Except you’ve been dwelling underneath a rock on Exegol for the final month, you’ve in all probability heard of YouTuber Jenny Nicholson’s viral, four-hour-long video reviewing the Star Wars lodge, formally referred to as Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Titled “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Resort,” it goes into excruciating element about why the immersive (and costly) expertise went off like a Wookie fart within the Jedi Temple. All through the video, there are apparent parallels to latest, spectacularly dangerous online game launches centered round fashionable IP, like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Marvel’s Avengers. It’s nearly as if no quantity of profitable lore can save one thing when it’s rushed or half-assed, am I proper?
Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser opened on March 1, 2022 and completely closed a yr and a half later in September, 2023. The “immersive” expertise required company to remain there for 2 nights—no extra, no much less. (Nicholson’s keep price simply over $3,000 per particular person, although the bottom attainable possibility was $1,209 per particular person.) Throughout your keep, you spend nearly your complete time “on” the Starcruiser, which promised wild views of area you may glimpse by means of its faux home windows, and an tour to Disney’s Star Wars world, aka Galaxy’s Edge.
“Immersion” was the large promise right here—you’d get pulled into your personal distinctive storyline that was meant to seamlessly weave into different company’ storylines in addition to these of the forged members working on the lodge, like a real-world RPG. For those who needed to show it into a correct LARPing (dwell motion position taking part in) expertise, you may even put on full Star Wars apparel whereas staying there.
The expertise proved lackluster for the value level, and thus the Galactic Starcruiser closed final yr. Jenny Nicholson exhumed its corpse in her Could 18 video, opening the floodgates for derision from followers, a litany of memes, and even a bizarre, PR-heavy ScreenRant article from a former Starcruiser worker.
There are such a lot of particulars packed into this YouTube video (which is roughly the size of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Again mixed), that I couldn’t even strategy correctly masking it, however there are some actually stark parallels to poorly obtained video video games that stand out, from the bugged quest traces to the bevy of microtransactions that function a reminder of the perils of placing all of your eggs in a single IP basket.
The Star Wars lodge: expectations vs actuality
First, there’s the stark distinction between idea artwork and actuality. Idea artwork is simply that—an idea, so whereas there’s some expectation that the ultimate product will a minimum of resemble the idea artwork, it’s not one thing that may make or break a online game or a real-world expertise. Besides, that’s, when the marvel and promise of the idea artwork dwarfs the truth of the ultimate product, or when issues from that idea artwork are excised from the ultimate product completely. Each of these issues occurred on the Star Wars lodge.
The entire idea artwork for the Galactic Starcruiser confirmed that the widespread areas could be bustling hives full of area residents and droids, whereas large home windows provided a panoramic look out into area. As Nicholson reveals in her video, the foyer of the lodge has a couple of tiny home windows which might be method up excessive on the partitions, far sufficient away to keep away from shut inspection, and nowhere close to eye-level. In the meantime, the area station-themed restaurant in Epcot has a ton of gigantic faux home windows searching into digital area.
Issues have been clearly rushed or minimize right here. There was one droid roaming round amongst lodge company, not a number of skittering across the area. There have been a couple of actors in alien make-up, not a ton. Many instances the actors and droids appeared in balcony within the foyer that was inaccessible to company.
Nicholson even factors out the rooms have been needlessly small—as this isn’t an actual cruise ship of the ocean or the celebs, there’s no related measurement restrictions Disney needed to keep inside—prone to minimize prices in order that the corporate might maximize its income.
The Star Wars lodge’s microtransactions
The astronomical price of staying on the Star Wars lodge was already an issue, however if you add on the dearth of transparency round pricing (as Nicholson defined, of us needed to name a quantity to e book their keep, and will solely get a way of the vary of attainable costs by evaluating notes) and the tons of different, pay-walled experiences the lodge provided, I’m violently reminded of the gaming trade’s love affair with live-service video games and microtransactions.
On the Star Wars lodge, you may improve your seat throughout time for dinner to the “Captain’s Desk,” for $30 per particular person. You may pay $169 for the Reminiscence Maker package deal, which ensured that the roaming photographers would snap photos of you dwelling this immersive expertise and that you just had entry to limitless downloads of these pictures. You may additionally pay $399 for a half-hour personal photograph shoot, however this package deal was added at a later date, and seems to have negatively affected those that purchased the unique, $169 Reminiscence Maker tier, as Nicholson claims she noticed no roaming photographers throughout her keep—apparently they have been too busy masking the personal photograph shoots.
And, as Nicholson factors out, although your keep on the lodge would get you seven hours of time within the Disney parks, there have been tons of paid add-ons that weren’t included: lightsaber constructing ($220), droid constructing ($100), or a desk at Oga’s Cantina (food and drinks not included). The Galactic Starcruiser employees additionally instructed folks arrive the evening earlier than their keep in order that they wouldn’t miss out on any of the actions—one other hidden price.
All of that is paying homage to the latest, worrying development: full-priced video video games being launched which might be affected by microtransactions. That is totally different from free-to-play titles like Fortnite or Overwatch, that are additionally affected by microtransactions however a minimum of help you get your foot within the door free of charge. The exorbitant pricing of the Star Wars lodge and its equally pricy add-ons is a direct parallel to AAA video games charging the brand new $70 norm simply to give you much more crap to spend your hard-earned cash on.
The exorbitant pricing of the Star Wars lodge and its equally pricy add-ons is a direct parallel to AAA video games charging the brand new $70 norm simply to give you much more crap to spend your hard-earned cash on.
