1.5 million in sales not good enough for Tomb Raider: Underworld

[Queasy]

Female friendly? - I didn't think 1.5 million in sales during a tough holiday season during an economic downturn was all that bad. Legends performed better but it was also not released during the holidays with all the massive competition.

Makes you wonder when publishers and devs are going to learn that the holidays are not always the right time to release games...

Anyways, the new direction for Lara Croft?

Eidos is considering revising the look and play of her Tomb Raider adventures, which may see efforts to make her more female-friendly, in an attempt to revive sales of games starring the pneumatic archaeologist.

Robert Brent, the chief financial officer of Eidos, said: ?We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game. Look at how Batman changed succesfully, from the rather sad character of the Michael Keaton era to the noir style of The Dark Knight.?

 

[blurredvision]

Robert Brent, the chief financial officer of Eidos, said: ?We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game."

They need to look at retiring Lara Croft completely. Every year or two, Eidos has some grand scheme to resurrect her image and game sales, and it just isn't happening. I think it's time for them to realize that early Tomb Raider titles were awesome because of their innovation and design for their time. What worked 10 years ago doesn't work for her now.

I'm just tired of this talk about Lara Croft. They can try to reimage her all they want, but she's a gaming icon just as much for her big polygonal boobs as she is for the Tomb Raider games.

 

[racolvin]

I dunno what it is with some of these game developers. Eidos and Ubisoft both have this problem. They develop a good game, a solid story and character, and the game mechanics are solid (think Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory from Ubi or even the latest Tomb Raider) and the very next game they try to "reboot" franchise with all new game mechanics, etc.

If they'd leave the game mechanics alone (the HUD, the moves, etc) and concentrate on new CONTENT, I personally think it'd be great.

 

[NGC_604]

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Robert Brent, the chief financial officer of Eidos, said: ?We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game."

They need to look at retiring Lara Croft completely. Every year or two, Eidos has some grand scheme to resurrect her image and game sales, and it just isn't happening. I think it's time for them to realize that early Tomb Raider titles were awesome because of their innovation and design for their time. What worked 10 years ago doesn't work for her now.

I'm just tired of this talk about Lara Croft. They can try to reimage her all they want, but she's a gaming icon just as much for her big polygonal boobs as she is for the Tomb Raider games.

Exactly. They need to take a look at the joke that Sonic has become and realize it's time to kill this one off.

 

[erwos]

Tomb Raider Extreme Volleyball would be a promising new direction, given the series' assets.

 

[Kabob]

I never played the games but I liked the concept, they took it from mostly exploring to mostly combat a few times though which I wasn't a big fan of. I tried the demo of Underworld (I think...) and the controls seemed sloppy.

I dunno about retiring or going a new direction, I think they need to go back to the game's roots and focus ALOT more on puzzles and crazy acrobatics/wall climbing and such and less on shoot 'em up stuff.

Either that or behind curtain 2 is "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider bikini edition" or some ridiculous stunt.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: energydan

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Robert Brent, the chief financial officer of Eidos, said: ?We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game."

They need to look at retiring Lara Croft completely. Every year or two, Eidos has some grand scheme to resurrect her image and game sales, and it just isn't happening. I think it's time for them to realize that early Tomb Raider titles were awesome because of their innovation and design for their time. What worked 10 years ago doesn't work for her now.

I'm just tired of this talk about Lara Croft. They can try to reimage her all they want, but she's a gaming icon just as much for her big polygonal boobs as she is for the Tomb Raider games.

Exactly. They need to take a look at the joke that Sonic has become and realize it's time to kill this one off.

Yeah i was just about to mention sonic. Really they should just do some more 2D sonic games and sell them on xbox live arcade or somthing. Sonic 4 anyone? I would be interested.

 

[Kabob]

Originally posted by: Maximilian

Originally posted by: energydan
Exactly. They need to take a look at the joke that Sonic has become and realize it's time to kill this one off.

Yeah i was just about to mention sonic. Really they should just do some more 2D sonic games and sell them on xbox live arcade or somthing. Sonic 4 anyone? I would be interested.

