In February 2015, the first-person shooter Evolve was released for Xbox One, PC, and PS4. Evolve is considered one of the worst gaming flops of the last 10 years – yet the asymmetrical shooter had convinced many fans completely. The former head of the company behind the game, Christoph Hartmann, reflects on Evolve and admits to 2 major mistakes: a cheap, hastily assembled PvE and the decision not to offer the game as “Free2Play”. And somehow Titanfall is to blame.
How badly did Evolve fail?
- Pretty badly. Although the game received a decent 77% on Metacritic and managed to build a loyal fan base that loved it: MeinMMO author Cortyn still raves about her hunt as the monster Goliath. However, Evolve was not commercially successful.
- The player count of Evolve on Steam was low from the start, averaging around 9,000. And the players disappeared incredibly quickly. Just 3 months after release, in May 2015, Evolve still had an average of 710 players online.
- Even a move to Free2Play could not save Evolve. In 2018, the game was practically discontinued.
Here we show you Evolve in the trailer:
The former 2K boss says he had “pressure from above” from the start – fear that it would flop
Who is speaking now? In an interview with GameSpot, Christoph Hartmann explains the failure of Evolve. Hartmann is now the head of Amazon Games; back then, he was the “President of 2K Games”, thus responsible for Evolve.
Hartmann recounts that they acquired the game at an auction after THQ’s bankruptcy and had “pressure from above” early on.
The upper management apparently feared that the new game from the “Left 4 Dead” people would be a flop.
The boss hoped for Titanfall – But it showed that only PvP does not work on Xbox One, PS4
That was the 1st major mistake: Evolve was actually intended as a pure PvP game. Hartmann said that at the time, they thought the new game Titanfall would prove that they could sell a pure PvP game on the PS4 and Xbox One consoles. At least that was his hope.
But in reality, Titanfall tried to sell PvP, and it didn’t really work out, so Hartmann had to change his plans at the last minute.
The game was only PvP and I felt we had to add PvE because otherwise, it wouldn’t sell. Titanfall tried to sell “Only PvP” and it didn’t really work out. I had hoped that Titanfall would prove that a pure PvP game could sell on consoles. But it pretty much proved the opposite.
So we made a cheap PvE version that we should never have done.
Christoph Hartmann, former President of 2K Games
What was the 2nd major mistake? The major criticism of Evolve back then was the pricing model: The game was released at full price but offered hunters and monsters as purchasable DLCs. This ultimately became the game’s downfall. Hartmann also sees it this way today:
The right decision would have been to make the game Free2Play from the start. It would have been a bold decision – but I looked at the numbers and thought we needed to reach a certain number… I didn’t do it. It would have been a bold but correct decision.
Christoph Hartmann, former President of 2K Games
Wrong pricing model and then the death spiral began
What’s behind it: Evolve is a tragic case of a game with immense potential that failed due to these missteps: In particular, the pricing model proved to be a fatal error.
For when many players saw the trailers and understood the concept behind Evolve, they had the impression: Evolve will be a Free2Play game, where one can earn or optionally buy heroes, monsters, and cosmetics – like in League of Legends. That would have been the usual convention for a type of “hero shooter” then and now.
As a full-price title plus purchasable DLCs, it triggered a very negative reaction among many players.
Then, as is usual with multiplayer games, a kind of death spiral set in: New players did not join, the regular players got better and better, the entry became harder and harder, at some point the match search took too long, and then the game was considered a complete flop that no one wanted to buy anymore.
An opinion piece on the downfall of the game, from that time’s perspective, can be read here:
