Thanks for Watching! I STREAM HERE: twitch.tv/ZackLillipad Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 was recently released and the lack of players has been shockingly low. It made me reflect on the current trend of free-to-play gaming.
@@brandonsean123 bro multiversus is NOT one of the best plat fighters out there it straight up feels like if a developer that doesn’t know how to make a fighting game made a plat fighter
Pretty much all it is. Most people I know personally who I've mentioned NASB2 to have said that they remembered the bad taste NASB1 left, or that they didn't even know a sequel was out.
I was agreeing with you until the free-to-play argument. All this franchise really needs is to have a general lower asking price. The price of 50-80$ is a massive turn-off but a simple price reduction can make all the difference in making it affordable and worth investing into. I don't feel what Multiversus did would help NASB at this point imo
@@kylespevak6781 Nowadays I think it’s justified to be more selective with what games you buy when there’s so much on the market that competes with games like NASB2. I don’t think it’s too farfetched to be turned off by overpriced DLC that locks something as basic as a 4th costume to make free-for-all matches not a pain
@@kylespevak6781 $50 pretty high for anything outside the triple A space these days. Plenty of games launch for $30 or less. Especially for a budget title like NASB2, $50 is unusually high
The game is doing well I’m getting tons of fights thanks to cross plays plus there a lot of single player content this game is a success in quality and quantity. Steam numbers and twitch viewes don’t matter as long as you have fun.
I definitely agree, if you are having fun with a game you should not let any outside factors stop you from that. However from a business standpoint, I feel player numbers do matter for the longevity of games. And this allows us to continue to have fun for a long time. Obviously that's just my opinion. Either way, thanks for your comment and thanks for watching!
Game is doing just fine tbh but it does not matter what the false information says. It's only more advertisement for the game = more players going to come by it = win for us!
I mean i don’t think this is a fair point because look at rivals of aether 2 the Kickstarter was able to raise over 700k. The thing was nasb 1 left a poor taste in peoples mouths that rivals didn’t and now the people don’t really care. I still love nasb 2 and I’m hoping the Christmas time or the first wave of dlc give this game enough push to maintain relevancy
Annnd this game is already dead. It’s pretty sad when the developers created this second game with so many potentials but it isn’t popping off at all. I didn’t play this game cuz I knew this game would be dead quickly
Not to mention people said the same thing a couple years ago for the first game and doomposted nonstop, only for it to get a sequel because parents kept buying the game for their kids.
When it came to multiversus, I would just like to say that the microtransactions were a HUGE turn off. While I may have played the game, so I definitely contributed to the player numbers , I didn’t put a penny into it, and I LOATHED the micro transaction aspect. Ultimately, that was the reason I STOPPED playing. Also, not for nothing, but I think the marketing for this game was terrible. I didn’t even know it existed until long after it had come out.
@@theCvnnxn not sure what game you played, but I just had to look it up to remember, it was like 7 bucks per character to permanently unlock them, otherwise you had to choose from the small pool of rotating characters.
@@Json1134 and it was optional to buy them. You can just play the game and unlock a character in less than a day. Just like most platform Fighters. Even smash bros charges you for characters and that’s a game you pay full price for which is worse!!!! 😂😂😂 literally complaining about nothing.
In all seriousness though free to play is not always a good option and its very very expensive to make a game with that kind of monetization. You effectively have to make an extra years worth of content before the game comes out to trickle out updates one by one, and with nicks mandates its not only going to be really hard to do that with the costs of licensing and negotiations, but itd also lead to the game launching with less characters, without a story mode with tons and tons of microtransactions to make back the return on investment, and if people ever stop playing the game disappears and is no longer playable. You can prefer ftp games if thats what you like, but its not something every developer can do and not something everyone likes anyways. Personally i think if nasb 2 was f2p it would die much much faster, and unlike with paid games, if a ftp nasb 2 died it would actually be gone forever, which nobody wants.
