Analyst: Warfighter Failure May End Medal of Honor Franchise

[Timothy Chang]

Analyst: Warfighter Failure May End Medal of Honor Franchise

Michael Pachter says that the shooter's poor review scores may be "fatal" to the brand.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter, the second title in the modern reboot of the franchise, released to a lukewarm reception. CEO John Riccitiello recently admitted that upcoming earnings would be "soft" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120411-EA-Admits-Poor-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Sales] due to low sales expectations of the FPS. Industry analyst Michael Pachter echoed the sentiments, saying that Warfighter's poor performance was a major setback in EA's efforts to take on Activision in the lucrative big budget first-person shooter space, and that we would shouldn't expect to see any more sequels from the franchise.

Pachter, from Wedbush Securities, says that the game's disappointing review scores may have "destroyed" any chance for another sequel to be produced. He believes that EA's delaying of releasing review code in order to minimize negative press had "backfired", resulting in low-scores "piling on" after the initial few critical reviews.

"We think that low review scores will impair EA's (and the Medal of Honor brand's) reputation with those who pre-ordered the game or bought it as soon as it was released (likely some of EA's most dedicated customers), and believe EA alienated at least a small portion of these gamers.

"Given the impairment to the Medal of Honor brand, we think EA is unlikely to take Activision's mantle as the leading developer of first-person shooters for several years," he continues. "It may be too late for the Medal of Honor brand, as a score as low as this one received may be fatal."

The first game in the series had a decent aggregate of review scores, scoring 75 on Metacritic. Pachter noted that, despite EA's earlier commitment to an improved product with Warfighter, the game only managed to score an average of 50.

Pachter also believes that the game is likely to fall short of its expected earnings by $100 million or more. The game's poor sales performance suggests that EA should not expect to see any strong sales in DLC subscriptions or digital revenue either.

Source: Videogamer [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-10-31-medal-of-honor-brand-may-be-dead-says-pachter]

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[Legion]

The only positive I see in this is that perhaps EA will learn to stop trying to copy-paste other successful games and actually try and make something original.

They seem to be pushing all of their games towards trying to catch a "wider market" but are competing with companies who already have that corner of the market nailed down.

 

[lancar]

Good riddance.

I hope this is a sign that the realistic war shooter fad will soon come to a close, so we'll actually see more variety on the shelves than CoDclone#115.

I can't wait.

 

[Erttheking]

I'd defiantly call this a blow against EA. It doesn't help that they were using this game to get people hyped for Battlefield 4 via beta. Also apparently this was their calling card to compete with COD, Halo, Assassin's Creed, Dishonored, and XCOM. Not particularly impressive EA, this may hurt you in the future.

 

[Jandau]

I'd love to say that's sad, but what exactly makes Medal of Honor a distinct franchise? I'm not trying to troll here, I'm honestly not sure. Granted, I'm not a fan of Modern Military FPS games, but for the most part the various franchises kinda blend together. If you shwoed me some Warfighter footage and told me it was the new CoD:MW game or the new BF:Bad Company or something, I don't think I could tell the difference.

So what exactly makes MoH distinct? Why would its "end" be a loss? What does it bring to the table?

 

[nodlimax]

Is it a promise that they won't release another one? If so then this a good day...

 

[Octorok]

What really annoys me behind this kind of horribly unimaginative ripoff (*cough* The Old Republic *cough*) is the business incompetence. Putting aside the whole "DLC, innovation, microtransactions, copy/paste, DRM etc etc" shtick for a moment, and think in terms of pure, hard cash.

Having demonstrated that gamers don't want to buy other franchises that just copy existing ones, why continue to spend this kind of money on games? Dead Space 3 needs 5 million sales to break even. This is completely absurd. By spending so much on making it a big, actiony shooter game, it has to hit a significantly wider audience than a more tightly focused, more niche Survival Horror game has to hit. The studio behind Prototype was closed due to "poor" sales (it was a chart topper. Not amazing by AAA standards, but it should have been enough to pay for the game), and now Warfighter is another failure.

I cannot understand how mindblowingly incompetent some people must be at EA. They are spending far, far too much money on getting another "hit" franchise, and presumably do not understand videogames or the people who play them. FTL was given 200k on Kickstarter (it was already mostly developed, so let's say the game cost 500k to make. Even that's probably an overestimate.) and it happily charted on Steam's Top 10 (which is calculated by revenue, not total sales. So, at £7.99, FTL must have made back a comfortable couple of million dollars.). Of course, publishers look at this kind of money and say "Pfshaw. Who needs a piddly few million? We need to be making a billion dollars every game! Call of Duty! World of Warcraft! Yeah!", but what if they spent the absurd $200 million budget from ToR on, say, 40 $5 million games.

Bear in mind, that's not indie funds. That's enough for a legitimate, professional team to make a game much bigger and more polished than FTL. A small, talented team on a lean budget can probably make back a smaller investment risk like $5 million, while producing more interesting games that hit more niches and work in more genres. I'm no business analyst, but I'm pretty convinced that this would be a greater success financially than these preposterous "Let's put all these eggs into this lovely basket" schemes.

Not only would this bring back gaming from this bizarre business plan where every game has to be the same, but it would require actual creative input too. We'd get back our interesting games, and if some of the games fail, it's OK. They only need 125k sales at $40 to break even, and if it tanks you haven't lost too much money. Everybody wins. Publishers, developers, and consumers.

Kickstarter has proven that there is a market for these games, one that can support these kinds of budgets, whereas EA have proven that there is no market for copies of existing franchises. I cannot understand how professional businessmen at billion-dollar companies can be this stupid.

