Beyond Good, Evil, Sales, As UbiSoft Ponders Popularity 73
Thanks to GameSpot for reprinting news of UbiSoft's improved financials, but disappointing specifics, as the company noted in particular: "In a very competitive year-end market, sales of new brands such as Beyond Good and Evil and XIII, products which had been heavily marketed, were lower than the early-December forecasts... this had an impact of 10 million euros ($12.5 million)." Coincidentally, GameSpy has an editorial discussing the allegedly disappointing sales of UbiSoft titles, and notes: "Many of my peers felt that BG&E's style was too eccentric and didn't convey what type of game it was." Although Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has "sold 2 million units worldwide", UbiSoft's welcome announcement of a Prince Of Persia sequel with reference to "improved marketing positioning" implies some dissatisfaction with the initial sales, and GameSpy argue "the [U.S.] advertisements for both [BG&E and PoP] were horrendous", but overall, this didn't stop UbiSoft becoming "the second largest publisher in France, the third largest in Germany, and the sixth largest in the UK" over the holiday period.
Looking forward to PoP (Score:1)
Re:Looking forward to PoP (Score:1, Funny)
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/game/11
Enjoy
beyond good and evil is incredible (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:beyond good and evil is incredible (Score:2)
marketing sucks my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
Spending lots of money on advertising increases the purchase price of games and distracts the people making the game from putting all their efforts into making sure the game is excellent (as opposed to the ads).
Good games rise to the top (in respect and sales) because they are good, not because they had a great marketing effort. The worst part comes when a shitty (or average) game blames its sales on bad marketing.
Good games sell well. End of story.
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't argue with you that big budget advertising raises the cost, but they do it because it does sell games. Ideally, games would sell entirely on their merit, but fifty boxes on a shelf versus two behind the counter probably makes more of a difference than anything. It's just like any other form of entertainment: the vast majority of people like what is marketed best, not necessarily what constitutes "good art". It's easy to forget that online communities like
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
UbiSoft are developers, producers, and publishers.
However marketing and advertising isn't done by the same folls who do the art or the coding of course.
Ideally, games would sell entirely on their merit
Advertising is mostly deceptive hype, but it is a necessity because you won't buy something you don't know exists.
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
And "increases purchase price of games"? That is so
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:2)
It's not just trolling, it's bad microeconomics. Fixed costs, like development and advertising, have no effect on the price that a rational firm sets on products. Since the
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that BG&E dropped it's price from $50 to $20 and still didn't sell is interesting, that means the high $50 cost wasn't what was keeping consumers away. There was just a lack of interest.
Shitty thing is, in entertainment occasionally a great product will be put out that flops inexplicably. Like why did the movie Blade Runner or the album Pet Sounds flop? Who knows,
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:2)
I have, based on the demo I played last summer, and on the word of a current and former Ubisoft employees swearing that it was awsome.
It has good points. The movements are good and fluid, the acrobatics can be performed in a very satisfying and spectacular way. But its been sitting idle on my couch unfinished for a few weeks because I hate the interface.
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:2)
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
Enter the Matrix.
Re:marketing sucks my ass (Score:1)
the question you might want to ask yourself is this, will they sell enough to cover for the cost of production, and even more so when other games pour lots of cash into good/bad PR?
I'm sure companies and users all love sleeper hits; even if I do doubt that when it comes to some of the game developers needing cash before they can get that new contract for their next big thing (so many only have 1-2 projects going), while having a 30 woman/man team to feed.
Less than 10 hours of gameplay (Score:1, Informative)
(personally I'd rather have great short games than ones I get sick of playing halfway though...)
Re:Less than 10 hours of gameplay (Score:3, Interesting)
I rather have a short, immersive extremely well done game (PoP:SoT, Elite Force (the first one) or Max Payne 2), then to have a game that can give lots of gameplay time but with poor mechanics/plot/whatever that ma
Re:Less than 10 hours of gameplay (Score:1)
If I had to choose between the two, I'd wait until the first was $20.