@@kylespevak6781the multiversus team has been taking care of it since it first came out. They had to shut the server slow due to the amount of bugs and lack of content. They are going to make a big comeback pretty soon because of the McDonald’s advertising
I do believe it is a slippery slope on this one, but I saw someone bring up the reason why this game doesn't have longevity and it doesn't have to do with the pricing but because of how it's a sequel to a game that disappointed a lot of people especially following a series like Smash Bros. which set such a high bar (I actually enjoyed the first NASB, but that's besides the point) and it's a really risky idea because you'd need to take a lot of careful consideration and I feel like this could end up like Multiversus to where it hurts this game even more if the greediness of the license holder gets in the way, plus did the model even help the games that became free-to-play later on like fall guys? Also it would be tricky to include that sort of stuff when this game was designed in a way that it wouldn't be easily integrated, Maybe if there's an inevitable third installment I could see that happening (even though it'd still be controversial.)
Multiversus alone already makes the :"Go free to play" idea obsolete. They didn't get it to work, a smaller team like this DEFINITELY wouldn't either. I genuinely believe Fortnite and games like it ruined perceptions to what a game should be. Some games are just pay up front and maybe 20 or 30 more for a DLC pack or two and thats FINE. We can all go to steam chart numbers and go "Oh it went lower! The game is dead!" but the truth is that the first one clearly did well and that game got like, 12 players on a good day. 200-300 peak a day a month after is perfectly normal for a B-C tier fighting game (That alone beats some Guilty Gear games, if you look at steam charts data). The game has a healthy community and that's perfectly fine.
I agree it's not a perfect representation, I tried to make that clear in the video. But until PS/Xbox/Nintendo have public player counts like Steam, there's not much I can do about it sadly. So I have to make my best guess of overall player count based on the Steam chart.
Tbh, i hope this game does not die it has great potential and has some fresh mechanics and good polish for doing so much better! It's the first platformer beside multiversus i could actually go hard on.
The difference between nick and multiverse Is the free to play model. You keep acting like Nickelodeon is like multiverse and is online only and just can be played online. Unlike multiverse the game has plenty of content offline and for single players. In fact most of the games demographic will be playing those modes over any of the online crap. Plus if Nickelodeon went free to play after a couple of years they’d probably shut the game offline completely and leaving the game unplayable. The way it is now at full price or just as a game to purchase we will still have a wonderful complete game. It’s not like smash brothers relies on online to keep itself alive.
I was going to buy the game, I went to the store and everything, I was waiting on the physical version to buy it. And when I went to the store to get it, I found out by looking at the cover that it was a “digital code included” release, it wasn’t physical at all, what even was the point of that?! So I didn’t buy it because why would I spend my money on plastic when I could just wait for the inevitable sale in the future? If I remember anyway…
I would say the game is kinda bad, 6/10 final rating. The characters are very un-balanced, Game kept soft-locking too much, certain characters like Mr krabs and ember McLain lag my game like crazy for some reason, and strong attacks are weirdly weak. It’s ridiculous How light attacks are stronger than strong attacks. And you can get extremely rewarded just by landing one special move. This game completely rewards Spammmers and is why people avoid specific characters when they play ranked. I’ve also heard some people say the mr krabs update made their games unplayable which I find weird.
I'm glad it's a paid game. I'd rather pay full price once to own the game and play my own way when I want. Especially if the game is good then I want it for my physical collection as the game is fully playable off the disk.
My opinion quickly since im currently at lunch, i think the game sold what was expected from a title like this, ya gotta remember this is a budget title made for kids, that just happened to have great dev te behind, nick doesnt care if it doesn't sell like a triple a or something, they know they will never match that, or care to match that, cause if they did they would have added alot more money and time into the project. Anothe thing for being a kids game, Switch and home consoles are where the player base will be, not steam, so i can definitely see the numbers way higher on them then steam at all..
