tomb raider sales expectations - is this realistic ?

[you2]

According to this (and other articles) Square E expected 5-6 million copies of tomb raider to sell i the first 4 weeks:


http://www.gamespot.com/news/square...hurt-tomb-raider-hitman-sleeping-dogs-6406625
-
As previously announced, Tomb Raider (3.4 million), Hitman: Absolution (3.6 million), and Sleeping Dogs (1.75 million) failed to meet Square Enix sales expectations.
-
Based on content, genre, and scores, the company said Tomb Raider was expected to move 5-6 million units, while Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution should have sold 2-2.5 million and 4-5.5 million units each, respectively.
-
The company is looking to new president Yosuke Matsuda--who replaces longtime executive Yoichi Wada--to turn the company around in the time ahead.
-
Even worse with the above sales (which I think are not bad) they reported a massive loss:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/square...-wada-resigns-amid-extraordinary-loss-6405925
-
This (I believe) woudl result in an estimated revenue of over 100 million dollars (not sure if this includes ati give-away) also not sure of production cost. Actual sales were closer to 3.7 Million.
-
The question I have is are these figure even close to being reasonable? I could see (maybe) 5 million over 6 months with 1/2 the sales heavily discounted ($10-$15) but I'm not really in the industry and haven't been paying close attention to the bell curve for game sales and unit sales for 'big' games (starcraft, skrim, sim, ..).

Anyways I was kind of hoping that maybe a few folks have expert data they could chime in on this matter. One concern I do have is the press release made a point of stating they were disappointed that polishing the games and high metric scores didn't lead to better sales (i.e, the implication seems to be that we can do crappy buggy games and make more money). They also fired their ceo for 'poor' results.

 

[EDUSAN]

One concern I do have is the press release made a point of stating they were disappointed that polishing the games and high metric scores didn't lead to better sales (i.e, the implication seems to be that we can do crappy buggy games and make more money). They also fired their ceo for 'poor' results.

i havent read the article as it is blocked at work, but its funny that they are dissapointed at polishing a game and having good metric scores.

bad polishing => less sales and people complaining all over the place
good polishing => what every game should be. this should be the NORMAL expectation of a player, not something that would make me buy a game. EVERY GAME should be polished, a game that is not is gonna get flamed.

good critics => might help with sales, but its not 100% accurate
bad critics => WILL for sure lower the sales. If i see a game with 20 score i will not buy it, but if i see a game with 90 score, I MIGHT buy it (depends on money, other games im the backlog, my spare time, if im willing to wait for offers or if i need the game NOW)

its dissapointing how they have everything wrong

 

[mmntech]

Across all three platforms I guess it's technically possible. Though for the first month it's probably pushing it. 5 million seems to be the average for single platform sales of really big games. That's over lifetime though. Tomb Raider, while a good game isn't that big of a game to make those figures that quickly. Even Gears of War, which is a big 360 franchise only sold 5 million since release.

 

[WiseUp216]

I wish the article would have broken down the sales figures by PC, PS3 and Xbox.

I imagine that PS3 and Xbox aren't getting the new game sales that they had just a couple years ago. Hopefully, the new consoles coming later this year will revitalize the industry a little bit.

These were great games made by Square Enix and I would hate to see them shy away from more AAA games in the future.

 

[Martimus]

I have played Hitman: Absolution, and it had pretty high production value. It looks like it cost a lot of money to make. I am not surprised at all that they lost money on it, since they budgeted too kuch for what is more of a niche market.

The only game I remember playing that looked like it was even more expensive to produce for a relatively small market was Max Payne 3. That game had fantastic production value, but I can't imagine how it will ever sell enough to cover the costs of making it. It seems that Square Enix just needs to control it's costs better, or they will continue to underperform.

 

[sze5003]

They make some really decent games I would hate to see them go down the drain.

 

[WiseUp216]

I have played Hitman: Absolution, and it had pretty high production value. It looks like it cost a lot of money to make. I am not surprised at all that they lost money on it, since they budgeted too kuch for what is more of a niche market.

The only game I remember playing that looked like it was even more expensive to produce for a relatively small market was Max Payne 3. That game had fantastic production value, but I can't imagine how it will ever sell enough to cover the costs of making it. It seems that Square Enix just needs to control it's costs better, or they will continue to underperform.

Max Payne 3 has only sold 2.73 million (as of 3/30/13) across all platforms. Good thing Rockstar has GTA money to fall back on.

