Garcian Smith said:
woopah said:
dead space fans were put off my console choice
core wii gamers were put off by genre
lightgun fans put off by price point
who exactly are they selling this game to? |
Good question.
A good product is marketed like this: "Hey, look at all of these cool bells and whistles that you'll get if you buy [product]! [Product] is awesome!"
Most of the "test games" for the Wii from third parties have been marketed to core Wii gamers like this: "Buy [product] if you want to see more of [product category]. And we swear that the next [product] will be better than this half-hearted effort! All we need are sales of this one!"
Do you see what's wrong with this picture? Third parties are marketing their core-market "test games" to nobody. The only incentive that they present for buying one of these "test games" is to see other games on the core market. They think that consumers (core-market consumers in particular, but also consumers in general) are stupid enough to throw their money away on a product that has no discernable benefit to them except for a vague promise of something better in the future that you'll have to pay even more money for.
Basically, they're approaching the whole concept wrong. If they had released a game that consumers wanted for its own benefits, they would have succeeded. But this "test game" garbage is nothing more than negative marketing, and time and again the sales numbers have shown that it doesn't work because consumers are too smart to fall for it. And then, each and every time, the developers or publishers of the "test game" wring their hands and state, "Look! There's no market for core games on the Wii!"
In reality, they're just self-fulfilling their own dire prophecies.
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I completely agree with these posts and I'll go one step further.
Could you imagine Dead Space Extraction being released at retail on 360/PS3? I can't, because personally I think the user base would balk at the game. No online, and short, shallow gameplay compared to the original. This would be an XBL Arcade or PSN title at best, where it would sell for no more than $15-20. But then, it would have to compete with deeper games like Wipeout HD, Braid, Shadow Complex, and Bionic Commando Rearmed.
As said before, many good 3rd party Wii games are niche titles that wouldn't have sold much better on 360/PS3 such as De Blob, No More Heroes, and Little King Story. On the flipside, look at Call of Duty for Wii, Pro Evo Soccer, Tiger Woods, and Guitar Hero. These were solid, REAL efforts compared to their HD counterparts, and they sold accordingly (notice how they all had online as well). Show us the Wii's Mass Effect, or the Wii's Fallout 3, or the Wii's Halo (no, Conduit doesn't count). Can't find anything? Neither can the gamers.
Having played Dead Space Extraction, I do think it's a good game. However, in no way is it worth $50, especially when you can find superior games on XBL or PSN for 1/5 the price. Considering though that Wii games usually start out slow, with a few price drops I don't think 300-500k lifetime sales is out of the question. It's still early.