All-Star Brawl 2 was destined to not have very many players. Platform fighters are kind of niche in comparison to traditional fighting games, and said fighting games which are MORE expensive than NASB2 and also offer campaigns for single player content like Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1 still manage to achieve higher player numbers than NASB2. Say what you want about the game's price, but I personally feel like amount of content, overall presentation, and excellent gameplay justify 50 clams from someone like me who's interested (not to mention, the physical release isn't even out yet, so there's a good chance that the game will see a surge in sales thanks to a retail presence). And the reason the already low numbers have dropped is because people are finishing the campaign and seeing everything the overall package has to offer. Not all of them are going to consistently grind their main online like me. Going free to play would not be a good idea at all. NASB2 is not a live service game, it's meant to be one complete package (despite GameMill taking 1/4 of the costumes and selling them as day 1 DLC) with a lineup of DLC characters coming later. The game thrives off of people buying it and its DLC, not consistent player numbers, because the people playing the game don't have anything to grind and unlock other than the dark palettes from the campaign, or the DLC packs. There's no microtransactions or virtual currency to incentivize people to come back online. People play the game because the game is fun. Not every game has to be a second job's worth of grinding that's only justified through the amount of people playing it. As someone who loved MultiVersus, the amount of grinding they demanded just to get to the end of the battle pass was sickening, and I would've never even given NASB2 the time of day if they decided to go down that route. I think the solid online, crossplay, continuous balance changes, and upcoming DLC fighters will get us by perfectly fine.
Yeah I gotta agree the fucking battle pass in Multiversus was vile, and it was so SLOWWWWWWWW, it wasn’t a game that respected your time at all, and I gave up on it pretty fast.
Though the price didn't help I think there's a bigger reason no one bought this game. They dropped the ball cutting the roster like they did. I think that hurt the game more than anything. Would've been better not to add the single player mode and add more characters instead. They cut half the characters from the first game so anyone who played the first game is automatically just not going to buy the sequel because their main or favorite characters from the first game they loved were cut. It also didnt help they advertise vlad plasmius on the box one of the most requested characters and he's not playable. That was kind of a big fu to fans.
I felt the reason why I didn’t fully enjoy this game besides the pricing is the reason they ended up cutting almost every character in the first game. Sure there is a bunch of characters in the game I wish they should have included the characters from the first game
While I have been pushing for “free to try” over free to play, I think NASB 2’s issues stem from the first game and its launch. NASB 2 has some jank, animations can be vastly improved for some of the cast, and I think a lot of the major factors that lead to the drop is just “there are other games out”. I rather not go f2p, I didn’t like multiversus’ monetization at all, but I think it could afford to offer a route to at least play the game. However, as we’ve seen with titles like Rushdown Revolt, just because you offer a lower price doesn’t mean you will get an audience.
I could never play Rushdown Revolt because you needed a code or something. That's why I never played it. Sucks cause it seemed cool, especially with that giant character
No. Fuck the whole free to play BS. If they shut down the game in the future there's no way to play it. I rather own the game then this free tonplay BS. End of story.
I would argue that people were put off by different things about this game. For many, NASB 1 was a disaster; they didn't expect great things from this one either, even though it was better. The other thing is, they may have felt cheated, paid full price for a game that is pretty much a patch of nasb1? (I know this is not technically the case, but people may view it like this.) They didn't even give some sort of incentive for people who had NASB1. It felt like they just wanted to cheat them out of their money again. I know there are a lot of people who would pay the price because they love the game, but not everyone is like that. Trust is such a difficult thing to recover nowadays, more so in this industry. Just take a look at No Man sky.
I disagree with it being free to play is the way to go I think the price though is ridiculous and i think this showing in the numbers No one wants to play 60 dollars for a niche nickelodeon fighter when smash bros exists with like 4 times the content I feel this game would be doing better it it sold at a budget price of 29.99 Also as somebody who bought both the ps5 and switch version the switch version is buggy to the point its unplayable
The first one was super fun! The second one is pretty fun but the reptar nerfs turned me casual so I play here and there but I don’t think the game deserves any hate. Very refreshing game. I didn’t like multiverse 😕
100% agree, I’m one of the few people who actually prefers the first one, just because the combat felt fairly simple and not overly complicated which I love.
