Is ARMS a failure, or not?

[Jumpin]

TheMisterManGuy said:

Jumpin said:

I can't speak to what Nintendo's business goals were for the game, but I would glean that they likely had to do with establishing a major competitive gaming franchise, which ARMs failed to do. Nintendo often touts the successes of their new franchises and how they fit in with their business goals when they are successful.

Which they did with ARMS. It's primary purpose was to demonstrate the capabilities of the Switch's Joy-Con with a unique take on the fighting game genre, and it did that rather well. Maybe the competitive aspect didn't have the longevity they wanted, but that should serve as an area to improve on with the sequel, not a reason to dismiss the entire game as a failure.

They’ve been touting it? I am not seeing this at all. The game has literally been forgotten since its massive marketing campaign concluded. I don’t think they even mentioned it after a sales footnote summer of last year. 

It’s goal was not to demonstrate the joycon, that was 1-2 Switch. If demonstrating the joycon was its goal, they did a very poor job of it since all the youtube channels covering it switched to playing it with button controls until they dropped the game completely not long after.

With ARMs they were attempting to bring alive some kind of massive competitive gaming scene, it was in all the marketing. And that didn’t happen. Like their other failures (e.g. Nintendo Land) there’s been zero follow-up, zero touting. It’s looking like a game that they consider failing to reach expectations.

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the game, I was probably its biggest fan on VG Chartz. I’m saying that Nintendo is not treating this game like a success. The reasons I believe this is the case are outlined in my posts.

Some are saying it’s a good show for a new game in a niche genre. Then why would Nintendo care about putting all these resources into some kind of niche genre before ignoring it completely? Clearly, they were looking for big success in a new ocean. That didn’t happen.

The other point I made before is that 2.1 million would be a major success for a smaller company with no grand strategic design and without the massive expenses of a machine the size of Nintendo. This isn’t the case with Nintendo. They have limited resources and those resources have important roles. In other words, what ARMs achieved is not particularly valuable to Nintendo in any form other than “we learned that we shouldn’t do this again.”