The closest thing I've seen to this scheme is Dishonored. A publisher picking up a small, talented team with a great idea and funding a polished, well-made game, that (while it probably cost more than 5 million) is excellent, interesting, fairly low-risk moneywise (unlike, say, Elder Scrolls Online) and will probably make back what it cost to produce. I hope to Christ they succeed and prove me right.

For more on this, from someone who can phrase it a great deal better than I can, look to this excellent and intelligent Youtube channel -

 

[Metalrocks]

amazing. maybe ?A actually learned from it and starts making something by them self. i never got the game, but from the looks of it, its extremely brown and kicking in doors (this video was really funny). had nothing new to show. just another COD rip off.

 

[RJ 17]

When that other article came out about how absolutely shitty the game was doing, my first thought was: "Well, someone's getting the axe over this one..." And here we are with the news that "More than likely there won't be any more Medal of Honor games." I wonder which studio will be shut down now, as isn't Medal of Honor made by EA itself? Never played one of them, so I really don't know.

The only positive I see in this is that perhaps EA will learn to stop trying to copy-paste other successful games and actually try and make something original.

Pffft, fat chance with that. EA has already stated with regards to other games (i.e. Dead Space) that it fully intends to make games as bland and homogenous as possible to, as you said, appeal to a wider audience. They don't like new things...new things scare them and make them make messes in their diapers. New things involve the risk of that new thing being absolute shit that no one will want...kind of like Medal of Honor. They prefer to just tie together as many gaming tropes into sequels as they can and hope that it sells millions of copies.

 

[natster43]

Personally I would hope EA didn't end the franchise and just thought "Gee willikers, our game did sell as well as we thought it would. Maybe it is because it looked exactly the same as Call of Duty and Battlefield with nothing interesting to separate it from them. Maybe if instead of just making a game that seems to be exactly the same as these two, why don't we try and make a different and interesting shooter that changes things up! That would probably sell a lot better!" But sadly I doubt that would ever happen.

 

[cieply]

Why do you give this idiot any publicity. If you have any self-respect or respect for gaming you should never report anything he says and just let him fade into obscurity, gods know he deserves it like noone else

 

[Krantos]

The game is likely to fall short of its expected earnings by $100 million or more.

Wat?

Oh good god. When you can say that your game will fail to meet your expectations by over $100,000,000.00, your expectations were way to friggin' high.


E.A. Start hiring some analysts who know what the hell they're doing.

Here, I'll give you a free tip in the meantime. You know those 5,000,000 copies of Dead Space 3 you need to sell? You won't sell those, either.

 

[Random berk]

I doubt this will be the last we see of the Medal of Honor brand, because nothing truly dies any more. Likely we simply wont see any for a fair bit while EA puts it's shooter emphasis on Battlefield (As well as whatever other of their franchises they feel like butchering in the name of "accessibility" like Dead Space).

This raises a question for me: How exactly was Dead Space butchered? Agreeably, I didn't like it as much as the first game, but just off hand, I can't think of any hugely significant changes they made, with the exception of giving Isaac a voice and having him remove his mask occasionally. For the most part the gameplay was the same, the setting was very similar, and the plot... got a bit weird towards the end, but it wasn't like the game suddenly wasn't a Dead Space title any more.

 

[DaWaffledude]

I doubt this will be the last we see of the Medal of Honor brand, because nothing truly dies any more. Likely we simply wont see any for a fair bit while EA puts it's shooter emphasis on Battlefield (As well as whatever other of their franchises they feel like butchering in the name of "accessibility" like Dead Space).

This raises a question for me: How exactly was Dead Space butchered? Agreeably, I didn't like it as much as the first game, but just off hand, I can't think of any hugely significant changes they made, with the exception of giving Isaac a voice and having him remove his mask occasionally. For the most part the gameplay was the same, the setting was very similar, and the plot... got a bit weird towards the end, but it wasn't like the game suddenly wasn't a Dead Space title any more.

They're talking about what we know of Dead Space 3. It's been confirmed that it's basically just a shooter now.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

This raises a question for me: How exactly was Dead Space butchered? Agreeably, I didn't like it as much as the first game, but just off hand, I can't think of any hugely significant changes they made, with the exception of giving Isaac a voice and having him remove his mask occasionally. For the most part the gameplay was the same, the setting was very similar, and the plot... got a bit weird towards the end, but it wasn't like the game suddenly wasn't a Dead Space title any more.

Well, I think "butchered" is too strong a word. Honestly, I don't see the big fuss. Dead Space always seemed more like action with a horror edge to me, even the first game. Frankly, I saw that trailer for 2 with the Smashing Pumpkins song, and honestly, it fit more than the trailer that tried to be scary.
To me, DS3 going full action is just natural evolution. That said, I get where people are coming from. With this, Resi 6 and a few other horror franchises going full action, and the Silent Hill series not being truly great since 2, it does kinda feel like no-one is really doing horror anymore.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think that we need to go the route of Linkara and just have an umbrella name for these articles. "Pachter Time"

I don't know. Miller Time was a nice play on words. Patcher Time doesn't fit as well.

Regardless, his comments are usually offbase.

I used to wonder how he could be so wrong on this, then I googled him and discovered his jobs doesn't hinge on such analyses.

 

[Ariseishirou]

I never understood the "let's make CoD clones!" mentality. And I say this as a Call of Duty fan. When I want to play CoD, I'll play CoD. There's a new one out every year, with DLC packs every couple of months (though I get them every month, with Elite). I don't really need a CoD ripoff to while away the hours; CoD games have plenty of content and replay value.

And when I don't feel like playing CoD, I'm not going to pick up the nearest CoD clone! I'll pick up something completely different, like Dark Souls. Or Deus Ex. Or even Borderlands.

...And oh hey look those games all made money.

STOP MAKING COD CLONES. EVEN COD FANS DON'T WANT THEM.