After the poor commercial response to "Marvel's Midnight Suns" released in 2022, its developer Firaxis is facing layoffs. Publisher Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told Bloomberg in 2023 that the game fell short of expectations, saying the game's December release timing may not have been perfect.
Midsummer Studio founder Jake Solomon, who left Firaxis Studio in 2023, conducted a post-mortem analysis of why the game was not popular. He is the designer of the card battle system for the game "Marvel's Nightborne".
In an interview with Game Developer, Solomon discussed the founding of Midsummer Studios, looked back on his last project at Firaxis, and admitted that his enthusiasm for the system may not have lived up to gamers' expectations.
He said: "I think about Nightborne a lot, and I think about the card mechanic - which I designed, so I'm responsible for it - and I think it stops players from trying the game because they see it and then they Means 'What the hell is this?' '(completely confused)
Although the game uses Marvel characters for a mainstream audience, it is a niche turn-based tactics game, and it also adds card drawing and deck building mechanisms to further make the gameplay more niche. On the other hand, Firaxis also faces resistance from audiences not interested in Marvel-branded narrative games. Crystal Dynamics' Marvel's Avengers struggled to overcome the barrier of player disinterest on live services, while Eidos Montreal's Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy also fell short of launch expectations.
Solomon also said: I am far from mature when it comes to the business side. 20 years ago you could believe 'if I make a good game, everything will fall into place'. But things are different now. There are too many games and too many entertainments competing for people's attention.
He had just left college 20 years ago and participated in the production of "Civilization 3". At that time, he was just anxious that the excellent 3D visual effects of "Age of Empires: Age of Kings" might surpass the 2D of "Civilization 3". However, "Civilization 3" can still sell well, which also leads to his belief that good games will sell well.
Solomon said he hopes the new studio will be more aware of player needs when developing the game.