Grace of Zordan

Grace of Zordan is an abandoned freemium mobile app tier cardgame/CCG with a fantasty theme and some mild strategic gameplay elements. It failed, and the developers abandoned the game and pulled the plug on the back end servers, making this dead and completely unplayable as the game will fail to start. The developers left their dead game on Steam, to pollute the store, which is harmful behaviour. SteamDB shows the game peaked at a pitiful 48 players, a number that dropped to single digits just a couple of weeks after launch, and never recovered from this point. Why did it fail? It's video game autopsy time! First up the game visuals are mediocre, the overall quality here isn't up to scratch compared to competing, established games like Hearthstone and MTG. PvP gamers have literally thousands of games to choose from, hundreds of AAA games that are either free or cost next to nothing. Games have to actually offer something if they want to compete for players time. Developers must learn that their game will not launch into a vacuum. Gamers have a choice. Part of the reason for the game failing was the freemium monetization that easily lends itself to P2W behavior. That isn't cool, and gamers hate that crap. The developers made the terrible mistake of launching a multiplayer focused game in Early Access. This is almost certain to kill the game. Most gamers will evaluate a game only once. If they do so when the game is incomplete, they will check it out, then abandon it (just like the developers did). When (IF) the game eventually does get around to release, there will be no players, because the developers burned the first impressions through their faulty Early Access experience. Players who saw the game and didn't like it because it was incomplete [i]do not come back[/i]. Multiplayer games must have a large population if they are to go "viral" and succeed, especially without single player content to fall back on. Releasing a multiplayer only game into early access kills the game population, and thus the game, before the game even launches. The developers made the fatal, lazy mistake of believing that PvP, other players, would be an acceptable substitute for doing the difficult job of adding single player level design, storytelling, NPCs and other rich aspects of designed game content to the game. As a result of this choice by the developers, the game has little to no actual interactive game content. It's a little considered fact that the vast majority of PvP only, multiplayer only games [b]fail[/b]. Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable subsititue for doing the job of game developers and building a game filled with content. PvP only games must have a [b]huge[/b] player base for them to "go viral" and succeed. But with no significant single player experience to add lasting value to a game, the developers instead chose to bet against all odds that their game would "go viral" without any actual reason for players to want to play the game. Predictably, they lost this bet.