I don't want to blame the Van Halen family for this. They claim (well, somebody did... At least an Activision voice...) that it wasn't any kind of demand. I'm not saying there wasn't, since it's clearly suspicious, but statements have been put 'on the record' that this wasn't the case.
For all we know, Hagar himself didn't want to agree and there may be something in the original deals on the songs that requires full consent...
Ultimately, I suspect they focused solely on DLR era stuff since he's been so buddy buddy with VH recently and Hagar and Anthony have been on the outs.
And then they let the kid select the 'also appearing' music. So, yeah...
While the idea to let stupid Wolfgang choose the music was silly, some of the stuff he chose was pretty awesome, as I've wanted Fountains of Wayne and Semi-Charmed Life on GH or RB for like ever.
The game itself was really fun, but yea, I miss having some of the awesome music from the Hagar era.
@Rainbow....as soon as I get a chance I'll buy your game. I'm all about supporting my local PA peeps. :^:
In other news, Q Games (those dudes who shoehorn the word "Pixeljunk" in the name of all their games for no apparent reason) is getting pissed at the PSP. Reason? Piracy.
It's been posted and they 'shoehorn' Pixeljunk into the name of all their games for an obvious reason, they're all part of the same series.
Other than the fact that they all play differently and feature violently different art styles, sure.
You might want to go tell Nintendo that they're not allowed to release golf/soccer/party games with Mario on them then. Also, the art styles are actually pretty similar.
Mario was actually a big name and a selling point. "Pixeljunk" is just a sign of egotism. Also, meaningless. There are no pixels, and I don't get to junk them. /englishmajornazi
EA's on-rails shooter Dead Space Extraction sold 9,000 copies in the US between its release on September 29 and the end of the NPD’s monthly reporting period on October 3, the market research firm has told us.
Developed by Visceral Games, the Wii exclusive title is a prequel to survival horror Dead Space, which launched in October 2008 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC to critical acclaim and had sold around 1.4 million units as of May this year.
While Extraction hasn’t enjoyed a strong start, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich told us that the title’s early sell through wouldn't come as a surprise to publisher EA.
“Electronic Arts didn’t market Dead Space Extraction as much as it does with other titles. And the success or failure of a Wii title usually correlates directly to marketing spend. If Electronic Arts spent little on marketing, I am sure the sell through was no surprise to them. So I do not believe sell through was a disappointment to EA.”
We contacted EA to for comment on the game’s opening week performance, and to find out how the game has been performing at retail during October, but received no response.
“Given Wii games tend to have a flatter sales curve, I don’t think 20,000 plus units is out of the question for October and maybe we get a holiday bump in November and December,” Divnich suggested.
EA said previously that the performance of Extraction would influence the company's decision to create mature-content games for Wii in the future, and Divnich implied that the publisher’s decision not to heavily market the title may have been based on the poor performance of other mature-rated Wii games released while Extraction was still in development.
“Most games have a 12 to 24 month development schedule and over a year ago the industry was under the assumption that mature-rated games could succeed on the Wii. Unfortunately, as we progressed and witnessed the sales results from games such as MadWorld, it became pretty clear the market size for games with mature-content was extremely small, much smaller than any other home platform. The truth is most core gamers who gravitate towards mature content likely own more than just a Wii.”
Despite being well reviewed, Extraction also made a weak debut in the UK following its early October release, failing to crack the all formats chart top 40. It’s currently floating somewhere outside of the Wii top 40.
One game that fared better in its opening week was Sony’s Gran Turismo. The first PSP entry in developer Polyphony Digital’s 52 million unit-selling franchise released on October 1 on UMD and as a digital download for PSPgo.
While NPD was unable to provide digital sales figures, the racer hit 18,000 UMD sales in the States between launch and October 3.
The UMD version of Gran Turismo entered the UK all formats chart at number 12 earlier this month.
I've got this great idea! Let's make a game, put it on retail shelves, and see how well it sells when no one knows about it. And then let's use the sales performance of this game to base whether or not we will make more games!
Seriously, why do companies make a game and NOT advertise it? Especially when you are using it as a baseline for future mature games? How stupid can they be?
Hooray for corporate self-fulfilling prophecy number 47 billion and three.