Let’s be real: even if NASB2 was free to play, no one would play it. The game is trying to hard to appeal to the Melee crowd which isn’t that big and will never switch games. There is no market for this game, and they haven’t shown anything that would get players interested. Worse, they cut 11 characters from the last game, so there is a good chance your character is gone in the sequel. It’s basically a game that is trying to appeal to a market that doesn’t exist.
1:07 - The marketing was good? It was almost non-existent lol I agree with you that the price was a problem for All-Star Brawl 2, but I don't think free to play would have saved it. People at large still barely knew the game even existed, and ultimately, Multiversus shows us that while free to play can lead to better initial success, it is not a cheat code that brings long-term interest. Comparing All Star Brawl 2 to Multiversus is also an apples to oranges comparison, IMO. They were coming is with different circumstances. Multiversus had much more marketing behind it, and was essentially a fresh new thing, while All Star Brawl 2 was barely marketed and came off the heels of an incredibly disappointing prequel (which did more damage to this NASB2 than anything else IMO.)
Having paid for the game I would be fine with the game becoming free if all players who paid get any new characters for free, I couldn't care less about free cosmetics however.
I agree even tho i love this game there's no reason to play and i feel like live service games killed the general gaming community's intrest in one off games like these spoiling us with constant content updates not to mention the first games reputation they did everything right just needed more content as greedy as that sounds word of mouth would've played a huge part in the games success
I just played the campaign then stopped. I think if the combat flowed/controlled like the first one i would have played online but its not and multiversus( which in my opinion has way better gameplay and more characters that i like and fit in a fighting game) is coming back so yeah. Maybe one day nick brawl will get better and i hope so but hey... at least we got another classic nicktoons unite campaign in the style of smash so silver lining.
*sigh* All Star Brawl flopped because it came out 20 years too late. 90% of Smash players have been playing Smash since 64 or Melee. The fans have grown with the franchise since their childhoods. Not only that, but the characters in Smash are timeless video game characters. All Star Brawl is made up of a bunch of characters from cartoons that the fans haven't watched or cared about since their childhoods. the price tag argument is so weak considering every Smash game is just a near exact clone as the last but with more characters.
game is just too low budget with not enough content games should have ps5 level graphics and super smash bros brawl worth of content. Companies need to stop cutting corners Why did every game have good game modes on older gens but from ps4- now games barely have any game modes and janky animations etc?
The first game was better. I care much more about mechanics and gameplay than aesthetics. That being said, it definitely had some janky BS, but it had it's charm. In nasb 1, any percent is kill percent. But in this game, every character has ridiculously fast options along with giant hitboxes. Some have oppressive projectiles with no limits, while worse projectiles arbitrarily have limited use. Not only that, but all these characters have good enough ground and air speed that its just absurdly easy to keep combos going. The best characters in the best platform fighters have moves that are seldomly used or just flat out bad. An overabundance of fast options and just getting juggled over and over makes nasb 2 just not fun at all. Also, slime cancelling to break out of combos and get a reversal is extremely uncool. A good platform fighter would never punish players for winning neutral.
No game is fun if you don’t know how to play it. Nearly everything you just said has a counter. These modern play have excuses for everything’s this is why we can never get a consistently good fighting game. Do you not realize the responsibility to actually learn the games controls and mechanics lies in the responsibility of the player. If you’re getting juggled in a combo that’s your fault. That’s literally the foundation of fighting games being able to punish someone with bad defense no different than games like Mortal Kombat. And slime cancel was a great idea it literally opens the door to more creativity with combos extensions and versatility in play style.
