Atomfall Is Already A Colossal Success On Xbox Game Pass & Beyond

I'm not sure if just having "players" is such a great success. Most of the achievements are still rare, despite the game being only about 20 hours in length. What good is a player base that only peeked into the game and bounced off immediately?

To be clear, I very much (still) enjoy the game and gave it a nine. Not sure I need DLC, though. But keep similar games coming!

1.5 million players…

Cool now do sales. Also only 6k on Steam.

I played for about 30 mins and found it rather janky. Not sure when I will jump back into it

I finished the game yesterday and I truly loved it! The story is super intriguing and I loved that my choices really mattered. I'm hoping for a sequel, they have a Fallout "killer" on their hands lol. However, I've had 5 or 10 crashes and the audio bug drove me crazy at times, but other than that, it was a good time.

Im so weirded out by using player count numbers to define any kind of succes. What if people who played it, hated it? Doesnt that factor in before calling something a succes. Sorry not trying to start something, its just that we’ve gone from perfectly viable ways to define succes such as sales, critical and user reception and player retention to just counting the amount of people who’ve tried a game. Some of which may have stopped playing after 30 mins. It’s just such an incomplete metric to define any type of succes by, at least to me.

And also, while the numbers sound good, what can we benchmark it against to truly get a picture of how succesful it is? I’m sure it pales in comparison to some other titles, so how do we define succes of a game through these metrics? It seems, like its a better benchmark for succesful marketing and exposure, rather than anything else.

The game has pretty average critic reviews and a mediocre mixed user score. Let’s see if people even remember this game a few months from now before we call a game a massive succes just because a bunch of people decided to boot the game up once

@FraserG Fair enough. It may be pedantic of me, or semantics, but i feel there seems to be a change in how “succes” is defined. Using factors that hardly define succes, at least in my book.

I mean, for releasing on almost all platforms (including last gen) and a subscription service with 30 million subscribers it’s seems reasonable that a lot of people will have tried the game once, even just out of curiosity. I almost feel that because of the large potential playerbase this number could be somewhat expected, rather than it being surprising or indicative of a massive succes.

Even if we were only to use player count as a metric to define succes, i wouldnt even be sure if this warrants the moniker collosal. There are games that get tens of millions player count after a few days. If this is already called collossal than we must invent new words for those other games. I know i know, semantics

@themightyant You’re absolutely right. However i do want to point out that i’m not saying sales alone should be the defining metric. I actually said sales, critical and user reviews and player retention. Those combined, to me, is what defines a succesful game.

Counting the people that started a game, maybe even just once, is an interesting metric, and it may play a part, but it’s not one of the most important in defining succes, at least to me.

I agree that the addition of hours played would be better than just counting the people that started the game, as that metric would fall under the category player retention

Im glad so many have downloaded it and tried it. That’s great news.

But so so so many people are saying they played 15minutes and dropped it because of the bugs and issues (the beauty of trying it on GP) I hope that they come back and give it a go once it’s fixed.

I played it yesterday and while I felt there was something great underneath it all, it is way too clunky.

The combat and the stealth are both miles from where I'd want them to keep playing and at the point of being attacked by a bunch of enemies with no really fun way to fight them and the sound completely disappearing all my motivation to keep playing disappeared and I hit the uninstall button.

Sales probs dont really matter too much when your on gp or the playstation version since you've got paid already 😂

@Medic_alert tThat's how I felt. Very clunky for me. Coming off of Doom and a few others, I could not get used to how clunky and awkward controlling the character felt. Stopped after about 20 minutes.

Personally they can count success however they want as most of us are well aware of how the industry manipulates numbers.. I played for about 10 hours and to me it was another half decent Game Pass game with the same comical release bugs that showed zero testing had been done on a series X. Let's be honest at this point anyone paying full price for Game Pass Ultimate must be mad............now that would be an interesting metric the actual number of Game Pass subs paying full price...

@themightyant Idk man, i’m not saying these metrics are a science, but i believe combined they do give a clearer picture, than just counting the people who started the game. That gives an even more incomplete picture.

For example, hypothetically, what if a game has a 65 metacritic score, a 50 user score, most people don’t play longer than an hour or so (no player retention) and hardly sold on any other platform it released. Can we still call the game a succes if it was booted up by 20 million people on a subscription service?

Personally, i think user scores add another metric to gauge succes with. Many people may try a game, especially if its on a subscription service, but what if everyone who tries it hates the game? It would be kind of tone deaf for a developer to call it a raging succes if most people stopped playing after 30 mins.

Yes, this game might have broad exposure and may reach a lot of people, but what im hearing and reading is that critics and users are finding the game pretty mediocre, mixed at best. Hardly a game i would describe as a massive success myself. Maybe only if you have to confine it to one metric, namely player count. Yes, than this game is a huge success.

I know we’re talking semantics here, and maybe i am being a bit pedantic. I just think seeing only player count numbers adds no information at all, and should not be one of the most important metrics used to define succes. By definition, a game thats exclusive to a platform is going to have a lower player count than a game which releases on all consoles, PC and even last gen. Still tells you nothing about how good a game is, if people liked it, if it had any sales or if people are truly engaging with it long term rather than just casually testing it once for an hour and quickly leaving it behind.

