Why Beyond Good and Evil Tanked

Via Joystiq, a post on the JumpButton blog talking with a PR manager at Ubisoft about the title Beyond Good and Evil. Despite critical acclaim and crackerjack gameplay, the title just didn't do very well commercially. The rep explains why it did so badly in the stores, and what that means for future quality game titles. From the article: "When BG&E was released in 2003, it was competing against some of the strongest franchises in gaming. Like a weak wolf cub in a litter, it was forced to fight its siblings for attention and nurturing. Strong brands such as Tom Clancy and the reinvented Prince of Persia were the favourite sons that year. While XIII, a stylish FPS based on an obscure Belgian graphic novel, almost suffered a similar fate to BG&E, but sales in European territories still managed to qualify that game for Sony's best-seller Platinum label. It was only late in the piece that IGN.com managed to arm us with a majestic and summarizing quote for the difficult BG&E: 'Zelda for grown-ups.'"

Comments

It wasn't bad

[Killjoy_NL]

The quality of the game isn't that bad, the graphics were nice, sounds as well.
Sturdy gameplay, but too much competition.

I did hate the dutch localised version though, but I hate all dubs.

Trailer

[triorph]

haven't played the game, but saw the trailer for the game with my prince of persia game and i can tell you it looked boring as anything, was quite surprised that it was actually critically acclaimed from the article, perhaps most of the audience was put off by the trailer like i was.

Not enough hype

[SIInudeity]

I did enjoy this title, very much. I think it got overshadowed by the typical Christmas volley of releases. That, and you have to compete with the general ineptitude of the average gamer.

Followthrough.

[Anonymous Coward]

A VERY relevent story for this forum. Everyone's always complaining about gameplay. Well BG&E had gameplay*, and look what happened. Apparently people were unwilling to put their money were their mouth is.

*I'm playing it right now.

Re:Followthrough.

[oneils]

I agree, I own two copies - one for Xbox and PC. Got the PC one thinking that using a keyboard and mouse might help. I heard so much "critical acclaim" that I thought there must've been something wrong with me. But, this game was all story and no gameplay. The combat consisted of button mashing and the races were pretty uninspired.

One reason? Gallic weirdness

[payndz]

After hearing a lot of critical praise for BG&E, including from people I used to work with in the games magazine business, I decided to pick up the GC version (second-hand) and give it a try.

I'd heard it was something to do with a photojournalist fighting a conspiracy in a sci-fi/fantasy world, so that aspect of the game was expected. What I didn't expect was the heroine's sidekick to be a talking cartoon pig, along with a host of other characters who looked like refugees from Banjo-Kazooie. Kind of a 'WTF?' moment that threw me out of the game to begin with. And I bet I wasn't the only one.

I got past it, though, and started to enjoy the game as it opened up. Unfortunately, then my GC's memory card crapped out on me and lost my saved game, and I just couldn't face playing through the whole thing again. So I guess I'll never know how the story turned out. Shame.

Re:One reason? Gallic weirdness

[Amerist]

Yes. Initially I found PJ to be an instant turn-off.

Why? Possibly because my entire childhood has been tainted by Disney and I find anthropomorphic animals to be downright stupid, especially in what seemed to be a SciFi game. A little bit of playing, though, and I got over that immediate suspension-breaking issue. Especially after I met the orphans--well, actually, most especially after meeting the Mamago rhinos.

Even if he is a pig, PJ is still a card. He has a personality that lights up the room and I found it easy to ignore the animal appearances of many of the characters after I was drawn further into the story.

PJ still did create a major hurdle. I actually put the game down for almost a month after trying to play the demo and seeing PJ jump into the scene. That coupled with getting killed by the beginning boss fight because I didn't have a good grasp of the controls yet--which is sad because that fight is actually extraordinarily easy.

Once I finally swallowed the hook--the opening fight and its mysterious implications--and got onto using my camera, suddenly the game became the best thing in the world. The detective work and gotta-snap-em-all nature of the camera compelled me onwards to explore, wind through the story line, and ultimately kept me entranced. All in spite of my aversion to the cartoon animal characters.

I enjoyed it....

[tdvaughan]

...until I got stuck by one of the game's several game-destroying bugs and couldn't get any further. After that I was afraid to play it again in case it happened again.