Fortunately, I don't have to make that choice, because there are plenty of longer games without the problems you mention. Unfortunately, I did buy Super Mario Suns
Re:Less than 10 hours of gameplay (Score:1)
If you want to sell games to Americans... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If you want to sell games to Americans... (Score:1)
Re:If you want to sell games to Americans... (Score:2)
Ancient Persia pretty much equals Modern Iran.
"Beyond Good and Evil" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"Beyond Good and Evil" (Score:1)
Plus tightrope walking as someone shoots rockets at you, I'd prally fall too.
Ubi shooting themselves in the foot in Europe (Score:4, Informative)
Now, granted, the PS2 has a much larger install base than the XBox and Gamecube in Europe, with about 20 million units compared to almost 4 million units each for Xbox and Gamecube. However, that's nearly 30% of their potential audience they're cutting out there, and as both the Xbox and Cube have smaller catalogues, there's less internal competition.
Dunno how much Sony paid them to hold those games back, but I'm not convinced it was worth it...
Re:Ubi shooting themselves in the foot in Europe (Score:1)
Re:Ubi shooting themselves in the foot in Europe (Score:1)
And now, due to poor sales they're both being released with a 25 (22.50 on Amazon anyway). PoP is out Feb 20th, and BG&E is out March 20th I believe.
Re:Ubi shooting themselves in the foot in Europe (Score:1)
"with a 25 pound price tag"
I guess Slashdot doesn't like the pound tag, and it also messed with my grammar.
Re:Ubi shooting themselves in the foot in Europe (Score:2)
I'm certain Sony had noting at all to do with it.
First of all, from talking with a ubisoft programmer, I know they have a hard-on for the Xbox.
Secondly, from working in the industry, I can tell you that there can be a million reasons that a multi-platform game release can go "not smoothly".
What is most likelly, is that they had to make choices at the QA stage: There were bugs that needed fixing, and they were
Re:Ubi shooting themselves in the foot in Europe (Score:2)
Re:Ubi shooting themselves in the foot in Europe (Score:2)
Maybe they botched their approval by Nint or Microsoft, then you have to go through the whole final testing and submission process all over again. Though Ubi is a big place full of professional people who should know better than that.
In short, I have absolutly no real clue as to why exactly it isn't out, but I feel that conspiracy theories involving Sony are
Wow... (Score:1)
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
I think you're way off base, however, calling Grand Theft Auto: Vice City "some overrated crap game". Vice City, and GTA3 before it, are vast titles that are enjoyable on a number of levels across a huge demographic.
The GTA:VC ad is successful because it conveys very accurately what the game is about. T
Re:Wow... (Score:2, Interesting)
Nonlethal stealth is quickly becoming one of those "love it or hate it" gameplay elements, and while the stealth in BG&E is handled well, there's enough of it to turn off people who don't care for it.
Running around dark corridors isn't the only thing you'll do in Beyond Good & Evil. The game's 10- to 15-hour quest [...]
Personally, it takes a lot to make me go out and buy a game that's only 10-15 hours in length. Additionally, I'm in the latter crowd on stealth
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)
As I wrote in a journal recently, there are two competeing gameplay styles emerging; the '10 or so solid hours of story' versus the '50+ hours of wandering around levelling up.'
BG&E was an amazing game; there wasn't a single sloppy, slow, or pointless part of the game that I can think of, off hand. They did some AMAZING cinematic tricks during the gameplay (the opening battle, and daring rooftop escape both leap to mind immediately) and pulled of that hardest trick; at no point in the game did you ge
Mod parent up. (Score:3, Insightful)
A-freaking-men. The POP ad was absolutely awesome, particularly the 1-minute spot. I'd see it on Adult Swim, and wake up my wife because I was wanting her to see it. I'm hoping that UbiSoft releases an OST for the game, as I'd be really interested in getting it.
Now, if it had Tony Hawk in it... (Score:2)
It's a sad state of affairs, really.
Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:2, Interesting)
In Beyond Good & Evil (pc version) there is a game ending bug. Affects a whole lot of people. Message boards everywhere have people desperately seeking an answer as to what is wrong (search on Google for the second triangle key bug) and guess what Ubisoft says about it.. NOTHING!
