Dead Space/Mirror’s Edge Poor Sales
February 27th, 2009Did you know that Dead Space only sold around 500,000 copies? I don’t know that I’d call a half-million copies of an unknown franchise a “failure,” but EA definitely had higher expectations. Along with Mirror’s Edge, EA is looking to retrench its launch strategy by keeping a longer publicity window open for its games prior to release.
Whether or not this is really why the games sold so poorly is somewhat questionable - Mirror’s Edge, at least, had highly mixed reviews (I didn’t buy it because of concerns about controls and replayability). That said, it definitely seems reasonable to think that a longer launch window would definitely help acculturate gamers to games with some fundamentally new ideas.
I think it’s reasonable to think that gamers might pick up on new ideas quickly. But things that are different need some time to seep into our consciousness, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing; sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t, and it helps to have time to sort through them.
Posted in Geoff, Industry |
March 6th, 2009 at 10:03 am
This is why i feel EA gets a bad rap. They make games which people buy in droves, and the second the start making a commitment to quality, people largely abandon them.
Meanwhile activision starts putting out multiple versions of the same game in a year and people flock to them.
I really think that gamers don’t actually want a different experience, they just say they do, because whenever someone provides it, they ignore them.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:34 am
Dave,
I think there are other issues at work as well.
“They make games which people buy in droves, and the second the start making a commitment to quality, people largely abandon them.”
I don’t necessarily think anyone abandoned them. I think the hardcore gamers are generally pretty pleased with their efforts on games like Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge.
“I really think that gamers don’t actually want a different experience, they just say they do, because whenever someone provides it, they ignore them.”
This is the rub right here. First, yes, I think what you’re saying is true. Gamers (and by gamers, I mean those we see posting on sites like Kotaku) DO say they want unique games, innovation and new IP. And I think a lot of that is lip service as you’re saying. But the other problem is that the “gamers” we’re talking about are a minute portion of the game buying public. In order for a game to do well, it needs to either nail the vast majority of hardcore gamers (Bioshock, Mass Effect, etc) or it needs to have overlap between the hardcore and the mainstream gamer (Halo, CoD, etc). In the case of Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge, I think they did neither. I think they were purchased mostly by the core gamers who were honest in their desire for something new and largely ignored by the rest, including the mainstream gamer.
I think the internet cacophony largely overstates it’s buying power combined with so many people on the internet simply are full of shit.