Players isn't sales.

Game pass and subscription sites confuse things. It's like the death of buying music and moving onto streaming.

@themightyant Fair enough, i did make a bit of an extreme example there 🙃

To me, if games are purely subscription based, we’d still look at user scores, but more importantly player retention to see if games are a success. As you also said, the addition of hours played would make more sense than just the amount of people who started the game.

That would be the equivalent of Netflix releasing a season and people stop watching after the first episode, i’d bet Netflix internally wouldn't call that show a success, even if it had many people watching the first episode, because of hype and marketing for example

Happy for them. While the latest SE was hardly the greatest, I'm glad to see they're seeing a return for their ventures.

I'll definitely give this a go soon I was waiting to see what reception the game got when it released and it's looking like a game I will enjoy!
Great day 1 addition for gamepass 👏

@LogicStrikesAgain Maybe 20m booting it up gets them more money from Game Pass than selling 1m in the first week. After all, Sony/MS will take 30% of the price for selling it in their store - let alone costs for Manufacturing and distributing physical copies, 3rd parties (Wholesalers for example who sell to retailers like Amazon, Game) so they don't get 100% of the 'cost' back for purchasing.

It maybe better to get more 'reach', more users who then spread the word about how good that game was - getting more people in and/or excited for Rebellion studios and their games. Game Pass may also lead to game sales - when it 'leaves' or if those people enjoyed it enough to buy to own it.

Some may just 'try it' and decide its not for them and leave, but those people would be unlikely to 'buy' anyway - certainly not whilst the game is at its most expensive and new. They may not get as much per person with Game Pass, but they may get more money than they do from Sales because they get a LOT more people willing to try it. I'd rather have a 1000 £1 coins than 20 crisp £10 notes for example and they may prefer 20m Game Pass players than 1m game sales.

Most devs/studios get paid by salary and maybe get 'bonuses' based on 'success' determined by the Publisher who gets the 'profits' - for Obsidian and Fallout: New Vegas, one of the conditions was a Metacritic score of '85' - it got 84 so no bonus. With Square Enix, it seems they have overly high Sales Expectations so 'successful' games always seem to have 'disappointing' sales in their reports - despite selling 5m+

Sales too don't indicate player enjoyment, engagement or even if they bothered to 'install' the game let alone 'log in'. I have games, some I bought intending to play, others just because they were on sale and some just because they were bundled in with my Hardware. I still have a Fifa Game Code from my XB1 bundle (unused - but still counted as a 'sale' for their records) and at least 3 or 4 games on my shelf still in their cellophane wrapper. Also I've bought games and played them less than 30mins before moving on - never to return so how is that 'different' to a Subscriber trying something and finding its not for them. Some games take 'hours' to download to play and take up a chunk of storage space - not something you'd do just to 'boot up'.

You can't measure success as that will mean different things to different people - to Devs, maybe the critical acclaim and/or passionate feedback from their players is more important, getting their game into the hands of more people than they have ever reached before is a success. To a Publisher, only the financial 'Profit' will be a measure of success - reach or critical acclaim won't save the IP/Studio if its a commercial failure or didn't get the 'profit' the Publisher wanted. Gamers may choose 'Engagement' or 'Completionist' stats to determine 'success' along with Sales, player numbers, active player numbers at any one time etc.

Point is, Success can be measured multiple ways and have differing importance to different sectors/people. There is 'no' way of getting ALL the information anyway...

@BAMozzy You explained perfectly well how those metrics could be seen as succes for different people, like sales for publishers, engagement for players, critical acclaim for devs etc.

But can you explain what a high player count is a succes of? Does it have anything to do with a teams creativity like the devs said in their tweet? Or is it a metric of good marketing maybe? Is the opposite also true if a game doesnt reach that many people? Like for games exclusive to a platform, which will automatically have a smaller reach. Would that be considered a flop? You see how many variables and inconsistencies you get with this metric? Its hard to even define what they have succeeded in.

But the other metrics can be easily explained and defined, as you did

This metric still confuses me of what succes they are trying to convey with it, especially since its not accompanied by other metrics like time spent playing. For all i know most people stopped playing after 30 mins and hated the game. Is player count now the most important factor to determine succes and we just brush all other information aside?

But yeah, i will conceed, i have come to terms that i’m probably being pedantic here and i dont want to dunk anymore on the studios achievement. I never intended to come across negatively towards their achievement, i am merely debating the the validity of player count as a way to define success

@LogicStrikesAgain As I tried to say that 'success' can be measured by different yardsticks and comparing 'one' with 'another' such as Sales vs Player Numbers is 'pointless' especially when so many factors come into play - then to try and breakdown that into how many have finished a playthrough in that week is also ridiculous vs those that may have only had 1hour of game time and spent that playing this or someone who bought the game and hasn't yet installed it.

