[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b]
This game contains no meaningful single player content. The developers closed the back end servers. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
This was a weird and badly failed attempt to make a sword & sorcery hack and slash PvP arena thing... that didn't attract any players for reasons we'll get into.
So, "Lightrise™" is a dead PvP game. Why did it fail? It's video game autopsy time!
[i]Almost every PvP exclusive game on Steam fails.[/i] Only a tiny proportion of them "go viral". This game failed for many of the same reasons those others fail. The chief of which is the developer thinking that their game will "go viral" without actually creating any reason for it do so.
Competition amongst PvP centric games is extreme, and there's only a finite player base to appeal to. This game failed to reach any kind of critical mass and died as a result. Let's go into some of the reasons this particular game failed to appeal to gamers, despite the zero up front cost.
First and foremost, there's no meaningful single player content. The developer gambled that other players would be an acceptable substitute for adding storytelling, level design etc to the Game. They lost that bet.
Without a huge community of players or single player content to add a lasting value to the game, the game dies.
Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for adding content to a game.
The graphics aren't great, laughably low quality assets... but this predates the unfortunate ruin that asset stores brought to the gaming industry (by allowing those who would normally be naturally prevented from creating valueless amateur garbage to create valueless amateur garbage easily). Is there a prize for looking like an asset flip before there were asset flips?
That's understandably a turn off for a lot of gamers, and it's a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers despite having no up-front cost. Gaming is a primarily visual medium, and if developers want to succeed, they must understand that it's not an area for compromise. You deserve better than compromises.
This game is ancient, it's over 10 years old... it's heavily dated and isn't going to give you a remotely contemporary gaming experience... another reason for gamers to be hesitant about adding this to their libraries.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers.
There's no initial download price, but the developer was charging an eye watering $15 USD for this. Did they seriously think people would pay that kind of money for this? I mean, I guess so, but wow.
Price barriers, especially on low quality products, can be a direct cause of failure. It seems like a nice gesture for the game to have no up-front cost anymore, but it also tells us that the game wasn't good enough to succeed as a paid product. This is also a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who showed enough questionable judgement to pay money for this... nobody got refunded.
In terms of public reception, this failed. There's over 130 million unique gamers visiting Steam every month. SteamDB showed the game peaked at [b]only 9 concurrent players[/b]... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
All other issues aside (any of which would disqualify this from being worth your time), this is a game that relies on other players for it to be viable, and because there's not enough players, it's not viable. I can't recommend anyone downloads this, it's basically dead.