Or Maybe...

[Aladrin]

Or maybe the game just didn't have what it takes?

I enjoyed the beginning of th game. It was interesting, it had a story, it had talking animals... But after a while, there were fewer talking animals, the story got down to heroine-against-the-evil-corporation cliche crap, and it had pretty standard gameplay.

Trying to take pics of all the diff bugs/animals was amusing, but I doubt people cared.

And so I stopped playing about halfway through. I read the plot outline later and it didn't get any better. It apparently even had the standard evil corp moon base or something. -yawn-

So in the end, it wasn't competition that killed it, but general lack of excellence and innovation.

Re:Or Maybe...

[PjotrP]

Agreed, blaming the competition is just the easy way out. "If our game would have been the only game released that year, we're pretty confident it would have been that years best-seller."

If they, by some magical device, would be able to choose in which year they'd release the game, which year would they choose? I bet other years had some pretty big name games as well, as does practically every year.

The other games mentioned weren't even that big imo. Tom Clancy franchise? Prince of Persia revisited? I'm wondering if those games actually only were big sellers because no real big games came out that year...

I never understood...

[tarun713]

...the whole 'Zelda for adults' tagline. I played BG&E and didn't think it was any more 'adult' than zelda. Maybe they were just riding on the more cartoonish look of Wind Waker at the time, but BG&E didn't look very realistic either. Both are great games, and I don't really get the 'adult' comparison. Even the difficulties were pretty even.

Obscure ?

[Alarash]

XIII, a stylish FPS based on an obscure Belgian graphic novel

XIII is one of the most known and appreciated "graphic novel" in Europe. In the US they have comics, in Europe we have graphic novels. XIII has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It's been adapted in a TV show, not to mention the game. It's been translated to 5 languages other than the original french version.

I find it ironic that a game designer claiming his game didn't do well because it compete with high-profile franchises don't know the slightest about an other video game from the same publisher that suffered exactly the same fate than his.

Re:Obscure ?

[DeeDob]

Actually, he's right and his comments are far from lame.

There are three "main" existing ways of creating a story driven with text that is aided by drawings.

A) There's the way that originated in america: The "comic" version.
The comic version is small publication that is sold in the way that magazines are sold. A periodical release. Usually contains publicity and the paper size is usually small. Small number of pages (if you exclude publicity). Sometimes a "collection" of comics can be re-published as "trade-paperbacks" in a larger volume.

B) There's the way it originated in Europe: The "graphic novel" version.
The graphic novel version is longer than a "comic". Their release is irregular (usually once every year or two for a major series). The number of pages is often "around" 40 and the size of the pages themselves are bigger.

C) There's the way it originated in Japan: The "manga".
Usually black and white, very small sized, but with a number of pages that is often over a hundred.

NOW, you can use any terminology you want, but these three ways of doing things are there. Comics exist in Europe, Bigger "graphic novels" also exist in North America. Mangas now exist everywhere, but they are often cut in "comic" size for the american market. Likewise, comics are often presented only in their trade-paperbacks form in Europe.

TinTin, Asterix and XIII are all originaly made the European way. Big graphic novels.
SpiderMan, X-Men, BatMan are all originaly made the North American way, small comic publications.
Ranma, Sailor Moon, are all originaly made the Japanese way, small books with tons of pages.

Now about XIII...
XIII is a MAJOR series of "European-type" graphic novels. Just because it hasn't been released or is wide-known in the U.S. doesn't mean it's "obscure".
XIII is big in Europe. It's scenarist, Jean Van Hamme, has done some of the most well-known European graphic novel series that i would rank right after TinTin and Asterix in popularity.

Saying that XIII is "obscure" is to put a blind-fold over your eyes and refusing to see that there are people living outside your own country that are doing thing you don't know of.

I don't live in Europe, i live in Quebec, Canada. Due to the fact of the bilingual situation here, we get the best of the three ways (European, American and Japanese [we get both english and french translations of those]).
In our market, European graphic novels actually is making it as big as the American way, if not even bigger.
The french versions of american comic books (in their trade-paperback forms as they don't exist in "comic form") are NOT those that sell the most. European graphic novels like XIII sell a lot more.

