BioShock Infinite March Sales Rise Above 2K's Expectations

[DrunkOnEstus]

It's amazing what happens when a publisher decides to be hands-off, and lets their devs do what they do best. According to Levine, Take-Two was totally hands off, pretty much saying "you know what you're doing, we may have suggestions based on data we have but you have full control over accepting or trashing those suggestions". Happy developer, a publisher satisfied without resorting to microtransactions and crazy DRM, and happy consumers who don't feel ripped off in the process. I highly suggest watching this interview if you have the time, it's good stuff:

 

[Grimh]

Waaaait no.
No no, nohohooo.

I've seen the game's Metacritic score.
This is clearly an absolute failure in every single way.
It should have sold at least 7 million in it's first month.

 

[Atmos Duality]

To be fair, it's not like 2k Games faced any real competition from their AAA peers.

Heart of the Swarm is the next closest AAA game of repute, and I have heard literally NOTHING about it since its week of release. (It didn't fail or bomb, just quietly came and went.)

I mean, what else is there? SimCity..?..oh.
Perhaps having EA to act as a hate-lightning rod every March and April might be helping...

 

[anthony87]

I wonder if Bioshock: Infinite's success is part of the reason God of War: Ascension and Gears of War: Judgement have not performed as well as they might have done, people can be unwilling/unable to drop £80 or more on AAA titles in the same month.

Gamers have complained about the competitive multiplayer in Gears but the new God of War has been pretty well received.

Didn't God of War have feck all advertising though? I'm a guy who bought all the other entries on release day but was caught totally by surprise the week Ascension came out.

 

[IronMit]

on track for 4.5 mill for the year whilst Tomb Raider expected 5-6 million in the first month. lol.
Someone really messed up

 

[unstabLized]

Very happy for them. Like someone said, it's good that they have realistic expectations. This game has every reason to do well. Good luck to them, hope the DLC will be as great as the original too.

 

[J Tyran]

I wonder if Bioshock: Infinite's success is part of the reason God of War: Ascension and Gears of War: Judgement have not performed as well as they might have done, people can be unwilling/unable to drop £80 or more on AAA titles in the same month.

Gamers have complained about the competitive multiplayer in Gears but the new God of War has been pretty well received.

Didn't God of War have feck all advertising though? I'm a guy who bought all the other entries on release day but was caught totally by surprise the week Ascension came out.

You're not the first one to suggest that, same goes for Gears. On one gaming site people didn't even know Ascension had been released yet they thought it was coming out later this year. Total Biscuit thinks people are just fed up of the older IP this late in the generation and while Infinite was part of a franchise its fresher than God of War or Gears which are just slightly reworked versions of the previous games.

 

[1337mokro]

I can't see how it would fail. The game they marketed it as was good. So of course it would sell well. Add to that ridiculous review scores and BAM! Mixture for success!

 

[Colt47]

This is one of the lucky ones that will manage to meet that sales expectation. I definitely would not call this having reasonable sales expectations: 4.5 million is basically a blow out sale when compared to the mean.

 

[Saviordd1]

4.5 million in a year?

Oh god 2K's in for a bad surprise...

 

[Tien Shen]

Only 4.5 million? Sorry if you can't break 5 million, then the single-player campaign was too long, and multiplayer wasn't developed enough. Also needed co-op with micro transactions cause hey, somebody wanted Deadspace 3 to sell 5 million and they had co-op and micro transactions. Yes, who cares if DS3 ended up flopping hard. COD! It needs to be more like COD! Brown military shooters is where the money is at! Make more brown military FPS!! You are doing it wrong Take Two! You need to meddle more in your studios and shovel multiplayer+microtransactions on every title before you greenlight them!

/sarc

I am very happy for 2K and wish them more success in the future.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

I get the feeling Squenix could learn a thing or two from this.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I can't help but imagine how EA would have handled this...

Probably:
"ERMAGAWSH IT DIDNT MAKE 10 MIL IN THE FIRST WEEK?!

Brb, gonna go slap all the devs silly, then fire them and sue them and make sure we never make another bioshock game ever ever every again because no one likes if because it didn't sell a ridiculous amount!"

Well, I'm glad it's doing great, and the publisher actually had reasonable expectations. It was probably helped by the fact that they didn't need to make the whole thing in one single year.

 

[Rip Van Rabbit]

I'm glad, the people who poured their heart and soul into this game deserve every single gosh-darn penny. One of the best experiences I've had in gaming lately. It's definitely in my top 5.

...

And no, I totally did not just hug my copy of Bioshock Infinite before putting it back into it's glass case display.

>.>

<.<

 

[EHKOS]

Wow, near a million in five days. That's awesome! It didn't help the ending, but still. Looking forwards to that DLC guys!

 

[MysticSlayer]

Less than one million in its first week? Damn, the game may not be the best the franchise has to offer, but it is certainly better than being a total flop at less than one million in a week! I guess Irrational is now on the chopping block...Oh wait, it's actually above expectations...

On a more serious note, I'm glad to see that 2K had more realistic expectations for this game than other publishers, and I'm glad to see the game exceeded those expectations. For all my problems with the game, I still thought it was a great experience overall.

 

[Lerola]

I am happy that they raised above expectations, that's what happens when you make such a masterpiece. I smiled for a bit, but then I remembered that there are spankgargleweewees that just recycle their last year's project and get much more sales *sigh*

 

[someonehairy-ish]

God of War: Ascension and Gears of War: Judgement

What and what, now? Seriously, I'd not even heard of either of those until now...

I tend to hear about games via hype, so that's a pretty good indicator that noone gives a shit about either GOW any more. Bad news for whoever developed those.

OT: Sweet I like it when hard work and good games with original ideas get rewarded. Hopefully some similar successes will pop up, and open the AAA industry's eyes on what consumers actually want.

I am happy that they raised above expectations, that's what happens when you make such a masterpiece. I smiled for a bit, but then I remembered that there are spankgargleweewees that just recycle their last year's project and get much more sales *sigh*

Aye, but their sales are no longer climbing much. I think COD has pretty much plateau'd now, meaning that before long we'll see the inevitable descent... hopefully.

 

[Lerola]

An age of gold is about to rise!
What scares me is what'll happen when some games become mainstream, will they try to improve or just decline? We've already had cases where everyone ends knowing that game and then things go bad *cough cough Assassin's Creed IV*