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Bethesda and 3 and a half under-performing games in a row

dex3108

Member
Bethesda ha really rough year despite releasing 3 great games and great stand alone DLC.

Dishonored 2 was first one that had lower sales (lack of marketing and performance issues on launch didn't help) despite being amazing game that i spent playing for 34 hours and enjoying every single moment playing it.

Next one was Prey. That game had even worse launch than Dishonored (also lack of marketing, no review codes and performance issues on consoles). Also amazing game that i am now playing and i already spent 25 hours in it and i still have many things to do.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider stand-alone release is another example of great experience that failed to sell.

And latest one that probably under-performed is The Evil Within 2 (some will say that is too early for SteamSpy numbers but a bit above 50K after 3 days for AAA game is really looking bad). And from reviews and people who played it and still are playing it game is great.

Last release for this year from Bethesda is Wolfenstein The New Colossus and despite having big potential to sell way better than previous ones i have feeling that it will be last classic SP only game from Bethesda we will see.

As a person who loves SP only games an immersive sims it is hard to watch those games flop one by one. And i think that Bethesda is big cause of that. Their marketing is almost non-existent and their no review codes policy is hurting their games and developers really bad. And they are keep doing that over and over again. I don't want to see those game franchises die but is there anything that we could do? Is there a future for those kind of games in todays GaaS oriented market?
 
It's almost like their policy of only sending games to streamers and not reviewers and not doing any other marketing is not working out for them

Prey was fucking brilliant btw and this makes me sad
 

Hupsel

Member
Yeah marketing doesn´t help. Also their games are the most expensive ones on the brazilian Steam store at least.

Resident Evil 7 launched at 99 BRL
Shadow of War launched at 149 BRL

Every Bethesda game launches at 199 BRL, c´mon...
 

GavinUK86

Member
Bethesda are pumping out some of the best games in the industry right now. It blows my mind to see games like those under perform. It's crazy.
 
It hurts to watch them flop. More so because they also don't have any BS like lootboxes.

Great games, glad Bethesda funded them but they need more marketing.
 

Truant

Member
I think Bethesda deserves a lot of credit for consistently putting out pretty hardcore single-player focused games in this day and age. I've loved most of their output for the last five years.

It sucks for the actual developers that not all of them are huge hits, but that's how it is. Bethesda probably makes more money from Skyrim in 2017 than a lot of developers make from their games in a lifetime. This probably allows them to create smaller more risky games that are only moderately successful. I doubt any of their games have actually lost money, even though they underperformed.

EDIT: Harvey Smith also said that they're not worried about Dishonored 2 sales, as the games sell quite well every month due to good WoM.
 

ninecubed

Unconfirmed Member
It's too bad because these are high-quality, unique experiences. Dishonored and Prey are both amazing, and while I haven't played TEW2 yet, there aren't many other games like these on the market. It'd be a shame for them to go.
 

roytheone

Member
Bethesda ha really rough year despite releasing 3 great games and great stand alone DLC.

Dishonored 2 was first one that had lower sales (lack of marketing and performance issues on launch didn't help) despite being amazing game that i spent playing for 34 hours and enjoying every single moment playing it.

Next one was Prey. That game had even worse launch than Dishonored (also lack of marketing, no review codes and performance issues on consoles). Also amazing game that i am now playing and i already spent 25 hours in it and i still have many things to do.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider stand-alone release is another example of great experience that failed to sell.

And latest one that probably under-performed is The Evil Within 2 (some will say that is too early for SteamSpy numbers but a bit above 50K after 3 days for AAA game is really looking bad). And from reviews and people who played it and still are playing it game is great.

Last release for this year from Bethesda is Wolfenstein The New Colossus and despite having big potential to sell way better than previous ones i have feeling that it will be last classic SP only game from Bethesda we will see.

As a person who loves SP only games an immersive sims it is hard to watch those games flop one by one. And i think that Bethesda is big cause of that. Their marketing is almost non-existent and their no review codes policy is hurting their games and developers really bad. And they are keep doing that over and over again. I don't want to see those game franchises die but is there anything that we could do? Is there a future for those kind of games in todays GaaS oriented market?

The next elder scrolls or fallout game will probably be a traditional sp game. Those still sell great and I don't think they will add mp to them, the engine would explode.
 

kamspy

Member
I love every game mentioned in the OP.

Arkane is one of my favorite studios of all time after Dishonored and Prey.
 
You can't call the Outsider DLC a full game, clearly it's a smaller standalone type DLC to put out in the interm. Also you can't claim Wolfenstien 2 is going to underperform as it still isn't out for almost 2 weeks. Wolfenstien (2014) was one of the best titles that year and by all of what we have seen it looks to be more of the same if not even more crazy and fun. Stop judging things before they are even released.
 

sphinx

the piano man
can't wait to see how switch owners react to Doom and Wolfenstein.

if it turns out the Nintendo Fanbase will save their asses, that would be quite ironic.
 
I have no idea what Bethesda's marketing department even do anymore given that I've seen pretty much no advertising for any of their games in the past 12 months bar possibly Wolfenstein (time will tell, ofc)

Personally I'm not really sure how much this is a factor but I hope this makes them reconsider their review policy. It's a poor policy for consumers and I think this is definitely hindering their ability to get people interested in the days immediately preceding the releases of their games
 

daxy

Member
I pray for Arkane. They're doing God's work over there, so I hope Bethesda can be satisfied with whatever margin they're getting from Dishonored and Prey.
 
Their review policy hobbles reviewers from giving them free advertising. Arkane is consistently putting out GotY material that deserve both critical and financial recognition. Dishonored 1 had a pretty massive marketing push that I didn't see for Dishonored 2.
 