 

[lavaheadache]

According to this (and other articles) Square E expected 5-6 million copies of tomb raider to sell i the first 4 weeks:


http://www.gamespot.com/news/square...hurt-tomb-raider-hitman-sleeping-dogs-6406625
-
As previously announced, Tomb Raider (3.4 million), Hitman: Absolution (3.6 million), and Sleeping Dogs (1.75 million) failed to meet Square Enix sales expectations.
-
Based on content, genre, and scores, the company said Tomb Raider was expected to move 5-6 million units, while Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution should have sold 2-2.5 million and 4-5.5 million units each, respectively.
-
The company is looking to new president Yosuke Matsuda--who replaces longtime executive Yoichi Wada--to turn the company around in the time ahead.
-
Even worse with the above sales (which I think are not bad) they reported a massive loss:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/square...-wada-resigns-amid-extraordinary-loss-6405925
-
This (I believe) woudl result in an estimated revenue of over 100 million dollars (not sure if this includes ati give-away) also not sure of production cost. Actual sales were closer to 3.7 Million.
-
The question I have is are these figure even close to being reasonable? I could see (maybe) 5 million over 6 months with 1/2 the sales heavily discounted ($10-$15) but I'm not really in the industry and haven't been paying close attention to the bell curve for game sales and unit sales for 'big' games (starcraft, skrim, sim, ..).

Anyways I was kind of hoping that maybe a few folks have expert data they could chime in on this matter. One concern I do have is the press release made a point of stating they were disappointed that polishing the games and high metric scores didn't lead to better sales (i.e, the implication seems to be that we can do crappy buggy games and make more money). They also fired their ceo for 'poor' results.

Ati giveaway? Who is Ati?

 

[Madia]

Does anyone know how Deus Ex: Human Revolution ending up doing? That's the main square enix game I want to see a sequel to. I'm assuming one is in development since they recently posted an April fool's joke about the sequel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFuK9NV5JHs

 

[smackababy]

Completely unrealistic. The last Tomb Raider sold 2.6 million copies total. Sure, the first 2 sold 8 million each, followed by 5 million each for 3 and 4, but that was over 10 years ago. I'd be happy with 3.4 million in this short of a time.

Does anyone know how Deus Ex: Human Revolution ending up doing? That's the main square enix game I want to see a sequel to. I'm assuming one is in development since they recently posted an April fool's joke about the sequel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFuK9NV5JHs

2.18 million world wide as of now.

 

[exar333]

The company controls the budget, and they likely tailor the cost based on sales estimates. That said, if they are spending big $$$ on game dev based on overblown estimates (e.g. EA) and then complains when they don't sell 5M copies, that is just bad management. Budget so that you still make money with the worst-case sales numbers, and the rest is gravy. These companies don't have a clue.

 

[smackababy]

The company controls the budget, and they likely tailor the cost based on sales estimates. That said, if they are spending big $$$ on game dev based on overblown estimates (e.g. EA) and then complains when they don't sell 5M copies, that is just bad management. Budget so that you still make money with the worst-case sales numbers, and the rest is gravy. These companies don't have a clue.

I am sure they see it as "oh the Tomb Raider franchise has sold 30 million copies since 1997" (26 million of which happened before 2003 btw). The game will probably sell 5 million copies eventually. It is just that the timeline was completely unrealistic.

 

[Wreckem]

I have played Hitman: Absolution, and it had pretty high production value. It looks like it cost a lot of money to make. I am not surprised at all that they lost money on it, since they budgeted too kuch for what is more of a niche market.

The only game I remember playing that looked like it was even more expensive to produce for a relatively small market was Max Payne 3. That game had fantastic production value, but I can't imagine how it will ever sell enough to cover the costs of making it. It seems that Square Enix just needs to control it's costs better, or they will continue to underperform.

This. Their expectations were hopes because they spent alot of money on both projects.

 

[Wreckem]

The company controls the budget, and they likely tailor the cost based on sales estimates. That said, if they are spending big $$$ on game dev based on overblown estimates (e.g. EA) and then complains when they don't sell 5M copies, that is just bad management. Budget so that you still make money with the worst-case sales numbers, and the rest is gravy. These companies don't have a clue.

The game industry has always had incompetent management. Thats why there has always been a high rate of failures of once successful studios/publishers.

 

[Eureka]

5 millions copies sold of TR, I don't think it's unrealistic. 5 millions in 4 weeks might be a bit for what's mostly a single-player game.

