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- Despite paying over $2500 for a booth at TGS, only four people in Japan were playing Dustborn on Steam.
- The game’s booth at TGS was mostly empty.
- The minimal interest in Dustborn represents a notable financial loss for Red Thread Games or the Norwegian government.
Dustborn, the story-driven action-adventure game for the “modern audience”, failed to attract any audience at all at the 2024 Tokyo Game Show. Even after spending around $2500 for a booth at the event, the game only attracted four players on Steam in Japan soon after.
Why it matters: Despite heavy promotion and substantial investment from the Norwegian government, the game has failed to resonate with its intended audience.
Even with a big event like this attracting over 243,000 attendees, Dustborn’s performance was disappointing, to put it mildly. A tweet from StutteringCraig on the SideScroller Podcast revealed that only four people in Japan were playing the game on Steam after its appearance at TGS.
A photo of the Dustborn’s booth shows three empty seats meant for attendees to try the game, but no one seems interested. This image represents Dustborn’s overall reception—an uninspired project that hasn’t caught the attention of gamers.
While Red Thread Games promotes Dustborn as a “revolutionary” narrative-driven action-adventure, the lack of interest at such a major gaming event tells a different story.
The game’s failure to attract even a few players goes on to show a growing gap between the developers and the gaming community.
As of writing, only 17 players are active in the game, which is surprisingly low given the budget that was allocated for the development. With a peak of just 83 players at one time, it’s apparent that Dustborn hasn’t met the hype created by its marketing.
There have even been times when the number of players dropped to zero. For a game that received strong promotion and public funding, these numbers paint a dire picture.
It raises the question: how long will Red Thread Games keep investing in a project that the gaming community has largely ignored?
With a booth cost of over $2500, this outcome represents a notable financial loss. However, it’s still unknown whether the Norwegian taxpayer money also funded this booth.
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