In other news, Q Games (those dudes who shoehorn the word "Pixeljunk" in the name of all their games for no apparent reason) is getting pissed at the PSP. Reason? Piracy.
It's been posted and they 'shoehorn' Pixeljunk into the name of all their games for an obvious reason, they're all part of the same series.
Other than the fact that they all play differently and feature violently different art styles, sure.
You might want to go tell Nintendo that they're not allowed to release golf/soccer/party games with Mario on them then. Also, the art styles are actually pretty similar.
Mario was actually a big name and a selling point. "Pixeljunk" is just a sign of egotism. Also, meaningless. There are no pixels, and I don't get to junk them. /englishmajornazi
Theres nothing super about Mario and they're clearly half-brothers at best.
I don't see anything really wrong with Pixeljunk. I guess it gives me the wrong impression because it makes me think of pixel art. But it's no different from Nintendo's "Art Style" series on GBA, Wii and DS.
I don't see anything really wrong with Pixeljunk. I guess it gives me the wrong impression because it makes me think of pixel art. But it's no different from Nintendo's "Art Style" series on GBA, Wii and DS.
Eh, at least "art style" tells you something, i.e. "this game is arty!" All "Pixeljunk" tells me is that the lead designer couldn't be talked out of a stupid name.
Yeah, that one actually annoys me a lot more than Pixeljunk, since it's actively misleading rather than pointlessly meaningless.
I guess it sells games? Does the average player of a game with his name in front of it really give a shit that Tom Clancy's name is in front of it? Do they actually read his novels?
Yeah, that one actually annoys me a lot more than Pixeljunk, since it's actively misleading rather than pointlessly meaningless.
I guess it sells games? Does the average player of a game with his name in front of it really give a shit that Tom Clancy's name is in front of it? Do they actually read his novels?
For the most part the name has become irrelevant, noone asks for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell or HAWX, they just ask for the game title. The name just ties it to the same universe I guess.
Yeah, that one actually annoys me a lot more than Pixeljunk, since it's actively misleading rather than pointlessly meaningless.
I guess it sells games? Does the average player of a game with his name in front of it really give a shit that Tom Clancy's name is in front of it? Do they actually read his novels?
Some of the earlier PC games, that name carried a lot of weight. Since then they've just slapped it onto all sorts of shit for fun.
I hate how these people keep looking to MadWorld as sales potential for M-rated games on the Wii. That's like looking at Killer7 to determine mature-rated games' success on the PS2. It's niche and weird as fuck. The kinds of games that are mega-hits are ones that appeal to the mainstream, regardless of platform. Taking something to both the extreme of violence and the extreme of stark presentation isn't necessarily the best way to appeal to the mainstream.
You know, EA was probably hoping Dead Space was going to sell like Resident Evil - a Mature rated Wii rail shooter that sold well over a million copies. Obviously a relatively new and soft-selling IP CANNOT compete with something like a Resident Evil game. But it's just silly to say, "Well hey look at Madworld, can't make a Wii game that has an M rating!"
What EA should have done was look at the sales of House of the Dead Overkill. That's a much better gauge. Did HOTD OK sell billions of copies? No, but Sega was happy with its performance overall worldwide, presumably because they understood the niche nature of rail shooters in the market.
I loved Dead Space Extraction. But it's not a long campaign and it's not too hard; there is a bunch of good extra content and Challenges that add replay value, but it's still a tough spend at $50, understandibly.
Also, Gran Turismo PSP? It sold terrible. Oh yeah it "fared better" because it sold 9k more than a rail shooter in a young IP with weak advertising. Great. One of the best selling, most mainstream, most famous and well known franchises in existence sold 18k (in a few days, though, obviously).
While the idea to let stupid Wolfgang choose the music was silly, some of the stuff he chose was pretty awesome, as I've wanted Fountains of Wayne and Semi-Charmed Life on GH or RB for like ever.
Loading a shotgun with shot means you'll hit something eventually...
While the idea to let stupid Wolfgang choose the music was silly, some of the stuff he chose was pretty awesome, as I've wanted Fountains of Wayne and Semi-Charmed Life on GH or RB for like ever.
