Littlebigplanet = LittlebigFlop

[Reasonable]

rocketpig said:
While I think the article is overly harsh on LBP, it does bring up a few good points. This game was crazy-hyped, even so far as billboards placed through several metro areas around me. Sony spent a bundle on promoting this game, on top of Sony fanboys foaming at the mouth about it for well over a year.

With that said, 350k week one sales have to be a mild disappointment for Sony. Not terrible, but far from good and less than what they needed from the title.

Even Left4Dead sold over 250k week one, and that was produced by a no-name developer (later picked up by Valve), running the game on a 4 year old engine and received no mainstream advertising budget that I could see.

Shit, even Wii Music managed 280k in week one. Not that I'm comparing the two games, I'd rather shit in my hand and throw it at the TV over playing Wii Music, but it puts LBP's sales in perspective.

To boot, the game isn't showing legs of any kind. It's down to 100k sales this week. Sony might manage to turn a profit on the game, but it's not going to boost PS3 sales in any way. Things might turn around but I doubt it.

 

I think though there should be a distinction between the game from the developers point of view, which from everything I read/saw was to create something quirky and fun, and Sony's, which was to push the game (I think unreasonably) as much larger than it was.  In a sense, it felt to me that Sony were trying what Hollywood has tried a number of times in the past, to take a potential 'sleeper' hit and turn it into a bona fide smash by putting hype and marketing behind it.

In the end this approach tends to fail a lot more than it works (at least with films) and I suspect LBP is an indication it holds true with games to an extent.

When I look at LBP without any considerations for hype or what the marketing boys were saying, I see a great little game that has sold very well and has made a big impact in terms of how its been received critically by the industry.  I see in short a success for a relatively small developer (Media Molecule) and a small team of high creative people putting real passion into something rather than trying to work out how to work in another mission where you have to inflitrate the enemy base to destory it/or some core target (I'm looking at you pretty much every FPS released in the last 2 years).

L4D I would argue is actually a more known proprty than you make out.  It's pedigree is impecable if you have played any Valve game (and let's face it as recently released figures show that's untold millions of gamers) and know about Counter Strike.  It didn't need hype and Valve knew this full well.  The audience for L4D was there sure as anything.  LBP on the other hand I think was a genuine risk.  I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if it really did flop badly.  It's just that kind of new IP IMO that is not guaranteed to take hold.

Wii Music though is pants IMHO.  Although I should note that as I have a real Guiter, Drum Kit, etc. I tend to be biased a bit against the notion of music games in general vs actually, you know, playing an actual instrument for real.  I suppose I can see Guiter Hero (who doesn't love to pretent they're an ace guitarist even if they're not?) but Wii Music?  Do people really want to hold a Wii Mote to their lips, press a few buttons and pretent they can play a flute?  I hope not.

If you want to play with some friends/family then I can't believe people would rather play it antiseptically on a games console rather than for real.  Maybe I'm showing my age!