Like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Although it was developed by Batman Arkham studio Rocksteady, it adopted the microtransaction development: You’d should spend $70 to purchase the sport (which launched in a reasonably damaged state), and if you happen to needed to unlock its new characters you must grind its battle cross—or pay up.
Or what about Diablo 4, one other full-priced recreation that provided $25 armor units, a battle cross that many thought-about at one level to be “stingy,” and a fast-travel portal that price you $30?
Or the NBA 2K video games, that are additionally not free-to-play and which, at one level, charged $5 for digital durags (when IRL ones price you about $3). The NBA 2K video games have traditionally relied closely on gamers shopping for its VC (digital foreign money) to unlock animations, purchase digital playing cards to flesh out their fantasy groups, or enhance their gamers’ stats.
Finally, these secondary prices really feel like freeway theft if you’re already shelling out for the bottom expertise—similar to the Star Wars lodge. Nicholson makes a parallel with the notoriously low cost, paid-option-heavy Spirit Airways, which remains to be normally a reasonably economical solution to fly, however can really feel extra grating as a result of it explicitly expenses you for facilities that different airways bake into the price of your ticket. Nicholson asks you to think about Disney’s “immersive” lodge expertise is like if Spirit Airways “really price extra…and all these facilities nonetheless price additional.”
The Star Wars lodge’s bugged quests
For the advertising push main as much as the opening of the Galactic Starcruiser, Disney launched a couple of Imagineer roundtables that delved deeper into what company might count on. As Nicholson factors out, a type of roundtables instructed you’d be capable to “assist somebody stow away” or break somebody out of the brig, or run right into a “galactic celebrity” throughout your keep. One video even instructed that there was a “love story” on board.
Nicholson’s video lays out how the RPG parts of the Starcruiser labored: the forged (which included a Togrutan, a Twi-Lek, and a Rodian) have been the NPCs of this world, and an app that you just had to make use of in your telephone allow you to “talk” with these characters and others. These characters would “textual content” you by way of the app, and you may reply by selecting a couple of pre-written choices.
There have been rumors swirling that the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) bracelets all of the company needed to put on have been by some means transmitting data to the actors, together with issues like whether or not you’d responded to a selected character positively within the app, which might, in flip, enhance (or lower) your belief rating with them. Sure, that is all precisely like how an RPG works.
Besides it didn’t work.
Nicholson’s expertise was like if you happen to tried to go Renegade in Mass Impact 3 and nothing you probably did mattered.
“The gameplay didn’t work for us in any respect,” Nicholson says in her video. “In some unspecified time in the future there was some kind of vital logistical failure which broke each facet of it. I used to be regularly pissed off your complete time I used to be there and I left extraordinarily disillusioned. In our specific expertise, not one of the actions we took at any level directed the course of our story in any method.”
Oh, and the merchandise assortment mechanic (yay, fetch quests!) that the Starcruiser had for company? “It was dangerous,” Nicholson says. “It isn’t any enjoyable.” Her video reveals a number of, unsatisfying examples of the Starcruiser’s merchandise assortment function. “The bizarre gameplay is simply incomes you imaginary foreign money to spend on nothing,” she says. Hmm…sound acquainted?
Like video video games and the bevy of bugged quests that plagued Starfield after its launch, or that impossible-to-finish aspect quest in FF7 Rebirth that necessitated a patch, or gamers getting locked out of random aspect quests in a single model of Cyberpunk 2077, the Star Wars lodge’s quests have been essentially damaged for Nicholson and others. However as a substitute of it simply being a couple of bugged aspect quests in Fallout 4, the Star Wars lodge’s complete immersive story was damaged. Nicholson’s expertise was like if you happen to tried to go Renegade in Mass Impact 3 and nothing you probably did mattered. The story goes on as if you happen to weren’t even there, the Reapers win, Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani by no means will get punched within the face.
Does that sound immersive to you? And even remotely enjoyable? They will’t patch this, both. This can be a recreation you spent literal 1000’s of {dollars} to play, as soon as.
What have we discovered from the failure of the Star Wars lodge?
Nicholson’s scathing video is one more stark instance of IP-driven capitalism gone flawed. It’s the warmth demise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the bevy of schlocky, subpar video games tied to vastly costly franchises like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League or Gotham Knights—the late-game excisions made to hurry out a product, the crunch to launch one thing shortly to capitalize on followers’ shifting pursuits. Corners get minimize, authentic concepts get sanded down till they’re barely reminiscent echoes of a way more palpable promise—and you must pay a premium to expertise this smoothness.
The failure of the Star Wars lodge jogs my memory of the lead-up to the launch of Starfield: the hype, the deep-dive movies, the 1,000 planets promise, the reassurance from Microsoft that this might be “one of the vital essential RPGs ever made,” only for us to get an unsurprising, completely Bethesda expertise. Was Starfield an abject failure? No it wasn’t, even when it was simply Skyrim in area—since you weren’t charged $3K to expertise it. The Star Wars lodge was an abject failure, as a result of it didn’t ship what was promised after you forked over an enormous sum of money.
The rabid Star Wars fan base can pay absolutely anything for an expertise or merchandise that’s distinctive, totally different, or unique, and the Galactic Starcruiser promised simply that. However even the kinds of people that would pay a grand to go on a trip the place they should pack little or no baggage and cram right into a small room with 4 people can inform dangerous worth after they see it.
It’s why avid gamers, regardless of their affinity for rallying behind all of the flawed causes, can a minimum of level to a recreation that’s riddled with microtransactions, or that launched in a damaged state, or that was made on the backs of crunched staff and go, “That’s dangerous.” And the Star Wars lodge was dangerous.
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