Gwen

Dumbass in a dumb land

  • She/Her

I was born in the late Holocene and I've seen some shit



Campster
@Campster

It's hard ignore how much Content Warning is straight up stealing from Lethal Company, but also it really understands how much that "just gotta tell everyone the hilarious thing that just happened" feeling drives that game.

It's basically Lethal Company but instead of collecting loot and putting it on a ship you're gathering footage of spooky monsters to post on YouTube at the end of the day for ad revenue and views. And the clever bit here is that it understands the way in which people play Lethal Company - the desperate need to share all the hilarious clips and emergent nonsense that crops up.

That's how my crew have been playing Lethal Company for months, now - every play session is followed with The Sharing of The Clips. (We recently looked and realized we had over three hours of 30 second to 5 minute clips! It's a fun way to engage with the material!) So making the point of the game itself making funny clips feels a bit like cutting out the middleman.

That said, combined with the "it's free for a day!" pitch they're doing today, it almost feels like a cynical attempt to kickstart some virality as people share their in-game generated Content Warning clips the way people share their Lethal Company clips. Is "lethal company, but we make the clips in-game" a crassly calculated business move? Or is it a shrewd and forward-looking understanding of the social dynamics of the game they're ripping off? Is it both?


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in reply to @Campster's post:

Haven't played it yet, I've just watched videos, does it feel like you're just playing Lethal Company? So much from the core loop to the environments to the monster design of Content Warning seems just copied. I can't tell what, outside of the clip-sharing, is unique about it.

the thing that seems unique about it from what I've played is that you want to get up close to the monsters and other dangers so that you can catch them on film, but also be able to get away afterwards. Other than that yeah it's pretty much a straight clone of lethal company with less interesting monsters

Oh wait, the other way it’s different is that because there’s only one camera, you can’t use an item and film at the same time, and there are no walkie talkies, the play involves much more sticking together and direct collaboration than lethal company’s splitting up

Seeing what happened after Vampire Survivors got popular (by itself copying another game, also the Suika stuff) and how people defended Palworld, there's absolutely no world in which I'd consider this a rip off.

Releasing for free worked for We Were Here. I've seen it done a bunch by indie multiplayer games, because really there's no choice here, it's either that of stop existing instantly.

All of this isn't more cynical than games adding dogs to pet, farming elements, a specific kind of 3D visuals, or any other stuff that's been proven to work even though it doesn't impact or make the games better.
And this studio has done plenty of original stuff to earn some benefit of the doubt when they put their own twist on something that isn't yet a formula.

Honestly, I wanna see a game that “rips off” Content Warning. Something that leans into the “you’re playing paranormal investigator YouTubers” thing more. Player character models looking more like stereotypical, douchey influencers like the Paul brothers or Jaystation. More (seemingly) grounded maps (stuff a regular person could theoretically just barge into), possibly including the players’ own house. A monster design based on some particularly non-threatening cartoon character. A system where the players can sell merch.

Like, Content Warning feels like it has a genuinely good twist on the formula but they just didn’t seem to take as far as they really should have.