Why is it expensive though? Because it's being designed as a AAA game when horror fans don't need it to be to enjoy it.
Well judging by statements from their CFO last week, they're not just cutting unprofitable titles, but also titles with low profits since those both drag down their margins and run a much higher risk of becoming unprofitable if their sales dip.
If Dead Space was only somewhat profitable at 2-2.5 million copies, it would probably be killed in favor of investing in bigger retail games and more profitable digital titles.
Just being a devils advocate here but if a company has a brand that doesn't run well they discard the brand right? So why not with Dead Space? The first two parts didn't sell all that well I believe and now the third one doesn't either so why continue with it if it doesn't net big profits? They are a company that need to make money and Dead Space isn't making enough. Maybe another IP will do the trick. Any other publisher / developer would've done the same I'm sure.
And that's not realistic. Every game cannot have COD money. Because they don't have the COD logo slapped on the box
Where was the marketing and elevation of public awareness necessary to avoid this?
Well judging by statements from their CFO last week, they're not just cutting unprofitable titles, but also titles with low profits since those both drag down their margins and run a much higher risk of becoming unprofitable if their sales dip.
If Dead Space was only somewhat profitable at 2-2.5 million copies, it would probably be killed in favor of investing in bigger retail games and more profitable digital titles.
Where was the marketing and elevation of public awareness necessary to avoid this?
So if Montreal was slated to make Dead Space 4 while Redwood Shores made a new IP, what was the point of Army of Two 3?
Were they trying to build a team while losing less money?
So if Montreal was slated to make Dead Space 4 while Redwood Shores made a new IP, what was the point of Army of Two 3?
Were they trying to build a team while losing less money?
That's some sad shit. EA just killed one of my favorite series this gen. Hopefully the employee's at Viseral will all find new and better jobs that don't hold them back from making great games.
Like I get why something like GTA does because Rockstar loves going insane with every little detail, but I have no idea why EVERYTHING costs so much with EA.
Then they deserve the failures that they continually get outside of a few titles like battlefield and fifa. That is such a poisonous attitude for a gaming company to have, both for them and for us.
This seems to be a common misconception in this thread. There weren't enough survival horror fans to make the series successful. If there were, the 3rd game would have stayed the course.
As it was, there were two options. Cancel the series, or try and mainstream it. The series you liked was dead either way.
You can't listen to your fans when there aren't enough to give you a hit.
Do we have current sales figures for DS2? I recall 2M being banded around shortly after launch, but I don't know how well it sold after that.
I'm not sure what you're describing would have got 50% more sales than DS2.
No, I got nothing. I now see I was in the minority though.You didn't see the 8,000 commercials with that phil collins song?
Dead Space 1 sold around 3.69Million copies, that is a great number for a new IP, it sold so cause the game came as a Survival Horror game in Space, something similar to Resident Evil yet different, fans resonated with it, DS 3 ?!, not so much.
Actually it is not misconception, it is true, Survival Horror fans are alot, but there is simply no Survival Horror game nowadays.
Yup. If they had built up a solid fanbase by concentrating on a few, distinct core features instead of mainstreaming it, sales might have increased. Kind of how Dark Souls took off after Demon's Souls by improving the game in the right ways and drawing from an existing fanbase while at the same time winning over new fans. But the way EA franchises usually progress, they repel fans of earlier titles with misguided attempts to achieve mainstream success. Trying to compete with the bigshots with every game/series is just not a sustainable business model and EA had to face this reality rather often recently (DS, TOR, MoH). I wonder how many more ruined IPs and overblown budgets it will take them to learn that lesson.EA could have gotten 3Millions sales -maybe more- easy if they made Dead Space 3 a major focus on Survival Horror, 2 SP campaigns like Resident Evil 2, or maybe something like Resident Evil Zero.
Way to kill your own franchise EA. *shrugs*
subversus said:EA didn't help it one bit with DS3. Co-op horror loses its point. And horror is a niche genre. They should have cancelled DS1 if they had a lick of business sense. I'm glad they didn't though.
