These June Game Sales Numbers Are Kind of Depressing

[Mr. Omega]

Typical hardcore gamer: It's not a shooter! It's E-rated! It has the option using Kinect! Gimmick! Kiddy! Casual! Duke is HARDCORE! It's got GUNS! And TITS!

Dagnabbit, I want the "hardcore" title returned to people who are actually dedicated to gaming as a whole!

*edits quote for correctness*

There:

Typical mainstream gamer: It's not a shooter! It's E-rated! It has the option using Kinect! Gimmick! Kiddy! Casual! Duke is HARDCORE! It's got GUNS! And TITS!

*nods*

*goes to bed*

Thank you. That's actually what I meant. Sorry about that...

Why is this any surprise? Artsy games have NO MARKET on consoles. Now If it was based on the PC with steam, then it would have sold many more copies. Consoles don't want art, they want typical games. You don't market art games on consoles the same way you don't open a fashion boutique in a Ghetto.

....... There are no words to describe how much of an ass you sound like.

1: Way to assume. So being on Steam automatically means it would have sold better... yeah, when it only would have cost $0.99 in the middle of a sale. And would have not been able to use Kinect, one of the main points of it.

2: So no console gamers want art games? And all PC gamers do want art games?

3: I love it when you PC Gamers call Console gamers terms like "Ghetto" and "Mouth-breathers" and (my peronsal favorite) "Lesser Gamers". Makes you sound soooooo classy. Not like a fanboy at all. Nope. To classy to be a fanboy...

 

[archvile93]

I find it hard to compare Duke to Eden. Duke doesn't require a $150 peripheral to play it.

I know nothing about child of Eden, but based on what I read here...

Q? Entertainment's Child of Eden was a beautiful, wondrous experience [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8990-Child-of-Eden-Review] that nigh-singlehandedly made the case for Kinect as a game peripheral.

... I assume it's a mandatory peripheral.

As far as I know it isn't mandatory, it just greatly enhances the experience.

I think the problem here is advertisment issues. I hadn't even heard of the game until the review for it, but Duke Nukem had lots of exposure.

 

[dfphetteplace]

I know nothing of the game, but maybe if it wasn't for a useless peripheral it would have done better. Regardless on whether DNF was any good or not, the mere fact that it is on 3 systems and not just one that requires extra equipment is almost a guarantee that it would sell more.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

Well Child of Eden hasn't had 14 years of free advertising and people buying it just to make sure the thing isn't a rick Roll the whole world has been playing. I do wonder how many copies of Duke have been traded in though, because I garentee that we will see a huge drop in sales when the July figures come out.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Child of Eden is a game that doesn't deserve any moaning and it works without any add on peripherals. Console gaming is dying so enjoy this sort of thing while you still can.

 

[Agente L]

Why are you all even surprised?

DNF, even if it sucks, is a game that our community has been waiting for over 10 years. Obviously it would sell lots of copies at the launch, sucking or not.

And Children of Eden can be considered a indie game, had a lot less advertising and is console exclusive.

Stop acting surprised. It's quite obvious that DNF would outsell everything this month.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

What the heck is "Child of Eden"? Only heard of it now, in this article.

Also, only know what "Shadows of the Damned" is from watching the ZP video on it.

DNF.. well, read the other responses in this thread. It had three important things going for it that skyrocketed it in the market atmosphere. The other two did not. I'm nor disappointed nor surprised.

 

[Jodah]

This is surprising or depressing why? A good indie title got beat by a big name piece of crap? That happens every day.

 

[DeadAccountMoveAlong]

At least the fact that 2K lost a shit ton of money on DNF warms my heart.

Why does that warm your heart? What has 2K actually done wrong? All they did is publish it. Gearbox, Piranha, and Triptych only had it for roughly 8% of its development. Nobody should be blaming anybody but 3DRealms, and groups like the Escapist that hyped the hell out of it only to jump ship once people realized it wasn't perfect.

Everyone being blamed are the ones who had it at the very end. I know they took a risk, but people shouldn't be blaming them for it. Miller and Broussard are complete sleazy hacks and by wasting millions of dollars on this game, they've only hurt the people dedicated to it enough to actually make it a reality.

No, it wasn't perfect, but I've seen way worse come off with way better.

Very objective article you have there John.... If it only were.
While I get that you are upset that DNF outsold some games that you enjoyed, this article is pretty damn unprofessional in its subjectivity.

Oh, get off it, he's understandably pissed, and he's a games journalist; he has the right to voice an opinion. You want dry discourse go to IGN.

Loose definition of journalist there. He basically reposted an article from yesterday with muddled facts, no content, and fails to discuss why the numbers are low. The article failed to mention the latter two games were poorly advertised, and one pretty much demands an expensive peripheral.

 

[Brian Hendershot]

WHhhhaatttt? A FPS about tits and guns outsold everything else? Now waaaay!

 

[Dogstile]

Typical hardcore gamer: It's not a shooter! It's E-rated! It has the option using Kinect! Gimmick! Kiddy! Casual! Duke is HARDCORE! It's got GUNS! And TITS!

Dagnabbit, I want the "hardcore" title returned to people who are actually dedicated to gaming as a whole!