@@jesuschristmylordandsavior3924 “More combo extensions & creativity” the top players in NASB2 usually use the slime meter to stop momentum from getting hit into the blastzone, the people who DO use the slime cancel only do like one extra move after finishing a combo which is basically just a strong attack. And also having air dodges and rolls just makes it a more luck reliant game as you have to predict moves, something the 1st game didn’t have as much of (thank goodness). Sure you could make an excuse where you can learn the skill to predict, but prediction is prediction and it still is just a game of chance. The 2nd game has more attacks, but the first game was more simple which is why I like it better than the 2nd one.
People say Multiversus's F2P model is way scummier than it actually was. You could unlock every character for free through gameplay, and you could even test out characters you haven't unlocked through training mode. Perks were also very cheap and none were behind a paywall. Basically any gameplay element of MVS was achievable for free, and people who paid didn't have an advantage over those who didn't. I think the real problem was that battle passes were way too time consuming and almost impossible to finish, which is kinda scummy for something you've already paid for.
I dont know how to tell you this but not everyone feels like grinding 500 hours with a character they dont like to get some that they do, and for those that want to buy a char or costmetic, those prices were insane, and theres no one time purchase option like brawlhalla has
@@killinswagzyou didn’t need to grind 500 hours for a character. you could literally get a character in a day. and nah there wasn’t but they gave character tokens that put you so far ahead with coins that when you run out you’ll easily still be able to get any character.
I really dislike how the game feels personally, but I think Brawlhalla might have an approach that some games could try, where the game is free to play with a rotation of characters, but has a $40 dlc that gives you all the characters plus all the future additional characters
I love how the smash community shit on the regular NASB and pushed them to make the second one similar to smash all for the smash players to STILL PLAY SMASH. 😂😂😂 these games need their own identity not just some characters. multiversus failed cause of servers and updates. The foundation was solid. This game here took the casual aspect of out the game and went the esports high ceiling route and you think a lot of people will play this like brawl? 🤣😂 it’s gonna be the same 100 people. This game is deader than multiversus.
How did they take the casual aspect out and I don't think the smash community pushed them to make the second game I agree with it needing it's own identity but still and also even if the game was good (I think it is so I'm just saying) smash players will always play smash that's just how it's going to be
@@DARKSTARSPIN the general complaints were complaints about how the mechanics lacked the mechanics that smash had. Almost every platform fighter is critiqued by the standards of smash. I wouldn’t say the smash community directly impacted the second release, but it definitely was the cause of the change on the game.
@@theCvnnxn but they added moves like tilts and f and b airs so I don't understand how they took the casual aspect out of it and if your talking about the slime meter you don't have to use that and im pretty sure people who bought this game would want to use it and learn how to because it's a main feature of the game they they paid for plus the slime meter adds identity to this game in of itself.
Nah, I think free to play is a better method than paying an upfront price. More money in the long run with free to play for the corps and players know the company most likely won't bail on them. With free to play, if you really needed funding asap to keep it going, you could make a single part of the game, have deep and interesting combat mechanics, and release a interesting market place, then as funding starts rolling in you'd be able to kick it in turbo mode and give all the players everything you planned on giving, if anything, it would probably be higher quality too. For example, I think Epic should have let players buy full skins and allow for you to switch clothing into other skins or change their colors, as well as have a separate in-game marketplace just like the items shop, maybe located at the bottom of it, but it's a place where players can resell their skins for set amount of money up to a limited amount as to not exploit players too much. There could be players who make extremely intricate designs, release only 100 of those skins, and never make it again, thus increasing the value of the skins. Epic could take a 5% to 10% cut off the player's sells to get their profit too while not getting players pissed by taking all their profit. They could add special tools like a pen that lets you draw on the skins and clothing. It could be used to make tattoos for skins and even have personalized signatures on skins as a way for players to know they got the real deal and not a knockoff from a skin-scammer lol. Same system could be used for gun skins, gliders, back blings shit, they would have made a killing if they had a variety of types of each. For example, the cape back blings should have been like various different types of capes, a superhero cape that starts behind your shoulders shouldn't feel and flow the same as a cloak like cape that almost wraps around your neck and shoulders. I will forever be annoyed with how much they chose not to do with Fortnite. Instead of focusing on everything instead of the BR they should have kept changing up the maps, leaving imprints of the older one so that players can select which maps they want to fight on or just put them all in a rotation hour by hour of a select few per day, gone much much deeper with the cosmetics, and make a player lead marketplace. All of those maps, just waisted so that they could change it months later, never to be used again. Sorry for the rant big homie, I got hella carried away. Awesome vid btw. Chow Pal.
