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So why did Uncharted bomb?

G

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
EDIT: Seeing the first few replies, I wanna point out that the game sold 117K copies in November.

I spent some time trying to wrap my head around this over the weekend, and I can't figure it out. Like... I felt like I knew the videogame industry fairly well, but for the life of me Uncharted's two-week sales performance in November is so far outside everyone's low-end projections that I just can't get it to gel.

I know, I know, "PS3 exclusive, lulz" and all that, but let's take a SERIOUS look at this, if that's possible.

It wasn't the developer's track record
Naughty Dog has proven themselves to be one of the most consistent AAA developers, since the initial Crash Bandicoot in the mid-90s. In fact, every single game ND has released since Crash 1 has been a huge commercial success, and at the very least a modest critical success.

It wasn't the quality of the game
Uncharted is a great game, by all accounts. 90% on GameRankings, making it the highest-rated PS3-exclusive, and 3rd highest rated PS3 title overall.

It wasn't the marketing
Alright, with this we move more into subjective territory, but I don't think there's *too* many people that will argue this one. The game's TV commercial is FANTASTIC. I've had more than one non-gamer family member bring it up to me. They specifically pointed out how life-like Nathan's movement was. SCEA's PR outreach was great as well. The "making of" docs got lots of traction among more core gamers, plenty of prerelease enthusiast press, etc.

So, there was nothing revolutionary here, but no real marketing missteps, either.

It wasn't the plaform
Heavenly Sword outsold Uncharted in its first month of availability, in September. This is another PS3 action/adventure original IP. It got worse reviews, launched in a slower month, and is from a developer that doesn't have as impressive a pedigree.

Assassin's Creed on the PS3 outsold Uncharted by more than 3:1 this month. Both games share pretty similar space, and it's pretty obvious, to me, that AC stole away Uncharted's intended PS3 audience (and their dollars).

It wasn't the protagonist
Again we're into subjective territory. Some have said Nathan himself was TOO much of an everyman. Too typical & forgettable in his design. I don't buy it. Many, many of the top-sellers this fall and previous falls have been anchored around "everyman" types, or at least generic designs (CoD4 stars generic soldier 1 & 2. Mass Effect stars generic future soldier) . Hell or even INVISIBLE protagonists have anchored hits (HL2, Oblivion).

So, what the hell happened?

A PS3-exclusive great game from a well-known, top-tier developer sold less copies than a similar PS3-exclusive poor game from a less-known developer (Heavenly Sword) , despite launching in a busier month. I just can't figure it out :(

As I mentioned earlier, my personal opinion is that Assassin's Creed happened. It stole away Uncharted's intended adventure/platforming audience, I think. I'm just surprised that AC came out on top of the head-to-head battle by such a huge margin. It's reviews were more mixed, etc.

Anyway, that's it for my analysis. Feel free to pitch in your own two cents.
 
I remember these threads a month after Resistance was released too.

And look how it bombed :lol

You guy's are hilarious. "Bomb" my ass.
 
Lightning said:
Where exactly did it bomb?
Click to expand...

Everywhere.

I think the crappy demo and lack of multiplayer + the platform it is on killed it. Saying that, Ass Creed did reasonably well and that has NO demo and NO multiplayer.
 
It'll go on to sell 2 million copies, just like Resistance did. No need to worry.
 
Well I'm from the UK, and I can't count how many times I've seen the truly retarded THIS IS LIVING ads. I've never seen Uncharted on TV. Heavenly Sword was all over the shop.
 
I think it's too early to say it bombed, but right now i'd say the problem is lack of hype. Look at the attention the gaming press gave something like Gears of War months before it was released compared to what they gave Uncharted. Pretty sad.
 
It's a PS3 game.

Seriously.

No, in all honesty, it has no multiplayer and had no hype. Bomba mix total.
 
Hasn't it already pushed something like 300,000 copies? A game doesn't have to sell a million in order not be a bomb.
 
MassiveAttack said:
Premature bomba declaration. Give it a couple of months before Drama-Age.
Click to expand...

Not only did it not chart on Nov.'s top 10, it wasn't even CLOSE to charting. 117K copies sold.

Assassin's Creed outsold it 10:1 if you count 360 sales.

RE:UC outsold it.

I believe it will sell consistently over 2008 and turn out OK for ND and SCEA, but come on. You gotta know that everyone involved expected month 1 sales to be a 3X or 4X multiple of what sales ended up being.
 
People wanted Assasins Creed and CoD4 instead?

Honestly, I played the demo once and it just didn't click with me. I wasn't a big fan of **** Raider either so that might say something.
 
It was released in or around a time where there were just too many other "big" games available i think.

Halo 3
COD 4
Mass Effect
Assasin's Creed
SMG
Mario & Sonic at the O.Games
Guitar Hero III


I dunno, im sure there are more games...
 
So are you saying the game is off shelves and no more copies will be sold?

Give it more time, atleast a couple of months, Resistance wasnt a million seller only after a couple of months after it came out. This game just came out a couple of weeks so calm your ass.
 
I think it was the protagonist. The dude looks like he belongs on the cast of Friends. Gamers want a rough/tough looking guy.
 
SCEE seems to be pushing the game more recently on UK TV so hopefully the game will pick up more sales this week. Although I found it annoying that the voice over needed to chip in about BluRay. Let the game speak for itself.
 
GDJustin said:
Not only did it not chart on Nov.'s top 10, it wasn't even CLOSE to charting. 117K copies sold.

Assassin's Creed outsold it 10:1 if you count 360 sales.

RE:UC outsold it.

I believe it will sell consistently over 2008 and turn out OK for ND and SCEA, but come on. You gotta know that everyone involved expected month 1 sales to be a 3X or 4X multiple of what sales ended up being.
Click to expand...

