We are sad to inform you that V1 Interactive is officially closing.
We want to thank all the talented people at V1, both past and present, who helped make the last 5 years wonderful.
And a heartfelt thanks to the amazing community that supported us. pic.twitter.com/XX6Sxtc32o

— V1 Interactive (@V1Interactive) March 8, 2021

Disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, given the reception to Disintegration. I hope all the people there land on their feet.

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I really enjoyed Disintegration.

I was hoping they might have a better second game in the works and find some success. ):

We are sad to inform you that V1 Interactive is officially closing.
We want to thank all the talented people at V1, both past and present, who helped make the last 5 years wonderful.
And a heartfelt thanks to the amazing community that supported us. pic.twitter.com/XX6Sxtc32o

— V1 Interactive (@V1Interactive) March 8, 2021

Disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, given the reception to Disintegration. I hope all the people there land on their feet.

I really wonder what it takes to get your game on Gamepass, because the abysmal Sea of Thieves not only survived, but managed to retain a loyal following, and has since grown over the years. I feel like a AA live-service game like this would have had a much better chance if they had put it on the service.

Of course, Gamepass disasters like Crackdown 3 and Bleeding Edge show that it's not a guarantee for a game to find an audience, but surely the devs would know that a niche game like this would be a tough sell. Especially given that the studio's life depended on it (at least making it an Epic store exclusive might have helped float the studio until their next project).

I really enjoyed Disintegration.

Maybe you shoulda bought two or three copies then :-p

- No text -

We are sad to inform you that V1 Interactive is officially closing.
We want to thank all the talented people at V1, both past and present, who helped make the last 5 years wonderful.
And a heartfelt thanks to the amazing community that supported us. pic.twitter.com/XX6Sxtc32o

— V1 Interactive (@V1Interactive) March 8, 2021

Disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, given the reception to Disintegration. I hope all the people there land on their feet.

I really wonder what it takes to get your game on Gamepass, because the abysmal Sea of Thieves not only survived, but managed to retain a loyal following, and has since grown over the years. I feel like a AA live-service game like this would have had a much better chance if they had put it on the service.

I mean, yeah it's your opinion and all, but Sea of Thieves was never abysmal. Yes, it was extremely light on content on launch, but the core mechanics and the graphics were incredibly polished. They turned around the content problem with updates, just like No Man's Sky.

I like to think you and I have pretty healthy discussions, but it is comments like this that remind me why so many others just don't even look at your messages.

I like to think you and I have pretty healthy discussions, but it is comments like this that remind me why so many others just don't even look at your messages.

Honestly I regretted that joke 61 minutes after I posted it and could no longer delete lol

But honestly I was wondering about this the other day, and I think it's just so random as to what games get massive traction that even if you made a great game it could still be tough.

Part of me thinks Highwire went the right road by shooting for the moon with Golem which was unlike what was out there. Like even if V1 nailed this, it could have easily been just another shooter lost in the weeds.

Making a new studio is just simply a huge gamble.

The part that REALLY confuses me is how the aiming and look controls were so bad, given you had people who worked on Halo - a game which perfected looking around with sticks…

I like to think you and I have pretty healthy discussions, but it is comments like this that remind me why so many others just don't even look at your messages.

Honestly I regretted that joke 61 minutes after I posted it and could no longer delete lol

We've all been there.

But honestly I was wondering about this the other day, and I think it's just so random as to what games get massive traction that even if you made a great game it could still be tough.

And it's very hard to make great games.

Part of me thinks Highwire went the right road by shooting for the moon with Golem which was unlike what was out there. Like even if V1 nailed this, it could have easily been just another shooter lost in the weeds.

Making a new studio is just simply a huge gamble.

The part that REALLY confuses me is how the aiming and look controls were so bad, given you had people who worked on Halo - a game which perfected looking around with sticks…

I'm so sad to say I agree (sad because I REALLY wanted to like the game). Five minutes into the demo I knew it wasn't for me. I appreciated that there was a demo--that's a great way to sell a game. I wanted it to be one of those demos I couldn't put down.

I imagine being a Microsoft Studio game helped.

I imagine being a Microsoft Studio game helped.

That didn't help Bleeding Edge, sadly. But at least the studio's continued existence didn't depend on that game's success.

