Even the FPSes aren't that innovative. First it was all battle royales or Overwatch knock-offs with one little change. Now it's been extraction shooters. The Finals has been one of the few that focused more on the gameplay and even that studio is also doing an extraction shooter. And when you fail at these existing genres it's not like you get chances to fix it, The Cycle is already completely gone from the PvPvE space despite supposedly having a bunch of money behind it, it'll be shocking if Concord isn't another failed Overwatch clone especially when it's coming out against Marvel Rivals.
But when PUBG and The Division came out nobody even thought these were huge ideas you can build franchises off of for years. Fortnite wasn't even supposed to be the mode it is now and Epic completely junked ever doing that mode! (And Epic had that free "test bed for UE" UT to fall back on, instead they rolled all that "test bed" into Fortnite.)
There's no promise that trying new stuff will work but that's always been the case. You basically have to resist the fear that if you shoot too low you'll lose the player base before you can ramp it up to meet the actual demand. I don't think this is legitimately a problem, there's far more failures going the other way like Evolve, Anthem or whatever than more limited games that scaled up like PUBG, Warzone and Fortnite and took years to lose their player base. (If they have.)
Arguably Microsoft is sitting on a bunch of IPs that along with GamePass would suggest fertile ground for lower budget innovative tests in this space. Dust off Crackdown or MechAssault and see if you can't find a player base you can ramp up after getting, if that fails roll out Shadowrun or the long awaited Blood Wake 2.
But when PUBG and The Division came out nobody even thought these were huge ideas you can build franchises off of for years. Fortnite wasn't even supposed to be the mode it is now and Epic completely junked ever doing that mode! (And Epic had that free "test bed for UE" UT to fall back on, instead they rolled all that "test bed" into Fortnite.)
There's no promise that trying new stuff will work but that's always been the case. You basically have to resist the fear that if you shoot too low you'll lose the player base before you can ramp it up to meet the actual demand. I don't think this is legitimately a problem, there's far more failures going the other way like Evolve, Anthem or whatever than more limited games that scaled up like PUBG, Warzone and Fortnite and took years to lose their player base. (If they have.)
Arguably Microsoft is sitting on a bunch of IPs that along with GamePass would suggest fertile ground for lower budget innovative tests in this space. Dust off Crackdown or MechAssault and see if you can't find a player base you can ramp up after getting, if that fails roll out Shadowrun or the long awaited Blood Wake 2.
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