lol dbot i was going to point the same exact thing

If I were the CEO of Rockstar and it had only sold 1 million in the first month, I'd be a bit concerned. LatD doesn't make one cent for them until it passes 1.5 million, and first month sales are probably half of total sales. Also, while LatD might pick up a bit when the second DLC hits, the sad fact of DLC is that the second will always perform significantly worse than the first unless it's a drastic upgrade. Anyone see that happening? It's looking like ~4million total for the two pieces of content, and that's barely worth the effort when much more than half of the money from that goes to MS.

I don't think Patcher is taking in the idea of DLC having long-tails like the rest of the downloaded community.

That's his problem right there. We have very little data on the downloadable industry, so it's hard to apply a retail model to a non-retail world. I am sure that Castle Crashers selling ~70,000 units it's first week wasn't that great to some. Of course, it's sold over 5 times that amount since, which is spectacular.

And there's absolutely no way it was as front-loaded as something with GTA in the name. That's the sort of product you expect to sell heavily up front, and if it doesn't have great legs R* is in trouble. They really don't make it worth their while unless the two DLC combined sell 5 million copies.

I think Microsoft is trying too hard to get people to sign up for Live! They should get this game out on the shelf where it belongs!

Given a lot of the left field predictions that Pachter has made, he should have more realistic expectations for just about everything he talks about.

Um, Microsoft PAID RockStar $25 million up front for each DLC ($50 million total).  That's all money straight into RockStar's pocket.  I highly doubt they spent anywhere near 25 million in development per DLC so right off the bat they get profit.  MS is the only one left in the red until the units sell ~3-4 million combined for the two DLC's.

They could increase their sales five fold or more if they just allowed people to download and play the lost and damned without requiring people to own
GTA IV. I know I sure as hell would have bought the game for $20 but since I never bought GTA IV I'm stuck.

The $50 mil was a loan.  They have to pay it back through DLC sales.  They don't get anything until they pass $50mil in revenues between the two, assuming MS counts their usually 30% cut as part of the repayment.

I thought the arrangement was that if the sales did not reach a certain point, then part of that $50 million would have to be returned.  Othewise, if the sales targets were reached the money stayed with Rockstar and Microsoft just kept taking in sales profits.  Anyone know for sure, because I thought it was similar to this?