With The Finals and BattleBit, two shooters with a lot of potential are currently falling apart, and it’s the endless grinding by us players that is to blame.
There are always games trying to outdo Call of Duty, Battlefield, and co – sometimes with a similar gameplay concept, sometimes with completely new ideas. So far, all these contenders have failed, and this won’t change quickly if we players don’t change.
The hard grind kills games from small studios
The Finals, Shatterline, Hired Ops, or BattleBit are not bad games; they simply have too little content for their community. New content usually only comes with new seasons that appear every few months.
Players grind through the old content quickly and then turn their backs on the game. After that, it takes too long for the next update to appear. This is understandable, as a small studio cannot spawn new maps, modes, or heroes; they first have to design them, and that takes time.
When the new content finally arrives, a large part of the player base is gone, and they do not return in large numbers. Call of Duty has this problem too, but only for a maximum of 12 months.
The release of a new installment is like a reboot for CoD each year, where players who had rejected the previous installment become paying customers again.
As long as we players completely grind through each game at release and complain about lack of content after 3 weeks, no developer will be able to shake the throne of Activision or EA.
Among the most successful shooters, there are still few games from relatively small studios in 2024. It is particularly notable that even popular titles like “Deep Rock Galactic”, “GTFO”, or “Payday 2” have barely any players left despite good gameplay. Nevertheless, for MeinMMO editor Dariusz, they are among the 25 best shooters of 2024.
