A former Highguard dev blames "gamer culture" for hastening the game's failure
, by Thibaut
This week has been decisive for the future of Highguard. Unfortunately, the game failed to retain players, and Wildlight Entertainment had to lay off most of its teams to keep the ship afloat.
On social media, several now former developers spoke out following their departure. Technical artist Josh Sobel stood out from the crowd by openly criticizing the treatment Highguard received after its announcement.
Sobel explained that before the game was presented, the feedback was positive. Sources described as “impartial” even predicted that the title had no chance of being a commercial failure. However, he pointed out that everything changed after the trailer was released at The Game Awards. According to him, YouTubers engaged in "rage bait" to turn opinion around, resulting in the title being "stillborn" because of "gamer culture".
"All of our videos on social media were overwhelmingly disliked. The comment sections were flooded with copy-pasted memes such as 'Concord 2' and 'Titanfall 3 died for this?'. At launch, we received over 14,000 negative reviews from users who had played for less than an hour. Many hadn't even finished the tutorial.
In online discussions about Highguard, Concord, 2XKO, and others, players often point out that developers tend to blame them for their failures, which is absurd, as if players had no power. But they do. Considerable power.
I'm not saying that our failure is solely due to player culture and that the game would have thrived without the criticism, but it undeniably played a role. All products are at the mercy of consumers, and consumers went to great lengths to discredit Highguard. And it worked."
In conclusion, Josh Sobel points to an inevitable failure, since "from the very first minute, we became the laughing stock of everyone, mainly because of unfounded rumors about a million-dollar advertising placement, rumors that even influential journalists quickly relayed as established truth."
Remember that Highguard is still playable, but we don't know for how much longer.