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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.