*edits quote for correctness*

There:

Typical mainstream gamer: It's not a shooter! It's E-rated! It has the option using Kinect! Gimmick! Kiddy! Casual! Duke is HARDCORE! It's got GUNS! And TITS!

*nods*

*goes to bed*

Thank you. That's actually what I meant. Sorry about that...

Why is this any surprise? Artsy games have NO MARKET on consoles. Now If it was based on the PC with steam, then it would have sold many more copies. Consoles don't want art, they want typical games. You don't market art games on consoles the same way you don't open a fashion boutique in a Ghetto.

....... There are no words to describe how much of an ass you sound like.

1: Way to assume. So being on Steam automatically means it would have sold better... yeah, when it only would have cost $0.99 in the middle of a sale. And would have not been able to use Kinect, one of the main points of it.

2: So no console gamers want art games? And all PC gamers do want art games?

3: I love it when you PC Gamers call Console gamers terms like "Ghetto" and "Mouth-breathers" and (my peronsal favorite) "Lesser Gamers". Makes you sound soooooo classy. Not like a fanboy at all. Nope. To classy to be a fanboy...

Well aren't you hostile.

1. Of course being on steam it would have sold better. It would have gotten way more marketing and would have been exposed to a greater number of people. Also, protip, its completely possible to play the game without kinect and its even possible to hack a kinect for PC usage, if you're so inclined.

2. He never said that. He said there wasn't a market. There currently isn't a market of such a size where it is worth it to make artsy games on consoles if its not marketed. Now if they pulled a braid and marketed well i'd have understood because that draws people in and creates said market, but they didn't.

3. This is where I stopped taking you seriously. He uses the word ghetto once, in context to the discussion. You've just assumed that he's a fanboy and made up a bunch of terms that he didn't actually say. Well done there sir, you're defending a notion you yourself have made up. Jolly good show.

 

[Prince Regent]

Marketing, marketing, marketing. I'd never heard of Child of Eden or Shadows of the Damned before they where discussed on the Escapist, where LA Noire, Duke and even infomous made a lot of noise before the games where released.

Why is this any surprise? Artsy games have NO MARKET on consoles.

Almost right, they do have a market but (as you can guess) they don't have any marketing. The less informed gamer won't even know these games exist.

238U.
In the event that Escapist requires me to view a commercial before getting a code, I will simply not post. Depending on the frequency, this may temper or cease my future participation in the Escapist community. Apologies in advance, if this policy prevents me from replying to you when it is proper to do so.

Uranium on the Escapist, now thats new. I agree with you on the new captcha though

 

[BrotherRool]

I'm glad InFamous 2 hasn't flopped, even though it looks like it isn't going to push 1 million

 

[BoogieManFL]

More people have the system but not the kinect peripheral. Also, Duke wasn't a typical game launch for reasons that are obvious. And it was available on Steam.

Mystery solved.

 

[vivster]

As to be expected, all those higher selling games did the smart thing; marketing. Those poor "artsy" games with underwhelming sales have no one to blame but themselves, and will be left to wallow away into obscurity as fitting. While the higher selling games that knew the market will probably receive future sequels.

Maybe these developers should learn basic marketing before they step foot into a capitalist economy, or else they're just going to get trampled.

pretty much this
actually it's not THAT sad
the developers knew what they were doing and they knew the consequences of that
you look at coe and you see right away that it's nothing for the mass market
the developers obviously didn't intend it to be appealing to the mass market and in that logic didn't expect it to sell high
so at least they are not disappointed at low sales...

so if they're not sad why should we be?

 

[Ca3zar416]

This does lack the tidbit of information reminding us that Duke Nukem Forever is a game that has been in production for 12 YEARS! Think of just how many of those sales were pre-orders and there's again the whole Child of Eden not being near as good without the extra $150 peripheral.

 

[rainbowunicorns]

Which of these games would you say The Escapist gave the most coverage to (that would be trailers, previews, news, reviews, etc.)?

I'm certainly not saying that it's wrong to cover games that you think will be big, since I'm sure it draws more readers. But to then bemoan the lackluster performance of games that you didn't cover nearly as much is just a tad hypocritical. If you want the "good" games to do better, and the "bad" games to do worse, give less coverage to the "bad" games. "How could we know DNF would be bad?" you might say; and that's totally reasonable, so don't give one game many articles before launch and few or none to another. I'm not saying you should do this: you are a business, and doing so would probably be a bad business decision.


Which had the largest advertising budget? Being known is important, and if the big-budget game is getting all of the news articles and pushing the largest number of adverts, they will likely get the largest number of sales.

 

[Zhukov]

Jesus, Christ, yes, we know DNF was terrible for it's amount of time in development, but come on. There is no need to be constantly slandering a game that was average. A bad game is one that is broken, like Turning Point. Yet I don't even remember people talking about it, let alone taking the piss out of it every second fucking post.

A game does not have to be broken to be bad. That would be like saying a book needs to have half the pages ripped out to be bad.

If DNF is considered to be of average quality, then something has gone terribly wrong. Luckily that is not the case.

See, those of us "slandering" DNF aren't doing it because we think the game was average, we're doing it because we think the game was utterly shit, regardless of expectations or development history.