You’d think that people would go crazy for Dodgeball style games. Get a group of friends together, and jump into the arena, and get ready to bring back memories of old, while you pelt people with big rubber balls of death. That’s what Knockout City is. A PvP Dodgeball style game. Developed by Velan Studios and published by EA, it was a game that I never truly heard much talk of. A few friends here and there were interested in it, but other than that, nothing.
Even the concurrent player count on Steam didn’t look that great. When it launched in May 2021, you had about 4 thousand concurrent players on Steam. At the time of writing this article, which is October of 2021, there’s only a concurrent player peak of about 150. Now take into account the console player base. Usually if the player base on Steam is low, the console base is even lower. So I can’t imagine Knockout City is doing well. Even if they did just announce a 3rd Season. I’m sure some of the community still loves the game, but the other part of the community is anything but happy.
Just the other day it was revealed that a native Ps5 version was being released for the game. But this has made the community go up in arms, because of one simple reason. The trophy list is still very buggy. Upon release, there were a myriad of glitched trophies. Patches were released that were supposed to fix the issues with trophies/achievements, but they didn’t seem to do anything. Even now on Reddit, or famous trophy website psnprofiles[dot]com, you have people saying they can’t get some trophies, even after being well over the requirements needed! They’ve taken to asking EA support, or creating threads on EA Forums, and the most they’ve been told is “keep playing and they’ll unlock eventually.” EVENTUALLY! Trophy hunters help keep servers alive! When games are abandoned and forgotten, you still have hunters going back to play them with friends. Yes it may come off a bit egotistical I’m sure, but getting trophies or achievements are a way for some gamers to pay respects to the devs, by doing everything. Having them not try and fix your issue feels like a giant middle finger from the devs, to that portion of the fan base.
For example, take a look at Activision’s entry to the Call Of Duty series, with Infinite Warfare. There was a trophy/achievement for winning 5 online matches. This was glitched the day the game was released, and was never fixed. I myself had to win 59 matches for this trophy to pop. This made some of the fanbase swear off on buying another Call Of Duty game. Sure it may not hurt Activision’s wallet, but it still hurts the bottom line, which is the devs themselves!
Whether you’re a developer from a big hot shot company, or an indie developer, and you don’t care about trophies, some of your fanbase might. If they aren’t happy due to extreme requirements or nothing but glitches, they’ll tell a friend. Then they’ll tell their friends, and they’ll tell their friends. Next thing you know, you’ve lost upwards of 1,000 sales (a tad dramatic I know) from prospective buyers! Do right by your community. Whether it’s trophy hunters, or just die hard fans who enjoy the game for what it is. Without them, your game would be dead in the water, and you’d be out of a job! So this is a shout out to Velan Studios and EA. Fix your damn trophies for the part of your community that cares! As such small things can make or break your game for someone.
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Velan Studios
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: Electronic Arts
Publisher Socials: Twitter
NODE Gamers 