Oh no... what everyone with eyes could call from the trailer happened? What a shock! How the fuck do you work on a game for years and can't see what randos can see from a trailer? How do you look at your game with such a high level of delusion?
These assholes are blaming utub rage bait culture on their retarded game’s failure MindsEye developer claimed their retarded game failed because of a sabotage, no less!
I think it’s time the media stop puffing these “rockstar” has-beens led studios that form on reactionary “visions” of “this dum idea is hot right now so let’s form a new studio to do it right now, oh but it takes 4-5 years and tens to hundreds of millions $$$ to make a game but we’re sure it will be just fine”. It’s been a fail after fail after fail, and every time, the media’s narrative is to ponder how could a studio, with the has-been from some other once-was studio, could ever fail!?!?!?
A former Wildlight developer has shared their thoughts on Highguard's release after its announcement at The Game Awards last year, stating due to "false assumptions" around its debut trailer, "we were turned into a joke".
Highguard closed out The Game Awards 2025, with a trailer introducing us all to a world of battling Wardens and their magical mounts. The game then launched in January, and quickly had a large influx of players on its release. However, there were a few complaints as well, with many disappointed with areas such as map size and the 3v3 game format. The studio sought to address these issues with a number of content updates and patches, while also making its once-limited-time 5v5 mode a permanent feature.
Despite this effort to regain favour, though, yesterday it was announced that multiple Wildlight developers had been laid off, only a matter of weeks since Highguard made its free-to-play debut. But according to Highguard's former lead technical artist Josh Sobel, the team was doomed from its announcement, and it was "all downhill" after the game's reveal at the The Game Awards.
Writing in a lengthy post on social media, Sobel said internal feedback on Highguard prior to its reveal "was quite positive", and the team felt confident it had a hit on its hands. Where feedback was negative, Sobel said, "it was constructive, and often actionable". He added those "who played the game, including us, had a blast. And since we were an independent, self-published studio built with royalties in mind, many of us were hoping this could finally be the thing that broke the millennial financial curse".
But that positivity left after its The Game Awards trailer. "Content creators love to point out the bias in folks who give positive previews after being flown out for an event, but ignore the fact that when their negative-leaning content gets 10x the engagement of the positive, they've got just as much incentive to lean into a disingenuous direction, whether consciously or not," Sobel said. "The hate started immediately."
Sobel soon locked his X profile after Highguard's trailer, stating videos were then made about his "cowardice", with people laughing at him for "being proud" of Highguard. "All of this was very emotionally taxing," he said.
"There is much constructive criticism that can be and has been said about Highguard's trailer, marketing, and launch, but I don’t think it’s my place to commentate on that. I also don't think there’s any way to know whether the launch would have fared better or worse without the massive spotlight that was thrown onto us in response to The Game Awards' trailer placement. But we never got that chance," Sobel continued.
"We were turned into a joke from minute one, largely due to false assumptions about a million-dollar ad placement, which even prominent journalists soon began to state as fact. Within minutes, it was decided: this game was dead on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content for a month. Every one of our videos on social media got downvoted to hell. Comments sections were flooded with copy/paste meme phrases such as 'Concord 2' and 'Titanfall 3 died for this'. At launch, we received over 14k review bombs from users with less than an hour of playtime. Many didn't even finish the required tutorial."
Sobel remarked that in online discussions about games like Highguard, Concord and 2XKO, people tend to say developers blame their failures on the gamers. However, Sobel says that is a "silly" notion, as gamers still have the power to inform discourse.
"I'm not saying our failure is purely the fault of gamer culture and that the game would have thrived without the negative discourse, but it absolutely played a role," Sobel said. "All products are at the whims of the consumers, and the consumers put absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked."
There is no denying the sting and hurt in Sobel words, but while he may sound bitter about how things have ultimately panned out, it is undeniably a shame to see a game stumble out of the starting gate. To be clear, Highguard itself has not been shut down, with a "core group" of developers still working on it. For how much longer, who can say. But whatever the end result, it is never nice to see a game 'fail', and hear about layoffs across the industry.
As for Sobel, he said that "even though this adventure has come to an abrupt and emotionally challenging close" for him, he doesn't "regret one second of it".
Following its rocky debut, other developers across the industry also voiced their support for Highguard, with Splitgate: Arena Reloaded studio 1047 Games stating:
Apologies for the length. Been wanting to say a lot of this for a while.
The day leading to The Game Awards 2025 was amongst the most exciting of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately working on Highguard, we were ready to reveal it to the world. The future seemed bright.
Everyone I knew who had any connection to the team or project had the same sentiments:
“This is lightning in a bottle.”
“I trust this team wholeheartedly.”
“If there’s one project nobody in the industry is worried will fail, it’s yours.”
“This has mainstream hit written all over it.”
“There’s no way this will flop.”
"I could play this game all day."
The internal pre-reveal feedback, even from unbiased sources, was quite positive, and where it was negative, it was constructive, and often actionable. People who played the game, including us, had a blast. And since we were an independent, self-published studio built with royalties in mind, many of us were hoping this could finally be the thing that broke the millennial financial curse.
But then the trailer came out, and it was all downhill from there. Content creators love to point out the bias in folks who give positive previews after being flown out for an event, but ignore the fact that when their negative-leaning content gets 10x the engagement of the positive, they’ve got just as much incentive to lean into a disingenuous direction, whether consciously or not.
The hate started immediately. In addition to dogpiling on the trailer, I personally came under fire due to my naïveté on Twitter, which almost all of my now-former coworkers had learned to avoid during their previous game launches. After setting my Twitter account to private to protect my sanity, many content creators made videos and posts about me and my cowardice, amassing millions of views and inadvertently sending hundreds of angry gamers into my replies. They laughed at me for being proud of the game, told me to get out the McDonald’s applications, and mocked me for listing having autism in my bio, which they seemed to think was evidence the game would be “woke trash.” All of this was very emotionally taxing.
