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It seems Relic won't be putting out anymore content for Dawn of War III [Steam] as it hasn't sold well enough to continue.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Relic said this:

While Dawn of War 3 has a dedicated player base, it didn't hit the targets we were expecting at launch, and it hasn't performed the way we had hoped since. It's been tough for us as professionals who want to make great games for our players, and for us as people who care a lot about what we do.

When a game underperforms, plans need to change. With Dawn of War 3, we simply don't have the foundation we need to produce major content. We're working in close partnership with Sega and Games Workshop to determine the best course of action, while shifting focus to other projects within our portfolio.

This has caused the game to have a spike in negative reviews, with the recent overall score being "Mostly Negative" which will pretty much solidify the position of poor sales now.

Dawn of War III was a very different game to the previous incarnation, which I've seen many people unhappy with. I'm surprised Relic didn't see this coming, with them forcing players to play a MOBA-style map in the online play. In my own review I said "Honestly, the multiplayer mode is like they gathered a list of features from a bunch of games, threw them up in the air and put in whatever landed face-up, it’s such an odd mix." and I stand by that. They did later add in a more traditional mode, but it was already too late by then as the damage to fans expectations had already been done and it's hard to bring people back to a game if they weren't a fan at release.

Likely a bit of a blow for Feral Interactive too, who ported the game to Linux not too long ago. Hopefully future ports from Feral will do better!

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32 comments
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omer666 Feb 13, 2018
Yeah, good old conspiracy theories about magazines getting paid for producing free advertising.

Bullshit.

Its not a conspiracy theory, its a fact. Many people talked about it. If journalist won't write positive review, he might no longer get the pre-release copy to review. Which means that he might not be the first or one of the first to review it (since he will have to review it after release), which means that people waiting for said game will not buy that magazine for that review.
I won't try to argue with the argument "bullshit", you got me convinced.
Colombo Feb 13, 2018
I won't try to argue with the argument "bullshit", you got me convinced.


Coz calling something conspiracy theory and thus implying that it is on same level like the flat earth theory or that British royal family are bunch of lizards... is fair argument.

But if you can't read, "bullshit" is not argument. Argument is bellow it.
Eike Feb 13, 2018
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But if you can't read, "bullshit" is not argument. Argument is bellow it.

"Many people talked about it." is so much more convincing...

If such magazines should exist - don't buy them. Buy quality magazines.
Colombo Feb 13, 2018
"Many people talked about it." is so much more convincing...

If such magazines should exist - don't buy them. Buy quality magazines.

Because this is as old as I am.

One fast example:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-developer-admits-we-screwed-it-after-game-website-exposes-blacklist-threat

Or here in rather... long and bit obnoxious article:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/why-so-many-people-dont-trust-the-gaming-press/

TB also talked about it.


Last edited by Colombo on 13 February 2018 at 10:37 pm UTC
omer666 Feb 14, 2018
"Many people talked about it." is so much more convincing...

If such magazines should exist - don't buy them. Buy quality magazines.

Because this is as old as I am.

One fast example:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-developer-admits-we-screwed-it-after-game-website-exposes-blacklist-threat

Or here in rather... long and bit obnoxious article:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/why-so-many-people-dont-trust-the-gaming-press/

TB also talked about it.
Straight from your link:
And yet, still, a lot of people bash the games press and games critics.

"I think the desire to see conspiracies and corruption in all of the gaming press is largely based on a far wider malaise in the world, of people wishing to demolish notions of expertise or more respected opinions," John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun said to me over email. "Where once [expertise] was desired, it's now considered arrogant oppression. So when a review disagrees with a reader's strong opinion, it's much more satisfying to conclude the discrepancy is the result of corruption.


Last edited by omer666 on 14 February 2018 at 6:06 am UTC
14 Feb 14, 2018
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I played tons of hours of DoW II and was surprised how much I loved it! I did not buy DoW III based off all the reviews I read explaining the gameplay. I'm still glad I haven't purchased it. That said, I do hope there will be a revival with a DoW IV with cross-platform co-op campaign! :D
Zlopez Feb 14, 2018
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My 40k fanatic friend got bored of it within 3 hours and we both played DoW1 and 2 for hundreds of hours. It was a major disappointment for me as well, it's like every decision they made was the opposite of what I wanted from a 40k RTS:
- the art style looked nothing like the content of 40k codices, it's hard to describe, it's like they took the comical heroic proportions of objects in 40k and tried to made them more realistic while keeping the ridiculous gothic look and making everyones faces look like they're made of play dough

This is what I can agree with. The graphics looked like DOTA, HOTS or other MOBA title - comics like. This was heresy in the eyes of the Emperor.
The graphic style of DOW 2 looked pretty good. Even Total War: Warhammer graphic style fitted warhammer universe. DoW 3 looks like being done for kids. It should be more dark and grim to befit the W40k universe.

I played tons of hours of DoW II and was surprised how much I loved it! I did not buy DoW III based off all the reviews I read explaining the gameplay. I'm still glad I haven't purchased it. That said, I do hope there will be a revival with a DoW IV with cross-platform co-op campaign! :D

I didn't buy it either, I got it from a friend. He bought the Humble Bundle and he was not interested in it. Originally I wanted to buy it when the cost will be really low. I'm glad that I didn't purchased it after I played it.


