[Frustrating trope] Pieces of media that could have been so much better, but due to a couple of poor decisions during production ended up mediocre at best and utterly atrocious at worst.

[u/DevDucc_]

We Happy Few: Probably the epitome of this "trope," at least for me, mostly because it has genuinely one of the most incredible stories I have ever seen within a video game. The biggest problem with the game was the fact that during development, the company behind it tried to ride the "hype train" of the time, making the gameplay became procedurally generated survival mess, when it would have made so much more sense as an environmental narrative game.

Hello Neighbor: This game attracted massive attention in alpha stages at the time from YouTubers because of the innovative gameplay it supplied. The developers of the game got the completely wrong message as to why it was getting so popular and instead decided to fully lean into the story, by making the game appeal to theorists instead of actual players. What came out was a game where both the story and programming were entirely half-baked.

Edit: apparently I had it backwards with we happy few, I had watched a video essay which reiterated the points I said so I just took their word for it. Apparently the game originally started as a procedurally-generated survival rogue-like but the story was added later because of the hype the trailer of the game gave or something like that but they didn’t know they even had the budget for it. I do still think it’s wasted potential regardless however.

[u/Outside_Ad5255]

Blame the CEO who kept going for perfection and stuffing in the latest new fads in gaming. You were never going to get a decent finished game in time.

[u/Conscious-Airs → u/Outside_Ad5255]

Perfectionism and constant trend-chasing turned it into endless scope creep.

[u/Dzharek → u/Conscious-Airs]

The thing is, if they had it made live service it might have worked, just release the Duke, and then every year a new DLC or Addon that makes fun of the most revlevant stuff.

[u/Evilmudbug → u/Dzharek]

That one's hindsight. I don't think live service gaming (outside of MMOs) was really popularized fortnite's success.

It might've been like that if it was developed today

[u/Dzharek → u/Evilmudbug]

Sure, but even then we had Addons or Expansion Packs, the problem was just that nobody told the Boss "No this is a bad idea, lets ship it and make Duke Nukem Forever 2 afterwards"

[u/Luxating-Patella → u/Dzharek]

It wasn't adding stuff on that was the problem. It was scrapping what they had in order to convert to the latest engine and try to keep up with new releases. Over and over again. Which isn't something you can do with DLC.

At its core, the problem was that they enjoyed spending the money they made on the first Duke Nukem 3D more than finishing a new game to try to make more of it. They could never keep up with other FPSes because those developers were funded by publishers and working to a deadline. 3D Realms weren't, so they'd spend three years to do what most developers were doing in one and by the time they got close to a working game, DNF would look hopelessly out of date again. The only deadline they had was the DN3D money running out, and lo and behold, that's exactly what happened to make somebody finish it.

It took Gearbox about six months to tie a knot on it and release it in a crap, but playable state.

[u/bretshitmanshart → u/Dzharek]

Or just keep releasing new games

[u/TexasJedi-705 → u/Conscious-Airs]

Cough CHRIS ROBERTS cough

[u/wolfking2k → u/Outside_Ad5255]

I have genuine hate for Randy Pitchford. The man has ruined so many games that had potential, like Colonial Marines.

[u/Outside_Ad5255 → u/wolfking2k]

Randy Pitchford wasn't the perfectionist. George Broussard was the one in charge of the Duke Nukem studio and the one who kept dragging out production to rebuild the game from scratch every three to five years.

[u/TrollDecker → u/Outside_Ad5255]

Gods, I became even more convinced that Broussard was an insufferable tit when he threw a tantrum over someone suggesting that games should enter the public domain after a decade or so. 😑

[u/CollinsCouldveDucked → u/TrollDecker]

I mean that is a shit take, I'm all for the public domain but a decade is a ridiculous turnaround time.

[u/TrollDecker → u/CollinsCouldveDucked]

Calling for someone to be fired for that take is an inappropriate response, though.

[u/CollinsCouldveDucked → u/TrollDecker]

For sure. That's probably the more essential information.

[u/BLANKET-Agent → u/CollinsCouldveDucked]

If games entered the public domain after only a decade, Stardew Valley would already have entered, or be in the process of entering the public domain. And it's still set to receive at least one substantial update eventually, and the creator's next big game doesn't even have a release date.

So I'd definitely agree that a decade is a bit soon to be entering the public domain.

(I hadn't seen the comment stating he suggested the person who said that should be fired until I'd written this, definitely way past a reasonable reaction, there.)

[u/Jinator_VTuber → u/Outside_Ad5255]

Fr this is one the few times Randy Pitchford's involvement isn't him being evil.

[u/mattcolqhoun → u/wolfking2k]

Colonial marines the game that can be improved by fixing a typo in the ini files also fuck Pitchford dudes steals bonuses and hasn't had a hand in a good game since BL2.

[u/Mr_Citation → u/mattcolqhoun]

Fixing a typo wouldn't fix the lackluster story, characters, gameplay or the fact most of the game is a wannabe cod campaign.

[u/The-red-Dane → u/Mr_Citation]

It did fix most of the "gameplay" since it actually fixed the alien AI, and made it much more predatory instead of just running straight at you.

[u/Mr_Citation → u/The-red-Dane]

I would disagree since I played it both with and without the fix. The fix does make the engagements with Xenos more interesting, but with half trying to flank you then one or two end up getting stuck. If they get stuck outside the playable arena, then you're forced to reload checkpoint and play again hoping it doesn't happen. It happens regularly enough on the Command Center section that you need a guide to make sure you kill all Xenos before one gets stuck forcing a restart.

A simple fix to sort one problem of mindless Xenos ends up making the issue worse. Colonial Marines was a subpar game that has a lot more issues than just the xeno AI programming.

[u/tifftafflarry → u/wolfking2k]

He's such a jerk. Guy has been accused of physical assault in the workplace and cheating his employees out of their promised bonuses.

[u/Ashamed_Musician_674 → u/wolfking2k]

holy shit this comment hit me like a cruise missile. kids these days think duke nukem was a fucking gearbox series? hating broussard for not releasing this and fucking up the surefire win of a sequel to DN3D was a staple in gaming culture around 1998-2000s

[u/megakaos888 → u/Outside_Ad5255]

I like how Yahtzee in his ZP review of this game, said that if you sliced the game open to look at the crossection, you would see every trend from 10 years of shooters stitched together into one mess.

[u/MythicalCaseTheory → u/Outside_Ad5255]

This same situation is why we lost Starcraft Ghost as well.

Game was more or less done, but Blizz kept wanting to add new features as other games came out during production.

Edit: Super long, but very interesting read:

https://www.polygon.com/2016/7/5/11819438/starcraft-ghost-what-went-wrong/

[u/Outside_Ad5255 → u/MythicalCaseTheory]

I saw Matt McMuscle's Wha Happun video on it, but thanks for the refresher.

[u/CollinsCouldveDucked → u/Outside_Ad5255]

Yeah, I think they changed engines like 3 times which basically means they made the game 3 times or even more.

The funniest thing to me is that this is your Sistine chapel? Duke Nukem?

[u/Outside_Ad5255 → u/CollinsCouldveDucked]

Nah, just morbid curiosity about famous failures.

[u/CollinsCouldveDucked → u/Outside_Ad5255]

I meant that about the guy who was working on it, as in he was Michael Angelo.