Valve intends to launch an Artifact do-over. So far, Artifact is the biggest discrepancy between the outcome and expectations in the history of Valve.
Since its release way back in November 2018, things haven’t been well for Valve and CCG Artifact. The headcount of their players also immediately tumbled down.
From a strong 60,000 game players, it went down to just slightly above 200, according to the Steam Charts. This is a notable decline, especially for Valve.
To recap, Valve had previously positioned Artifact as their back to game development vanguard.
Finally, after months and weeks of bearing the loss, Valve acknowledged that things went terribly wrong for them. As such, they have decided to immediately put the game on hold until they figure out what to do next.
Jeep Barnett spoke on behalf of Valve and said that they when they launched Artifact, they expect good things for it. As a matter of fact, they expected that the game will have a very long journey.
Also, they expected that the game would lay the foundation for them. Valve’s original plan involves an immediate dive into their normal strategy of launching and shipping numerous series updates.
Supposedly, these updates would have been a result of their dialogue with the gaming community, Barnett said.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned for Valve. Valve acknowledged the fact that the game’s actual output is a far cry from what they originally intended.
They, however, think that players misunderstood the game, which explains why they’re not playing it as it should be. The Artifact now is a representation of Valve’s opportunity to improve their craft and build better games.
Barnett also said that they know that Artifact has some deeply-rooted issues that can’t be addressed easily. They believe that these issues can’t be remedied by mere strategy update or adding of new cards or features.
Valve now believes that they need to re-examine everything about the game fully. Meaning, they need to recheck their social playing experience, the economy, and game design. All these will definitely take time before it can yield substantial results.
Moving forward, Valve promised to be fully heads-down to focus on addressing bigger and more serious issues than shipping updates.
Barnett also acknowledged that these development and experimentation processes will most certainly take time. Despite this, they’re still very excited to tackle the challenge and promised to get back as soon as they’re ready.
It will most certainly a long and bumpy road ahead for Valve and Artifact. Then again, fans are finding assurance in Valve’s words that they’ll come back bigger and stronger.
Good luck, Valve! And see you soon, Artifact!
