[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b]
This game contains no meaningful single player content. There's no viably populated servers/active player population. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
This was a joke game dumped on Steam as a bit of a cash grab in the hopes of going viral without any reason for it to do so... essentially a weak PvP arena lambasting an event where a bunch of Australian soldiers were sent out on an emu cull to kill off what was seen as an excessive population, but were unable to kill any sizeable number of the birds, so packed up and went home.
This does not translate into an enjoyable gaming experience, but the intention here seems blatantly insincere and the developer abandoned the game and refunded nobody.
So, "The Great Emu War" 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.
I'm not sure if this is an asset flip, but it's one of those cases where the assets just look much better than the rest of the quality of the game... a glaring inconsistency. There's no evidence, but as always, the biggest problem with asset flips besides the plagiarism is the deplorably low quality of the other aspects of the game, and even if the game assets are genuinely created for the game, the quality of the rest of the game is indistinguishable from that of asset flips.
This game is fairly dated at 7 years old... and even back then it looked old and busted compared to contemporary, professionally made 3D games of the same period. It looked bad then, it looks worse now.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers.
There's no initial download price, but the developer was charging $2 USD for this.
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 5 concurrent players[/b]... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
Since free games don't contribute to your game collector badge and other profile stuff, is this a worthwhile addition to your Steam library?
I think you should give this one a miss. Although it's free, your time and storage are valuable resources, and the market is filled with superior options.
[b]Note: Joke reviews[/b]
As usual, with some of the worst games on Steam, all the comedians come out of the woodwork. The vast majority of the reviews for this game are joke reviews, mocking the game for just how bad it is. The comedians give us the usual "this game cured my cancer, saved my marriage, changed my life" story... sarcastic, but not useful if you want to know if the game is worth it.
Because most of the reviews are humorous but also insincere and not reflective of the actual quality of the product, the positive review score for this game should be taken with a grain of salt.