@@kylespevak6781 Bruh, EVERYTHING literally could be free, people just trick everyone by saying "well ya how to work to get stuff" when it's just a way for you to slave your fucking life away to get parts of what you put in back. We have so much money going in the pockets of assholes that we could give everyone an basic income of 1,000 at the least and still be able to run the gov fine.
@@kylespevak6781 it's not meant to be "democratic" or maybe it is, idk, but we have plenty of money to provide a basic income for everyone, from billionaires, to millionaires, to youtubers, to streamers, to people who run gambling sights and charities, but everyone is selfish and has too much pride. But then if people don't want to work for people who they know don't genuinely care about them they are "lazy" and deserved to be kicked to the streets and abandoned like animals. My dad said not too long ago that he'd leave me on the streets if I wasn't his son because I depended on him for a living, yet he's the one who asked me to help with a part of the back end of his cable company and at that, he's the one who waste money putting me in a hotel room he'd be paying for for me to do a job that could be done in anywhere in the states. Bragged about how he makes 100k+ yet complains about helping his sone, now imagine how random people feel about helping other random people. The point is, people are dicks, especially if they have more money because instead of giving away what they know they don't need, they'll look at you like you're scum for being poor or say your opinion means nothing because you don't have money. Makes me glad I did the military for 2 years, puts into perspective how little people need to be happy.
My problem with All Star Brawl is, comparing it to Rivals of Aether. Both are paid for Smash Clones, yet the quality is so different it is night and day. Rivals 1 has one of the most solid base cast of ANY fighting game, with each of them feeling so unique to themself, and the ability to play fan made characters makes that game the most unique fighting game in HISTORY. And Rivals 2? Makes the game 3D, adds Ledge grabbing, shields, aswell as getup specials, grabs, etc. The game is a HUGE step up in every way. But, ASB 1 to 2, the game feels like it is missing many animations for most of their attacks. It looks and feels clunky
That's not the game's fault, that's your fault dude People seeing this, try all characters, experiment with their playstyles, there is one out there for you
I’m not gonna miss a title that cut 11 characters and only has two of the TMNT in it lmao, who thought that was a good idea? If you’re gonna have a $50 asking price on top of having a lackluster roster you’re begging to have a flop on your hands no matter how good the game actually is. It never seemed to be able to outpace the negative reputation of its predecessor either. Imagine if this title was free to play or like, $20 or $30 bucks at launch and had chars like Arnold, Shredder, Zuko, Dib, CatDog and others in it. I’m confident it would be very healthy right now.
Game is extremely sweaty. And the fact that people can dodge anytime makes it impossible to play a game. "I dont want to play against this character" Well guess what theres only 2 people playing right now and the other guys is playing reptar as soon as he loses
It's ultra tryhard mode, but that's how i like it. But they could fix the dodging and adding career stat options and more advanced stuff for other modes...
I already play Nick All Star Brawl 2, the moveset of some characters are suck. I can't do any combo just like Nick All Star Brawl 1. Finally, I delete the game
Did you completely ignore all the trailers before it launched saying it was going to play differently than the first? If you saw that and thought it wasn't your style why did you buy it?
Why in Gods name would this being a dlc make any more of a profit than how it is now The first game has effectively no players, it being a dlc would've meant nobody liked it. This NEEDRD to be a sequel in every way shape and form. It just so happens that a niche subgenre of a niche genre has low players on a niche platform. Who would've guessed