I only know of Doom and Fallout 4 doing very well for them this generation. A shame as well because they make the most different games from all AAA publishers.
 
Dishonored deserves so much better. Those games are nothing short of fantastic.

Prey seems like a more polarizing release. The difficulty, the combat, long load times and backtracking, performance woes pre-patch on the PS4 etc. Haven't really dug into that one myself yet, but managed to pick it up digital at a decent price drop already.
 

Chris1

Member
I blame the lack of reviews. Reviews get people talking about the game pre release, now by the time review come out the game is pretty much old news and most will either way for a discount or have already moved onto the next thing
 

Anung

Un Rama
I posted this in the Evil Within sales thread but it fits here I think.

Bethesda are such a perplexing company. For my taste they are making games that totally caters to my interests. Stuff like Dishonored, Doom, Prey, The Evil Within and Wolfenstein are absolutely my shit. But they don't market their games correctly or stop reviewers from doing the work for them. It's like they seen that withholding Doom reviews didn't hurt the game so let's do that with all our games forgetting that Doom is a legendary series that has name recognition that allowed for good word of mouth. Market the other games and let reviews drum up interest and potentially drive sales.
 

Jeremy

Member
The next elder scrolls or fallout game will probably be a traditional sp game. Those still sell great and I don't think they will add mp to them, the engine would explode.

I would be highly surprised if these games don't have social spaces and a batch of 2-4 player MP quests alongside the SP content.
 

Enclose

Member
I loved all the games they released this and end of last year aswell. Its hard to see that they don't success in selling as they should. I will not give up my hope!
 
Bethesda are pumping out some of the best games in the industry right now. It blows my mind to see games like those under perform. It's crazy.
I have seen zero marketing for all of these games and I consume a lot of content online and on television. I'm not surprised to see these bomb. It's a shame since I love Dishonored and trying to get into Prey.
 
Their current marketing strategy is utter trash, it doesn't work

Yep. I think they realized it at the last minute with TEW1- hence providing the code a few days early and relaxing the embargo day before release.

It's strange- you would think it would be harder to launch new IPs like Dishonored and TEW than sell their sequels but it seems like they just started to coast on the marketing.

I do feel like Wolfentstein seems to be getting traction and I think the Doom switch port is poised to overperform as well.
 

Marcel

Member
A "shared world" Fallout/TES like Destiny has potential, I gotta say.

But not at the expense of the SP games.

Bethesda on the developer side has been fucking terrible at stories so any excuse to remove myself from that dreck is fine by me honestly.
 
I've got a new policy this year as a result of some fuckery. I don't support developers who fuck up major aspects of their games via patches, and then never fix them.

Arkane is on that list. I won't ever buy another Arkane game again. Why? They removed all xinput support from Prey on PC with patch 1.05, and even though there's a (fanmade, ofc) fix, it's prevented me from using Dualshock 4 with gyro, a control scheme which I perfected the night before that patch's release and then could never use.

I liked their games, but I'm not cool with that shit. Not even a little. Especially since the community manager was aware of the problem, posted ONCE that Bethesda was looking into it, and then went radio silent. Radio silent for months. Still hasn't said another word. Told us that it would be dealt with. The only development since then is that they've put out a demo. THANKS, guys! Thanks for ignoring all of those people on your forums who have been talking about this for months, mentioning how it totally derailed their playthroughs. We're really feeling the love.
I'd refund Prey if I could, but I played it for a few hours before spending another hour or two customizing controls I'd never be able to use.
 

CHC

Member
Their review policy hobbles reviewers from giving them free advertising. Arkane is consistently putting out GotY material that deserve both critical and financial recognition. Dishonored 1 had a pretty massive marketing push that I didn't see for Dishonored 2.

It really is stupid, for them. Like, I don't care, I'm not some outraged dude. I know the games are good, I'll find them, I don't need reviews immediately.

Just seems so wasteful to release perfectly good games with little to no marketing and forbid pre-release reviews of them when there is nothing whatsoever to hide. It could really help them out.

I think Wolfenstein is going to do really well though, but yeah, I always get sad about Arkane getting the shaft sales-wise because they make spectacular titles.
 

FelipeMGM

Member
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider stand-alone release is another example of great experience that failed to sell.

this is the only point of the OP I wouldnt fully agree

Not sure they expected this to sell anything remarkable, being developed pretty fast and all
 

sphinx

the piano man
I blame the lack of reviews. Reviews get people talking about the game pre release

I have to wonder whether an 80 on metacritic 1 or 2 weeks ago would have been good enough to change The Evil Within 2's fate...

these games just don't reach the heights of a Mario/Zelda/Bloodborne/LastofUs...and people know that

they are effectively B-tier in the minds of consumers.

I am gonna say, there's too much to play right now and the fight for your dollars being a B-tier series is kind of pointless.. sadly so.
 

Truant

Member
So are all of these games considered commercial failures around the world?

All we know is that they performed under expectation, but it all points to Bethesda's strategy of huge tentpole 10+ million selling titles every 3 years + smaller more experimental games that make a small profit. Dishonored actually turned out to be a huge success, so their gamble sometimes pays off.
 
These threads are wrote with alot of confidence, yet they dont know the budget, internal goals, digital sells for most platforms, physical sells for most territories...and really just pass off opinion off as facts.
 

Van Bur3n

Member
Developers like Arkane are making amazing contributions to the immersion-sim genre. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a large audience for it. The same happened with Deus Ex under performing and now the series is probably in the ground again. I hope Dishonored and Prey don't meet a similar fate.

However, I think games like DOOM and Wolfenstein are in moderately good hands. They're shooters that have a much wider appeal.
 
If the usual reaction to your games being out is "what the fuck that is out already?" then maybe you should reconsider your entire marketing sector.
 
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