True, but secretly they all pray for the Mario and Zelda treatment which are getting consistantly better and better with each entry into said franchises (or so it seems), and each time the games are getting more and more detailed.

 

[Queasy]

Unfortunately, the creator of Sonic has left Sonic Team and Sega has turned Sonic Team into something akin to a sweatshop where Sonic games are just shoveled out the door. There were a few articles about Sonic Team recently and let's just say it is a mess.

 

[Xavier434]

"female-friendly"?

Please, like that's going to drive up sales.

 

[purbeast0]

that's unfortunate because the latest tomb raider is by far the best one since the PSX days.

it has some wonky control issues and a wonky camera at parts, but the game goes way back to the roots and is all about puzzle solving and exploring, with a little combat thrown in.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: energydan

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Robert Brent, the chief financial officer of Eidos, said: ?We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game."

They need to look at retiring Lara Croft completely. Every year or two, Eidos has some grand scheme to resurrect her image and game sales, and it just isn't happening. I think it's time for them to realize that early Tomb Raider titles were awesome because of their innovation and design for their time. What worked 10 years ago doesn't work for her now.

I'm just tired of this talk about Lara Croft. They can try to reimage her all they want, but she's a gaming icon just as much for her big polygonal boobs as she is for the Tomb Raider games.

Exactly. They need to take a look at the joke that Sonic has become and realize it's time to kill this one off.

So in 10 years it's going to be Mario and Lara at the Olympics?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
that's unfortunate because the latest tomb raider is by far the best one since the PSX days.

it has some wonky control issues and a wonky camera at parts, but the game goes way back to the roots and is all about puzzle solving and exploring, with a little combat thrown in.

Yep. I think it all goes back the decision of when to release the game. Reportedly, they had to cut at least one level in order to make the release date for the holidays. That level ended up being the DLC released for the 360. They should have left that level in and released the game after the holidays when there wasn't going to be a ton of competition. Still, 1.5 million is decent all things considered. Eidos just had their estimates way too high given the time of year and the level of competition.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Tomb Raider has experienced "peak franchise" condition. They have milked it past its peak and thus it is on the decline as people are tired of the franchise.

 

[DarkThinker]

Eidos in need of ideas you say?
Old Style Lara Croft ain't cutting it any more you say?

Well fear not!
How about this, The adventures of Lara Croft: Temptations
Description: Lara Croft ventures to a mysterious city overrun by pigs from hell, where then she gets to bang Duke Nukem ensuing a never ending struggle over who should be on top.

There you go, that ought to sell like hell.

Now pay me Eidos :|!

 

[TecHNooB]

Underworld had great puzzles. It just needed a better story and more interesting gunplay.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: purbeast0
that's unfortunate because the latest tomb raider is by far the best one since the PSX days.

it has some wonky control issues and a wonky camera at parts, but the game goes way back to the roots and is all about puzzle solving and exploring, with a little combat thrown in.

Yep. I think it all goes back the decision of when to release the game. Reportedly, they had to cut at least one level in order to make the release date for the holidays. That level ended up being the DLC released for the 360. They should have left that level in and released the game after the holidays when there wasn't going to be a ton of competition. Still, 1.5 million is decent all things considered. Eidos just had their estimates way too high given the time of year and the level of competition.

You are correct sir.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/01...peaks-out-on-his-layo/

 

[Qbah]

1.5M sold is bad? 😕 Not to mention the newest TR was really awesome, loved the feel of the game. Even though it was linear it gave you a feeling that it was you who was discovering the path forward. 3 issues though (if somewhat small):
- the way they resolved the story (so like the last 30 minutes)
- camera
- not even one boss...

Apart from that I really enjoyed the game 🙂 Thinking of picking it up for the X360 so that I can play the DLC (got it on PC). Not frequent for me to buy a game twice...

 

[JDub02]

I like the concept of Tomb Raider, but I've yet to find one that I thought was well executed. I played the demo of the new one and thought that the camera at times was really lousy for finding the way forward and once the way forward was found, sometimes getting there is a never ending source of frustration. Seriously, jumping from point A to point B should not be that hard.