Loading a shotgun with shot means you'll hit something eventually...
You know, I wish sometimes that we didn't have the ESRB ratings on games. Too many publishers use the rating as a crutch to lean on if the game doesn't sell.
If Dead Space: Extraction didn't have an M rating (or ANY rating at ALL), I wonder how it might have sold?
Cameron_Talley on
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Another thing about this is that someone at EA may simply not have cared. Back in their 'evil' days, they had more than a few IPs that could've been given better care and it just seemed like they did the bare minimum of effort. Three that come to mind are the Buffy game, Freedom Fighters, and Freedom Force.
All three were decent games that did nothing and were essentially dropped.
I would guess that what they wanted and what they expected from Dead Space Extraction led to a kind of paralysis in the company and they just did nothing and let the game succeed on it's own merits. And that they were probably disappointed that it didn't do RE numbers.
A good, well-reviewed game (in a million-selling series) in an under-supported genre on a console in the homes of about half the world's population.
Yeah, who do they think they are being surprised that it's not sold better?
darleysam on
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited October 2009
I just don't understand their thinking...I mean it's not like Dead Space: The Original Adventures really lit up the charts on the "hardcore" systems it was released on. O_o
A good, well-reviewed game (in a million-selling series) in an under-supported genre on a console in the homes of about half the world's population.
Yeah, who do they think they are being surprised that it's not sold better?
Who are you referring to? The analysts?
Nobody is surprised it didn't sell better. Except maybe EA.
Also, Dead Space on the HD systems sold fairly weakly given its marketing campaign. An EA rep even said that it sold pretty bad given their expectations.
Taking that and turning it into a rail shooter and under-marketing it and expecting it to sell on another system entirely, I don't see how they COULD have expected it to sell well.
But I guess EA had more faith in this franchise on any system, and it has underperformed on all of them so far.
A good, well-reviewed game (in a million-selling series) in a genre that sells modestly at best on a console in the homes of about half the world's population that was unable to play the original game.
Yeah, who do they think they are being surprised that it's not sold better?
A good, well-reviewed game (in a million-selling series) in an under-supported genre on a console in the homes of about half the world's population.
Yeah, who do they think they are being surprised that it's not sold better?
Who are you referring to? The analysts?
Nobody is surprised it didn't sell better.
I'm.. saying it really should, and actually is quite surprising when you look at it. Dead Space had a tonne of publicity and no it didn't sell multiple millions, but last I heard we were looking at about 1m sold. The Wii is more popular than air, so there's certainly enough people who would apparently want to buy it. And it's also not the kind of game that is over-saturated and so you'd think within that giant userbase, a good few people would give it a punt.
darleysam on
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited October 2009
The only rail shooter that has sold a mill + has the name Resident Evil attached to it, and I expect its sequel will do as well.
The rest have sold modestly to fans of the genre mostly.
A good, well-reviewed game (in a million-selling series) in an under-supported genre on a console in the homes of about half the world's population.
Yeah, who do they think they are being surprised that it's not sold better?
Who are you referring to? The analysts?
Nobody is surprised it didn't sell better.
I'm.. saying it really should, and actually is quite surprising when you look at it. Dead Space had a tonne of publicity and no it didn't sell multiple millions, but last I heard we were looking at about 1m sold. The Wii is more popular than air, so there's certainly enough people who would apparently want to buy it. And it's also not the kind of game that is over-saturated and so you'd think within that giant userbase, a good few people would give it a punt.
Are you presuming that 'if it's on the Wii, it'll sell because there's lots of people'? Stop doing that. Even Wii games need proper marketing. And anything like Dead Space is going to need some marketing.
It's more accurate to suggest that EA was going to have a tough time competing against first-party titles than to suggest that anything released on the Wii should do well.
I really want Dead Space Extraction. In fact, I kind of wish I had held off on Overkill and had waited for that instead, but I'm also in the cross-section of people who 1) Played and loved the original Dead Space, 2) Own both a Wii and a 360, and 3) Like rail-gun games enough that I'd buy another one after the wave of earlier light-gun games.
