woah at the Deus Ex numbers...
I sort of was anticipated this based on my own video analytics (I upload and stream on Youtube ... very small channel, beside the point other than to explain my sample). Anyhow I get a decent enough sample that I sort of recognize trends... e.g. Blood & Wine actually seemed to pick up 3-4 weeks later, maybe because it was an expansion and people would 'get around to it.'
The point being, I was kinda surprised my Deus Ex videos had so little traffic (relative to my low traffic standards). Almost everything I did from my longplays to a few 'secrets' videos basically never get hit. I've been watching the traffic versus other games and at times it even seemed to get less search results than Tropico V... my Romance of the Three Kingdom XIII videos are even getting better random search traffic.
This explains it though.
Interestingly enough, my GTA V videos have been pretty steady for almost 2 years. I have a sort of 'trick/guide' video, it's barely declined about 15-20% in 2 years... it's almost a perfectly straight line (and it even went back up to its historical average last Christmas)... I've read the same thing for a lot of GTAO streamers...
The game has crazy legs.
Anyhow, we talked about Deus Ex a lot in the UK sales thread and my feeling still is that I think the marketing just didn't click. It may be exciting, interesting, deep, controversial, whatever... but if it's also depressing, gloomy... people just may not give a shit.... people just may not want to go get oppressed by cops and spit on my civilians for 20 hours lol
The thing with Human Revolution was that it was... a revolution! ;p a cyber renaissance.
It had this exciting futurist tone to it, despite its conspiracies. even the original Deus Ex, despite its conspiracies, was an exciting thriller. Human Revolution was in some ways inspiring, at least creatively.
In contrast, Mankind Divided is rather.. gloomy and depressing. I mean, even the title itself sounds like a summary of current global social politics. It ain't exactly 'fuck yeah day one' exciting.
So I wonder, for all the effort into trying to make a socially, politically, philosophically relevant game... did anyone at Eidos do research on if people actually thought the theme and setting were... fun? Was it focused grouped to see if people actually wanted it?
And I say that as likely someone to select it as my GOTY... it's an awesome game: good plot foundation, great gameplay, and some of the best exploration and world design around. Darn good atmosphere and music, too. But if people looked at and just said.... 'eh.... not in the mood for that, I'll pass' I think I could understand why.