End of 100 Million Dollar Games?

Gigaom had a great writeup about how Grand Theft Auto IV marks the end of “next generation” as we know it, stating, in more words or less, the game is a failure. GTA: San Andreas sold 21.5 million copies during its time on the shelf while GTA IV has sold roughly 9 million copies as of June 7th.

Granted, the game is still on the shelves and will still get sales, but the mass of “hardcore gamers” have had their fill and either purchased it or will not. The end result? A huge tapering of sales numbers for the graphically impressive game. Take-Two spent USD $100 million to develop the game which had great opening sales records but has gone down drastically since.

Imagine the title gains them USD $30.00 per sale in profit (considering distributors get the game for roughly USD $45 to $48.00 USD), taking into account shipping of the product, marketing and all the materials that go into producing a copy, they’d have to sell a large quanity of game titles to break even, which I think they have done.

Nobody is in this industry to break even. A block buster title should make block buster profits, right? Else, why bother to spend the 100-million when a Wii title can double or triple the profits with six months of development?

“Despite being part of one of the most popular video game series of all time, the arrival of GTA IV failed to boost sales of new next-generation consoles. (PS3 and 360 are defined as “next-gen” for boasting the best and latest graphics features.) Meanwhile, sales of the non-next-gen, GTA IV-less Nintendo Wii were double that of PS3/360’s numbers combined. If Grand Theft Auto can’t move more machines, nothing can. Which not only suggests that the market for next-gen consoles has been exhausted, but that the audience for big budget, AAA next-gen titles has been tapped out, too.” (gigaom)

Well, holy crap. We’re all so facinated by the game, the graphics, the sales figures but when you sit back and do the numbers, it’s not all that impressive. This is both unfortunate and surprising because they worked so hard and received such great scores on most review sites.

Gigaom predicts this will mark an end to such block buster titles and the result will be lower budget products with more downloadable content and micro-transactions with products having a broader target audience. For instance, Rock Band, Guitar Hero and other innovative titles.

Is this the end of the block buster franchises? Are we going to see a new evolution of gaming for the next generation? Perhaps, it won’t all be about graphics but about technology, control schemes and thinking “outside the box” rather than enhancing a pre-existing franchise?

So many questions, one must wonder, what does the landscape to next-generation gaming really look like, sales figures don’t lie…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Toy’s R Us Find’s Wii ProfitableToy’s R Us Find’s Wii Profitable

The success of the Nintendo console, the Wii, has proven to change the industry in many new and creative ways including reinvigorating slow product sales at Toys R Us. “The company went from a loss of $42 million at the same time last year to a profit of $13 million for the three months ended August 2nd,” says Gamasutra who spoke with CEO Gerald Storch.

Revenue was up 6.3%, in part, thanks to the Nintendo and its hot moving Wii and Wii Fit products. While Nintendo struggles to supply enough units for the strong demand, Toys R Us has no problem emptying their stores of any hardware they receive.

Months after the Wii launch we witnessed parents waiting in lines before the store opens just to see if they had Wii’s arrive for the opening. Although we’re sure it was a hassle to answer the phones with the typical response, “no, we’ve got no Wii’s in stock,” the long term plan has proven successful.

Have you finally managed to get yourself a Wii? Did you pick it up at Toys R Us?

Episode 733: More DelaysEpisode 733: More Delays

No Gravatar

In this podcast, they discuss Skyrim lead designer saying it will be ‘almost impossible’ for Elder Scrolls 6 to meet fan expectations, Minecraft is ditching PSVR support next year, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered rated for PS5 and PC, and Dead by Daylight PvE spin-off Project T being canceled after “unsatisfactory” player testing.

The news includes:

  • Square Enix confirms lower-than-expected Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Final Fantasy 16 sales
  • Cities: Skylines 2 Creator Packs and the Bridges and Ports Expansion are being delayed
  • EA confirms next Battlefield will have a modern setting

Feel free to reply.

The post Episode 733: More Delays first appeared on Gaming Podcast.

Wrath of the Lich King – Dazed and ConfusedWrath of the Lich King – Dazed and Confused

It’s tough playing an expansion when new updates have changed a few ways the system works. I’ve also had some troubles because most of my addons do not function in the Lich King beta. There are a few quests that have left people confused and screaming “how do I turn in the horse quest?” when the repeated response “press 1 to turn in quest!!”

Along with new terrain comes new questions and new solutions, many World of Warcraft gamers are used to the areas found in Azeroth and throughout much of Burning Crusades content. One of the fresh new experiences of an expansion is being able to play the game you love, but with new experiences not simply “more experience.”

It took me roughly fourty minutes to figure out how to get on my mount and ride off into the sunset. Because they’ve changed a bit about how the mount is placed in your inventory, instead being in the “pet” tab in your character profile; this new addition was a slight adjustment to my usual method of play.

Although information is growing on Lich King and its content you’ll find the general chat the best place to get answers as others have already experienced much of the introduction areas once or twice; some folks are on their third iteration of their best Death Knight.

Thus far, the introduction areas are a great way to exercise the powers of the Death Knight and best understand your abilities. You’ll find yourself gaining epic amounts of experience with ease, pushing 12,000 experience for a basic quest. When you’re at level 55, you’ll need a ton of experience to level up so the newbie areas tends to doll out tons of experience to give you a clue how the game mechanics.

Initially, you’ll probably be wondering what runes are, runic powers and what the talents the Death Knight holds under his/her black cape of doom.

(more…)