Raven Designer Declares a Wolfenstein-Madden Showdown

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Raven Designer Declares a Wolfenstein-Madden Showdown


Madden NFL 10 [http://www.ravensoft.com/] in August, he'll pay for your copy.

You read that right. If Wolfenstein rings up better sales than the new Madden title in the month of August, it's free games for everybody. It's an audacious gamble, made only slightly less so by the fact that there's no way in hell Wolfenstein is going to surpass the mighty Madden machine on the charts. Heir made the declaration on his Twitter feed [http://twitter.com/manveerheir] and he's asking people to spread the word.

The rules continue to evolve as people become aware of his daring declaration but they remain relatively simple. The winner will be based on North American sales as determined by the NPD Group [http://www.npd.com/], but anyone from any country can be reimbursed. To get Manveer Heir's money, you'll have to follow him on Twitter and provide a copy of your receipt, and of course there is a limit of one per customer.

Realistically speaking, Heir is at greater risk of being hit by a bus on his way home from work tonight than of having to shell out for a few thousand copies of Wolfenstein. But full credit to the man for coming up with a genuinely new way to draw attention to the game. Madden NFL 10 is a perfect opponent for this kind of virtual grudge match: So wildly successful that it's safe, yet at the same time so widely derided that an awful lot of gamers would probably get a giggle out of seeing it trounced by a shooter.

And who knows? Wolfenstein might even win! The fun begins when both games hit store shelves on August 18.

via: Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/08/the-challenge-is-set-made-wolfenstein-a-hit-get-game-free.ars]


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maxusy3k

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May 17, 2008
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Surely if Wolfenstein outsells Madden, making it completely free will make Madden the bigger moneymaker anyway, so therefore it won't be outsold by Wolfenstein and oh my god my brain is leaking out of my ears.
 

Gunner_Guardian

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Jul 15, 2009
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Creative way to earn a few more sales.

But seriously, a gamble like this is like me betting my friend that it'll be cold in December
 

KDR_11k

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Feb 10, 2009
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Um, is there anything really interesting about Wolfenstein other than it having the same name as one of the first FPSes?
 

HardRockSamurai

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Hahaha, this guy is doomed. It's like putting up a single man against an army of magical, genetically altered super nazis..........oh wait..........
 

ChromeAlchemist

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Pretty ballsy challenge. A shame it's not going to happen though, Madden 10 is on five platforms and sold over 2 million copies last year.
 

RomanLegacy

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I'm not quite sure I understand. Lets say that it did outsell madden. The whole point of selling games is to make money. The develouper is going to repay all the money back to the people who bought it? I don't understand at all...
 

hansari

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ChromeAlchemist said:
Pretty ballsy challenge. A shame it's not going to happen though, Madden 10 is on five platforms and sold over 2 million copies last year.
Is there any way to even hold him to his word? Stuff like this has happened before...

I remember hearing about some stupid match between Kanye West and 50 cent. The gist was that if 50 cent's upcoming album sold less than West's, he would retire from the industry.

West sold more....50 is still in the industry...

Its all a gimmick.
 

laryri

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RomanLegacy said:
I'm not quite sure I understand. Lets say that it did outsell madden. The whole point of selling games is to make money. The develouper is going to repay all the money back to the people who bought it? I don't understand at all...
Their just boosting sales by making people think that by buying it they'll get it for free. There is a better chance of this game being 100% historically accurate than there is it beating Madden in sales.
 

Slycne

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laryri said:
RomanLegacy said:
I'm not quite sure I understand. Lets say that it did outsell madden. The whole point of selling games is to make money. The develouper is going to repay all the money back to the people who bought it? I don't understand at all...
Their just boosting sales by making people think that by buying it they'll get it for free. There is a better chance of this game being 100% historically accurate than there is it beating Madden in sales.
Also even if it did beat Madden in sales, a certain percentage of people will be too lazy to go through the steps to redeem their money. This is why companies love rebates, same advertising advantage as a sale but with the added bonus that some people won't ask for their money. A few hundred or few thousand copies of the game is probably well worth the advertising they will get from this. Although as most have pointed out it will be a stretch for them to outsell Madden.
 

OneHP

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RomanLegacy said:
I'm not quite sure I understand. Lets say that it did outsell madden. The whole point of selling games is to make money. The develouper is going to repay all the money back to the people who bought it? I don't understand at all...
maxusy3k said:
Surely if Wolfenstein outsells Madden, making it completely free will make Madden the bigger moneymaker anyway, so therefore it won't be outsold by Wolfenstein and oh my god my brain is leaking out of my ears.
It's one of the designers from the company offering money from his own pocket. The company would not be affected in anyway should this actually happen.
 

ChromeAlchemist

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hansari said:
ChromeAlchemist said:
Pretty ballsy challenge. A shame it's not going to happen though, Madden 10 is on five platforms and sold over 2 million copies last year.
Is there any way to even hold him to his word? Stuff like this has happened before...

I remember hearing about some stupid match between Kanye West and 50 cent. The gist was that if 50 cent's upcoming album sold less than West's, he would retire from the industry.

West sold more....50 is still in the industry...

Its all a gimmick.
You know, I knew he wasn't going to stick to his word, but I still hoped deep down that he would...

Oh well, he's hardly about nowadays anyway.
 

dekkarax

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Apr 3, 2008
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maxusy3k said:
Surely if Wolfenstein outsells Madden, making it completely free will make Madden the bigger moneymaker anyway, so therefore it won't be outsold by Wolfenstein and oh my god my brain is leaking out of my ears.
Are you going to clean that up?

OT: I wonder if he's counting worldwide sales.
 

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Read the news post and find out!

And as someone else noted, this isn't Raven, this is Heir himself offering to spring for the game out of his own pocket.
 

Low Key

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ChromeAlchemist said:
Pretty ballsy challenge. A shame it's not going to happen though, Madden 10 is on five platforms and sold over 2 million copies last year.
Yeah 2 million copies is impressive. But the second sentence on in the article reads "in the month of August", so they don't mean total lifetime sales. It just needs to outsell it for a week or two, which is still a pretty big order to fill.
 

Delmar Wynn

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Nov 12, 2002
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RomanLegacy said:
I'm not quite sure I understand. Lets say that it did outsell madden. The whole point of selling games is to make money. The develouper is going to repay all the money back to the people who bought it? I don't understand at all...
I would venture to say that they have an insurance policy out on this so the company won't really lose any money.
 

Sevre

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Apr 6, 2009
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Last year I think it was, Dr. Pepper said they would give everyone in America a free can if Guns'N'Roses put out Chinese Democracy that year. They did. I wonder what happened? I'm serious I don't know, anyone know?