Last edited by Zlopez on 14 February 2018 at 8:17 am UTC
TheSHEEEP Feb 14, 2018
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"Professional" journos liked the game somewhat because they never really play games for long and are mostly just amazed by pretty or pretentious things.
Yeah, good old conspiracy theories about magazines getting paid for producing free advertising.
How did you even get the conspiracy theory out of that statement?
Maybe put the tinfoil hat back into the shelf, it seems to obstruct your view.
Colombo Feb 14, 2018
"Many people talked about it." is so much more convincing...

If such magazines should exist - don't buy them. Buy quality magazines.

Because this is as old as I am.

One fast example:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-developer-admits-we-screwed-it-after-game-website-exposes-blacklist-threat

Or here in rather... long and bit obnoxious article:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/why-so-many-people-dont-trust-the-gaming-press/

TB also talked about it.
Straight from your link:
And yet, still, a lot of people bash the games press and games critics.

"I think the desire to see conspiracies and corruption in all of the gaming press is largely based on a far wider malaise in the world, of people wishing to demolish notions of expertise or more respected opinions," John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun said to me over email. "Where once [expertise] was desired, it's now considered arrogant oppression. So when a review disagrees with a reader's strong opinion, it's much more satisfying to conclude the discrepancy is the result of corruption.

I hope you were able to read the whole article and not just cherrypick a first sentence that seems to support your opinion? Which is furthermore just a citation of some personal communication with some other journo?
omer666 Feb 14, 2018
"Many people talked about it." is so much more convincing...

If such magazines should exist - don't buy them. Buy quality magazines.

Because this is as old as I am.

One fast example:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-developer-admits-we-screwed-it-after-game-website-exposes-blacklist-threat

Or here in rather... long and bit obnoxious article:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/why-so-many-people-dont-trust-the-gaming-press/

TB also talked about it.
Straight from your link:
And yet, still, a lot of people bash the games press and games critics.

"I think the desire to see conspiracies and corruption in all of the gaming press is largely based on a far wider malaise in the world, of people wishing to demolish notions of expertise or more respected opinions," John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun said to me over email. "Where once [expertise] was desired, it's now considered arrogant oppression. So when a review disagrees with a reader's strong opinion, it's much more satisfying to conclude the discrepancy is the result of corruption.

I hope you were able to read the whole article and not just cherrypick a first sentence that seems to support your opinion? Which is furthermore just a citation of some personal communication with some other journo?
Yes, I definitely know how to read ;-)

What this quotation means is that it is not because it already happened before in some cases that it is the case for all game reviews.
Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence to back this idea for DoW III, other than people's confirmation bias.

Also if you correctly read the article, it is more about "Why gamers don't trust reviewers", than "Reviewers are all liars".

Believing positive reviews for DoW III were utter lies is a biased point of view which demonstrates a closure to other opinions of the game. It equates to "this game is so bad, you've got to be under the influence of [fill in with whatever pleases you] to write something positive about it". There is no proof to back it, because you are using a shortcut in your logic.
Colombo Feb 14, 2018
You definitely don't, because I never claimed anything you wrote in your next paragraph.

There are many reasons why people don't trust music/film/game journalist and why the in a lot of cases, something that is bellowed by professionals is unpopular and the other way around. There is a significant reason why instead of traditional media, blogs and LP were suddenly much more popular and there was such boom.

The indisputable fact (some) journalist bended over to give game a better review (to keep publishing company on their good side) is but one of them. This is not unique to games, but to everything from music, cars, sometimes even scientific papers (since if field is small, even with double blind review, you might know who wrote the paper).

However, I never claimed that DoW III is the case.

Other causes may be that there are just too many games with similar mechanics and too little time to explore games in depth, so journalist who didn't explore game fully might have been captivated by interesting new mechanics, which might provide fun for first hour or two, but then player who plays the game more finds that said mechanics is irreversibly broken. And thus while journalist had a great fun for one or two hours, player who spend 4 might find that the game is just not worth it.

In fact, original comment about that (not mine) was about this, and you claimed that this is conspirational theory.
omer666 Feb 15, 2018
You definitely don't, because I never claimed anything you wrote in your next paragraph.

There are many reasons why people don't trust music/film/game journalist and why the in a lot of cases, something that is bellowed by professionals is unpopular and the other way around. There is a significant reason why instead of traditional media, blogs and LP were suddenly much more popular and there was such boom.

The indisputable fact (some) journalist bended over to give game a better review (to keep publishing company on their good side) is but one of them. This is not unique to games, but to everything from music, cars, sometimes even scientific papers (since if field is small, even with double blind review, you might know who wrote the paper).

However, I never claimed that DoW III is the case.

Other causes may be that there are just too many games with similar mechanics and too little time to explore games in depth, so journalist who didn't explore game fully might have been captivated by interesting new mechanics, which might provide fun for first hour or two, but then player who plays the game more finds that said mechanics is irreversibly broken. And thus while journalist had a great fun for one or two hours, player who spend 4 might find that the game is just not worth it.

In fact, original comment about that (not mine) was about this, and you claimed that this is conspirational theory.
And yet you came in with your explanation in reaction to my comment, thus implying your point proves mine wrong.

So if you don't believe it's the case with DoW III, why would you argue at all? What is the point?

Truly yours,
The illiterate dummy.
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