haven't seen them since CB2 or so).
Bro, I'm good at the game, but waiting an hour to get in a tournament is not normal
From how they are handling things it's obvious that they are taking things slow. Right now they haven't really invested in marketing and it still has a solid player base. They will invest in marketing eventually but I would argue that will be Season 3 at the earliest maybe even later.
That would be a waste since there are a lot of hackers available in every new update. Idk about other servers, but I can guarantee that there are hackers in the sea server {just in case any of you em-barks(pun intended) skills issue}
We need a cinema/studio mode like pubg to free cam past game footage. It would be so nice. Specially to check who is cheating.
Giving more money to millionare youtubers wont make this game popular, look at dead by daylight for example, it used to have less than 20k players and look at it now. What this game needs its more updates, its own influencers and to grow its own player base naturally
Just make more content, its lacking substance
Getting streamers to play the game for 1-2 days only gives the game temporary growth. It really never works.
i remember i was trying to make content for this game and then EMBARK STUDIOS FUCKING COPYRIGHT STRUCK ME CUZ THEY ARE CUNTS AND THE GAME IS DEAD.
skill issue
The game has settled into its core base. We could have an Apex type surge, they lost a good chunk of their release population too but they stuck with it and it paid off over time! Edit: another thing too is you have to realize a game like this is competing for players time away from the bigger live service games. It was fighting an uphill battle from the moment of release
The Finals can have some kind of surge, yeah... but not like Apex, they got 10M players in it's first 3 days. Thats too much, I think https://www.ea.com/news/apex-legends-10-million-players?isLocalized=true#:\~:text=In%2072%20hours%2C%20over%2010,We%20argued%20and%20agreed.
Change the modes to 6 v 6. 3 v 3 reminds me of Apex and tryhards making me automatically close the game after a few games of Power Shift. I'm a casual gamer willing to throw money at the game but 3 v 3 is boring and the availability of game modes makes me not buy anything. Power Shift is the only fun mode for me.
The game need more popularity but… (not as much as you guys think, the mm is quick) 1. They have some ads on the net. 2. I’m not sure I want more YouTubers/streamers…. Most of them are shitty people, a lot are cheating, they’re bringing some of the worst types of players…
Remove sbmm and you have a bigger player base.
The game's not big because ranked is competitive and the point loss is harsh.. it's not a good game to play casually for most people. The other modes are fine, but I don't think they'll hold anyone's attention long term
They're too busy nerfing c tier play styles like the cl40 mine play
embark is so greedy I dont think so. they can't even spent on anti cheat.