We know all this and it changes nothing about the suspiciously premature nature of your post.
 
Did it really bomb?

If it did...not all good forms of entertainment have mass appeal. Music and film have countless examples.
 
I'm surprised some people think the protagonist design detracts from the game. My mom and my friend actually like this game only cos they think he's cute. They probably wouldn't have even tried it otherwise.
 
Y2Kev said:
It's a PS3 game.

Seriously.

No, in all honesty, it has no multiplayer and had no hype. Bomba mix total.
Click to expand...

Did you give your account to DCharlie or something? Or maybe you were his alt account all along..?
 
Oblivion said:
It'll go on to sell 2 million copies, just like Resistance did. No need to worry.
Click to expand...
I highly doubt it. Resistance was a launch title and was virtually the only quality title available for several months. Plus is has the benefit of multi player.
 
The game looks quite good to me, and the interview I saw in the newest EGM (free subscription of course) makes it sound like the developers really put a lot of soul into it. I would have made this game a top priority if getting/owning a PS3, fwiw.
 
swander said:
Well I'm from the UK, and I can't count how many times I've seen the truly retarded THIS IS LIVING ads. I've never seen Uncharted on TV. Heavenly Sword was all over the shop.
Click to expand...

Interesting, i'm from Aus and i see the advert every now and again on TV. It's about the only PS3 game being advertised at the moment.
 
Isn't it strange that none of Sony's big games (excepting Warhawk, which had no single player, lol) had multiplayer (which, appropriately, sold in line with UDF if you extrapolate upwards)? Microsoft's all had great multiplayer with the exception of Mass Effect. Crackdown, Halo, Forza, etc. are all games you can enjoy with your friends. Multiplayer is also like, "Hey, everyone has forza...I want to play Forza...I'm going to go buy forza."

I can only imagine the number of people that rent games and don't buy them if they don't have multiplayer or have short single player campaigns.

edit: Yes, I'm really dcharlie.
 
MassiveAttack said:
We know all this and it changes nothing about the suspiciously premature nature of your post.
Click to expand...

The post is suspiciously premature, now? ;) Wow!

Look, the point of this post is Uncharted Month 1 performance was much much lower than I think everyone, including those involved in the project, projected. And it's clear to me that AC is most likely to blame, based on its PS3 sales performance.

I'm just trying to come up with a good reason for why AC PS3 outsold Uncharted, despite AC getting worse reviews, since both games skew hardcore.
 
It's a bit early to call it a bomb but still, Sony's marketing is crap. If they're going to pump all of this money into their first party games why the fuck aren't they giving them Gears of War style marketing?
 
It did?

Oh that's right....... it didn't. It's only been out a month. Relax.

This game was phenomenal and people will realize that.
 
Dr. Strangelove said:
My impression is that a lot of people saw the game and thought "lol **** Raider ripoff." It's sad, but probably true.
Click to expand...

I see. You mean in the same way that people saw Assassin's Creed and thought, "lol Tenchu, MGS, ***** ripoff"?
 
Well Uncharted didn't start off hot, that's for sure. Whether or not it'll trickle to Resistance-like numbers remains to be seen.

It doesn't resonate with the pulse of gaming today. That's it, plain and simple. The genre gets it almost right, but the theme is off. Unlike AC's eternity of hype, Uncharted was that other PS3 exclusive trifecta hyped below Lair and HS. And after those two underdelivered, it was only the diehard that turned around and recognized Uncharted's worth. The masses that was already cool on the PS3's perception, well you know what they would do. Ignore it at first.
 
I'm not going to make broader guesses, but I will say as to my own decision that I echo the feelings about the demo, which just turned me off on the game. Not in the sense that it made the game seem bad, but just that in this busy holiday gaming season it led to Uncharted falling off the list for me.
 
With first month sales of 117k, what kind of sales curve are people expecting for it to sell well in the end? I mean, most games have their sales front-loaded, with additional boosts for holidays. But sometime in January we'll likely see the decay curve kick in.

The advantage Resistance had at the time was there wasn't a lot of other options to by. Uncharted won't have that...those other games aren't going to go away and magically stop selling either.
 
There were games with more well known IP available (Call of Duty 4).

Assassin's Creed got more hype (maybe because it got more advertising since advertising costs are split across two platforms of the game, 360 & PS3), etc.

It is a new IP . . . and to be nitpicky . . . but what a crappy Title: "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" . . . what the game is about isn't very obvious from that name.

Yeah, the developer has a great track record . . . but honestly, that doesn't mean much outside of hardcore gamer circles like NeoGAF.

BTW, I picked up uncharted. I haven't played yet except the demo I downloaded that convinced me to buy it.
 
so you say this

It wasn't the plaform
Heavenly Sword outsold Uncharted in its first month of availability, in September. This is another PS3 action/adventure original IP. It got worse reviews, launched in a slower month, and is from a developer that doesn't have as impressive a pedigree.

Assassin's Creed on the PS3 outsold Uncharted by more than 3:1 this month. Both games share pretty similar space, and it's pretty obvious, to me, that AC stole away Uncharted's intended PS3 audience (and their dollars).
Click to expand...

yet say this

It wasn't the marketing
Alright, with this we move more into subjective territory, but I don't think there's *too* many people that will argue this one. The game's TV commercial is FANTASTIC. I've had more than one non-gamer family member bring it up to me. They specifically pointed out how life-like Nathan's movement was. SCEA's PR outreach was great as well. The "making of" docs got lots of traction among more core gamers, plenty of prerelease enthusiast press, etc.

So, there was nothing revolutionary here, but no real marketing missteps, either.
Click to expand...

well excuse me mr contradiction

and by that i mean heavenly sword had great marketing, so it didn't bomb
 
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