Stranglehold the first major bomb?

[Lingyis]

Sqrl said:
Holy crapola, 25m?

My opinion of this game from the start was something in the vicinity of "dried up turd on a bad stretch of road"....my apologies to anyone who is looking forward to it, but thats my honest opinion.

Anyways, I hadn't expected reviews to be this high, so I thought the game was doing ok...but at 25m, they need to sell how many copies? Something like 420k if you assess all $60 as profit, but after the case, manual, disc, shipping, and retail markup (albeit a small markup) I would figure the final profit to be somewhere around $45-48 on the PS3 version and $52-55 on the 360. So weighting that for install base the average profit should be something like $52 which would mean they need about 480k copies.

I think they will likely break even, but the goal of this sort of venture is to make money. As for the effect on the industry? I don't know if this one instance will scare a bunch of devs away, but I do think it will be added to a list and it will get them to keep an eye out for more warning signs.

PS - Prices and install bases are based on US numbers, assessment of productions costs are entirely arbitrary.

i think you're underestimating retailer's profits. i would put markup at $10 minimum, more likely in the $12-$15 range, i.e. they buy the game at around $46-$45. i've read that the markup for some video games could be as high as 50%, i.e. they buy the game at around $40 (50% markup), but that seems too high. Bodhesatva, any clue how much is the markup?