Games

Dude slapped away his career.

Bonus: Dunkey made a video on the game

I'm 100% convinced this was an elaborate scam. No way this broken asset flip needed over 100 million dollars.

I’d be careful to read too much into this. If they wanted it to be successful, it would have been Raid: Shadow Legends or Genshin Impact level promoted, especially with $140M sunk in dev.

This seems like they had no confidence in the finished product so they didn’t even bother to market it, just shat it out to app stores probably to meet contractual obligations and it will be gone soon.

Either that or there is some behind the scenes nonsense happening preventing it from being marketed. Think something like Will Smith having it in his contract that it has to release and giving him 25% of sales, for example.

But for something to cost that much and bomb that hard, it’s essentially impossible without them basically cutting their losses before launch and expecting it to fail. It’s the mobile game equivalent of the “lowest grossing movie”, basically something that was only released because it has to be, and not a true reflection of product quality. Like I’m sure it sucks, but is it THAT much worse than 99% of mobile trash? Probably not.

Zombie: "Rawrrr" munch munch nom nom

Will: "Get my wife's arm out of your fucking mouth!"

</low hanging fruit>

I genuinely have no interest in anything he does any more. Not actively boycotting his projects or anything, more complete disinterest. And I'm not even saying all art has to be viewed through the lens of the artist. But there are people that have such memorable or distinct performances that afterwards they have trouble getting other roles... This is like that, but cranked up to 11.

And I know he's a meme and we joke about it... but because of his weird hangups he chose to use violence on another person on a world stage, with cameras on him. By his own actions he made it impossible for me to lose myself in any character he plays, instead I'll only think about The Slap.

Dunkie’s review is hilarious

Celebrity endorsement has never been a factor in how well a videogame does either way, regardless of level of star power or degree of involvement for the celebrity: Keanu Reeves playing a heavy hand (heh) in the story of Cyberpunk 2077 did little to stop the game's initial bad press, and the main reason Baldur's Gate 3 did well isn't because JK Simmons is playing Kethric Thorm. (still, he had a great performance). Gameplay matters a lot more for a videogame.

It's unsurprising then, that Oscar winning actor Will Smith's involvement in a game in the oversaturated genre of zombie survival shooters did not become successful.

Plus, I don't think paying celebrities to promote videos on their YouTube channel is an effective marketing strategy, mainly because nobody really watches any celebrities' own YouTube channel, with the exception of Jack Black's gaming channel, of course.

I would play No One Has Heard Of Bombs, sounds like an interesting game

Lmfao the trailer doesn't even include any dialogue from Will Smith's character?! Imagine paying (I assume) millions of dollars to get an A-list Hollywood celebrity in your game and you don't even show them in your trailer!

I'm going to assume that any game that a celebrity suddenly endorses out of nowhere is some low effort mobile thing that probably involves crypto.

wtf I never heard of this game before. How come a game that cost ~$140 million had virtually no marketing except for Will Smith posting it on his youtube channel?

Will Smith is a "past" celebrity, relying on his name, infamy, and horning in on already proven commodities.

Bad Boys for Life, Aladdin, Suicide Squad, (oh, and "King Richard" lol, we've all seen that!)

Those are his "popular" movies since 2009. Put a fork in him. He's done. He should enter politics.

Maybe if you promote your game I'll have heard of it...

Looking at you Alone In The Dark 2024

It's like Goldeneye except the only weapon setting is "Slappers only"

(Too easy, I know)

This is the big problem with modern gaming. Too many companies are now in hock to investors and publishers. To those at the top of the hierarchy, making a game is an investment, a bet. Innovation is stifled in favour 9f 'safe bets', no wonder gaming is stagnating.

It's not all doom and gloom, there are still exceptions to the rule. But it's certainly not looking good for fantastic single player games.

I'm expecting gta 6 to have a much shorter single player campaign with most of the focus towards online (and more obscene earnings from shark cards 2.0).

Also never heard of this game before.

The top user review on steam made it sound like awful pay to win gacha garbage though, so I'll just move on.