He wrote SturmtigerCobra was using rhetorics of conspiracy theorists (I personally don't like that expression, but anyway) by putting the existance of ESG investmentand Sega/Relic into the same post, thereby loosely connecting them and suggesting that Relic went to shit because ESG investment were giving bad incentives to companies (or so I imagine, it is nowhere clearly written how the mechanism is supposed to work. I guess it must be hidden in the posted 1,5h video that I did not watch instead of providing a good 5 minute summary article).
He does not give any proof for this claim. He throws it into the same pot saying one is causing the other, nothing else, then stirs in some memes and an unrelated wikipedia article. There is not a single piece of data or analysis or at the very least reasoning provided that connects ESG-guided investment as the cause for Relic being in a bad state.
From what Cobra posts, I could as well turn his logic upside down: ESG investment will collapse because Relic keeps releasing bad games. Proof? Sega has some ESG guidelines. That's about as much "data" as OP provided.
Actually, not even that. You had to go to Sega's website and look for their ESG summary. The summary is highly superficial and not providing any real corporate details or the influence of ESG on Sega's business strategy (I haven't clicked any links on the site, maybe it is further down). Cobra didn't even do the very basics for his claim.
There's nothing spot on with cobras post. His posts are unfortunately often pretty incoherent rambling with no backup. Not all, but quite some.
Before we break it down, let's define that the main claim is that ESG (environmental, social, governance focused) investment leads to SEGA/Relic defining their products according to these values, which is the reason why the companies are not "healthy" in a classic economic way and ultimately why CoH3 is bad.
Point by point:
FYI;
According to multiple insider sources and the latest rumors are expecting ESG funds (stakeholder capitalism) to collapse/dissolve in 2023.
That means layoffs across the entire tech sector and the entire video game industry.
Sega/Relic is reliant on ESG funds such as Blackrock and Vanguard.
Two claims in here that have no backup, no source, not even a vague one claiming that's the case. For the amount of memes that are posted down below, why is there no source to the central two claims of the whole post?
Where's the analysis of how much investment firms have invested into Sega and or Relic under ESG rules? The last sentence can even be misread that BL and VG only invest according to ESG "guidelines". That's complete nonsense.
Next question:
Even without data, are these claims correct? The first one we can't tell yet, but it's also only April. There's no ESG related big downfall of the economy. For the time being, this is "waiting for happening" at best.
We've indeed seen layoffs in the IT industry, but without direct relation to ESG investments.
I'll collapse this since all of this is just throwing in the point that Relic ignored "red flags" followed by a lot of memes and a link to Wikipedia about "Malinvestment", which in turn is not linked to ESG investment. It proves nothing, it's just making the post longer and fakes some data or "being informed" about the topic. I'll jump to the last bit of actual content:
Why ESG Is the Biggest Scam of the 21st Century | Vivek Ramaswamy;
Is that true? To be honest, I don't know. It's a 1,5h youtube video/podcast. You can get basic insights into goals and problems of ESG based investment in a normal article read that takes 5-10 minutes. Read a couple, get opinions from multiple people in the financial industry. These could have been linked.
Instead, here's a 1,5h video where I get the opinion of 2 people only. Why? No one is going to watch it, and even if I watch it I have the opinion of exactly 2 people. It doesn't make sense, especially since Cobra assumes that he needs to explain what a malinvestment is. Why not link more basic stuff instead?
There indeed are problems with ESG funding.
Cobra claims, but can't link any of it to Relic or SEGA with the stuff he provides. It's just rambling for rambling's sake.
Well, we got a quick patch/hotfix on April 5 and the player numbers did not go up. I was really hoping the quick patching would boost numbers. But Wednesday has been the dead spot on counts so far.
I am guessing there was nothing earth shattering so people did not bother to play.
No one is going to come back from a tiny update.
There need to be 3 pages of fixes and 2 pages balancing to convince people that stuff improves.
My post was not particularly about why CoH3 has issues, but why Relic has to patch sooner rather than later with a view on the whole franchise.
Previously, CoH2 had 9-10k players at peak (depending on the "phase" of the game and which time frame, but this was roughly the state in 2022). Now, CoH2 and CoH3 combined have 11-12k players. That's roughly a 2k gain in total player numbers, but now split roughly evenly between both games with CoH2 getting influx and CoH3 getting eflux. CoH3 gets further patches and players will continuously check in how much the game has improved after each patch. The hardcore fans will play either CoH2 or CoH3, whichever one they deem the better product at any time.
The problem is: If Relic keeps on with smaller patches only fixing a couple of features (not talking about short term meta or balance, but stuff that will actually make the game feel good to play) per patch, the player base will stay split. The lower player numbers however decrease the quality of matchmaking (which I can personally anecdotally confirm for CoH2). This could cause what I termed "intermediate fans" to leave the franchise entirely, because now both CoH2 and CoH3 are not as fun to play anymore and another game is better.
I doubt Relic will abandon CoH3 that quickly, the game is not in a great state but not horribly failing either, and player numbers still go down but apparently stabilize for the time being and not indicating a complete failure as well. The most likely way forward is that Relic keeps supporting and patching at least for the next months.
Those need to be big patches. After failing to gain a new audience, Relic needs to move most players to CoH3. The other option is that CoH3 completely fails and the community goes back to CoH2. But keeping both games only half-alive will hurt both in the long run.
The number of players in CoH2+3 (summed up) has not changed much since last week and remains at roughly 11-12k total in the peaks, which is slightly above CoH2 before the launch of CoH3. CoH2 has gained over CoH3 in the last week.
I guess this is a sign of both games mostly trade players between each other.
If that is the case, then:
1. CoH fans are currently still willing to change to CoH3 when it reaches a quality that is good enough
2. Relic failed draw in a lot of new players
3. Both games split the playerbase roughly 50/50, which is probably the worst state for matchmaking for both games. While the hardcore fans will likely play any of the CoHs anyway, 'intermediate fans' might switch to another game due to bad matchmaking. Relic should patch quickly and decisively.
Not necessarily. It's a pretty random example I know, but in another, popular game I play called "Dead by Daylight", a premium cosmetic skin for one character costs 11€ on average while a new chapter -which includes two new playable characters and 6 new playable perks- costs 7€
Wait for the new CoH3 battlegroups and see how much they cost, and then let's complain afterwards if it's a rip-off
What you describe is really an exception. Most games shit their games with MTX. I don't see why I should pretend Relic would be the rare exception, given that everything - releasing a half finished game, prioritizing store over game fixes, fake currencies, token freemium model, similar behaviour in CoH2, even the publisher being SEGA - that they did so far points towards heavy monetization. There is no reason to give Relic the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, the skins apart from the highlight 1000 merit ones are terribad rip-off deals but nobody forces you to buy them.
It's not about the current state of the store, it's about the store setup and pricing showing that monetization in CoH3 will be very, very aggressive. This includes skins for now, but will surely extend to battlegroups and factions down the line as well.
I'd almost bet that Relic intentionally overpriced their store to then go "whoops, we listen" while setting the pricing to the originally intended value. Would not be the first time we'd see this in the gaming industry.