There are a crazy number of factors at play, but a complete dearth of marketing on pretty much any Wii game not from Nintendo is a major reason why none of these games sell. There's sparse marketing of DS titles too, now that I think about it, but the DS audience has somehow been trained to appreciate a diverse lineup and seek out info on their own.
From my own experience, Microsoft takes a very vested interest in pushing both first- and third-party games into the media spotlight, and I think it's something Nintendo should learn from if it has any interest in creating a healthy environment for third-party games to flourish ... assuming that's something they want and it's not too late in the generation, two assumptions that I don't feel completely comfortable making.
Dead Space on the HD systems had a lot of publicity and sold well under expectations.
Also, it doesn't matter how saturated the rails shooter market is when the rails shooter market is small. Umbrella Chronicles is an outlier because it sells based purely on its name alone.
Dead Space has no name to sell from. It didn't have much publicity. It wasn't marketed much. It's in a niche genre.
It's not going to hit REUC numbers. It's best shot is selling HOTD OK numbers.
If EA was expecting REUC numbers they were fooling themselves. That said, we DO NOT YET KNOW what Ea's actual expectations were. If they were expecting low but steady sales over several months as the analysts suggest, then there is still some room for that to happen. But I don't expect it to much exceed HOTD OK numbers if it even manages that, IMO.
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited October 2009
Don't forget that HOTD sold as well as it did based on the fact that many fans of the original games picked it up. It's name was also more well knows than Dead Space on a purely nostalgic level.
Dead Space on the HD systems had a lot of publicity and sold well under expectations.
Also, it doesn't matter how saturated the rails shooter market is when the rails shooter market is small. Umbrella Chronicles is an outlier because it sells based purely on its name alone.
Dead Space has no name to sell from. It didn't have much publicity. It wasn't marketed much. It's in a niche genre.
It's not going to hit REUC numbers. It's best shot is selling HOTD OK numbers.
If EA was expecting REUC numbers they were fooling themselves. That said, we DO NOT YET KNOW what Ea's actual expectations were. If they were expecting low but steady sales over several months as the analysts suggest, then there is still some room for that to happen. But I don't expect it to much exceed HOTD OK numbers if it even manages that, IMO.
I'm going to assume that EA somehow thought that lingering aftereffects of their media blitz on the original Dead Space would somehow carry over to fuel Dead Space Extraction. Unfortunately, they forget that gamers have immensely short attention spans, plus a large portion of the Wii audience really doesn't pay attention to typical gaming-media outlets.
RE and HOTD are both pretty longstanding franchises that were built up over a period of years, so I could understand there being a general public familiarity with them, but Dead Space was just created the year prior, and that was in the midst of a really busy, crowded fall/holiday season.
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited October 2009
Not only was HOTD a known franchise from years ago, but Sega built up to its release by releasing a HOTD compilation disc that just got the fans of the old series geared up for a new game.
I really want Dead Space Extraction. In fact, I kind of wish I had held off on Overkill and had waited for that instead, but I'm also in the cross-section of people who 1) Played and loved the original Dead Space, 2) Own both a Wii and a 360, and 3) Like rail-gun games enough that I'd buy another one after the wave of earlier light-gun games.
There are a crazy number of factors at play, but a complete dearth of marketing on pretty much any Wii game not from Nintendo is a major reason why none of these games sell. There's sparse marketing of DS titles too, now that I think about it, but the DS audience has somehow been trained to appreciate a diverse lineup and seek out info on their own.
From my own experience, Microsoft takes a very vested interest in pushing both first- and third-party games into the media spotlight, and I think it's something Nintendo should learn from if it has any interest in creating a healthy environment for third-party games to flourish ... assuming that's something they want and it's not too late in the generation, two assumptions that I don't feel completely comfortable making.
One thing I would suggest is that this kind of leads some places to lower the marketing budget if the title itself wasn't expensive to make. It's a weird sort of correlation. The kind of thing that spirals HD development costs out of control is the same thing that reigns budgets in for more cheaply produced titles.
I think some companies just simply believe that anything that was cheap to make will be viewed as not having much value by the consumer and therefore they shouldn't spend any money hyping a cheap game. Also, nobody wants to go out on a limb and suggest that marketing budgets for a cheap to make game should be very high. The Bottom Line is still King with many.
