GTA: Chinatown Wars Sales Tank Badly
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I think it's just a lacking concept in general to put "hardcore" games on portable devices, especially the DS. I would say that GTA mainly targets 15-35 year old males, while it seems that almost everyone I've ever seen holding a DS is younger than 15, and those who are older and using it are casual gamers (aka GIRLS) who would not buy the game anyways. Also, while it sports a retro look that may appeal to fans of GTA 1-2, I don't think many of those people own a DS or play it frequently. Let's not forget that GTA 2 came out in 1999, when most DS Players hadn't even started elementary school. Putting a GTA game on the DS is like putting a Hannah Montana game on the PS3.
That all said, it is a little discouraging that such a brand name/hardcore game like GTA could not break even 100k of sales. Such results will likely make developers sway away from making such games for the console and instead just keep publishing out casual games and child games.
That all said, it is a little discouraging that such a brand name/hardcore game like GTA could not break even 100k of sales. Such results will likely make developers sway away from making such games for the console and instead just keep publishing out casual games and child games.
Weird. Where I work, this game sells out quickly. And is in high demand. Like Rainchecks. Know where I work? At Toys R US!
Well, after renting it, I'm glad I didn't buy it. Its not fun to just drive around, and whipping out my stylus every single time I want to save is annoying. I'm fine with it for the occasional carjacking, but the safehouses could easily have used button controls. The action controls were perfect, though. For shooting and stuff. But its just not fun. You sell drugs for money that you rarely spend on anything but...more safehouses.
Yahtzee isn't really a reviewer. He's an entertainer. He's a professional troll, and I don't mean that as an insult because he's good at what he does. But when did you last see a good review from him?bodyklok said:
Re-read what you just wrote and think about it for a second. Go on. I'll wait.Anachronism said:
You see the problem yet? Yeah.
*laughs* Fair point, thanks for that.Fraser.J.A said:
What I meant was that the sales of other kinds of games illustrate that they're not interested in GTA.
I guess I should have made that a bit clearer.
That's crap and you know it.yourbeliefs said:
How old are you, even? Because I'd say more than every other male in the university I go to has one.
I believe (apparently along with plenty of other people) that this is because most people who would buy a GTA game don't have Nintendo DS's. I know that's why I didn't get it. They're just two different audiences. It's mostly wasted effort to try to combine the two. Just work on the next GTA game for consoles and make some money for all your hard work!
To be honest, that seems the most likely to me. I believe that the people who most watch ZP also include a large population of GTA fans. Furthermore, after Yahtzee's positive review of Painkiller, the company called him up to say that sales of the game had tripled within...I think it was some matter of hours. He has an unsurprisinly large audience, and the comments section definetely doesn't do it justice.bodyklok said:
Patrick_and_the_ricks said:
...ElephantGuts said:
...
I've never played GTA in my life because I've always had Nintendo consoles, (same with FFVII, actually, and a lot of things), and saw this crossover as a chance to sample it. After the reviews came in, I was set to buy it in a month or so, and after ZP talked about it, I'm a bit hesitant. We'll see. My point is though, the above arguments are two-way streets. Sometimes, when we buy a console, we do it at the risk of not having some games we would want, like someone who likes both Halo and SSB, and can only get one console.
Were the two lines of "..." really necessary? It made it sound like I was saying something crazy. And of course there will be some people like you who would buy the game, after all, it has to sell some copies. But the fact that it sold so poorly seems to attest to the fact that the amount of DS owners who will buy this game does not make up for the amount of GTA fans who can't buy the game because they don't have a DS. So yes it works for some people, but overall it's a bad idea.144 said:
I was gonna buy it but got Empire total war instead. Planning to get it in June after exams. That said; I am not surprised it didnt sell amazingly. 1: its released on a platform that I imagine few "hardcore" & "GTA" gamers own & actively use. 2: Most "GTA" Gamers have only been playing since GTA III if not only since San Adreas, making Chinatown wars about 8years too late to catch the few remaining gamers who own a game boy/ds, remember playing the games in that perspective & enjoying it.
I think that the main problem that the game has is that its taken a huge step backwards by going back to being 2D. Most gamers who are familiar with GTA are familiar with its 3D incarnations. Even the PSP ones were 3D and I know that its probably not possible to do that on the DS (I'm assuming Rockstar would have made it full 3D if they could) and this just looks so old and out of date in comparison, that, I think, is what has put people off getting it.
I don't trust his taste since he said No More Heroes was worth buying.bodyklok said:
It's too bad because it's really one of the best DS games. I was hesitant after GTA4 was such a letdown but they piled in the content without cramping the hardware.
This was my fault. When I said "Core gamers", I meant Rockstar's 'Core platform', not the hardcore gamers. I'm well aware that the DS has many (as this thread makes evident, and myself included). The problem is Rockstar's "Core" would easily be on the DS if demand for it is evident. The success of Metroid Prime: Hunters (as a control scheme, not a game) is proof that there could be a solid FPS genre on the DS, but there are few games out and about that capitalize on it. The same could be said for RTS and TBS, but very few games really sit on the concept.deathstrikesquirrel said:
I think we're being had here.
The reason why I say this is because as soon as the game came out it was already flooding into wholesalers like "BJ's Wholesale Club" and selling for $31. You also saw copies (actual copies) going inexpensively over Ebay, not just from Hong Kong but other sources as well. I bought a shrink wrapped copy for like $10 via Ebay.