Replicant said:Nope. What franchise EA still has now? They ruined most of their non-sport titles. Dead Space 2 performed decently but instead of making the game smaller in scope, They ballooned up the budget and we got highly padded game that is expected to perform 5 Million copies. I think anyone who's played the game agree that the game is way too long for its own good. They should have made it shorter and have realistic expectations regarding sales.
I knew this shit would happen.
Still liked Dead Space 3, but you can tell it had trouble finding direction.
Dead Space 3′s sales weren’t terrible, and it even managed to top the UK games charts, but with sales some 26% lower than Dead Space 2′s. That’s not what a large business entity wants from its franchises – growth is the only success that counts for a megacorp, so ruthlessness would scarcely be any surprise.
Because they are far too big for what they do. They can either get smaller and leaner to make a great profit on projects like dead space or... well this.
Apparently it's also a bad thing if you want to sell copies and not have to scuttle the franchise :0They tried to broaden the franchise's appeal by adding more mainstream elements; which is a bad thing only if you're a fanboy clinging to a "purist" vision of what that franchise is supposed to be. Not everyone shares such narrow tastes so it makes sense to try and appeal to those people.
Visceral Redwood Shores is actually making what seems to be their own FPS these days, so you're not too far off.
GL to everyone that worked for Visceral. DS was one of the greatest games released this generation. DS2 was great, too. I haven't played DS3, and even if it's the weakest of the 3 it's still probably a solid game. It's a shame that the realities of the AAA marketplace destroyed the franchise and its developers. How did that space become such a winner take all wasteland? How many franchises will need to be sucked dry and left to rot in the desperate scramble to create the next GTA or COD?
Indies make money. A small number of $100 million games make money. No one in the middle makes money. Is that market impossible, or are publishers not approaching it correctly? It's got to be the latter.
They tried to broaden the franchise's appeal by adding more mainstream elements; which is a bad thing only if you're a fanboy clinging to a "purist" vision of what that franchise is supposed to be. Not everyone shares such narrow tastes so it makes sense to try and appeal to those people.
The Co-Op aspect is pretty much immaterial, you can simply ignore it if you want and as I wrote earlier its a lot less jarring than say RE5/6. At least in DS3 you don't have idiot AI partners constantly hogging the screen-space!
You mean cramming in microtransactions and dudebroing our game out can have negative effects on sales? Well damn, better cancel the entire series rather than undo our douchebaggery then!
GOW had a AAA budget. Don't believe Mark Rein's lies. That game did not cost $10 million. That probably didn't even cover the television ad buy.That isn't the point.
It's about setting realistic expectations about your games, and 'appropriate' game budgets. Far too often we have publishers and developers wasting $50 million on games.
We don't need 'AAA' budgets for every game in production. I believe it is possible to still make a very good experience despite a modest budget (e.g. Dark Souls, Dead Space, Gears Of War).
Actually it is not misconception, it is true, Survival Horror fans are alot, but there is simply no Survival Horror game nowadays.
That isn't the point.
It's about setting realistic expectations about your games, and 'appropriate' game budgets. Far too often we have publishers and developers wasting $50 million on games.
We don't need 'AAA' budgets for every game in production. I believe it is possible to still make a very good experience despite a modest budget (e.g. Dark Souls, Dead Space, Gears Of War).
While I'm all on the microtransactions (and therefore EA) hate bandwagon, a Dead Space 4 would have been a bad idea regardless.
You can't serialize a horror experience; not with big budgets at least (so ignoring straight to dvd). You can only keep an intrigue going, and monsters jumping out of closets, for so long. So you saw that they turned it into an action horror in part, and an all out action game in part 3. It was stretched out, could not go any further really.
They're also only closing a small subsidiary of Visceral.
Dead Space 3 is a good game. A really solid 8. The co-op doesn't intrude into the SP game at all (except for a cutscene here or there), the microtransactions are practically invisible, and the crafting system is sublime.
Sucks that this (might be? Please?) is happening.
EA delenda est. (EA must die)