For a Studio, they are often in the dark and perhaps only have 'public' sales data to go on in the past to determine 'reach' (which again doesn't give engagement or player numbers in reality). So for Rebellion, whose games have 'never' reached 1.5m players in the first week, no matter how 'critically' acclaimed or marketed, (maybe because most felt the barrier to entry wasn't 'worth' the cost at that point) where as Game Pass has enable them to 'reach 1.5m people who at least felt inclined to 'try' their game they've spent years developing.

All they can do after a week is 'hope' that the number keeps growing and 'over' time will see more and more people talking positively about their game. Its a 'great' start for a brand new IP and a completely new Genre for Rebellion to make as well - a 'risk' which seems to be 'paying' off as they've had more people 'play' their game, if only for a 'brief' time, than they've had before.

So for them it maybe a successful launch because compared to their previous releases, they've never had that many players play their game - Sales don't tell them if they've 'played' it, engaged or even installed it - bought as a gift maybe...

Success is 'relative' to them, their studio, their perspectives and not 'ours' or based on whatever metric we deem more 'important' to us. If they are 'happy', and feel it was a successful launch week 'relative' to their metrics, expectations etc then that is a 'good' thing for them and not really up to us to debate...

@BAMozzy Fair enough, i agree with ur last paragraph. I may have brought the discussion needlessly over to a wider debate about what metrics can define whether a game is a succes or not. If they feel this is a succes for them because of how many people have tried it, then i respect that

@themightyant Good points! And absolutely true

@UndyingInsurgent95

The world is more beautiful (think Avatar game) and less 'psycho/horror/gore' than Fallout, so that's why it's better. I agree with you, I cannot play Fallout but probably can this, but..

I'm waiting for a hotfix before going back in after 1h of play and 3 audio dropouts.

Glad you liked it

@LogicStrikesAgain

Game Pass cannibalises premium sales, as analysts of the industry attest. So they can't use sales numbers like say CP77 can say 30M units sold, because their sales are trash. Same with AC Shadows on Ubisoft+ sub, their premium sales will be trash. Rebellion took a big recoup chunk of $ from MS for GP add, but they still could have low profit and get the studio closed down. It's smoke and mirrors, you're wholly right.

@Ricky-Spanish

I'm waiting for hotfix for xbox sound bug.

Audio dropped out/cut off for me 3x in a 1h play session

I recommend you wait also, otherwise game seems fun, but maybe a little too horror for me

@BAMozzy

The whole world defines success as making money so your studio doesn't get shut down because of debts

Rebellion could get shut down even if a lot of people tried their game and they said they did, e.g. Hi-Fi rush

After the reviews mentioning audio cutting out, janky combat and numerous other bugs…I’ll try it in 6 months to a year when it’s patched to a better place…im finally getting ready to play Stalker 2 soon for those same reasons

@YeyoFairy

This is the best strategy but I'm not going to wait as long since I don't have any new stuff I like to play atm

Happy for them, i personally have really really loved it, it's been a while since an open world game has made me want to explore so much, it doesn't feel overwhelming in terms of a collect-a-thon way, I love the atmosphere, the intriguing storytelling, the way the missions/rumours work.
I've just been going around with barely any missions active and just exploring.
Yeah it's not a perfect AAA game and it's doesn't need to be, it's just needs to be good fun and for me it is.
I've been lucky and had no crashes and only had the audio big 3 times so far but I'm confident they will fix it soon.
I'm currently putting money aside so I can buy it soon to support them, that's what GP is for me, try a game and if I like it buy it to support the makers.

@LogicStrikesAgain You are completely right, counting the number of players who tried it once for free is absolutely ludicrous metric for trying to suggest a games success, and leads to articles like this that literally tell us nothing except parotting a marketing release.
Xbox started this nonsense when they didn't want to release real metrics, but now everyone indulges is this blatant obscufication.

I've no issue with the game, which is a decent 7/10 AA title with expected jank, but headlines celebrating 'colossal sucess' based on this metric is poor journalism and not at all why I pay my subs to these sites. I expect better than this.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner That's the problem with these subscriptions (Game Pass, PS+, etc.): many "casual gamers" often only try games for 20/30 minutes (often via the Cloud, therefore with a visual downgrade) before moving on to something else. It's becoming a form of video game binge-watching.

But this is enough to inflate the numbers, which the media like to relay without much elaboration, and which these publishers seem so proud of, even though they mean absolutely nothing and in no way confirm the commercial success of a game. (Hey Ubi$oft, who got slapped by Capcom and the 10 million Monster Hunter games actually SOLD… in one month!)

I have no doubt about Atomfall's success, from what I've read about it, but it doesn't seem aimed at everyone. At least it won't appeal to what's called "the modern audience" (and that's a good thing. They've had enough bad games aimed at them lately).

Atomfall doesn't hold the player by the hand from start to finish, unlike mainstream Ubi$oft games, for example. And for this "freedom of action and exploration" aspect alone, I'll give it a chance when it's optimized, in 6 to 12 months. I never play Day One anymore, and I know I'm right; it can spoil all the fun, as I experienced with Cyberpunk 2077 upon its release.

The success seems deserved, but please: stop with these player count figures. Especially since this industry has evolved considerably over the past 10 years, there will be many more players in 2025 than there were in 2005 or 2015. If all the elements are not taken into account, these figures are just nonsense.