| Phendrana said: I'm sick of legs. Why can't these great games at least have decent openings on a user base of almost twice the HD consoles'? Are they not hyped enough? Are Wii owners lazy? I'd really like to know.... |
There are lots of reasons. For one we, the "hardcore" gamers, are the minority. (Hardcore in this context being defined as simply passionate enough about their hobby to follow it constantly on the internet, pre-order games months in advance, buy merchandise based on their favorite games, etc.) Us yelling about how great something is usually doesn’t carry any farther than other “hardcore” gamers and immediate friends and family.
And many "hardcore" gamers tastes still coincide with the mainstream buying public's tastes. So many of them won't be interested in De Blob either because it's not appealing for them, as it won't be appealing to a lot of the mainstream public.
Something like this is simply a hard sell. For new IP's, current trends favor "serious" action oriented games with heavy cinematic elements for traditional gamers, and pick-up and play entertainment based on familiar activities for a lot of new gamers. Everything in between seems to have an uphill battle unless it's attached to an already successful brand name. It’s also a lot harder to sell single-player centric games at full price at retail in the current market. With the big online gaming boom to console markets this generation, multiplayer centric games are often viewed as better values.
THQ is marketing it, I've personally seen TV ads on the Cartoon Network, but again this is a hard sell. It’s a 3-D platformer, which has mostly become a niche genre. It’s a new brand (Barring the obscure freeware game it’s based on) without anything to leech off. It doesn’t fit square in one of the two current big selling trends I mentioned earlier, and can be hard to explain to mainstream buyers.
The truth is that most people probably just aren’t interested in what De Blob offers. Which is too bad, because I really loved it, but that’s just me.
Still I wouldn’t fret. The good thing about a large user base is usually there are so many potential buyers, that only a small fraction of them need to become actual buyers to turn a profit.
Look at Endless Ocean. Published by Nintendo, and was even budget-priced at 40$ in the US. Its opening week in the US and the PAL region were very similar to De Blob. (US-16,994 EU-11,828) And now it’s sold over 600,000 copies, and has a sequel on the way.