So all of these people, including myself, are completely screwed. Ubisoft hasn't released a fix for it and hasnt said a word. The only reason I have even been able to get past that point is because
Re:Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:2)
What is this bug of which you speak? I played right through the Xbox version of the game with no problem.
Re:Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:1)
Re:Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:2)
Ah, I must have missed that part. Still, I'd be curious to know what this game-killing bug is, and why it doesn't affect the other versions (if it's a game logic bug or something, rather than a crash-to-desktop type bug.)
Then again, I never saw the bug that plagued the Xbox version of KOTOR...
Re:Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:1)
For a whole slew of people the key just does not appear. Then when you try to leave the room the game just exits.
No key, no progressing in the game. Hence game over. No point in playing if you cant do anything but walk around in one room for the rest of eternity.
Re:Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:2)
Ouch.
Reminds me of Quest for Glory 4, back in the floppy days; I didn't realize for YEARS that the reason I couldn't get past a certain point was that there was a game script bug that prevented a story event from firing.
Re:Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:2)
Re:Worthless tech support team makes me mad. (Score:1)
That's the same bug that was in Half-Life's original release, and, amazingly enough, it didn't effect me in either game. Then again, I bought PoR almost a year after it was released (and multiple patches were available, including a patch for that bug), and still haven't uninstalled Half-Life.
Heaven forbid anyone be /creative/ these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it such a crime that a game not fit neaty into one genre? Aren't people getting sick of the same old "shooting game" or "jumping game"?
Re:Heaven forbid anyone be /creative/ these days.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't expect people to lay money down and not know what they're getting. This may be symptomatic of a marketing system that doesn't know how to sell new types of games. If you're selling the next first person shooter, then all you have to do is say "it's just like that last game you liked, only better!" And in fact that's the only message video game marketing is any good at pushing.
Secondly, as video games get more popular, there's a whole cra
Re:Heaven forbid anyone be /creative/ these days.. (Score:2)
While I don't really disagree with your statement, I have a bit of a problem with your reasoning. Super Mario 64 was revolutionary, and Mario was an old franchise. PoP is to the older incarnations as Mario 64 is to the original.
BG&E is...fairly similar to Zelda, in the sense that it'
Re:Heaven forbid anyone be /creative/ these days.. (Score:2)
Actually it's not particularly innovative gameplay wise, as it fits perfectly into the classic Zelda mould. Unfortunatly Ubi seemed to forget to tell anyone this, with the result that no-one really knew what it was.
Mind you, the release date was more than half the problem. Original titles at christmas are a very big risk, as the bulk of christmas titles seem to be bought by doddering relatives.
Re:Heaven forbid anyone be /creative/ these days.. (Score:1)
That was my problem with it. I picked it up at the store and looked over the box. I couldn't tell what style of gameplay it was. RPG? Action/Adventure? Mindless FPS? Tetris? Well, probably not tetris, but you get the idea. I could tell what the *story* was like, but nothing about the *gam
The Problem of Investors (Score:5, Informative)
Moreover, when the mom comes in to buy the kid a Christmas game, or even the wife for the gameplaying husband, all she knows is that she's looking for that game that's like GTA that's been on TV, or the new Mario game (even for the PS2). When I bought them at Toys R' Us during their Buy 2 Get 1 Free, the guy behind the counter knew Prince of Persia was good but couldn't find it, and it took him a good 3 or 4 minutes to track down Beyond Good & Evil.
What Ubisoft was trying to do, at least with PoP, was create another Splinter Cell. The difference though is that last Christmas, when Splinter Cell was released for Xbox, you really didn't have much in the way of strong titles. Maybe MechAssault, and that's pushing it. In Christmas of 2003, the "new" Splinter Cell (PoP) had stuff like KOTOR and Rainbow Six (ironically, another Ubisoft title) and that was only on the Xbox. The other platforms were probably even stronger (Mario Kart, SOCOM II). The problem is that investors create such an expectation for Christmas that if Ubisoft didn't get closer to EA's numbers during Christmas, what good is the Ubisoft stock? Consider this an insder retail proverb : A dollar in profit during Christmas is worth two during third quarter.
