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Prey's debut sales in the UK seem quite low

N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Generally speaking, marketing is spent as a percentage of expected sales (10% to 15% frequently).

If you felt a game had no marketing, that's because the publisher lost faith in the game and had very low sales expectations.
 
M

Memory

Member
Randomly saw it on the Xbox store and realised it actually came out. I've seen almost no marketing for it.
 
B

BiggNife

Member
I get a feeling that this is going to follow in the steps of Doom and gradually sell more through word of mouth.

I also think that Bethesda's refusal to send review copies did this game a disservice. That strategy works for popular franchises like Fallout and Dishonored but for an unknown quantity like Prey I think it hurts more than helps.
 
kamineko

kamineko

Does his best thinking in the flying car
Beth has done a really horrible job promoting this game

It's legit awesome and deserves better
 
A

Anno

Member
I am curious about how Bethesda thinks of the sales for their last two games. Both have reviewed very well but haven't been immediate commercial flashes. Maybe they're confident in the long term tails? Or maybe they're happy to think of these as lower-profit prestige type of projects? I guess their E3 conference is when we will get some kind of indication.

FWIW, Dishonored 2 has sold basically in line on Steam with DE:MD, which is the most obvious comparison, despite launching with relatively little fanfare in the middle of a jam packed fall three months later.
 
N

nowai

Member
Shame, I have absolutely loved playing it this weekend.

The total lack of coverage is striking. Granted, the first few hours are slow and would be challenging to make an exciting impressions youtube video. Due to no review copies, I'd imagine reviewers are still going through it and ironing out their thoughts.

In a stacked year like 2017, Prey was able to steal my focus from my backlog. I know it's a good game when I stay up late playing, wake up and instantly want to jump back in.
 
1

13ruce

Banned
Where is the Prey marketing actually? Haven't seen any commercials yet. Zelda, Mario Kart, Horizon etc all had marketing.
 
K

Kyoufu

Member
Nirolak said:
Generally speaking, marketing is spent as a percentage of expected sales (10% to 15% frequently).

If you felt a game had no marketing, that's because the publisher lost faith in the game and had very low sales expectations.
Click to expand...

Which is a bit shit because then you're not even giving yourself a chance of selling well. If you're only expecting 10k copies to be sold, I have to wonder why they even greenlit the project in the first place.
 
K

kami_sama

Member
nowai said:
Shame, I have absolutely loved playing it this weekend.

The total lack of coverage is striking. Granted, the first few hours are slow and would be challenging to make an exciting impressions youtube video. Due to no review copies, I'd imagine reviewers are still going through it and ironing out their thoughts.

In a stacked year like 2017, Prey was able to steal my focus from my backlog. I know it's a good game when I stay up late playing, wake up and instantly want to jump back in.
Click to expand...

It's not like you can expect gaming sites to give you free coverage when you won't even give them review copies.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Anno said:
I am curious about how Bethesda thinks of the sales for their last two games. Both have reviewed very well but haven't been immediate commercial flashes. Maybe they're confident in the long term tails? Or maybe they're happy to think of these as lower-profit prestige type of projects? I guess their E3 conference is when we will get some kind of indication.

FWIW, Dishonored 2 has sold basically in line on Steam with DE:MD, which is the most obvious comparison, despite launching with relatively little fanfare in the middle of a jam packed fall three months later.
Click to expand...

I suspect Arkane Lyon will wheel out some kind of standalone expansion pack for Dishonored 2 since it did a bit better, and both studios will make significant design changes for their next major projects.
 
L

Lakitu

st5fu
Bethesda fucked up the game's release by virtually no marketing in UK, no review copies and other substantial things. It's a huge shame because the game is phenomenal and because of them it'll be unlikely we'll get some kind of sequel.
 
K

kobu

Member
Maybe if this and Dishonored 2 had reviews out before they dropped they would have done better.
 
H

haveheart

Banned
Low numbers as expected.

This game went through marketing hell thanks to Bethesda's IP debacle. There are numerous Threads in the Steam forums where people call for boycotting the game based on that.

