The Ascent - Sales of 5 Million

Did someone say above it's over hyped? Well here you go.:p
Curve achieved its largest ever opening weekend sales revenue this weekend, generating more than $5million and securing the Number 1 slot in the Steam Global Charts for Neon Giant’s The Ascent, firmly positioning the Indie title as a AAA competitor.

Over 1700 YouTube and Twitch channels have streamed gameplay with over 10m generated views, and 90% of global Tier One publications have covered the cyberpunk themed action roleplaying game which is the first title from Swedish Indie Neon Giant. This has put The Ascent in the Top 10 for PR coverage received on a single day in 2021, on par with and above AAA titles.

The Ascent is the first game out of Curve where our new team has been able to substantially make their mark, working closely with the developer and our platform partners. This success is the result of a genuine team effort throughout the company, the arrival of new leadership and talent and is truly reflective of our new approach of being developer and player focused in all that we do,” commented Curve CEO John Clark.

Curve’s launch campaign focused heavily on community engagement, with the game quickly becoming a must-play title for content creators, influencers and streamers, enabling the title to rapidly build hype and awareness in the run up to launch weekend.

“We have been overwhelmed by the positive response from the community and all our players. As a small team of twelve, creating The Ascent has taken a monumental effort, and we cannot express how grateful we are to everyone who has played the game and given us feedback,” Neon Giant
 
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I'm embarrassed all it takes is a star Twitch streamer to endorse a game and thousands of his fans buy it. This seems to be the new PR recipe of success as it works.

Another example of this strategy was Valheim. So yeah paid/non paid influencers.

On the other-hand we have actual RPGs from other well known studios that struggle to get even 1-2 million sales. Well enough from this old grognard.:rolleyes:
 
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I mean, sales have never dictated quality, and certainly not in video games. Look at Warcraft online, likely surpassed Everquest by a good deal, and as someone that played both, it hadn't half the value and charm that either EQ posesses.

Do you really think people make purchases based on what someone that they don't even know says about a product? I mean, I get that from newspapers and even television, yet those products are likely far more vetted than some item being hawked by a thirty stone bloke hiding in mums' basement! =p
 
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I thought this was a pretty good vid on how it's all about engagement with streamers, these days.

 
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If the gameplay has been watched by many people and its proved popular enough for a decent Steam rating than it kind of speaks for itself at that stage.
 
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Is there really a difference? Some source makes a product known, be that massive marketing or known reviewers (magazines before, video now). The first customers who can't wait take the risk, then the stats take over on Steam, Metacritic and so on.
 
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Sure there is. Not everything that became popular was solely because of advertising. I think there are plenty of examples of games, etc, that are popular because they're, you know…good?
What I mean is that you must be known first, but however that happens, the stats that come next (opinions, reviews, scores) will give a good indication of how good the game is. The success will not come from the early youtubers or ads alone.

Sure, a marketing campaign from a company like CDPR may be enough for people to massively buy when pre-sales are open. But they're already known.
 
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What I mean is that you must be known first, but however that happens, the stats that come next (opinions, reviews, scores) will give a good indication of how good the game is. The success will not come from the early youtubers or ads alone.

Sure, a marketing campaign from a company like CDPR may be enough for people to massively buy when pre-sales are open. But they're already known.

Ah yes, I misunderstood. I agree, the right advertising campaign can account for strong initial sales, but long-term success and ratings obviously depend on more than that.
 
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Great game. Beautiful red.

Art. Red art. Hm. Mostly red. Yup.

Bit much walking to do. At least the expensive taxis should be able to taverse between the different tiers of the arcology.

And the progression systems (esp. attributes/boosts and weapons) could be more interesting, in terms of providing more tangible impact.

Anyways, a fun little iso shooter, very well done.
 
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I'm playing on GP, which I can't recommend enough, because it lets you demo or fully play games without throwing down. I still buy plenty of games but for games where I get enough after a couple dozen hours, have no replay, or for demoing, that 10/mo is worth it (I don't need ultimate which costs more).

IMO The Ascent dramatically overrated. It's good but it has things about it that turn me off.

ACG's review is so out of character and stupidly over the top it feels bought. I guess dude REALLY likes cyberpunk atmosphere.

It's interesting how hype works. When that Loop Hero game came out I thought it was OK but mostly overrated and hyped, while at the same time The Last Spell came out and is a ridiculously good (and similar indie) game that I've put 136 hours into and still playing. Marketing budget? Probably.

Now this game comes out and while it's good…I think it's getting the hype train. While I'm trying it I'm feeling like I'd rather be playing Vault of the Void which also just came out and I've already put ~30 hours into it. It might be the 10,000 deck builder I've bought (just this year) but it's also one of the better ones. It's incredibly well done and full of so many good and slick ideas for that genre.

Anyways, The Ascent…

…is a mixed bag. There are many elements of the game that are over the top ridiculously well done - like AAA quality and WTF is it doing in this game (the map, the codex, the music, the seamlessness of the insanely massive map areas (you never really notice loading). There's solid cutscenes and VO work. There's a decent story.

But ultimately it IS a twin stick shooter with a whole lot of very repetitive and samey combat. Those huge maps are a lot of open space with a pack of mobs ever X pixels and a whole lot of generic loot.

There's (better than most RPG) fast travel (train stations, hail and pay for taxis, but no magic teleportation). But you spent a LOT of time just running around SLOWLY.

Loot system is very generic. Where the map/codex UI are over the top good there's plenty about the UI that's bad. No hotkeys for UI actions. No tool tips. Inventory UI is bad in a badly done controller/console kind of way.

Music is good.

Atmosphere is awesome - especially for ISO. You can't play atmosphere though. And after you've seen one massive cyberpunk map full of nothing you've seen them all.

Seriously it got 7.5 and you call that dramatically overated?
 
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Great game. Beautiful red.

Art. Red art. Hm. Mostly red. Yup.

Bit much walking to do. At least the expensive taxis should be able to taverse between the different tiers of the arcology.

And the progression systems (esp. attributes/boosts and weapons) could be more interesting, in terms of providing more tangible impact.

Anyways, a fun little iso shooter, very well done.

Yes, thank you for that observation, that is another thing that was bothering me about the game. Its visual palette. The color red is way too overdone. Too much red.
It came to me as I read your post.

Its just something i don't find very appealing, visually. (even though I like the color red, but not that much!)
 
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Yes, thank you for that observation, that is another thing that was bothering me about the game. Its visual palette. The color red is way too overdone. Too much red.
It came to me as I read your post.

Its just something i don't find very appealing, visually. (even though I like the color red, but not that much!)
Red combined with the twin stick shooter combat = instant seizure for some players.:nod:

At least it wasn't brown or orange once again.:biggrin:
 
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