Trust me, something is going on, because it wasn't dive bombing like this because of a failure on sales, or piracy, it was too quick for that. It's because the producers dumped a whole truckload of cheap copies on the market.
As far as the audience goes, well I think the issue is that most people just don't see how you can do a Grand Theft Auto game properly with the technical capabilities of the system. The reviews mean less to people nowadays because reviews are bought. After the whole Gamespot "Kane and Lynch" fiasco I think the credability of reviewers went down the toilet and game companies are slow to realize that paying uber-bucks for reviews (even indirectly by buying advertisements on review sites) isn't going to pay dividends like it used to.
That said Chinatown Wars is a decent game, I only tried it because again I got it cheap through Ebay. Fooled around with it a little while waiting for my raid to get it's act together a few times (and I rarely do anything but stay focused on raiding even when things are slow).
It *IS* however overpriced like many DS games. Generally speaking it manages to be a fairly good compromise between the older 2D and the newer 3D Grand Theft Auto games. It's a huge mess in places, but as Yahtzee says, it manages to be a disaster in a good way.
The thing is though that as good as this is for a DS game, it doesn't have all of the stuff that is part of the GTA package that justifies the high price tag for other platforms. There is for example no serious music, no cool stuff on TV to watch, no ongoing talkshow loops (which are usually very funny) or any of that stuff which is part of the entire GTA experience nowadays. You simply can't put stuff like that into the DS, I understand that, but as decent as the game is I can't get around the feeling that they jacked the price up simply because of the Grand Theft Auto name.
The target audience for the DS is fine, no reason to argue about kiddie nintendo gamers or whatever. But I think the very nature of this game (GTA on the DS) has made people wary because it sounds impossible. The core game play is decent, but your also getting a no-frills version of GTA at a fairly hefty price tag. I for example would not think the game is worth any more than $20. But then again obviously if they were selling to wholesalers even the designers don't think it was worth more than $30, and apparently there are enough of them being shoveled out there that you can get a copy for around $10 with some patience.
I sort of suspect they intentionally took a dive with this game, to try and "prep the market" to show what they can do on the DS to make selling later "M" type games easier. Though why they are whining about it is beyond me.
For the record I play all generes of games to some extent, for crime games though I prefer "Saint's Row" since I'm all about the character customization. I guess it's me being an RPGer at heart. Being able to make my guy look the way I want scored a lot of points above and beyond what GTA has done so far. No "Niko Bellic" is ever going to be the equal to the criminal psychopath of my own imagination.
>>>----Therumancer--->
The reason why I say this is because as soon as the game came out it was already flooding into wholesalers like "BJ's Wholesale Club" and selling for $31. You also saw copies (actual copies) going inexpensively over Ebay, not just from Hong Kong but other sources as well. I bought a shrink wrapped copy for like $10 via Ebay.
Trust me, something is going on, because it wasn't dive bombing like this because of a failure on sales, or piracy, it was too quick for that. It's because the producers dumped a whole truckload of cheap copies on the market.
As far as the audience goes, well I think the issue is that most people just don't see how you can do a Grand Theft Auto game properly with the technical capabilities of the system. The reviews mean less to people nowadays because reviews are bought. After the whole Gamespot "Kane and Lynch" fiasco I think the credability of reviewers went down the toilet and game companies are slow to realize that paying uber-bucks for reviews (even indirectly by buying advertisements on review sites) isn't going to pay dividends like it used to.
That said Chinatown Wars is a decent game, I only tried it because again I got it cheap through Ebay. Fooled around with it a little while waiting for my raid to get it's act together a few times (and I rarely do anything but stay focused on raiding even when things are slow).
It *IS* however overpriced like many DS games. Generally speaking it manages to be a fairly good compromise between the older 2D and the newer 3D Grand Theft Auto games. It's a huge mess in places, but as Yahtzee says, it manages to be a disaster in a good way.
The thing is though that as good as this is for a DS game, it doesn't have all of the stuff that is part of the GTA package that justifies the high price tag for other platforms. There is for example no serious music, no cool stuff on TV to watch, no ongoing talkshow loops (which are usually very funny) or any of that stuff which is part of the entire GTA experience nowadays. You simply can't put stuff like that into the DS, I understand that, but as decent as the game is I can't get around the feeling that they jacked the price up simply because of the Grand Theft Auto name.
The target audience for the DS is fine, no reason to argue about kiddie nintendo gamers or whatever. But I think the very nature of this game (GTA on the DS) has made people wary because it sounds impossible. The core game play is decent, but your also getting a no-frills version of GTA at a fairly hefty price tag. I for example would not think the game is worth any more than $20. But then again obviously if they were selling to wholesalers even the designers don't think it was worth more than $30, and apparently there are enough of them being shoveled out there that you can get a copy for around $10 with some patience.
I sort of suspect they intentionally took a dive with this game, to try and "prep the market" to show what they can do on the DS to make selling later "M" type games easier. Though why they are whining about it is beyond me.
For the record I play all generes of games to some extent, for crime games though I prefer "Saint's Row" since I'm all about the character customization. I guess it's me being an RPGer at heart. Being able to make my guy look the way I want scored a lot of points above and beyond what GTA has done so far. No "Niko Bellic" is ever going to be the equal to the criminal psychopath of my own imagination.
>>>----Therumancer--->