I'm dumbstruck - Tomb Raider "below expectations" at 3.4 Million sales.

[DrunkOnEstus]

I never realized more than now just how bloated this industry has become. Square-Enix is underwhelmed and disappointed with 3.4 million Tomb Raider sales in one month, not counting any digital sales. I wish I had more to add to this, but I'm really speechless. The source article has more to say about Hitman and Sleeping Dogs (which I thought did fucking great for a "new" IP). Is this cause for concern? I just figured more than a few of you would want to give this a read.

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

Edit: I'm getting the impression that Steam sales are just "fluff" or bonus money that isn't counted on the books, as if retail is the end-all of a game's success. We're shifting to a digital future, at the very least it's a major chunk that shouldn't go ignored. I wonder if PC sales are counted at all in these situations, actually.

 

[Auron]

Holy fuck... Aren't they turning a profit on those numbers? And ignoring digital sales? The retail market is practically dead on the PC, that's a hugeass sales figure they're choosing to ignore.

I really like what Square's doing with their western devhouses and I fear for their future when I read stupid stuff like this.

 

[Kopikatsu]

The article I read said that they were expecting 3.4 million, but it fell short of that number. Not that it sold 3.4 and that was short.

But let me put it into perspective. Gran Turismo 5 cost $60 million to develop. Modern Warfare 2 cost $50 million to develop. Tomb Raider is meant to be fairly photo realistic and has a complex physics engine, which I would estimate puts it around those other two games as far as costs go. It also had advertising on par with any other AAA game, which costs a fuckton of money.

I don't think people realize just how much money it takes to make current-gen games (And next gen? Forget about it. I've seen articles about developers practically soiling themselves over how much a next gen game will cost to develop). Like, it costs over a million dollars to create a character in Street Fighter 4. Every person who works on a game has to get their own salary which has to be sufficient to live off of, and each game has a dev team of hundreds to thousands (Check out the credit list for one of the newer games).

 

[Atmos Duality]

The article I read said that they were expecting 3.4 million, but it fell short of that number. Not that it sold 3.4 and that was short.

Both lines are in the article. And it's kind of confusing.

3.4 million copies of Tomb Raider have been sold in four weeks, publisher Square Enix has revealed, which is not enough to hit the game's sales target.

But later, the image has the text:

"Expected units sold in 2013." ... Approx 3.4 million

In any case, that is totally off the fucking chain. That amount of bloat is indicative of some horrifying things going on behind the scenes. I know that advertising accounts for more than half a AAA budget, but this is fucking ridiculous.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

But later, the image has the text:

"Expected units sold in 2013." ... Approx 3.4 million

In any case, that is totally off the fucking chain. That amount of bloat is indicative of some horrifying things going on behind the scenes. I know that advertising accounts for more than half a AAA budget, but this is fucking ridiculous.

I think that line means that 3.6mi was the "projected" number. As in, they don't have the hard 100% data but can project that the number is about 3.6 million. The line above the chart is "Expected units sold in FY13", and given the intro paragraph it seems like that number was their educated guess based on what data they do have.

Either way, there's still a few million people using steam, and the game hit all three tiers of the pre-order thing. Either Steam doesn't release sales numbers to anyone (seems unlikely), or those numbers aren't anywhere near as important to them as console sales in boxes. "No digital" has to also count out on-demand sales on XBLA and PSN, which is growing day by day.

Basically, they expected (or told the shareholders) that Hitman, Sleeping Dogs, and Tomb Raider would have 15 million combined sales. PS4/Durango is going to destroy some studios.

 

[WoW Killer]

I read it that their total game sales were below expectations, not that Tomb Raider specifically had underperformed. If they really were expecting more... err, why? I'm pretty sure it was topping charts on release.

Also, having just finished that game (literally half an hour ago), I have to say: it's kinda short. I know there's a lot going into a game like that, motion-capturing, voice-overs, but on sheer content it can't have cost as much as other triple-As.

 

[porous_shield]

Oh well. Times are changing and these companies don't seem like they're able to keep up. If they go the way of the dinosaur, is it really that much of a problem? The industry has been all about top end graphics for a while now and it's come back to bite them in the ass.

 

[xPrometheusx]

Oh well. Times are changing and these companies don't seem like they're able to keep up. If they go the way of the dinosaur, is it really that much of a problem? The industry has been all about top end graphics for a while now and it's come back to bite them in the ass.

