Any game that sells over 250k on the Wii is profitable, except maybe some large-scale projects like Mario and Zelda. Any game that sells over 500k is a success. Any game that sells over 1 million is in fantastic shape and will probably get a sequel. This is pretty much how the game industry has always been, but the HD consoles have gone and doubled those numbers despite the games also costing $10 more each. If this game sells 750K+ copies, this guy will be jumping up and down about the next, higher budget, Wii project his bosses hand him.

I totally agree with that logic. But think about this scenario.

Company has two divisions. One makes a party game, one makes a more expensive game. Party game sells 1.5m copies, expensive game sells 400k. Now, to us that looks great because it is a success. But to the company it says, lets have that one division make two party games and maximize our profit.

really? it turns them off? its an amazing game and perfect for those kids that smoke weed lol.

How'd that saying go? "Specialization is for insects"? Seriously, companies need to stop living in a dream world and wake up to reality. When you make a game which automatically limits its audience (which Deadly Creatures does, as plenty of people have no interest in playing a game that's basically a beefed-up version of a single aspect of Spore), it's not going to sell as well as a game that intentionally avoids the audience limitation traps.

It doesn't matter if it's the game you, the developer. want to be making and playing. What matters is if it's the game that your customers, the mass of potential buyers out there, want to purchase and play. Making games is not a right. It's a means of making a living. If you don't make what customers actually want, you won't get a profit. And listening to the customers means looking at what they do more than listening to what they say.

This is a warped reality.

deadly creature is just to weird to sell, even if its a great game it will have the same fate as mushroom men

Everyone that still says that de Blob bombed is an idiot. First of all the game probably has a break even point of 200k copies (= about 5 million devcosts) and second of all it was mentioned as one of THQ's success stories at the last earnings presentation.

I think Deadly Creatures has about the same potential as de Blob. Not massive, but a slow million seller.

Reality isn't warped, developers' perceptions of it are. Hard to argue otherwise; if they understood how things worked, they wouldn't keep getting shocked at the results of making the same mistakes over and over again, albeit in slightly different contexts each time.

if they understood how things worked all we would have is mini-games and solitaire.

I have really mixed feelings about this game. On one hand i think it is great that THQ is trying out new ideas. Deadly Creatures sure is original. But spiders and scorpions just don't have the same mass appeal as cute puppies.
I really hope that this game is good and it does sell. Because lets be honest, this is the type of game you would only ever be able to find on the Wii. Unfortunately, this remains a niche game, and therefore it cannot be expected to sell very well.