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Beyond Good, Evil, Sales, As UbiSoft Ponders Popularity
Thanks to GameSpot for reprinting news of UbiSoft's improved financials, but disappointing specifics, as the company noted in particular: "In a very competitive year-end market, sales of new brands such as Beyond Good and Evil and XIII, products which had been heavily marketed, were lower than the early-December forecasts... this had an impact of 10 million euros ($12.5 million)." Coincidentally, GameSpy has an editorial discussing the allegedly disappointing sales of UbiSoft titles, and notes: "Many of my peers felt that BG&E's style was too eccentric and didn't convey what type of game it was." Although Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has "sold 2 million units worldwide", UbiSoft's welcome announcement of a Prince Of Persia sequel with reference to "improved marketing positioning" implies some dissatisfaction with the initial sales, and GameSpy argue "the [U.S.] advertisements for both [BG&E and PoP] were horrendous", but overall, this didn't stop UbiSoft becoming "the second largest publisher in France, the third largest in Germany, and the sixth largest in the UK" over the holiday period.
it ranks up there with windwaker, and metroid prime as THE games of the last year. (so, yea, perhaps prime is a bit old now, but it was years ahead of its time) these are the games that make consoles worth having, and its a shame they flop in comparison to the crap sequels that are getting so mass produced these days.
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
The people making the game, in almost all cases, have pretty much nothing at all to do with advertising. Advertising comes from the realm of the publisher, not the developer.
/. are from representative of the general public.
Can't argue with you that big budget advertising raises the cost, but they do it because it does sell games. Ideally, games would sell entirely on their merit, but fifty boxes on a shelf versus two behind the counter probably makes more of a difference than anything. It's just like any other form of entertainment: the vast majority of people like what is marketed best, not necessarily what constitutes "good art". It's easy to forget that online communities like
What's next, Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a first person shooter?
Ubisoft didn't release BG&E or PoP for XBox or Gamecube in Europe in time for Christmas. PoP is still not out for Xbox over here yet, despite them both having been out for all systems for some time in the US. Allegedly Sony did some deal with them to delay the games.
Now, granted, the PS2 has a much larger install base than the XBox and Gamecube in Europe, with about 20 million units compared to almost 4 million units each for Xbox and Gamecube. However, that's nearly 30% of their potential audience they're cutting out there, and as both the Xbox and Cube have smaller catalogues, there's less internal competition.
Dunno how much Sony paid them to hold those games back, but I'm not convinced it was worth it...
"Many of my peers felt that BG&E's style was too eccentric and didn't convey what type of game it was."
Is it such a crime that a game not fit neaty into one genre? Aren't people getting sick of the same old "shooting game" or "jumping game"?
Did you happen to read the article? Because I read your post, and I can tell that you didn't. The Gamespy editorial talks about exactly the opposite, that good games sometimes don't sell well, for a variety of factors such as marketing. I don't understand why you are calling shitty or average two of the best games of last year, as judged by many editors and lists. I can't personally vouch for Prince of Persia, as I haven't gotten around to picking that one up yet, but Beyond Good & Evil is definitely great - I'm making my way through it now.
... trollish. Games have been at $50 for as long as I can remember, and Ubisoft actualy dropped the price for BG&E to $20 after poor sales. I ended up getting it for $15 with a coupon from Best Buy. For those of you considering getting it, $20 is a very good value for this game.
And "increases purchase price of games"? That is so
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I bought both the day they came out, and I couldn't have been happier. When I used to work at EB, the Wednesday before the week of Thanksgiving was absolute hell because you'd literally have over 50 games coming out. The Tuesday night before that Wednesday you always had to have the staff clear off every new release shelf to prepare. Most of this 50 new releases just got filed in with the old ones because we didn't have room. And we were a well-staffed and district flagship EB. I can't imagine what would happen to those 50 new releases per system at a out of the way Best Buy or Wal-Mart.
Moreover, when the mom comes in to buy the kid a Christmas game, or even the wife for the gameplaying husband, all she knows is that she's looking for that game that's like GTA that's been on TV, or the new Mario game (even for the PS2). When I bought them at Toys R' Us during their Buy 2 Get 1 Free, the guy behind the counter knew Prince of Persia was good but couldn't find it, and it took him a good 3 or 4 minutes to track down Beyond Good & Evil.
What Ubisoft was trying to do, at least with PoP, was create another Splinter Cell. The difference though is that last Christmas, when Splinter Cell was released for Xbox, you really didn't have much in the way of strong titles. Maybe MechAssault, and that's pushing it. In Christmas of 2003, the "new" Splinter Cell (PoP) had stuff like KOTOR and Rainbow Six (ironically, another Ubisoft title) and that was only on the Xbox. The other platforms were probably even stronger (Mario Kart, SOCOM II). The problem is that investors create such an expectation for Christmas that if Ubisoft didn't get closer to EA's numbers during Christmas, what good is the Ubisoft stock? Consider this an insder retail proverb : A dollar in profit during Christmas is worth two during third quarter.
It's a shame, because it's investors that are indirectly responsible for half-shipped games and marketing mistakes like this. If you haven't already noticed, there are these mini-huge release days (like the one before Thanksgiving) on the Wednesday at the end of every financial quarter (next one is at the end of March I think). The releases will all clump and crowd on that one day. Another proverb: a dollar made at the end of the quarter for a half-finished game is worth two dollars made for a complete game released in the middle of a quarter.