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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Ubisoft wanted Splinter Cell: Blacklist to sell 5 million copies - only sold 2 million

Slimebeast on 06 January 2014
famousringo said:
Slimebeast said:

Good pint. That's something I never understood, why publishers cancel or put on hold fairly solid looking titles that are at least halfway through development.  Like Bethesda and Prey 2 or Lucasarts and Star Wars Battelfront and Star Wars 1313. It's like throwing away money.


Because they don't want to fall into the sunk costs trap:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy

The implication is that even if the publisher gave the game a spit polish and kicked it out the door to die, it wouldn't expect to make enough money back to pay for the spit. Brand damage, retailer returns, etc.

Well brand damage is a good argument, but it's also hard to estimate.

I wonder how the equation would be calculated for a game like Duke Nukem Forever. You could prob argue that the sink cost at some point would not be worth it, but the company decided to go forward anyway. It would be interesting to know the calue of the brand damage. I think the brand damage for Duke Nukem was enormous, almost to the point that we will never see anything labeled Duke Nukem anymore in gaming.



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withdreday on 06 January 2014
Nem said:
I think this series is a victim of sequelities.

If you ask me, it also says that if youre going to do that, use numbered titles. I got no idea how many games in the series there are. Its not a series you can easily jump into.


But it's not like it's a series based heavily on story anyway. It just launched at the wrong time.



d21lewis on 06 January 2014
withdreday said:
Nem said:
I think this series is a victim of sequelities.

If you ask me, it also says that if youre going to do that, use numbered titles. I got no idea how many games in the series there are. Its not a series you can easily jump into.


But it's not like it's a series based heavily on story anyway. It just launched at the wrong time.

It kinda is.  Sam Fisher had to kill his boss, find his dead daughter (or some shit.  I can't remember.) was still alive, and become a fugitve.  Storyline is pretty important--not in a MGS way, but still.



foodfather on 06 January 2014

Conviction was surprisingly good, but they messed the formula up too much for blacklist. Incoherent campign that was generic in every way.

The blacklist side missions were a lot of fun though. Back to the drawing board for the series. I dont think anybody wants a Blacklist sequel, but the series deserves another chance.



adriane23 on 06 January 2014
d21lewis said:
withdreday said:
Nem said:
I think this series is a victim of sequelities.

If you ask me, it also says that if youre going to do that, use numbered titles. I got no idea how many games in the series there are. Its not a series you can easily jump into.


But it's not like it's a series based heavily on story anyway. It just launched at the wrong time.

It kinda is.  Sam Fisher had to kill his boss, find his dead daughter (or some shit.  I can't remember.) was still alive, and become a fugitve.  Storyline is pretty important--not in a MGS way, but still.

And this is why I'm still on the first one. Normally, I'd just skip to the most recent one (e.g. Hitman), but I don't want to start the last three Splinter cells (or however many released last gen) without completing the first three.



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burninmylight on 06 January 2014
Rychussnik said:
S.Peelman said:

Then I don't want to know what they expect Watch_Dogs to sell. Sure, it's probably going to sell a lot better than Splinter Cell and Rayman, but I hope they're not thinking GTA numbers...


If Watch Dogs under performs, Ubisoft's stock will drop like a rock. I really hope they don't overestimate how many copies they can sell.


http://nintendoeverything.com/ubisoft-expects-watch_dogs-to-sell-6-million-copies/

Might as well be GTA numbers. Sell your Ubi stock now.



Nem on 06 January 2014

Im sure it will sell a million on PS3 and 360 and probably another million on PS4/X1/Wii U combined.

6 million is over the top. I would say 4 million at best.

 

To be honest... im not convinced the game is that good though, so if the reviews dont match it could be a disaster.



snyps on 06 January 2014

great game wrong era.  ppl don't think about war like they did ten years ago.



withdreday on 06 January 2014
adriane23 said:
d21lewis said:
withdreday said:
Nem said:
I think this series is a victim of sequelities.

If you ask me, it also says that if youre going to do that, use numbered titles. I got no idea how many games in the series there are. Its not a series you can easily jump into.


But it's not like it's a series based heavily on story anyway. It just launched at the wrong time.

It kinda is.  Sam Fisher had to kill his boss, find his dead daughter (or some shit.  I can't remember.) was still alive, and become a fugitve.  Storyline is pretty important--not in a MGS way, but still.

And this is why I'm still on the first one. Normally, I'd just skip to the most recent one (e.g. Hitman), but I don't want to start the last three Splinter cells (or however many released last gen) without completing the first three.

Well there's zero story in Pandora Tomorrow. so I say skip right to the best one in the series (chaos theory) and move on from there.



superhippy420 on 06 January 2014
DarkFury said:

5 Million target sounds very much the reality, I'm afraid.

The THQ bankruptcy papers give us a glimpse on the cost of AAA development and how many copies games need to be profitable. This is some of the best info I've ever seen on what it costs to make games nowadays:

http://www.consulgamer.com/platforming/thqs-recovery-sales-targets-and-development-budget-timing/787/attachment/thq-sales-targets/

So the total cost of making some AAA games (including marketing, corporate overhead etc. I am sure):

Saint's Row 4: 123 Million
Homefront 2: c. 100 Million
Darksiders 2: c. 80 million

and so on... (fascinating read, btw) So if the SC:BL had a typical AAA budget, 4-5 million sales are indeed required to put the game in black. :(

This also shows how most of these games have not been profitable, btw -check their sales against these targets.

I don't worry about Ubi Toronto though: Ontario government has supported Ubisoft with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, so I don't think Ubi can easily pull the plug on that that Studio.

The cost of game development is the main reason why I think Sony will be in big trouble in the coming years, unless their 1st party games start to sell much better.   A game like SM3DW sells 1.5 million (90 million in revenue) and I wouldnt be shocked if Nintendo is already making a profit on it or has atleast broken even.  A game like Killzone Shadow Fall sells 1.2 million (72 million in revenue) and it may not even be halfway to breaking even, considering how much more it must cost to develop a game with the specs that it has.  Hopefully Sony's 1st party sales really pick up because for as much as we all talk about console sales, they don't really mean anything in terms of the parent company's success.   The gamecube only sold 20 million consoles but Nintendo sold 72 million 1st party games and actually made more money off it then Sony did off the PS3.