Too short, too green, too girlie

[NotZed]

As subject says. It was a good game, but a bit too short, and definitely too girly (for mainstream).

Having said that, I stayed up for 3 nights in a row and finished it faster than most games I've played - it was definitely fun, quite playable, and i liked the slight quirkyness, but i'm probably not your average player.

XIII described as 'obscure' - that's a good one.

[Qbertino]

Xiii is a, if not the classic franco-belgian thriller 'comic'. It's been running since 1983 and - curiously enough - it's story takes place mostly in the US.

I enjoyed it.

[BandoMcHando]

I bought the game (for PC) when it was discounted in the sale, as I'd heard it was meant to be quite good.

I enjoyed playing it, and have recomended it to friends. It was a nice change to play something that wasn't yet another FPS/RTS/whatever that was just the same as all the rest.

About the only bad thing I would say is that it did get a bit too easy towards the end.

I always assumed it didn't do too well because people looked at it and thought, "What? I'm a photographer? and I take pictures of things? F%$& that." without bothering to try it out.

So much criticism

[JFMulder]

Wow. I mean. Wow. This has to be one of the best games last generation offered me with Halo, Burnout 3, Soul Caliber 2 and Knights of the Old Republic 1. I only had an Xbox, so I can't say about GC and PS2.

This might be the first game I played that actually FELT cinematic. The camera angles and the way everything was "filmed" during cut-scene was done extremely well. This was also one of the most beautful game I played on the Xbox. It wasn't shader or texture heavy, but the whole world was colorful and the design of the enemies and environments always felt like a cohesive whole. That's the game that made me realize who Michel Ancel was and why he was highly regarded. I was a bit distracted by the fact that my sidekick was a pig at first, but hey, it's a fantasy game. Even the Final Fantasy games have moogles, talking cats with a cybernetic suit or furry creatures as one of the main caracters (Umaro!!! :)), so who cares?

I liked the stealth aspect which was a lot more forgiving than Splinter Cell's. There were some really cool scenes to play like the one near the end of the game where you are running away from a mob on the roofs of the city and the perspective is made so that the camera is in front of you so that you can see your character running in front and the bad guys running at the back and you twist and turn your way to safety and you have to sometimes jump from one rooftop across the street to another and the game just switches view and gives you a slow-motion version of your jump and then picks up gameplay right afterwards. I didn't overwrite the save game just after this so I go play over it and over and over gain. The combat was simply, I mean you only had to push A to attack ennemies, but the heroine was very fluid in it's movement and you could turn around mid combo and attack another ennemy. I was really impressed at the maneuverability of the main character. She felt actually even more nimble than Ryu in Ninja Gaiden (another last-gen masterpiece).

All in all, one of the best game I ever played. It's a shame I sold my original Xbox and that the game is not backward compatible with the 360 yet.

BG&E

[FlynnMP3]

The game starts with a cinematic sequence. It is pretty engaging. Then all of a sudden, you are thrown into battle with the Doms. These are the ultimate enemy of the planet Hillus and the galaxy. As you play the game, you find out why you are here what you are doing. You are a reporter tasked to expose the real thruth and inform the people. Along the way you actively see that teamwork and caring are rewarded. The cities change based on your progress. There are a very sad moments as well as a quite a few feel good moments. It is easy to identify with the main character.

The ending of the game throws everybody for a loop. It is a cliffhanger of galactic magnitude. On the support forum you'll find an online petition to continue the story in a sequel. http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/908103432 /m/907107432/p/1 It is filled with personal stories of how the game affected them and how much they want the story to continue.

It really is a heartwarming game and once you play it, you realize how much it stands out against your collection of games. If you enjoy adventure cinematic epic stories at all and can put up with somewhat limiting character control, the game is really worth your time. About 10 hours worth of your time.