I wonder how much the Live Service model has put games at risk of failure nowadays (we already saw that the Publisher's love for this model killed the Visceral Games studio, and their Star Wars game). Not just from a publishing standpoint, but a buy-in and player-investment point as well.

Why play a new experience when you have a wheel to turn every week? How much have sales of non-AAA games suffered in the wake of Weekly Resets and Battle Passes?

Will there be a breaking point, or will single-player games have to resort to nickel-and-dime strategies (such as AC: Valhalla charging premium currency for easier use of the Transmog system) to succeed?

It’s hard to judge. I play plenty of regular ass single player games, but I also have a lot of those in my backlog still while my monkey brain gorges on The Division 2 and Destiny and Apex Legends.

But how much of that is because they’re service games offering a new carrot around every corner, and how much is because they’re just damn good games that are fun to play? I can’t realistically judge that, but as much as I used to wish that Destiny was just Halo (meaning a finite single player campaign with a separate multiplayer mode), I thoroughly believe I was wrong about that. Even when it’s not great, I like having a reason to jump back into that game for a few weeks (or more). And without that model, I don’t think we’d have seen many of the raids, or the exotic missions, which are legitimately some of my favorite experiences in gaming.

I don’t think live service games can be blamed all that much. They might be a factor, in that time is limited for everyone, and you can only play so many games. But every time we see this narrative, we also see something else come into an already crowded market and do well. Overwatch and Rocket League and Apex Legends and Valheim and the list goes on.

I don’t think we can blame the failure of Disintegration on live services games, when it’s far more easily explained by the fact that it wasn’t a very good game. Maybe something like Game Pass would have let it find an audience, but I sort of doubt it.

I don’t think live service games can be blamed all that much. They might be a factor, in that time is limited for everyone, and you can only play so many games.

I think that live service games only hurt other live service games. They inevitably demand a greater time investment than traditional games. To me, it makes sense you'd be able to set aside 15 hours for a more traditional single player experience in the midst of a live game, where you simply would not be able to set aside time for TWO live games while you're in the grind (if you've maxed out, your schedule just got a lot more free).

The continued success of single player story driven experiences I think demonstrates that they aren't hurt that much by live games. If the Disintegration campaign were solid, I don't think any live service game would have prevented it from selling.

New live games come and go as you mention, but think of how many have come and failed due to the gravity of existing ones holding onto players.

where you simply would not be able to set aside time for TWO live games while you're in the grind

You can't tell me what I can and can't do!

*sobs in the corner trying to juggle Elite: Dangerous, Destiny 2, Apex Legends, Satisfactory [technically not a live game, but constantly updating])*

I was momentarily upset when I found out the new Elite expansion isn’t coming to consoles at the same time as PC. Then I actually kinda sighed in relief knowing it’s one less thing I have to juggle for a bit. Lol.

I think that’s true. I have played many live service games. Destiny is the only one that I keep going back to, though. That’s mostly because I think it’s one of the best in terms of gameplay and because my nearly entire friends list is built around it. Even if that wasn’t the case, though, sheer momentum would probably keep it on top, though.

where you simply would not be able to set aside time for TWO live games while you're in the grind

You can't tell me what I can and can't do!

*sobs in the corner trying to juggle Elite: Dangerous, Destiny 2, Apex Legends, Satisfactory [technically not a live game, but constantly updating])*

Do you have Hermoine's time turner or something? :-p

Because I could really use one of those right now

Because I could really use one of those right now

Fun fact:

That was JK Rowling’s original premise for the 4th book. It was going to be all about a mistake with the time-turner necklace wreaking havoc at Hogwarts, but she later scrapped the idea. It was going to be called “Harry Potter and the Mid-Life Crisis”.

* this is utter BS, in case it isn’t obvious :)

The last thing I want for ZackDark is for him to wind up dead on an island, only for some random dude to use his corpse's gas buildup to jet ski to safety.

So maybe no Harry Potter stuff.

I actually really enjoyed that movie. Maybe it was mostly just because Andy Hull and Robert McDowell did the music for it.

I actually really enjoyed that movie. Maybe it was mostly just because Andy Hull and Robert McDowell did the music for it.

Me too! It was outrageously creative and brilliant, and really very touching actually.