Why PSABR, Twisted Metal and Starhawk flopped

[JWeinCom]

kolbykooz said:

JWeinCom said:

It continues to sell... very slowly... In 2013 so far, it's sold 43K.  For the sake of comparison here are how other titles have been doing this year.

WWE 13 (released in October)(PS3)- 60 K

Kid Icarus Uprising (released in March)- 17K

Paper Mario Sticker Star (released November) 153K

Kingdom Hearts 3D (released July)- 18K

Smash Bros Brawl (released 2008)- 53K

Mario Party 9 (released in March)- 57K

Arkham City PS3(released 2011)- 54K

It's still selling, but you can say that about any game that sells more than 1 copy a week.  It's not selling at a very fast rate, certainly not fast enough to turn it into a hit.  If it continues at this rate it will hit 1 million by around next new years, and there is no reason to expect that the sales will continue at this level.   No DLC beyond Kat and Emmett have been announced.  Sony cut their ties with the developer who was supposed to do the DLC and it's unclear how involved Santa Monica will be.  The game's price dropped by 30%.

Denying that the game was a flop at this point is... well... denial.

No one even knew about this game, I'm trying to say, this was more of a test for Sony, and it's doing very well in thay position (not to mention the fact you put it up against huge games)

I put it up against huge games?  WWE 13?  The year old Arkham City? Kid Icarus Uprising?  The 5 year old Smash Bros Brawl? Mario Party 9?  These are hardly MW3 or Assassin's Creed 3 we're talking about...  What games do you think would make a good comparison?

And where is this idea that PSASBR had no advertising coming from?  It had an open beta.  There was an E3 demo.  It was at Evo.  There's a youtube commercial with 3.8 million views.  There were 3 in store demos in my local best buy (one on a PS3, one for the PS3D Display they have up, one on the Vita).  Two at Target (PS3/Vita), 2 at Gamestop (PS3 Vita).  These decisions are made on the national level so I'd assume the story was the same everywhere eles.  I saw the commercial with Kratos many times.  The game had tons of coverage on websites.  This wasn't some sort of super secret launch.  What game with a comparable marketing effort sold worse?

And, can you please explain to me how a price drop on a 3 month old game is a sign that a game is very well?  Did Sony say "oh gee we're selling a lot of these.  Let's lower the price so we could get 20 dollars less for each unit we sell."  How is Sony telling Superbot "we don't want you to make any more games with us" a sign that Sony is happy with the sales?

If you want to argue that the game is good, or it deserved better sales, then that's fine.  Arguing that it's successful is delusional.