Best Zelda-esque game, since Zelda

[mikeisme77]

I have moderator points and I was going to use them for comments in this story... But this game is in my top five games of the current (or last) gen (depending upon how you look at it). It is the only game besides the original Metal Gear Solid and Eternal Darkness that I thought was awesome (and short) enough that I took the time to play through it more than once. The game can easily be beaten the first time in 10-12 hours (similar to Metal Gear Solid), but the storyline is great (very 1984ish). The gameplay is a mix of Zelda and (as strange as this may be) that Pokemon Snap game (where you took pictures of the Pokemon). The puzzles weren't as challenging as maybe they could have been, but they were pretty solid. The battles were more difficult, and I think more action packed than either Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. This really was an incredible game and anybody who hasn't played it should really at LEAST borrow it from a friend or rent it--you won't regret it.

Re:Not the crowded marketplace?

[stnf]

I liked BG&E, but Psychonauts... wow! Now that's a GREAT game. I've tried to make my friends play it, but only two of them actually did and they also loved it. But the rest of them just started playing it and said like "So... you are a kid? Worst. Game. Ever.".

Perhaps you should look a little closer

[edremy]

I decided to try the game out on a PC since it seemed to be different from the piles of me-too FPSes and RTSes.

First, there was no option to invert the yaxis on the mouse, an utter killer for people used to it. Come on guys, nothing screams "bad console port" (I'm looking at you, Silent Hill) like missing this simple option.

The camera had a tendency to swing wildly at bad times, obscuring the action

Finally, the game simply didn't run. I got to a place where I had to go to the next stage. Crash. Hmm, reload. Crash. Try changing graphics/sound options. Crash.

I returned it and bought something that actually *worked*

Dreaded Traingle Key Error!

[LordJezo]

For those of you wondering about the post above check out this link:

The triangle key error

I am not sure if Ubisoft ever did anything about it but the problem was so serious that you could not even beat the game if you did not download the unofficial patch to fix it. It's a PC error and I encountered it during my playthrough.

The fact that Ubisoft released a game so broken it was actually unplayable and then never bothered to fix it, had to rely off of a fan created patch, a bad taste was left in my mouth for this company.

Good, not Great

[MeanderingMind]

I like underdogs, I like obscure cult classics, and I love innovation. When I finally got word that BG&E was a great game, I bought it and tried it. It was a good game, but unfortunately it completely failed to hold my interest.

Now, the graphics and the gameplay seemed pretty solid, as did the story. However, at the same time these things all worked together to kill my interest. It was weird, because I wanted the game to succeed. I liked the idea of a game without blood, sex, and overdone violence. Unfortunately this game seemed to suffer from some assumptions I see often made about games that avoid those things.

I don't know about you guys, but back in the old days of the Atari and later the NES, games were difficult. Not impossible, not masochistic, but hard. Yet, these games were also for kids. Just because Contra was nearly impossible for a three year old with just three lives didn't mean kids didn't play that game.

Today, any game lacking blood, sex and graphic violence somehow has to be A) easy B) simple and C) uncomplicated. While these traits aren't overabundant in BG&E, they are there. Ultimately I found the story rather straitforward, the gameplay rather simple, and at that point all that was left were the graphics (something I rarely care about). The game was simply too easy for me.

I traded it in after a day.

I suppose kids would love it, but just because they would doesn't mean they can't appreciate something with a little more depth.

The real reason BG&E tanked

[spyrochaete]

Yade! Yade? Great job Yade!

Major problem: blatantly unrealized potential

[analog_line]

Or to put it another way (too long for the slashdot subject header) each individual part of the game was great on its own, but when added together somehow came up with something less than the sum of it's parts.

Now, don't get me wrong. I certainly think it's a great game, and I'm glad I played it, and I would certainly recommend it on story, dialogue, voice work, and cinematic craft alone. It's polished well beyond most games, and while I've heard of bugs on the GameCube version, I didn't experience any going through it myself. However, all that polish couldn't hide the gaping holes that were found, mostly in the "free roaming world" portion. While it seems big enough when you're only using the little hovercraft to shuttle around in, once you upgrade to the flying machine, the limitations become very obvious. It only took some 20 seconds to fly across the entire available "massive world". There was only a single area that was unreachable without the flying machine, and 99% of the locations you could get to were pointless to explore, because they looked crappy to fly near and were ridiculously out of scale. I realize there are limitations on space in the console universe, but when everything is was obviously slashed to fit, it just felt like I was let down. If they had created a bigger Hillys than the one we're given to tool around in, with more extra stuff to do, then I think it would really have lived up to it's potential, but sadly it's just not the case.

