The Crucible Crumble
Just last week on May 21, Amazon Games launched their first major shooter title to Steam entitled simply Crucible. After generating an initial decent player base, however, the hype and anticipation for Crucible‘s success has declined.
According to Steam Charts statistics, Crucible reached an all-time peak of players joining online for the game stopped at 10,600 individuals. Assuming this peak was only met during the launch period, the overall influx of players trying out Crucible seemed to have flunked out. At the time of this article’s writing, the game is currently being occupied with 2, 257 players. Presently, it holds a Metacritic score of 55 with eight reviews, along a 5.1 user score.
The PvPvE free-to-play game is in a considerably bad spot amid other dominating titles that continue to takeover Twitch and other streaming platforms. Games such as Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Apex Legends are in the circle of shooter popularity where they offer a free-to-play system (along with the optional Season Passes). The business model of utilizing the “free” route of launching a game can rely on a few factors to keep it afloat, but the biggest aspect is having a dedicated and sufficient player base. Without such an imperative ingredient, the game will lose interest, and it could be a worrisome encounter for Amazon Games, who’ve begun to move on from tablet games to more bigger projects.
It may have been merely a week since the debut of Crucible, but there’s no telling how Amazon Games will reverse the game’s current trajectory of negative reception. Perhaps popular streamers will be encouraged to give the title a try, as of way of getting the word out there before Crucible could collapse.
We’ll keep an eye on the game in the meantime to see if it’ll generate a bigger player base after its first month.