Tomb Raider Approaching Six Million Units Sold, Exceeds Expectations

[Soviet Heavy]

Still not a fan of the reboot's obsession with beating the shit out of the character and brutalizing her at every opportunity, but good on them for making a profit. I'm just hoping this means the sequel won't be so relentingly grim, and we can go back to a more confident lara fighting dinosaurs.

 

[dyre]

You know, I'm beginning to think that publishers' chronically unrealistic expectations must be the result of more than just their greed. People are greedy in all industries...are the people who pitch the video game ideas to the publishers projecting unrealistic sales targets? The CEO of Activision or SQenix doesn't do cash flow forecasts himself...someone is feeding these executives unrealistic expectations.

Still not a fan of the reboot's obsession with beating the shit out of the character and brutalizing her at every opportunity, but good on them for making a profit. I'm just hoping this means the sequel won't be so relentingly grim, and we can go back to a more confident lara fighting dinosaurs.

I just hope she develops more of a personality in the sequel instead of just being "someone who reacts to problems."

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Oh my god, Games sell past the first week/month after release? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT!?!?!?

This is one thing that always kinda bothered me when publishers measure a game's financial success - the fact that they focus almost entirely on initial sales. This isn't the movie industry (though even there disc sales make more and more money), games often tend to have a slower, longer burn, with many potential customers holding off for reviews, word of mouth, sales, patches, etc. Sales do slow down as time passes, but you need to wait for at least a year past release to have a decent idea of how well your game did.

Kinda reinforces the notion that the people running this industry don't really know anything about it...

You do realize that it was recently re-released for the PS4 and Xbone?

The numbers are so high because they were essentially double-dipping.

 

[MCerberus]

You know, I'm beginning to think that publishers' chronically unrealistic expectations must be the result of more than just their greed. People are greedy in all industries...are the people who pitch the video game ideas to the publishers projecting unrealistic sales targets? The CEO of Activision or SQenix doesn't do cash flow forecasts himself...someone is feeding these executives unrealistic expectations.

Makes me think the problem is probably in the CFO's office for this particular issue. If the company is repeatedly off-base with financial predictions regarding several multimillion dollar projects, why does he and his reports have a job?

edit- this mess is still a symptom of a bigger problem. The Japan mobile market hasn't crashed and been taken over by one app at a time like in the US, making the US console/PC market important to understand. Squeenix has repeatedly decided to not make that effort, relying on its underperforming mobile and failing Japan console markets to dictate decisions. That can't go on, eventually they'll run out of IPs to reboot bought from bankrupt companies.

 

[dyre]

You know, I'm beginning to think that publishers' chronically unrealistic expectations must be the result of more than just their greed. People are greedy in all industries...are the people who pitch the video game ideas to the publishers projecting unrealistic sales targets? The CEO of Activision or SQenix doesn't do cash flow forecasts himself...someone is feeding these executives unrealistic expectations.

Makes me think the problem is probably in the CFO's office for this particular issue. If the company is repeatedly off-base with financial predictions regarding several multimillion dollar projects, why does he and his reports have a job?

Yeah, I agree that broadly speaking it's the CFO who is to blame, but at the end of the day I don't think the problem can be reduced to simply an incompetent CFO...CFO himself isn't the one who compiles the reports and projections either (he just green-lights them). Something must be seriously wrong with the way they do their forecasting. Obviously it's difficult to project demand for video games because it's not as simple as using past sales or making assumptions based on genre or even developer, but I get the feeling that somewhere along the line someone has a vested interest in overhyping the sales and no one in the company is willing to step up and rock the boat by saying "actually, I'm not sure if this game can really make 5 million sales..."

edit: you might be right; another possibility is that SQEnix is misapplying mobile trends to PC sales projections or something like that.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I'm surprised the game is still being bought by that many people this far out. Does it have to do with the "Ultimate Edition" that was released recently? It was released already, right?
I picked the game up on day one and loved it. Glad that they're going to keep the series going, but please take the multiplayer out. That has no business in a Tomb Raider game. And perhaps make the tombs a bit more challenging. Not super hard and annoying like Underworld (that was the last one, right?), but perhaps a bit more thought required.

 

[Falseprophet]

Oh my god, Games sell past the first week/month after release? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT!?!?!?

This is one thing that always kinda bothered me when publishers measure a game's financial success - the fact that they focus almost entirely on initial sales. This isn't the movie industry (though even there disc sales make more and more money), games often tend to have a slower, longer burn, with many potential customers holding off for reviews, word of mouth, sales, patches, etc. Sales do slow down as time passes, but you need to wait for at least a year past release to have a decent idea of how well your game did.

Kinda reinforces the notion that the people running this industry don't really know anything about it...

I kind of get where they're coming from, though. Movies have a lot of secondary markets. If the film doesn't do well in theatres, there's still DVD/Blu-ray, downloads, streaming, in-flight movies, TV rights, merchandising, etc. AAA games can cost as much as a Hollywood movie, take years to make, and can really only make money from primary unit sales. If the studio's execs--who in almost every case except Valve are accountable to shareholders who don't necessarily understand the business--don't see immediate returns on their massive investment, they get really nervous.

I don't disagree with you, but I think the industry has to stop thinking every game could achieve GTA or COD sales, and thus requires a GTA/COD level budget, and lower expectations accordingly. Both for themselves and the customers.

