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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Western-developed game with the most disappointing 2013 sales?

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Most disappointing 2013 sales?

Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel 7 5.04%
 
Castlevania: Lords of Sha... 9 6.47%
 
Fuse 30 21.58%
 
Gears of War: Judgment 15 10.79%
 
God of War: Ascension 11 7.91%
 
Killzone Mercenary 8 5.76%
 
Lost Planet 3 15 10.79%
 
Rayman Legends 21 15.11%
 
Tearaway 15 10.79%
 
Other (please explain in comments) 7 5.04%
 
Total:138

Hello VGC,

As per title.  I know I should have put "bomba" in there to get more hits, but I am not the Daily Mail and neither should you be.

Inspired by Meret's love for yelling "BOMBA" on the wall of every Vita game, no matter what the sales, I decided to investigate what were actually the biggest bombs of 2013.

I submit to you some suggestions.  Feel free to add and explain your own if you think there's anything I've missed.

 

# Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel (PS3; X360)

Developed by: Visceral Games.  Published by: Electronic Arts.

2013 sales: 336,832

Released in a year with so many other "me too" dudebro shooters, Army of Two failed to make any kind of significant impact in the sales chart and failed to match the sales of either of its predecessors.

Electronic Arts don't have to have had much luck with this kind of thing.  With Fuse completely underwhelming too, it's probably a smart move for them to refocus on their core franchises and drop all the side stuff like this.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/video-game-review-army-devil-cartel-article-1.1330143

 

 

# Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (3DS)

Developed by: MercurySteam.  Published by: Konami.

2013 sales: 111,407

Western third parties developers don't often make handheld exclusives.  When they do, you have to hope they'd sell a bit better than this.  Spouting the fairly popular Castlevania name, the game failed to sell well in any region.

The kicker for this was the HD release.  Within the same year, we had the title on PSN and XBLA for anyone who wanted to play the game.  Although there were whispering about it before the release, it seemed like a reaction to try and squeeze more sales from a disappointing performance, especially given that the port released so soon afterwards.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-10-23-castlevania-lords-of-shadow-mirror-of-fate-hd-brought-forward-to-this-week-on-xbla

 

 

# Fuse (PS3; X360)

Developed by: Insomniac Games. Published by: Electronic Arts.

2013 sales: 140,231

Oh Fuse.  What could have been.  Originally unveiled as Overstrike, a co-op shooter developed by the genius' (honest!) at Insomniac Games, Overstrike slowly got focus-tested to oblivion and became the disappointment that was Fuse.

Released to middling reviews and terrible sales, Insomniac's first foray into multi-platform development may well have been their last as they ran to Microsoft for the first-party funded "Sunset Overdrive", as well as returning to Sony to developed "Ratchet & Clank: Nexus".  The closure of the EA Partners program seemed indicative of Fuse's poor reception, too:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-25-ea-partners-publisher-of-portal-2-left-4-dead-crysis-and-more-is-shutting-down

 

 

# Gears of War: Judgment (X360)

Developed by: People Can Fly.  Published by: Microsoft Game Studios.

2013 sales: 1,366,942

Just like God of War below, Gears of War: Judgment is a sequel that people clearly didn't want.  The fall from grace seems even bigger than God of War's, since the series was pushing nearly 6m per entry in the franchise throughout the 360's life, but Judgment hasn't even managed to crack a million and a half.

Less prone to bargain bin bombing, the game still hasn't reached anything like respectable numbers.  Probably not a commercial failure due to Epic's ability to keep development costs down, but still a massive flop by Gears standards.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gears-of-war-and-god-of-war-sales-suffering-in-the-us-says-analyst/1100-6407031/

 

 

# God of War: Ascension (PS3)

Developed by: Sony Santa Monica.  Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment.

2013 sales: 1,657,539

As with some of the games in my Japanese thread, it feels a teensy bit weird including this as the sales are clearly stellar.  Again, it's all to do with pedigree.  God of War was a series consistently selling more than 4 million copies, with even a handheld spinoff on PSP selling 3m.  The previous God of War on PS3 sold 5m copies, so the stage was set for the game to sell well.

... except it didn't.  Apparently no-one wanted a prequel starring Kratos.  The game was in bargain bins just a month after launch and although has climbed its way to some respectable figures, still remains a massive disappointment.

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2013/03/god_of_war_ascensions_sales_murdered_by_previous_entry

 

 

# Killzone Mercenary (PSV)

Developed by: Guerrilla Cambridge.  Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment.

