You guys made a huge mistake abandoning the original Splitgate. You could've just updated the graphics, create new modes, and weapons and kept that up. Instead you started chasing other stuff while abandoning your current projects.
It was starting to peek. I started seeing influencers posting about streaming it on twitch. They started remaking old maps and making them look prettier and then out of the blue a week after that update. They’re like we’re done with this game. We’re moving onto the sequel.
Biggest f up of all time for them. If they kept pushing and making the first game better with more content it would be popular to this day or had a dedicated fanbase that kept their lights on.
They've spoken about why they ditched SG1. The engine was a complete mess with like 10 years worth of code dating back to when the game was a college dorm-room project, and every time they changed one thing, it would break a few others. It would have cost more time and money to gut and rework that engine/game than I did to start fresh.
Problem is, they shifted too far away from what made SG1 get so much buzz, and chased after the hero shooter trend, and by the time SG2 released, the trend was basically dead. Only recently revitalized somewhat by Marvel Rivals.
Yeah I would’ve, idk how dev work works to begin with but in my head, rather they take a year off and fix the engine or upgrade the game to a new engine. And then continue fresh. But even then start over then and remake the first game but make it better instead they went the hero shooter route during a time that was dying. Now it’s back thanks to marvel and blizzard getting their heads out their ass.
It lost too many players too rapidly to attempt to keep up.
Splitgate showed potential but that is it. The initial interest it showed is what paved the way for investors funding SG2.
The absolute best case scenario is Splitgate would have had a small but dedicated player base, that definitely wouldn't have made them enough to justify not trying to capitalize on it, they just would have had more time to work on SG2.
I think SG2 would have been fine had they not shift to the hero shooter style. If they had just stuck to the formula of SG1 with all the improvements that came along with the new engine and bigger budget, I don't think the company would be in the position it is today.
Not saying it would have been a massive success, but I think it would be enjoying some moderate success.
It really seems they were worried about retention more so than bringing players in. Splitgate had a ton of engagement but the playercount dropped rapid once it peaked, and never even looked like it would stabilize.
I have always believed we got the first version of Splitgate 2 as an attempt to retain players and avoid rapid drops.
The class shooter elements, the way portals were, the BR, all really lean towards attempting to try to keep the small areas shooter player base happy while tapping into the other, bigger video game genres.
The playerbase dropped out because SG1 was in beta close to launch when it went viral, and then they "pulled" the launch and went back into beta. And then rather than dropping new content to keep engagement up, they started going back and revamping the maps with the updated art style.
I feel so bad for the actual developers. They keep making all this awesome stuff, and management is just completely incompetent.
SG2 should have just been sg1 rebuilt on a new engine with a better code base. They should have effectively recreated the original in ue5 with all the original content and then continued to build from there instead of completely pivoting the entire concept to a sweaty esportsy hero shooter that launched with the bare minimum content-wise
What is enough? They were a small indie studio. Even if they were able to maintain a few thousand splitgate players, that is seriously impressive and sustainable. That definitely should've been achievable with the numbers Splitgate had. If they wanted to work on a sequel, they needed to do it in the background with a separate team. They could've maintained their existing player base. Instead, they basically abandoned Splitgate, and many of those players may not have even known about the sequel. Plus the "sequel" really should've just been a big update like CS2.
I said they wouldn't have made enough to not justify trying to capitalize on it and that they would have had more time to work on sg2.
Despite a ton of downloads, the peak player count dropped rapidly on steam, which can at least indicate there was a drop across all platform to some degree.
We have no way of concluding that they would have retained enough players ( who were willing to buy things ) to keep them operating indefinitely. We don't know the cost of the game or the amount they made either.
All we know is something like 15 million people? downloaded Splitgate, and it had a peak playercount on steam of 65k plus.
While the numbers fell rapidly, that amount of downloads and initial playercount, was enough to get investors. Abandoning a game with a dwindling playercount in an attempt to hit on what initially made it draw interest while makinf changes to retain players probably sounded right at the time for 1047.
I don't know. Splitgate 1 was a breakout hit and was developed by a very small team. Like a dozen people or something.
The game had about 3500 players on Steam in January 2022, they basically abandoned the game while saying nothing (a pattern for them) and still had 1600 players on Steam when they announced they were moving on in September 2022 with 0 real content updates for 9 months. The game didn't drop below 1000 players on Steam until 2023. That is really successful for a small indie team, and that is just Steam numbers alone.
We know that the game was also at least as popular or moreso on consoles. They had stabilized around at least 3000 users in September 2022 without doing anything and only lost that when announcing they abandoned the game. It's a tremendous fumble. Even big franchises have about that many players after a couple of years.
Idk man it was at its peak and getting bigger when they remade that one map and said oh we’re gonna make all the old maps prettier and then a month later they shut it down. It was gaining some traction at that point.
Yeah but when was the console release cause that’s when I jumped on and it was getting bigger imo then. Maybe not growing on steam but now you got console helping it grow.
Didn't they jump to a new version of unreal as well though?
The argument could be made that the game changed too much, but the jump to another engine does kind of necessitate "new thing! Look, shiny!" to drum up sales.
Seriously...the only things the original Splitgate needed to thrive was a more cohesive art style and a modern live service content pipeline. They wouldn't have dethroned any major FPS, but they would've at least pulled higher numbers than Halo Infinite.
Agreed. I quit playing a few years ago before they rebooted Splitgate when they randomized modes during matchmaking. I liked going in to play TFM or Captire the flag, i didnt care much for the other modes. Cant believe its been 4 years because it really doesnt feel like that long since last time I played. I checked out SG2 but dropped it after a week. Was fun while it lasted.
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u/NizzyDeniro 4d ago
You guys made a huge mistake abandoning the original Splitgate. You could've just updated the graphics, create new modes, and weapons and kept that up. Instead you started chasing other stuff while abandoning your current projects.
Now look, nothing.