Aliens: Colonial Marines Sales Prove Bafflingly Massive

[Earnest Cavalli]

Aliens: Colonial Marines Sales Prove Bafflingly Massive

Proving conclusively that no one listens to videogame critics, Aliens: Colonial Marines has sold 1.31 million copies since its February debut.

Sega just revealed its most recent financial report and the company is doing relatively well. Profit is up nearly 54 percent, thanks in particular to two very different, but very popular videogames: Sonic And All-Stars Racing Transformed and the objectively terrible Aliens: Colonial Marines.

The former we understand, as Transformed is a legitimately fun kart racer in the vein of Mario Kart, but Aliens: Colonial Marines remains the current go-to example of wasted potential (not to mention developer duplicity, poor level design, subpar aesthetics, poor quality assurance ... I could go on and on, but there's little to insult about Aliens: Colonial Marines that hasn't already been jabbed by a hundred other critics).

Actually, Aliens: Colonial Marines was such a debacle that TimeGate, one of the two studios responsible for the title's development, Polygon discovered [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.407615-Aliens-Colonial-Marines-Developer-Goes-Under] a class action lawsuit filed in California which claims that the game was falsely advertised to consumers - specifically that everyone behind the game lied as often as possible to distract from the depressing quality of what they were working on.

To recap: Aliens: Colonial Marines may be the most universally despised game since Duke Nukem Forever - sadly also a Gearbox project - and caused the collapse of at least one game studio. It's undeniably a bad game, and yet 1.31 million of you decided to drop $60 on the title.

What the eff guys?

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/10/4318516/sega-reports-18-7-percent-drop-in-sales-plans-to-focus-more-on-digital]

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[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

It's called "branding". It sold based on its name, most likely, as well as advertising. Marketing can get a lot of sells if it has a strong name attached to it. For example, see every licensed game ever.

Also, for future reference, you should at least try to keep your biases out of articles. It's a bit obnoxious to see an article writer basically insult people for not following their standards. I'm not saying don't have an opinion. Just try to keep biases out of journalistic writing.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I actually kind of liked A:CM... I suppose that makes me a bad person.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Brand name + Pre-orders + Awesome looking demo (that wasn't representative of the final product) + Review embargo = Profit apparently.

So yeah, people didn't know it was bad, because games journalists didn't/couldn't tell people it was bad, hence why people bought it.

Good to see Sonic And SEGA Racing do well though, because that game is amazingly good fun.

 

[Rad Party God]

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is legitimately better than any Mario Kart ever made and has become one of my favorite racing games ever. A:CM's only saving grace is it's amazingly convoluted development history.

Spoiler: And this.

 

[vansau]

Thanks to the (admittedly brilliantly) duplicitous marketing campaign, I'm willing to guess a ton of people pre-ordered it. Now I'm willing to bet they spend a lot of time crying in the shower.

 

[bificommander]

I've already seen A:CM's prized down heavily on GamersGate.com. It was a temporary discount of 75% IIRC. So not everyone payed 60 bucks.

Still didn't pick it up. I think I can get better games from 2 years ago for 10 bucks.

 

[WanderingFool]

Thanks to the (admittedly brilliantly) duplicitous marketing campaign, I'm willing to guess a ton of people pre-ordered it. Now I'm willing to bet they spend a lot of time crying in the shower.

Is there anyway to figure out how many returns of the game there are? Cause Im almost willing to bet that there would be almost 1.3 million in return copies of that game.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Also the fact the Borderlands people had a hand in the game people thought it would be good. You wonder if they poured the devs money from both ACM and DNF into Borderlands 2.

 

[VinLAURiA]

Wasn't this precisely Jim's point [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6863-Previewed-Preordered-Prescrewed]?

 

[Right Hook]

Anybody who preorder this was mildly stupid and very naive (myself included, I vow to not preorder again unless I feel it is an absolute necessity and quality is more assured. Way to go Gearbox, your disregard and ineptitude will cost better companies money they actually deserve).

Anybody who bought this after the release and the reviews started dropping is completely stupid and pays attention to nothing. (Seriously there is almost no excuse for any purchase after the reviews dropped, why would you buy this?!?)

 

[Entitled]

Either preorders, or more likely, most game consumers are not avid gaming news followers like me and you, who would have a chance to hear that the game is shit, in time.

 

[rasputin0009]

I hope Gearbox gets off with only a slap on the wrist because I love the Borderlands series. No, I don't approve of their business practices, but fuck it, they haven't raped Borderlands yet. I definitely won't pre-order a Borderlands game because of Gearbox's track record.

 

[KeyMaster45]

At some point the news articles on this site started to sound less like reporting and more like forum posts.

 

[Rot Krieg]

Actually, Sega has stated that it SHIPPED 1.3 million units, not that those units have actually sold.

 

[Fodder Aplenty]

Anybody who preorder this was mildly stupid and very naive (myself included, I vow to not preorder again unless I feel it is an absolute necessity and quality is more assured. Way to go Gearbox, your disregard and ineptitude will cost better companies money they actually deserve).

Anybody who bought this after the release and the reviews started dropping is completely stupid and pays attention to nothing. (Seriously there is almost no excuse for any purchase after the reviews dropped, why would you buy this?!?)

Maybe they liked it or something, i don't know.

 

[Yuuki]

I heard a few people bought it because it was bad, just to see for themselves how truly atrocious it was and play it as a "parody" or something. I guess some people have money to chuck around :S

 

[Casual Shinji]

Looks like somebody's having the last laugh... all the way to the bank.

 

[WarpZone]

So thanks to pre-orders and reviewer complicity, The Publisher Got Away With It. Do you see now why I was such a hostile little bastard when Bioshock Infinite got perfect tens all around? We have no reason to trust the press! Even when you know something's up, you're not allowed to say anything until it's too late!