Gollum Dev Daedalic Entertainment to Focus on Publishing After Disastrous Launch

Man, back in the day you’d make a crap game and then your next project would be a bit better and so on. Crazy that devs end up having to write apologies in that stupid format on Twitter just for the game being bad.

Always sad to see layoffs and I do hope those affected get a new job soon but I still want to know why they choose Gollum?

What was their thought process when they got the license 🤔

A bad game and a unplayable game are two different things.

They put all their chips in on Gollum being a huge success…… but did the years of no one being excited not signpost it…. And then it not being very good.

The industry has changed you used to be able to take a flop on the chin. Games take so much longer and cost so much more. PS2 era Gollum might have done ok. So many games and so many sales. Now not so much.

People will wrongly blame Twitter. The design process for a LOTR game that decides to throw everything in on Gollum was the issue here. If you do that the game has to be awesome.

It isn’t even that bad. It’s been blown out of proportion yet again by the vocal minority

The pics used in the articles for this game are blood curdling.

I really tried to give it a chance but it was just terrible.

It’s not unplayable but my god was it dull. I struggled through it for 4 hours before calling it quits. I intended to go back and finish it but I just couldn’t.

It´s a shame, would love another point and click from these guys, Deponia, Pillars of the Earth and Silence are all incredible.

Why him though?
So many other interesting LOTR characters and story's, I know he is "Iconic" but damn come on

Well don't make crap games and this probably wouldn't happen. 🤷‍♂️

Probably the worst game I’ve played in a long time. Such a shame as I had high hopes

@Artois2 in this case you are certainly the minority. it has a 5/10 on steam, terrible reviews from critics, and a 1.1 userscore on metacritic. where is this unspoken majority you speak of hiding?

I guess this means there will not be a sequel to LOTR: Gollum. Shame.

This is the world social media has created that it needs devs to apologise quickly before Z’ers turn up with pitchforks on twitter

This happened because it was poorly optimized, and no amount of marketing would have helped. It's best to refocus and try again in 2-3yrs.

Gollum, Hello Kitty, Sweet Pickles. We all hate things, but I don’t see much point to play as such a miserable character.

Blades of the shogun imo one of the best games out there...I hate strategy but this sold me hook line and sinker,recommend to anyone

Hahajahahaha

Not one person on the project have the balls to standup and say this game is sh'ite?

@Logonogo I'm not sure if "playing games and going about their lives instead of publicly embellishing their underwhelmed parasitic hedonism" is quite within the definition of "hiding".😅

.... probably for the best. The Gollum game is embarrassingly bad.

@Mikey856 to be fair, though, they should apologise for Gollum.

@MattBoothDev oh no is it really that bad then? Lol

Should’ve stick with Deponia

@JJtheTexan not a great example. Square releases one bad game after another. FF16 will fail to meet expectation and double digit layoffs will occur within the next 6 months.

NEO: The World Ends With You. How can you screw up TWEWY and then every game after that?

Shame because I feel like these medium budget AA games are the number one casualty of the current era of video game development. Too bad this one couldn't nail it.

Ever since this game was announced, people have been asking 'Why Gollum'. And as a massive lifelong LOTR fan and reader, I can't help but agree the whole premise was questionable from the beginning. Literally hundreds of characters from the lore I'd put in front of Gollum to feature in a game.

@Mikey856 admittedly I haven't played it, but one watched gameplay and seen the odd review and... Yeah it's pretty bad.

I feel sorry for the people losing their job who were just doing was instructed, though.

The hilarious coverage of Golem was more entertaining than the actual game. I'm disappointed we won't be getting any more game development from them.

At least they put out their game on a Physical Disc.

But what about the precious?! We didn’t wants or needs it.

A cartoon style stealth game where you play as gollum was never going to be what people wanted from the Lord of the rings world let's be honest. Majority of People want action/adventure open world rpg in unreal engine 5 why we haven't had something like this from lord of the rings since shadow of mordor is a mystery.

I thought a Gollum stealth game was a fair idea. Sure comic relief or brief characters don't get their own game/show because well they don't have much material/purpose. Styx is a stealth game similar to it and probably better but still.

Otherwise it's 'different' in a more what were they going to do for the story to make sense between gaps (which compared to an original character they'd have more flexibility with).

Gollum gives me Tak (the old Avalanche games the Nickeloden tv show) character design vibes which was interesting. Those eyes and how it'd be painted then well bags or whatever the case.

Then again we didn't get the Travellers Tales Lord of the Rings demo into much of anything else.

No idea on Daedalic's track record, the issues they had making Gollum or what but I was open minded and I am for games that don't sell well. Sometimes they just had some cool ideas, didn't approach some things a certain way, weren't a mainstream focused title which who cares so many things are hybrids these days or long with filler. Maybe Gollum does have that but just less 100 recycled side quests and more focus on other things. Story telling however they have and ok gameplay I assume that may or may not engage but who knows.

I know WB want a spin on the IPs they have and that's fine. A tactics/strategy/stealth or whatever could happen besides some RPG/action adventure game or shooter. I mostly stopped playing those genres as they didn't appeal to me in the directions they were going so I went to others like tactics, hack n slash, visual novels and made me buy things I wouldn't/find mechanics and ideas I wanted, some not but some engaging.

Of course many angles could be done then this Gollum game did but still. I don't know if Gollum fighting would have changed much either or breaking the lore for a giant Gollum or whatever other interesting angles they could take it with fantasy tropes/abilities/items to add more to the experience besides stealth, puzzles, platforming and a 'how gollum with act' system which I think is fine depending how it's done that is.

I'm fine with choice systems they just don't do much and don't impress me. Games are so scripted these days I seek dynamic elements and know they never happen. Some scripting is fine but some elements can be enhanced with dynamic or more out there elements then the same boring boss designs, setpieces, level design or unoriginal attacks (cough Rift Apart why no interesting rift use cases to keep challenging the player instead their so scripted and boring).

They aren't as flexible as I'd like them to be and are fairly limited. Never losing a party member just annoying them (unless you just happen to never recruit them to your party then sure), cutting off areas of the game (always have to have access to them (unless they block you late in the story) but usually you can do the content later these days or choices don't do a lot whether for characters part of something to give you benefits if assigning them to something). So many possibilities I haven't thought of yet we get scripted games so boring that while old games are scripted too I at least find interesting mechanics and level design that doesn't bore me enough that I'm fine with them then the same formats we see so much these days.

It's also interesting seeing what were added/followed in the past and how many did it better then those they copied while these days I don't always feel that as much. It depends. That or seen so much and a gap of the old and 'all' those that were is still unclear to me besides the one playing and the other the inspiration are in focus more.