What makes it worse is when you see companies spell a gazillion dollars to market a game that really doesn't need the hype (GTA pops to mind) but won't spend much on a game that could really use the push (pick your favourite 'niche' title here).
40 people showed up at my Gamestop for the Borderlands midnight launch. Remember how I speculated that either 2K has high expectations or that the game sold a bunch of preorders?
"Yeah dude, forty people showed up. Two bought Borderlands and another guy bought Fifa."
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For a penny?
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(yeah, that would have probably been a better idea, seeing as how it also turns out that they actually saw none of those pennies)
"Sure I'll receive your game, but it'll cost you for the privilege!"
While the idea to let stupid Wolfgang choose the music was silly, some of the stuff he chose was pretty awesome, as I've wanted Fountains of Wayne and Semi-Charmed Life on GH or RB for like ever.
The game itself was really fun, but yea, I miss having some of the awesome music from the Hagar era.
@Rainbow....as soon as I get a chance I'll buy your game. I'm all about supporting my local PA peeps. :^:
It sounds fun.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnC95hU7G_M
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
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Sony just imitating Nintendo yet again! :rotate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CkU2j8XXOw
That's what you get when you use those cheap third party accessories that make the wiimote into a racket!
Mario was actually a big name and a selling point. "Pixeljunk" is just a sign of egotism. Also, meaningless. There are no pixels, and I don't get to junk them. /englishmajornazi
Hooray for corporate self-fulfilling prophecy number 47 billion and three.
Theres nothing super about Mario and they're clearly half-brothers at best.
Eh, at least "art style" tells you something, i.e. "this game is arty!" All "Pixeljunk" tells me is that the lead designer couldn't be talked out of a stupid name.
Yeah, that one actually annoys me a lot more than Pixeljunk, since it's actively misleading rather than pointlessly meaningless.
I guess it sells games? Does the average player of a game with his name in front of it really give a shit that Tom Clancy's name is in front of it? Do they actually read his novels?
For the most part the name has become irrelevant, noone asks for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell or HAWX, they just ask for the game title. The name just ties it to the same universe I guess.
Some of the earlier PC games, that name carried a lot of weight. Since then they've just slapped it onto all sorts of shit for fun.
I hate how these people keep looking to MadWorld as sales potential for M-rated games on the Wii. That's like looking at Killer7 to determine mature-rated games' success on the PS2. It's niche and weird as fuck. The kinds of games that are mega-hits are ones that appeal to the mainstream, regardless of platform. Taking something to both the extreme of violence and the extreme of stark presentation isn't necessarily the best way to appeal to the mainstream.
You know, EA was probably hoping Dead Space was going to sell like Resident Evil - a Mature rated Wii rail shooter that sold well over a million copies. Obviously a relatively new and soft-selling IP CANNOT compete with something like a Resident Evil game. But it's just silly to say, "Well hey look at Madworld, can't make a Wii game that has an M rating!"
What EA should have done was look at the sales of House of the Dead Overkill. That's a much better gauge. Did HOTD OK sell billions of copies? No, but Sega was happy with its performance overall worldwide, presumably because they understood the niche nature of rail shooters in the market.
I loved Dead Space Extraction. But it's not a long campaign and it's not too hard; there is a bunch of good extra content and Challenges that add replay value, but it's still a tough spend at $50, understandibly.
Also, Gran Turismo PSP? It sold terrible. Oh yeah it "fared better" because it sold 9k more than a rail shooter in a young IP with weak advertising. Great. One of the best selling, most mainstream, most famous and well known franchises in existence sold 18k (in a few days, though, obviously).
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Loading a shotgun with shot means you'll hit something eventually...
Even if you are stupid fat Wolfgang. o_O
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If Dead Space: Extraction didn't have an M rating (or ANY rating at ALL), I wonder how it might have sold?
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
Another thing about this is that someone at EA may simply not have cared. Back in their 'evil' days, they had more than a few IPs that could've been given better care and it just seemed like they did the bare minimum of effort. Three that come to mind are the Buffy game, Freedom Fighters, and Freedom Force.
All three were decent games that did nothing and were essentially dropped.
