Take Two explains poor Grand Theft Auto IV DLC and retail sales

[Reasonable]

heruamon said:
If Rockstar blew the $50 on making 2 episodes, they are probably the worst developer ever. They probably expected to sell 100% attach rate or something crazy...Realistically, they should have modeled for a 30-40% attached rate LTD, which the DLCs are tracking towards. Lost and the Damn has done at least 2 million, and Gay Tony is probably near a million, if not already past it. Here's the thing of it tho...this problem is completely Rockstar's fault. M$ funded them $50 MILLION DOLLARS (or so we've heard) for these 2 DLCs, and it took them over a year to release the second one...whereas Bethesda was able to get out 5 DLCs in a shorter period of time...The Ballad of Gay Tony should have been released in March, and Lost and the Damned should have been released 4-6 months after the game launched. Rockstar was off working on GTA games on portables, and Agent, and Red Dead Redemption, instead of focusing on getting a paid product out. I'm sure M$ is giving them a fuck you finger on any DLC for the future...which in hindsight is some of why TakeTwo is always having money problems...you've got a $50 million opportunity and you fuck it up.

See, I agree with that.  I just can't understand how they messed up a $50 M funding.  It's amazing.  I doubt MS care because what I believe they wanted was the perception at launch that GTA IV on 360 would be significantly better choice due to major exclusive DLC.

But for the DLC to come out as late as it did, and to cost that much - I'm just amazed.  I mean it was huge DLC, but still and all t seems excessive.

I think you can get away with late DLC for titles like Oblivion and Fallout 3, that have levels and are RPGs, but not something like GTA IV.  I think the DLC sold good considering how late it was, but it would sure have sold a lot more if released a lot closer to the actual game launch.