There is much constructive criticism that can be and has been said about Highguard’s trailer, marketing, and launch, but I don’t think it’s my place to commentate on that. I also don’t think there’s any way to know whether the launch would have fared better or worse without the massive spotlight that was thrown onto us in response to The Game Awards’ trailer placement. But we never got that chance.
We were turned into a joke from minute one, largely due to false assumptions about a million-dollar ad placement, which even prominent journalists soon began to state as fact. Within minutes, it was decided: this game was dead on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content for a month. Every one of our videos on social media got downvoted to hell. Comments sections were flooded with copy/paste meme phrases such as "Concord 2" and "Titanfall 3 died for this." At launch, we received over 14k review bombs from users with less than an hour of playtime. Many didn't even finish the required tutorial.
In discussions online about Highguard, Concord, 2XKO, and such, it is often pointed out by gamers that devs like to blame gamers for their failures, and that that’s silly. As if gamers have no power. But they do. A lot of it. I’m not saying our failure is purely the fault of gamer culture and that the game would have thrived without the negative discourse, but it absolutely played a role. All products are at the whims of the consumers, and the consumers put absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked.
Many of Wildlight’s former devs will now be forced to assimilate back into the actual corporate industry many gamers accused Wildlight of being a part of. Now, every time someone thinks about leaving the golden handcuffs behind in favor of making a new multiplayer game the indie way, they’ll say “but remember how gamers didn’t even give Wildlight a chance.” Soon, if this pattern continues, all that will be left are corporations, at least in the multiplayer space. Innovation is on life support.
Even if Highguard had a rocky launch, our independent, self-published, dev-led studio full of passionate people just trying to make a fun game, with zero AI, and zero corporate oversight…deserved better than this. We deserved the bare minimum of not having our downfall be gleefully manifested.
I wish the best of luck to the few who remain at Wildlight, and hope Highguard can stay the course. I still believe in it, and so do the fans we reached, who continue to champion it on the subreddit, Discord, Twitch, and social media. And even though this adventure has come to an abrupt and emotionally challenging close, I don't regret one second of it.
Also, I just wanted to shout out some incredibly supportive journalists and creators who genuinely made a night and day difference in enduring the past 2 months. All of these folks deserve FAR more credit than they get for their empathy, intuition, and integrity:
@franmirabella
@KahliefAdams
@snowbikemike
@blessingjr
@Ms5000Watts
@stroopwaffelyt
@8BitClosedFist
@staycationtg
@Ayy_TonyRomero
...and many others.
The image below was drawn by me for the techart team t-shirt. I plan on printing it for us soon. Some of the best times of my life were spent with these people.
They did nothing wrong, they did everything correct
So these retards get *that* spot on the gameawards show and no one was expecting the "Titanfall 3 died for this... " comments? Not a single person?
In that case at least whoever handled PR at the studio really needs to go and put the fries on the bag from now on
Oh the internal reviews and mood about the game's success was sky high? Like Concord?
Quote:
The day leading to The Game Awards 2025 was amongst the most exciting of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately working on Highguard, we were ready to reveal it to the world. The future seemed bright.
Everyone I knew who had any connection to the team or project had the same sentiments:
“This is lightning in a bottle.”
“I trust this team wholeheartedly.”
“If there’s one project nobody in the industry is worried will fail, it’s yours.”
“This has mainstream hit written all over it.”
“There’s no way this will flop.”
"I could play this game all day."
The internal pre-reveal feedback, even from unbiased sources, was quite positive, and where it was negative, it was constructive, and often actionable. People who played the game, including us, had a blast. And since we were an independent, self-published studio built with royalties in mind, many of us were hoping this could finally be the thing that broke the millennial financial curse.
Yep, this nibba surely is autistic
Come on now, grow a spine and own up guys.
boundle (thoughts on cracking AITD) wrote:
i guess thouth if without a legit key the installation was rolling back we are all fucking then
If they didn't get that spot they would have just closed much earlier. Even with all the negative reactions, if they actually had a good game, the exposure would have made it succeed. Case in point, the fact it got 90k+ concurrent players trying it on release. The problem is they didn't have a good game, not even close. Then again, if they had a good game, they wouldn't have gotten so much negativity from the trailer.
Quote:
The day leading to The Game Awards 2025 was amongst the most exciting of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately working on Highguard, we were ready to reveal it to the world. The future seemed bright.
Everyone I knew who had any connection to the team or project had the same sentiments:
“This is lightning in a bottle.”
“I trust this team wholeheartedly.”
“If there’s one project nobody in the industry is worried will fail, it’s yours.”
“This has mainstream hit written all over it.”
“There’s no way this will flop.”
"I could play this game all day."
The internal pre-reveal feedback, even from unbiased sources, was quite positive, and where it was negative, it was constructive, and often actionable. People who played the game, including us, had a blast. And since we were an independent, self-published studio built with royalties in mind, many of us were hoping this could finally be the thing that broke the millennial financial curse.
This right here is what's killing the gaming industry more than even the forced agendas or anything, and it's part of that, but it is such a fucking monster on it's own. This toxic positivity. There is nothing worse than it and journalists are complicit. Everyone is more concerned with how they look, not wanting to be the bad guy, than being honest and maybe saving a project before it's too late. And hey, given how toxic this shit has gotten, they probably wouldn't even listen to the one guy that might have said something.
Only solution unfortunately for them is to just let the whole industry burn, and hopefully what's left will flourish.
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It’s been a fail after fail after fail, and every time, the media’s narrative is to ponder how could a studio, with the has-been from some other once-was studio, could ever fail!?!?!?
" comments? Not a single person?