This. Eventually the industry's just going to get so top-heavy that they'll collapse and the consumer will be forced to learn the error in valuing "shiny" over "substance." If *insert developer here* took half the cash that they put into their graphics and funneled it into doubling the length of the game instead, I think I'd actually be MORE inclined to buy games at 60 a pop. I say this as an inevitability and not a possibility, because unless they can find a way to streamline the process considerably they'll fall over. They certainly aren't going to try and stop pushing the boundaries any time soon, especially with the new generation of consoles hitting the market soon.

 

[AndrewF022]

I think they're still trying to recoup the loss they took on Final Fantasy XIV, which was what? something around the $150 mil mark. So I don't think is any kind of failure on Tomb Raider or Eidos as a whole, but rather the unreasonable exceptions of Square that a handful of games will get them back to any kind of parity after a loss like that.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

It's mentioned in passing, but apparently company president Yoichi Wada has been "replaced", and Square-Enix is "restructuring their games business". I wasn't actually aware that the had any other kind of business. I hope to God that this does not mean the stopping of excellent western focused titles (Deus Ex:HR, Hitman, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider) and more of that 20 dollar iOS games with microtransactions bullshit they've pulled.

It's actually scary. For perspective, Katamari Damacy was made on a budget of less than 1 million, sold about 750,000 copies worldwide, and was considered enough of a rousing success that it spawned 7 sequels. This kind of shit is not happening this generation (maybe...Deadly Premonition?). Publishers need to remember the middle ground, and I hope that the new consoles don't encourage even more pushing in the direction of spectacle over substance. Apparently, having spectacle and substance for Tomb Raider (and I hear some substance was sacrificed even in that instance) is such an expensive endeavor that hypothetical and unachievable sales are required to consider continuing with it.

Also, I'd like to clarify that nobody spent money on "a whole new engine", as it's a modified version of the Crystal Engine used in Deus Ex:HR. It still might be the most beautiful thing that my video card has rendered, and it still sucks that a Steam sale apparently doesn't factor into the potential success of this or any game. If the game (the RL one) is about pleasing the shareholders, they may be pleased by the numbers of downloaded purchases of a game, you know. Hell, they didn't have to buy a box or print a manual or do any shipping for those sales, so the ROI should be even better *shrug*.

 

[King Aragorn]

Wait wait....that's seriously the same engine as DX?
Wow. Texture wise and what not, it looks actually much better than HR. But HR is still beautiful in it's own right.

Anyways: what ''cuts'' it and what does not, is probably really context sensitive.
I bet several things go into mind with this:
How is the company doing, economically?
What franchise is this game from? is it a new IP, is it known, is it ''underground''? *this one specially sets what the developers expect*
How much has gone to advertising?
How big is the project?

And so much more. There is no real standard for what's good sales or not.

 

[Zeh Don]

I think they're still trying to recoup the loss they took on Final Fantasy XIV... I don't think is any kind of failure on Tomb Raider... but rather the unreasonable exceptions of Square that a handful of games will get them back to any kind of parity...

Yep, nailed it.

It's actually a pretty common bookkeeping trick in order to starve off recording a loss for particular financial quarters, keeping stock prices as high as possible for as long as possible in the process. You shift loss around, basically heaping it onto other products to help dissolve it into their profits or minimise it's impact.
Activision Blizzard do it with virtually every licenced game they make, and every non-franchise installment. You never hear about massive losses, because Call of Duty eats it up into their "record setting" profits.

FFXIII, FFXIII-2 and FFXIV all drastically fell short of projections because Square expected anything with Final Fantasy on the box to pull double digits in the millions of copies sold. Add to that the re-development of FFXIV, which is basically throwing money on a fire hoping to put it out. This all comes on the heels of some fairly questionable partnerships that resulted in some substantial losses. Gas Powered Games titles all failed to perform, for example, resulting in a massive net loss.

Tomb Raider had to shoulder the burden of essentially three games worth of mis-management, poor development, poor design, bloated budgets and arrogance that has been filling Square Enix's sails for far too long. 3.4 Million copies sold is a massive success, easily re-couping it's budget and offsetting a large amount of all of the blunders at Square Enix over the past few years.