I would guess that what they wanted and what they expected from Dead Space Extraction led to a kind of paralysis in the company and they just did nothing and let the game succeed on it's own merits. And that they were probably disappointed that it didn't do RE numbers.
Yeah, who do they think they are being surprised that it's not sold better?
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Who are you referring to? The analysts?
Nobody is surprised it didn't sell better. Except maybe EA.
Also, Dead Space on the HD systems sold fairly weakly given its marketing campaign. An EA rep even said that it sold pretty bad given their expectations.
Taking that and turning it into a rail shooter and under-marketing it and expecting it to sell on another system entirely, I don't see how they COULD have expected it to sell well.
But I guess EA had more faith in this franchise on any system, and it has underperformed on all of them so far.
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Fixed that for ya.
I'm.. saying it really should, and actually is quite surprising when you look at it. Dead Space had a tonne of publicity and no it didn't sell multiple millions, but last I heard we were looking at about 1m sold. The Wii is more popular than air, so there's certainly enough people who would apparently want to buy it. And it's also not the kind of game that is over-saturated and so you'd think within that giant userbase, a good few people would give it a punt.
The rest have sold modestly to fans of the genre mostly.
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Are you presuming that 'if it's on the Wii, it'll sell because there's lots of people'? Stop doing that. Even Wii games need proper marketing. And anything like Dead Space is going to need some marketing.
It's more accurate to suggest that EA was going to have a tough time competing against first-party titles than to suggest that anything released on the Wii should do well.
There are a crazy number of factors at play, but a complete dearth of marketing on pretty much any Wii game not from Nintendo is a major reason why none of these games sell. There's sparse marketing of DS titles too, now that I think about it, but the DS audience has somehow been trained to appreciate a diverse lineup and seek out info on their own.
From my own experience, Microsoft takes a very vested interest in pushing both first- and third-party games into the media spotlight, and I think it's something Nintendo should learn from if it has any interest in creating a healthy environment for third-party games to flourish ... assuming that's something they want and it's not too late in the generation, two assumptions that I don't feel completely comfortable making.
Also, it doesn't matter how saturated the rails shooter market is when the rails shooter market is small. Umbrella Chronicles is an outlier because it sells based purely on its name alone.
Dead Space has no name to sell from. It didn't have much publicity. It wasn't marketed much. It's in a niche genre.
It's not going to hit REUC numbers. It's best shot is selling HOTD OK numbers.
If EA was expecting REUC numbers they were fooling themselves. That said, we DO NOT YET KNOW what Ea's actual expectations were. If they were expecting low but steady sales over several months as the analysts suggest, then there is still some room for that to happen. But I don't expect it to much exceed HOTD OK numbers if it even manages that, IMO.
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I'm going to assume that EA somehow thought that lingering aftereffects of their media blitz on the original Dead Space would somehow carry over to fuel Dead Space Extraction. Unfortunately, they forget that gamers have immensely short attention spans, plus a large portion of the Wii audience really doesn't pay attention to typical gaming-media outlets.
RE and HOTD are both pretty longstanding franchises that were built up over a period of years, so I could understand there being a general public familiarity with them, but Dead Space was just created the year prior, and that was in the midst of a really busy, crowded fall/holiday season.
Sega really played that one smartly.
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One thing I would suggest is that this kind of leads some places to lower the marketing budget if the title itself wasn't expensive to make. It's a weird sort of correlation. The kind of thing that spirals HD development costs out of control is the same thing that reigns budgets in for more cheaply produced titles.
I think some companies just simply believe that anything that was cheap to make will be viewed as not having much value by the consumer and therefore they shouldn't spend any money hyping a cheap game. Also, nobody wants to go out on a limb and suggest that marketing budgets for a cheap to make game should be very high. The Bottom Line is still King with many.
What makes it worse is when you see companies spell a gazillion dollars to market a game that really doesn't need the hype (GTA pops to mind) but won't spend much on a game that could really use the push (pick your favourite 'niche' title here).
40 people showed up at my Gamestop for the Borderlands midnight launch. Remember how I speculated that either 2K has high expectations or that the game sold a bunch of preorders?
"Yeah dude, forty people showed up. Two bought Borderlands and another guy bought Fifa."
.facepalm