 

[Wreckem]

Completely unrealistic. The last Tomb Raider sold 2.6 million copies total. Sure, the first 2 sold 8 million each, followed by 5 million each for 3 and 4, but that was over 10 years ago. I'd be happy with 3.4 million in this short of a time.

2.18 million world wide as of now.

2.18 million was the amount in its first 6 months(through Sept 30, 2011). It has sold significantly more than that and a significant amount of DLC. I believe Deus Ex was a successful project in terms of money spent and money earned.

 

[smackababy]

2.18 million was the amount in its first 6 months(through Sept 30, 2011). It has sold significantly more than that and a significant amount of DLC. I believe Deus Ex was a successful project in terms of money spent and money earned.

Yeah, I didn't read all the way through. Just scanned for a sales number. I wasn't debating it's success.

The game industry has always had incompetent management. Thats why there has always been a high rate of failures of once successful studios/publishers.

It is funny because big publishing companies "ruin" the small development studios by trying to make their games more accessible to the masses, while developer run studios fail because they try to add in so many features or take years to develop games.

 

[Midwayman]

The game industry has always had incompetent management. Thats why there has always been a high rate of failures of once successful studios/publishers.

The issue for me was when the focus changed from making a good game to 'making money' and especially releasing at a specific date no matter what so it looks good on the quarterly report. I saw so many bad decisions based on that where I worked.

 

[exar333]

The issue for me was when the focus changed from making a good game to 'making money' and especially releasing at a specific date no matter what so it looks good on the quarterly report. I saw so many bad decisions based on that where I worked.

Agree. It need's to be a balance. There would be no games if there was no money to be made, but the same is also true if all you care about is the bottom-line.

We (collectively) need to reign-in dev and advertisement budgets so that games become viable again. There will always be a place for 'big budget' games that have rediculous budgets like CoD, but the rest of the industry doesn't always work like that. Many of the best we have collectively played were good because of the gameplay and story and not because they cost $$$ to make.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Call of duty sells more in just 24 hrs!

 

[aaksheytalwar]

SE is my favorite developer.

 

[smackababy]

Agree. It need's to be a balance. There would be no games if there was no money to be made, but the same is also true if all you care about is the bottom-line.

We (collectively) need to reign-in dev and advertisement budgets so that games become viable again. There will always be a place for 'big budget' games that have rediculous budgets like CoD, but the rest of the industry doesn't always work like that. Many of the best we have collectively played were good because of the gameplay and story and not because they cost $$$ to make.

The problem is publishing companies have to worry about one things, the bottom line. Developers should worry about developing against not overly ambitious goals. Peter M. never does this. Also, with how technology is progressing, spending 36 months in development is no longer viable in the market. Certain developers could pull it off, but most can't. Valve can take however long they want because they have Steam to prop up profits and they have been using Source engine for 10 years. Nobody expected CS:Go to look great. They expected a slighting updated version of CS:Source and that is what they got. The majority of companies license an engine and if they waited 36 months, the current technology they were developing against would look awful compared to what is new when they release. Games that look good sell better than games that don't. Big publishers know this as well.

 

[blastingcap]

The issue for me was when the focus changed from making a good game to 'making money' and especially releasing at a specific date no matter what so it looks good on the quarterly report. I saw so many bad decisions based on that where I worked.

At the same time, I wouldn't mind if someone gave Valve a kick in the pants to finish HL3. It is often NOT the case that more time spent on a game results in a better game, because by the time you get around to thinking about wrap-up, the engine is out of date or some personnel changes make it so that the direction of the game wanders away from the original, etc. Just as often if not more often a game gets rushed out without enough bugfixing and such, but I'm just saying that more time doesn't automatically make for a better game.

 

[exar333]

At the same time, I wouldn't mind if someone gave Valve a kick in the pants to finish HL3. It is often NOT the case that more time spent on a game results in a better game, because by the time you get around to thinking about wrap-up, the engine is out of date or some personnel changes make it so that the direction of the game wanders away from the original, etc. Just as often if not more often a game gets rushed out without enough bugfixing and such, but I'm just saying that more time doesn't automatically make for a better game.

Unfortunately Valve is doing what Blizzard did from 2005-2010. They are doing nothing except collect profits and sit on their laurels. When they actually get around to making games again, they stumble. Hopefully that's not the case, but it's a shame that good devs do this...

 

[Childs]

Not many games sell 5m in the first month. I think publishers make the mistake of thinking they all have a COD type franchises, when there are only really a couple of franchises that can pull 5m in 4 weeks.