The problem is everyone chases Call of Duty's 30 Million Copies sold, and expects titles like Final Fantasy XIII is meet it - which is might, if it weren't one of the worst games ever made.

 

[sanquin]

3,4 million...which means about 170 million turnover. And that's not counting digital sales apparently. Yet it 'failed to meet expectations'? What, is getting more than double your investment in return not a good amount of profit any more these days? (As no one can convince me that the game development + marketing cost more than 100 million.) God, most companies in western countries would kill for 1% of that one game's pure profit in an entire year, yet they still complain...-.-

And that's not even touching on the subject of the hugely bloated budgets big companies use. If an indie company can make a game that looks like an AAA title on a budget of 50,000 or so there is no way that a large company needs 100 times that amount just to make it a little bit better than indies. 10 million I could understand for games like the CoD franchise. (at least the latest installments.) But not 50...

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm beginning to notice a trend. The more we see unreasonable sales expectations being required to monetarily justify a game, the more companies seem to fail to meet those targets, despite the games generally selling pretty well.

Maybe their expectations are a BIT HIGH.

As obvious as it is, don't develop games that are going to cost more to make than you could ever hope to regain in sales! That's terrible business!

 

[IronMit]

They were expecting Assassins Creed figures, even though they were reviving a pretty much dead franchise.(even with all that marketing).
I imagine similar sales figures of Tomb raider, Hitman, Deus ex:HR , and Thief. They are SP, they will hit the pre-owned shelf quickly and they don't have a tonne of 15 year old fans.

 

[TheLycanKing144]

It depends on the game's budget, perhaps they spent a lot more on developing it and 3.4 million isn't breaking even for them (which is odd considering your link says they were expecting 3.4 million this year). But who knows, I liked the game a lot but wish it had more replay value. Oh well I'll just replay the story again.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I never realized more than now just how bloated this industry has become. Square-Enix is underwhelmed and disappointed with 3.4 million Tomb Raider sales in one month, not counting any digital sales. I wish I had more to add to this, but I'm really speechless. The source article has more to say about Hitman and Sleeping Dogs (which I thought did fucking great for a "new" IP). Is this cause for concern? I just figured more than a few of you would want to give this a read.

I'm with you on this. I have a friend at Squeenix who told me about their CEO resigning (two in as many weeks!) and the "poor sales".

By most definitions, 3.4 mill (and that's just since launch) is a success. The only games that outsell/sold that are CoD (Heaven knows why) and Diablo III really.

The trouble isn't the sales, the critical or commercial success or fans reception. It's that (I understand) it cost far too much to make. In a story reminiscent of the "DSIII needs to sell 5 mill copies" report, the fact is they spent too much on development that despite great sales figures, it wasn't a good enough return on the investment.

Here's the thing that the industry needs to get I think. CoD is the most popular entertainment franchise of all time, and is the only one that is able to get 7mill yearly. That is the highest a game can go (Diablo III was a one off and Skyrim is...Elder Scrolls?) and is the game equivalent of Avatar from film or Everything I Do (Bryan Adams) in music. They are unpredictable flukes. 4-5mill is about the most a great game should expect to sell, but don't bank on that. Budget for 2-3mill sales. Less than that, it can be called a commercial failure. More than that, it's a more profitable success. And realistically, expectations can be met.

Anyone who counts on 5mill unit sales for profitability is likely to follow THQ and ailing EA. I feel for Squeenix though. Two blockbuster titles (Hitman and TR)...first sucked, second (apparently) rocks, and it's not working out. And only one year since Human Revolution. Maybe Thief 4? I doubt it tho

 

[JJ Wasyl]

I'd like to point out the fact that some game companies employ bad management and marketing strategies. The best example are AAA games that have the reputation of feeding the "hordes" (COD, BF3 being my favorites). The hiring of so-called experts into development, paying off known actors to lend their voices or looks (who needs Ellen Page specifically in a game.. really?), etc...

To give you figures

The Witcher 1 cost ~8 Milion USD, while the creation of COD MW2 (big retail hit) cost 200 Milion USD. Despite lower sales, The Witcher had a much better cost to content/overall quality ratio than MW2. It all depends how you spend your money.

BTW for the curious, the witcher had such cost-efficient development due to the fact that one of the devs was essentially an economy major with no programming or design skills.