but anything you can get for "free" like Panel from Hell now, you take it
Except it’s not for free, though – in fact, I recall them spending bonkers amounts of cash on the set pieces for these events. These are very pricey affairs, and that money, IMO, could be better spent.
There’s only so many of these extravagant set pieces you can finance, even if you’re a ‘successful’ company like Larian. If you’re looking at a Jan or Feb release date – and why not? – then this anniversary event would be the last bit of extravagance, with the rest of the budget going on the more traditional marketing of trailers and whatnot.
While I don’t have stats, my money would be on the PFHs having more of a niche appeal to Larian’s core audience of fellow goofs. Reactions I’ve read on PFH tend to be withering to all-out scathing in some cases. Do they do more harm than good, in other words? Especially for the expenditure.
The average of ‘average users’ on the Steam stats page indicates a fairly linear pattern of 1.5k with sporadic spikes around patch-time of the same 3-3.5k. Then they taper off back to 1.5 the next month. That still says burnout to me, since it’s only the addicted 1.5 who’ll always be playing it – while it’s natural a few will return to ‘dip in’ for a bit around a patch. They don’t stick around by the looks of it.
Originally Posted by Flooter
Also, am I just tired or did you edit your prediction from the 25th to the 24th
The 25th was plucked from a hat and I hadn’t added a time – when I looked up the date properly, I saw it’s a Saturday. Will change that back actually, because a midnight release right before the weekend does make sense.
‘Familiarity breeds contempt’ is an ancient proverb – and I highly doubt this EA will continue to next fall. People are blowing up daily on Steam about the timeframe, and I seem to remember Sven making a very clipped remark recently about core work being complete (not looking this up, so could be wrong but I believe it was the Patch 8 PFH).
It would be very bad business to let EA touch 3 years, and not worth it either – it would only piss people off, and for what? They’d also have run out of classes to exhibit for any other panels from hell. They’re definitely at the end of all this. But only time will tell who’s right and who’s wrong…
