The Culling Origins’ Insane Business Model
Some of you may remember the absolute dumpster fire that was The Culling 2…. actually now that I think of it nobody will remember it because nobody played it. Well anyway, the first Culling game is heralded by die hard fans as being one of the true godfathers of the battle royale genre. In 2018, Xavient released the follow up, The Culling 2 trying to be another modern day competitor to PUBG and Fortnite. The goal was to bring back their fan base and poach some of the other BR players in the process. It did not work out for Xavient. Lobbies would see a dozen players at best and automatic wins given out to the only person in the server. Refunds were given out at an alarming rate and servers were shut down within a week. I would say it will forever be known as one of the biggest flops in videogame history, but literally nobody remembers it, that’s how fucking terrible it was.
Still somehow, for some reason the die hard fans wanted the original Culling back. The Culling Origins released again in September of 2018 and performed so poorly (yet again) the servers were canned in May of 2019. It was unique enough with an emphasis on more melee combat that the OG fans wanted to see it come back. Guess what idiots you are getting your wish, The Culling Origins was just announced for a re-release but with some of the most bat shit out of this world monetization systems in place. If you have previously purchased The Culling you have access to the re-release. If not then you have to pay about 5$ for it……but that literally only allows you to download the game and play one match. If you win, congrats, you get another token to play another match for free. If you lose, you have to wait a day before you can play again, or you can spend real life money to buy tokens. You have to buy tokens JUST TO PLAY THE GAME. You can spend 1,3, and 5$ to get 3, 10, and 20 tokens respectively. You could always shell out 2$ for a week of plays or 6$ for a whole month. Even the monetization contradicts itself, who the fuck would ever spend 5$ to get 20 play tokens when you can spend 6$ to play for a whole month?
Have you ever seen the criminally underrated horror franchise, WishMaster? Some poor soul finds a djinni lamp, summons a malevolent force that grants wishes but they always end up twisted and killing the person int he end. That is what the Culling fan base is and Xavient is the WishMaster. You all wanted the game to come back, well guess what it’s back and in the worst form imaginable. Xavient stated they changed their “monetization approach to ensure that players will be able to visit the island for years to come,”. Are you out of your fucking mind? The last two times you tried to release this garbage bag of a game has failed between 1 week and 4 months. I’m reporting you fucks to the Better Business Bureau because this shit is criminal.
