Homefront Powers Past One Million Sales

[Andy Chalk]

Homefront Powers Past One Million Sales

Homefront [http://www.amazon.com/Homefront-Xbox-360/dp/B003Q53VZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301071277&sr=8-1] has sold more than a million copies and passed the "key break-even level" into profitability, turning the critically-maligned game into a success story for THQ.

From a critical point of view, THQ's Homefront didn't live up to expectations. Based on a near-future Korean invasion of an economically-collapsed United States, the game was met with Metacritic [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8718-Homefront-Review]. It looked like bad news for THQ, which bet heavily on the game giving it a little bit of presence in the military shooter genre, but it turns out that things might not be so bleak after all.

THQ announced yesterday that 2.4 million copies of the game have shipped thus far, with estimated sales of over one million units worldwide. That's nowhere near the monster numbers of the Medal of Honor [http://www.amazon.com/Call-Duty-Black-Ops-Xbox-360/dp/B003JVKHEQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301071393&sr=8-1] reboot, but it's enough to give THQ a foot in the door and, even more importantly, to bring in a little cash.

The strong sales led analyst Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets to increase his estimates for THQ's fourth quarter, saying the game is now past the "key break-even level" and that the 2.4 million units shipped is actually higher than expected. Doug Creutz of Cowen and Company, meanwhile, believes Homefront will break the two million mark and allow THQ to hit its full year financial estimates for 2011 and 2012.

"We are very pleased with strong worldwide shipments and sell-through for Homefront and we continue to fulfill new retail orders for the game across the globe," said THQ President and CEO Brian Farrell. "Homefront is clearly resonating with gamers and we are certainly pleased with our initial sales results."

Source: GamesIndustry [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-03-25-homefront-passes-key-break-even-level]


Permalink

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

This is why we can't win on AAA.

Homefront flops? All the money gone. Transfer to console.
Homefront succeeds? Let's make more Homefront.
Homefront succeeds despite poor reviews? Reviews mean nothing. More Homefront.
Homefront flops with poor reviews? Studio terminated.

Despite the ludicrous story, over-used genre it makes its money because it pitches to the twitchers. People willing to spend until 2 in the morning staring down a gun scope to shoot you as you step from camp. Rest of us? Well, I hear there's Minecraft.

Not just the entertainment industry either, but it's a very destructive business model.

 

[icyneesan]

Always nice to hear games making a profit. Hopefully THQ will be able to fix up the problems such as how the game is only 'so-so' after the rather well done opening

 

[Bretty]

This is why we can't win on AAA.

Homefront flops? All the money gone. Transfer to console.
Homefront succeeds? Let's make more Homefront.
Homefront succeeds despite poor reviews? Reviews mean nothing. More Homefront.
Homefront flops with poor reviews? Studio terminated.

Despite the ludicrous story, over-used genre it makes its money because it pitches to the twitchers. People willing to spend until 2 in the morning staring down a gun scope to shoot you as you step from camp. Rest of us? Well, I hear there's Minecraft.

Not just the entertainment industry either, but it's a very destructive business model.

I agree Root. I am not suprised about the reviews but we do need to call a spade a spade here. The game is twitch based shooter aimed at non twitch based gamers, hence the poor reviews.

I am amazed it sold as many copies as it did. But at the same time it has been a little while since BLOPS was released and the twitchers needed a fix.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I'm glad really, I'm really enjoying Homefront and Kaos seem very open to criticism, I'm already liking the idea of Homefront: London with a longer campaign

And of course THQ + More money = More Warhammer games.

 

[googleback]

I rented this game to try the campaign. Can I just say that it was exactly what i expected from a narrative perspective. fucking lazy and fucking pathetic.

Not only does it show the occupying COMMIE INVADERS as faceless murdering monstrosities that prefer killing innocents to establishing order but it's protagonists spout more action movie clichés than I ever thought possible... this game is Schindler's List as made by Michael Bay... It's shameful and exactly the cold war era power fantasies that this writer has been ridiculed for, nothing new.

But I get it... WHAT IIIIIIIIIIFFFFF?!?

 

[Animyr]

I'm happy for the studio but I can't help but feel cynical about the success of a game that seems to be, in terms of gameplay and level design (if not story and setting), a rip off of CoD.

 

[constantcompile]

This is why we can't win on AAA.

Homefront flops? All the money gone. Transfer to console.
Homefront succeeds? Let's make more Homefront.
Homefront succeeds despite poor reviews? Reviews mean nothing. More Homefront.
Homefront flops with poor reviews? Studio terminated.

Despite the ludicrous story, over-used genre it makes its money because it pitches to the twitchers. People willing to spend until 2 in the morning staring down a gun scope to shoot you as you step from camp. Rest of us? Well, I hear there's Minecraft.

Not just the entertainment industry either, but it's a very destructive business model.

I agree Root. I am not suprised about the reviews but we do need to call a spade a spade here. The game is twitch based shooter aimed at non twitch based gamers, hence the poor reviews.

I am amazed it sold as many copies as it did. But at the same time it has been a little while since BLOPS was released and the twitchers needed a fix.

If I'm being realistic, I'll say that that's certainly the case. However, there is a more optimistic way of looking at things; hopefully THQ sees this for what it is - a mediocre game that just scraped by in terms of profitability, as most generic FPSs do, and a clear indicator that they need to put more focus on innovation and quality control in the future, rather than simply following the herd.