2013 sales: 303,604

Admittedly nowhere near as bad as I was expecting given the abysmal 30k first week sales it achieved, Killzone Mercenary nevertheless seems to have completely underwhelmed on Vita.  Although undoubtedly a victim of the system's shocking western sales, for the biggest game on the console this year it's definitely a poor performance.

What makes it worse is that the game is actually a genuinely good attempt at making a handheld FPS.  Oh well.  At least there's some post-launch DLC to keep fans like me happy.

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2013/09/09/uk-sales-charts-killzone-mercenary-has-the-5th-biggest-launch-week-for-a-ps-vita-game-saints-row-iv-three-peats/

 

 

# Lost Planet 3 (PS3; X360)

Developed by: Spark Unlimited.  Published by: Capcom.

2013 sales: 200,388

Lost Planet was what seemed to be a surprise hit for Capcom when it released on the Xbox 360 in 2006.  Later ported to the PS3 and followed up by a sequel, the series seemed to be doing alright for itself.

Then Capcom started outsourcing everything and suddenly all of their major franchises seemed to lose their way.  Lost Planet was no exception.  The game has struggled to break any notable barrier of sales and hit bargain bins pretty quickly.  I imagine this is the last we'll see of Lost Planet for quite some time.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/81823/lost-planet-3-sales-below-capcom-expectations

 

 

# Rayman Legends (PS3; PSV; Wii-U; X360)

Developer: Ubisoft Monpellier.  Publisher: Ubisoft.

2013 sales: 794,435

Clearly one of the higher selling games on this list, but also released on any system that was capable of running it (pretty much), Rayman Legends has failed to crack 800k despite stellar reviews and a strong forum presence.  

Ubisoft admitted the game missed sales targets (alongside Splinter Cell, which was also a contender for this list) and the game seems to have generally underperformed.  Wii-U fans will tell you if it had stayed exclusive it would have met sales targets.  Hmm.

Is being ported to PS4 & Xbox One this year.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-10-16-ubisoft-splinter-cell-rayman-legends-missed-sales-targets

 

 

# Tearaway (PSV)

Developed by: Media Molecule.  Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment.

2013 sales: 238,562.

As with Killzone, Tearaway was undoubtedly held back by Vita's poor install base in the west.  Legs, however, have seem to give it some semblance of decent sales this year, especially in the wake of games like Lost Planet 3 and Fuse. 

Famed neogaf leaker Creamsugar reported that the game sold just 14k copies in the USA in its launch month, an abysmal figure by any stretch.  I hope that was people just holding off to buy the game for Christmas, but it's still a terrible performance.  And sadly, the game deserves so much better.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=734251



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i think the xbox one sucks.

 

Moderated - Kresnik.



Wasn't sure what to vote for here. Chose Lost Planet 3 in the end, because it had the pedigree and yet failed on all fronts.



GTA V, I expected a lot more from that game.



Went with "Fuse". Everyone except Pachter saw it coming. Generated a lot of interest when they initially showed the game and lost pretty much all of it with the drastic change in art style and tone.



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Alien Colonial Marines..... Its a million seller.. We sure showed gearbox how we not liked to be f in the ass..even worse.. We also buy almost a million copies of the walking dead surival intinct.. It like buying 2 million luke warm turds..



 

Face the future.. Gamecenter ID: nikkom_nl (oh no he didn't!!) 

Fuse



I cant believe Mirror of Fate sold so poorly I liked it alot.



http://moongypsy.bandcamp.com/ ~Thank you Stefl1504 for the amazing sig~

Has to be God of War: Ascension or/and Gears of War: Judgment.

Even though both games have sold quite well and GoW:A is showing great legs, both God of War III and Gears of War 3 sold 4-5m each by the end of their first year and over 6 million units ltd. So even though games like Remember Me, Fuse and Lost Planet 3 sold so very poorly the huge fall from grace by both GoW's is more disappointing.

At least GoW:A will finish at ~3m lifetime, which is respectable by GoW standards (not including GoW III) and still enough to be considered the juggernaut of the genre.

GeoW:J will finish at ~2m lifetime, this is not respectable by GeoW standards and considering it's a shooter, not impressive at all.



JustThatGamer said:
Has to be God of War: Ascension or/and Gears of War: Judgment.


I agree with this man. Ascension and Judgment pulled out solid numbers (they're million sellers!), but you compare it with how their predecessors performed and, well, you see how hard they both fell.

 

Even if they push some more numbers with some good legs, at this point, we all know they won't recover. Not even heavy bundling (which there's none, come to think of it) can save those numbers. The titles just simply underperformed.