It's a shame, because it's investors that are indirectly responsible for half-shipped games and marketing mistakes like this. If you haven't already noticed, there are these mini-huge release days (like the one before Thanksgiving) on the Wednesday at the end of every financial quarter (next one is at the end of March I think). The releases will all clump and crowd on that one day. Another proverb: a dollar made at the end of the quarter for a half-finished game is worth two dollars made for a complete game released in the middle of a quarter.
Re:The Problem of Investors (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason Ubisoft did badly (and compared to what it could have done, it did very badly) is because it released all of its phenominal games all at once, at the same time as everyone else released all of their phenominal games (as you mention).
They let out Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil, Rainbow Six 3, and a selection of other titles all at once, at the same
Re:The Problem of Investors (Score:2)
I'm still in 2003 mode. 'Last Year' was Rainbow Six, but I thought you were referring to 2002. My bad.
--Dan
Re:The Problem of Investors (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm with you on that Dan. I had to pick and choose at Christmas (I only have so many relatives), and it meant that games I otherwise would have bought (say, for example Metal Arms, or Crimson Skies; even Jak II keeled to Ratchet II - heck, I still need to get Mario Kart!). I was playing Pro
Beyond Good & Evil (Score:1)
Ubi Fubared XIII Mod / Map Development (Score:2, Informative)
So what did Ubisoft do?
Well, they released the US version of XIII with a flaw that disabled the use of custom maps thanks to the CD checking softwar
Re:Ubi Fubared XIII Mod / Map Development (Score:1)
Another problem with their games.
Your post goes hand in hand with mine below talking about very serious flaws in BG&E and Splinter Cell.
Good work Ubisoft!!!
For those who have not gotten PoP or Splinter Cell (Score:3, Informative)
I've been slow picking up PoP (it has been on my list because of my love for the old games back when I was in middle school), but the two-pack is what sold me.
And, dammit, it shouldn't have needed to be packaged with SC (not that my wallet is complaining)! This game is easily the best I've played in years. I've already spent six or seven hours playing the game, and it is a massive step forward for gamers who have been following the Legacy of Kain series or who love good platformers or who thought Enter the Matrix could have been so much more than it was (if only Ubisoft and this development team had worked on that game as opposed to Atari and Shiny..). I cannot sing PoP's praises more! BUY THIS GAME.
As for Splinter Cell: I'll play it at some point. :)
Re:For those who have not gotten PoP or Splinter C (Score:2)
Bastards.
BG&E, Prince & Splinter Cell for $70!?! (Score:1, Informative)
This has to be one of the best deals on games right now. If you don't already have Prince of Persia, you've got to get the 2 for 1 deal now! And BG&E for $20 is a steal!
The deal's at ubisoft's store and I'm sure you can find it elsewhere too.
Ubisoft's Store [ubi.com]
Ubisoft is dumb (Score:2)
Re:Ubisoft is dumb (Score:2)
Re:Ubisoft is dumb (Score:1)
If they have gotten better, good for them. After multiple games that did not work out of the box, I'll stay away until they produce something I *am* interested in, *and* has proven itself in front of trusted friends and/or reviewers.
Never buying Ubi again (Score:2)
Bad Timing, Bad Marketting.. (Score:1)
According to Gamefaqs for PS2:
XIII 11/18/03
PoP 11/06/03
BGaE 11/11/03
The did a lot of marketting, but they didn't explain the gameplay of the games, they tried to market them by graphics/story. They did nothing to try and differentiate themselves from the other releases. This put them in a position of competing with themselves and the million other xmas games.
Xmas is overrated. There is way to
Regarding BG&E (Score:1)
I think the root cause for poor sales is two-fold: 1> They should not have released around Christmas. 2> It needed better marketing. Not more marketing, mind you, but better. I saw plenty of ads for it, but none of them r