 

[DanielBrown]

It's a great game, and I love it, but I don't really trust the numbers. They gave it away in the Square Enix Christmas mystery box and it's currently a free purchase on PSN+ in Europe(don't know about USA). I own two copies because of it and I assume all of those count. As well as that they also made it dirt cheap a long time ago... So of course they'll have sold a shitload!

Well, good for them I guess. Hope the sequel will be great too. Won't buy it though since the odds tell me I'll get at least one copy for free eventually. >

 

[shiajun]

I'm surprised the game is still being bought by that many people this far out. Does it have to do with the "Ultimate Edition" that was released recently? It was released already, right?
I picked the game up on day one and loved it. Glad that they're going to keep the series going, but please take the multiplayer out. That has no business in a Tomb Raider game. And perhaps make the tombs a bit more challenging. Not super hard and annoying like Underworld (that was the last one, right?), but perhaps a bit more thought required.

Underworld's levels were [i/]far[/i] easier that previous entries in the series. I like the Reboot as a whole, it's a good,fun game, but it isn't a particularly interesting Tomb Raider game since the "tombs" are dead easy and tiny. They managed to make combat engaging, now they should try and do that with larger, much more difficult environmental challenges. At least, that's my take on the game.

 

[m19]

So SE was full of crap. Not surprising.

 

[A-D.]

Actually the reason why publishers focus on the initial sales is because it is harder to bank on long-term returns. So to them the amount of units sold on Day 1, Week 1 and Month 1, in that order, is the most important because it recoups the initial investment for making the game in the first place. So if a game sells 500.000 units in a single day, they get better projections as to how many could be selling in a week or a month or a year.

Course that all loops back on failure to properly budget because publishers arent interested in recouping their investment, they want to make mad bank. If a game merely recoups its budget, lets say 20 million, it isnt good enough because the game failed to make profit, to them it is only successful if it gets 21 million or more because thats 1 million in profit right there.

So it makes sense why Square Enix called the reboot a failure in that sense cause..well it didnt make mad profits right away, which is why the industry is in such a shitty state.

 

[unstabLized]

Good. It should be doing well, I thought it was an amazing reboot and an amazing game itself as well. Really fun, really adventurous. I'm playing through it for the 3rd time now, still awesome.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Square Enix: "So when we said that 3.4 million copies in ONE MONTH was a "disappointment", we may have been a tad premature... and greedy... and woefully out of touch with reality. Meanwhile, we're very proud of our Final Fantasy XIII brand. The new game sold a stellar 250,000 at launch, which is only an 85% dropoff from the original game! Lightning truly is the face of Square Enix that will save our company."

It seems like Square Enix has some very skewed priorities.

That, or their executives are nuttier than a Snickers bar.

Final Fantasy is gold to them. They refuse to believe that something could have gone wrong with the saving grace of the damn company.

 

[white_wolf]

I wonder what the developers and the publishers will take away from this game? Probably that gamers want more gore, faux rape attempts to force the characters to protect their heros, and they like lots of rain dynamics. Basically anything but say the fem lead aided in making this game a success they'll probably still say its a fluke and girls still don't buy,play, or sell games, that girls make poor game protagonists, and they need their market budget slashed some more cuz flukes like this hurt the industry.

Sarcasm aside its Laura so why wouldn't it make back the money? Hopefully they actually go for a deeper plot and not have crying in it (while it made sense for this game other games I don't see that aiding in the story department) and get back to making her the smart less busty legend from the original games and focus on tombs and complex environments to explore. Most games make back their money put into them eventually its just companies are greedy and want to real it in early at like 2 months or so to call it fail or pass they need time to recoup like anything manufactured so I'm not surprised it got to their highbar mark later it was a decent game.

 

[white_wolf]

Still not a fan of the reboot's obsession with beating the shit out of the character and brutalizing her at every opportunity, but good on them for making a profit. I'm just hoping this means the sequel won't be so relentingly grim, and we can go back to a more confident lara fighting dinosaurs.

The game took inspiration from a movie Descent (I think) it's been a while since I saw the film but it takes a few scenes right from it that lead got the crap beat out of her too so being that Laura was where she was being treated like a flower wasn't going to cut it, I think she should've freaked out when she was in the blood water more but oh well...it worked for the subject but yes I do hope we get back to Laura of the original but let her delve more into history, I loved going up against the T-rexs!

 

[marioandsonic]

Square Enix: "So when we said that 3.4 million copies in ONE MONTH was a "disappointment", we may have been a tad premature... and greedy... and woefully out of touch with reality. Meanwhile, we're very proud of our Final Fantasy XIII brand. The new game sold a stellar 250,000 at launch, which is only an 85% dropoff from the original game! Lightning truly is the face of Square Enix that will save our company."

It seems like Square Enix has some very skewed priorities.

That, or their executives are nuttier than a Snickers bar.

Final Fantasy is gold to them. They refuse to believe that something could have gone wrong with the saving grace of the damn company.

More like fool's gold, amirite?

Still, it's sad to see this. FF may be their pet project, the game series that single-handedly saved the company back in the NES era from bankruptcy, but that doesn't make it flawless.

 

[Wereduck]

6 million enough? Good, job well done. Now give me my sequel you filthy money-grubbing parasites.
...and if it's not too much trouble can you please make the QTEs a little less crap next time?