WARDOGS is Proof AAA Studios Need to Stop Treating Players Like They Are Stupid

With WARDOGS’ undeniable success continuing to dominate headlines and social media, I wanted to take a minute to talk about why the game has succeeded and why AAA studios in particular should be taking notes. By the end of the weekend, I forecast the game will make well over $100 million in revenue from game sales, and that’s no easy feat these days, so it’s worth talking about.

But why is it a success? The game isn’t particularly good-looking; it’s full of bugs and issues; it hasn’t used big actors, nor has it had a massive marketing campaign that costs 10s of millions of dollars. Those factors could be because the game is in early access, but by AAA philosophy, this game should have failed, or at the very least, not done as well as it should have.

We’ve seen games with three to four hundred million dollar budgets crumble like Concord, Highguard, Marathon, and probably soon-to-be Fairgames. So why has WARDOGS found success? Well, in my opinion at least, it’s because they haven’t treated their players like they are idiots, and they’ve humanized their developers.

Throughout their marketing over the last few months in particular, CEO Joe Brammer and others from Bulkhead have been super honest about the game and why they made the decisions they have. Ultimately, that’s earned players’ respect, and loyalty to the team and franchise has now been cemented.

It’s somewhat similar to how Mark Rubin of Ubisoft’s XDefiant was brutally honest about SBMM, and while that game eventually died and had the plug pulled, it’s another example of how being honest with your players can lead to success, even with pitfalls.

There’s no bigger example of this than during WARSGOGS’ launch, which, oh boy, was a rough one. I spent five hours of WARDOGS’ launch, like many, sitting in the main menu of the game. But Bulkhead didn’t point the finger at anyone else; they instead took the blame, said they screwed up, and took accountability. Joe Brammer even took to social media to tell players to refund the game and rebuy it when the servers are stable.

These videos and apologies were made in the office, with developers tirelessly working behind the camera to make things right. I’m not sure whether this was a marketing tactic or an organic choice, but it humanized the developers, which I think a lot of studios struggle at doing. There was no fancy camera setup or script; it was just raw honesty captured with a GoPro or phone. It showed players this was genuinely a massive headache to resolve, and you’re simply not going to capture that with a 200-word apology picture posted to socials. You can watch the aftermath video that Bulkhead released below:

Anyway, I’ve rambled on a bit, but I thought it was important to give a team a pat on the back for something that I found particularly refreshing to see in the industry. I imagine that WARDOGS’ success will be a case study for many studios in the coming months about how to successfully, and unsuccessfully, launch a game, but importantly, how to communicate with communities effectively.

Again, I think it’s simple, but stop treating players like they are stupid. Be honest, be human, listen to players, and they’ll listen back and support your games.

For more coverage on Insider Gaming, check out a report on new court documents from Rockstar Games comparing their security to Apple and Coca-Cola. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.