Splitgate 2 Will be Defined By This Moment
21A Moment that Could Define Splitgate 2
00:00 - Intro
01:15 - Some qualifying
02:34 - The game
10:06 - The hat
14:22 - Is it political?
15:48 - I'm not here to apologize
20:30 - I'm here to apologize
24:05 - It would be more cowardly to do nothing
24:40 - 'They don't play games anyway'
26:08 - Rough Steam stats
28:53 - Post video yap session
The SGF Splitgate 2 segment:
On Friday, June 6, during The Game Awards' Summer Game Fest, Ian Proulx, the co-founder of 1047 games — the team behind Splitgate and Splitgate 2 — stood up on stage with a Make FPS Great Again hat.
Proulx decried the current state of FPS games, and subsequently bemoaned the absence of Titanfall 3. This mini diatribe on modern shooters was followed by the announcement of a battle royale mode for Splitgate 2. You know, Battle Royale: arguably one of the single biggest elements responsible for the monetary incentive systems of shooter games changing over the last decade or so.
Proulx’s appearance proved to be so controversial that it resulted in the team issuing a statement that no apology would be coming—an effective doubling down from Splitgate alongside some clarification… then this was followed by an apology.
I've considered making a video on this moment a handful of times over the last week. But things have been changing so rapidly that I shelved it. The situation has finally stabilised (I think) so , I thought I'd try my hand at giving some context as to what is going on here, and as an original Splitgate player, where I think this ends up.
Here's my attempt to cover just some of the main reasons this moment drew some ire, and why I think the pretty intentionally antagonistic comments made here fell shy of their intended goal.
First, I'm going to qualify some of my words here. Though I don't think it's always necessary, and is often implied in basically every one of my videos, I'm going to state outright that, of course, this is my opinion. I will try and signpost the moments where I may be guessing intent, or just telling you whether or not I agree with why some words are being said.
Proulx, and those who make statements on social media, are their own people, but they're also working on behalf of big corporations. You do have to guess intent sometimes, as much as that may suck to navigate. PR statements often benefit from a little bit of haziness and not fully stating an opinion in defined terms.
Despite misgivings, I actually do really value how loud Ian Proulx has been about his intent over the last week or so. I think there's an integrity in being able to state loudly, 'here's what I think and why'. It makes conversations easier to navigate and misgivings easier to actually talk through. I would advise actually watching the Splitgate 2 segment from Summer Game Fest (it's linked down below) as I will be mostly summarising it for flow and time. Your perspective, not just on the event, but the delivery of some words and phrases, will be unique to you – this video is mine.
For the sake of this video, I'll split up the central analysis into a few major areas. The first is the game itself. Yes, we will get onto the hat later, but I think some of my analysis will draw back to this section later.
After saying, "I'm tired of playing the same Call of Duty every year", Proulx says he wishes we could have Titanfall 3. As someone who is quite critical of Call of Duty and also wishes for Titanfall 3, there's definitely part of me that wants to agree here. However, there is something that reads particularly weird about decrying the lack of an original inventive game with a great story mode and fast-paced multiplayer with inventive ideas, only to announce a sequel envisioned as a Halo / Arena shooter / Portal FPS game, that has surprise launched with a battle royale mode, complete with expensive microtransactions. In fairness, Splitgate responded to that specific criticism by lowering the price of the bundle. This is the right call, but it only really goes part of the way to addressing that larger problem. Also, while trying to be fair, I will say my description of the game is reductive, but that is functionally the original elevator pitch.
However, despite bringing down the price of that bundle, and somewhat shifting the blame to a former monetisation head who came from Call of Duty, it's still a very expensive bundle and much more expensive than many, just as highly detailed purchases you can make in the COD store. It's hard not to see that Splitgate is making a lot of the same decisions that caused COD to land where it is now.
#splitgate #splitgate2 #fps #cod #callofduty