I for one actually look forward to seeing how Red Faction: Armageddon turns out, as the RF games have gotten better and better with each iteration.

 

[Bucky01]

i like that they made just enough money for homefront, enough so they don't go bankrupt and abandom what i believe to be a good idea, but still enough of a kick to the ass to tell them to do better, in particularly the short campaign and well done start of it all.

 

[Armored Prayer]

Well good for them. Honestly I thought this game was going to flop, but its good to hear the game is somewhat of a success.

Way to go THQ. You pleasantly surprised me, despite Homefront looking like a complete CoD clone.

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

Next time, dont get the same hurp a derp ''writer''
from red dawn.

 

[Woodsey]

Modern-day military shooter sells quite well.

In other shocking news: Charlie Sheen isn't actually anywhere near sober yet, and I like boobs.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

"If it's a sure way of making money, do it." It's not a destructive business model, it's the only logical one.

Tell that to Harmonix

Welcome to the business world, kiddo.

Despite painting the business world as the ultimate evil; they're not stupid. The FPS market is going to bottom-out sometime, as did the adventure game market, music game market - who would have foreseen the management sim taking off again as in the "-Villes"?

For one company, business may be served better by specialising. But if all the competing companies are specialising in the same area(See Starbucks, Costa, Cafe Nero) then a downturn could kill them all. THQ has already seen it's wrestling market deplete significantly.

From a customer view it's not so bad (for PC owners at least) because we've always got the indie market; but for console players and the businesses themselves, it's Russian Roulette.

And that last chamber is coming up real soon.

PS. Kiddo???!?!?

 

[AndyFromMonday]

The industry is at it's lowest. Quality games are a low priority since they tend to not make a profit whilst mediocre games break the million mark. Oversaturation can lead to another crash you know.

We get that you don't like multiplayer FPS games, but do you have to be such a prick to the people that do? It is literally the most popular genre in gaming at the moment, so you just effectively bashed the majority of the people here.

Plus sales, and hence cash, is how EVERY item is judged in the entire world. It works fine with games. If Homefront didn't have such decent multiplayer it would have flopped. But it actually managed to bring some value to the table and hence it was a modest success. There is a ton of room for improvements and personally I can't wait to see if they get a greenlight for some DLC, Updates, or even a AAA sequel.

Multiplayer is all fine and well as long as it brings something new to the table. Technically, Homefront didn't innovate at all. It had a 5 hour campaign and a multiplayer mode that took more than enough cues from Bad Company and Modern Warfare 2. I'd have nothing with games focused on the multiplayer aspect as long as they'd at least bring something new to the table instead of the same old rehashed shit over and over again.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

We get that you don't like multiplayer FPS games,

I think that's funnier than "kiddo".

 

[mjc0961]

"If it's a sure way of making money, do it." It's not a destructive business model, it's the only logical one.

Tell that to Harmonix

What do they have to do with this? Putting out a game that requires people to spend hundreds of dollars on extra, specialized controllers in order to use all the game modes available isn't a sure way of making money. It's a sure way of getting consumers to not buy your game: even if they WANT to, all that cost just for one game is too much. Maybe you'll do better then everything ends up on clearance and in the bargain bin, but short term you set yourself up for failure. And it's no surprise that it's exactly what Harmonix got.

Plus it had to die sometime anyway. There isn't anywhere near the level of variety they can pull with shooters in music games. Shooters can be arcadey or realistic, they can be team objective based or death match, they can have this weapon or that weapon, and so on. The biggest thing any music game could do was add more instruments, which was really just more of the same but with a different controller, or adding a singer which is really just karaoke with people making plastic clicky noises in the background. Oh and then they want to teach you how to play for real, but again, the cost of THOSE controller/slash instruments is so high that they'd have to be crazy to think that it was going to bring in a lot of sales, especially in this economy.

Anyway, yay Homefront I guess. Good for THQ and such. Tell them to wake me up when they have Saints Row The Third ready.

 

[AceAngel]

This is why we can't win on AAA.

Homefront flops? All the money gone. Transfer to console.
Homefront succeeds? Let's make more Homefront.
Homefront succeeds despite poor reviews? Reviews mean nothing. More Homefront.
Homefront flops with poor reviews? Studio terminated.

Despite the ludicrous story, over-used genre it makes its money because it pitches to the twitchers. People willing to spend until 2 in the morning staring down a gun scope to shoot you as you step from camp. Rest of us? Well, I hear there's Minecraft.

Not just the entertainment industry either, but it's a very destructive business model.

I would like for you to say that at face value to one of my friends who works there. The success of this game was critical for the studio for a couple of reasons:

a) Kaos started off as a bunch of modders making games for the UE Kit, they had next to no full game experience.
b) Their last games was Frontlines, and that game was atrocious, it was essentially a MP game in SP, and the MP itself was nuts and bolts.
c) They improved considerably from a MP-SP Basics games to something that feels more like an actual game.
d) They improved the MP considerably with all the feedback they got, and this is their only second game.
e) There is a very good chance they'll be relocated in Canada, to get a Tax-Break. This could make the difference between having a job and/or losing it, as well being able to chase other game stuff if be needed. You'd be amazed how much a Tax-Cut can affect developers.

I understand you're trying to make a point here, but it's kind of uncalled for with the slap-dash approach of saying "we have MineCraft" at the end of your statement, it almost feels as if you're saying that THQ and Kaos aren't worth two grams of salt unless they made a artsy-fartsy game which went to basics, instead of any other game that is a FPS.