It Was a Reasonably Fun Game

[Greyfox]

And if anything I found the world to be a little too small for my liking. The planet's rendering was very pretty and I wanted to go explore wide areas of it and I hit up against the boundries pretty quickly when I tried to. Reversing the controls in the battle with the final boss was downright obnoxious, though. Ubisoft seems to have a talent for obnoxious though -- play the last 2 or 3 levels of Blazing Angels and you'll see what I mean.

Apparently Ubisoft released the soundtrack for download, so if you want the racing mini game song for your drive to work you can find it easily enough :-)

uhmm....Inept marketing unit?

[Sal Zeta]

Maybe because the Marketing Unit had no idea of what they were going to sell?

BG&E was a game directed to "casual gamers", or at least to people that don't care about the latest shader effect or technology improvment...

And Ubisoft had no idea how to show it to the public.The closest thing the have ever produced is Rayman, and it was presented the same way : Like a childish Platform Game.

PR:"what? No Uber shader Effects? No 14.540 different weapons? NO EXTREME VIOLENCE? How we should sell this stuff???"

So it was basically discarded, giving more attention to Price of Persia 2: "Now with more Blood yeahh!!!!11!"and the Splinter Cell add-on "Now You can 0wn ppl online " .

It the same of what happened to ICO: A developer spends $MILIONS over an interesting game,and a group of inept PRs (that just want to get a portfolio to show to an Advertising company ) having no idea of what are presenting, condemns it to the bargains bin in less than a month.

The developer fails and collapses, the Publisher thinks that such games are unable to return a profit, and the Marketing unit leaves to work for a Ad firm as they wished.

You're damaged in the head

[xenocide2]

The game starts with a cinematic sequence. It is pretty engaging.
You've neglected to mention its a sequence involving the main character holding conversations with animal orphans. For the orphanage she runs. For talking animals. With storyline supposedly called "Zelda for adults" there's little in the way of adult subjects. It's really not as engaging as people keep suggesting. Yes, it's better than the other Zelda knockoff, Star Fox Adventures. But that says as much as saying "it's plotline is better than The puppy That Lost Its Way." Or whatever children's picture book you prefer.

The clifferhanger ending is also easily interpreted as cliche and trite, and a a flaw. Especially if there is never a sequel. If BG&E stands out amongst your collection, I'd be afraid to hear what lackluster titles line your shelves.

It's the packaging, stupid

[fahrvergnugen]

The game died on the vine because of packaging. Nobody in gaming gets the reference in the title, and it's too reminiscent of Black & White, which was a major disappointment. If they'd called it Jade after the main character, it could have done much better.

Next, the box. The cover art features Jade armed with a - camera? She doesn't look sexy, or fierce, or engaging - just a chick wearing green lipstick with a camera over some generic apocalyptic background. None of the interesting aspects of the gameplay or the storyline are conveyed in the cover art, and it emphasizes the parts of the story (the camera!?) that aren't as fun.

The tagline on the back, "Expose the CONSPIRACY. Capture the TRUTH," is way too generic. The blurb is short, and makes the game sound generic and uninteresting:
"A government conspiracy wreaks havoc upon the planet Hillys. As the rebellious action-reporter Jade, you must penetrate your leaders' web of lies and expose their horrific secrets. In a world of deception, believe in nothing... except yourself."

Okay, first - it's pretty much clear from the get-go that the government is full of bad guys. Next, there's almost no conspiracy theory aspect to the gameplay, it's a straightforward Zelda for Grownups quest. And last, that blurb sounds BORING. The back of the packaging is just as uninspired. It's just a bunch of fairly unimpressive screenshots, done over to look like they're on strip 35mm film.

BG&E sold for crap because on the shelf, it looks like crap. It failed to distinguish itself from the hundreds of other generic games with generic titles released that year.

Fortunately, Ubi seems to have learned the packaging lesson, by and large. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was a better game than Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, but it sold for crap because the cover art is arguably as bad as BG&E's. Warrior Within, though, sold much better. The cover art for that one? Stark white background, pissed off guy, two giant curved swords dripping with blood. Straight, to the point, interesting enough to make me check out the back of the box.

Marketing counts for more than you'd think.