And they did lots of marketing. There were dozens of gameplay previews on Youtube, they did short videos on feature almost every week, marketed the OST (which is so damn good), and ads on gaming sites.

The game is so good, I'm 9 hours in and it's probably the closest thing to System Shock we might get for a while.

I think it's also a bad time right now for this genre. All these great games that are immersive sims or FPS RPGs (whatever you want to call them) aren't selling. Deus Ex, Dishonored, now Prey. It's a shame.
But luckily there is a new CoD coming out this year.

edit: but yeah, no review copies is just dumb. On the other hand, I knew I wanted to play this game when the first trailer was shown. I think there's just a smaller audience for these games today...
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Kyoufu said:
Which is a bit shit because then you're not even giving yourself a chance of selling well. If you're only expecting 10k copies to be sold, I have to wonder why they even greenlit the project in the first place.
Click to expand...

You market based on your sales expectations at launch, not when you first greenlight the game.

Dishonored 1 seemed to accumulate around 4-5+ million sales over time, which is about when they greenlit Prey.

Dishonored 2 will do maybe half that, and Prey is going to struggle to get past 1 to maybe 1.5 million.

Games have such long development cycles these days that the market can completely change out from under you between when you start a project and when you ship it.
 
P

Pandora012

Member
I don't think there was much marketing. The only reason it was in my radar was because someone posted about the demo. Before then, I didn't even know when it was releasing. Was kind of shocked that it was a week away.
 
F

Fakeknowledge

Member
I saw an advert for it...late night on the sci-fi channel, other than that nothing. I'll get it at some point as I like the Dishonoured games, but the demo and the reported input lag hasn't got me rushing out for it.
 
G

Gator86

Member
Nirolak said:
I added a quick note about Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's sales, since that's also an immersive sim, and a game that did badly enough to get the series killed.

It debuted at ~38K.
Click to expand...

giphy.gif


I worry this genre is on its last legs.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Brazil said:
Good work killing Arkane, Bethesda.
Click to expand...

Well I mean, ZeniMax owns them and is still hiring for them, so I assume they're just changing the direction of the studios (longer term, I expect Dishonored 2 standalone DLC) instead of shuttering them.
 
C

CatmanBegins

Neo Member
Lakitu said:
Bethesda fucked up the game's release by virtually no marketing in UK, no review copies and other substantial things. It's a huge shame because the game is phenomenal and because of them it'll be unlikely we'll get some kind of sequel.
Click to expand...

The only advertising I saw was that they sponsored shows in the evening on Sky's Sci-Fi channel (that nobody watches). What a waste - the game is so much fun.
 
G

Gurish

Member
Hopefully Bethesda will understand that their review policy do more harm than good, word of mouth seems positive as well as the late reviews, hopefully it would help as the devs did a good job and they shouldn't pay the price for others mistakes.
 
D

Denzar

Member
I like Arkane and bought the game myself but I just can't help but smirk at the fact that Bethesda robbed Human Head of their awesome version/vision of Prey 2 due to the product "not being up to Bethesda's quality standards", only for Arkane's version to bomb.
 
Revolutionary

Revolutionary

Member
DorkyMohr said:
no tommy no buy-y
Click to expand...

I was still holding onto hope that the game had SOME tie to the first game, but after completing it... Tommy Who?
The new one is a significantly better game in every way imagineable.

Hope the word of mouth picks up and we can get a sequel. Arkane created something special here. Shame Bethesda doesn't seem to have much faith behind it.
 
D

Deleted member 59090

Unconfirmed Member
Bethesda published games get cheap nearly as fast as Eidos games from Square so it'll do the numbers but won't bring much money in.
 
J

James Scott

Banned
They're probably expecting word of mouth to be good.
Though it's not the first game to seemingly never launch thanks to the publisher holding back review copies. Didn't Dishonored 2 and Steep underperform as well?
Not to mention the terrible demo being the only thing consumers could rely on pre release
It probably won't cause them to change, tho.
 
P

Primethius

Banned
A lack of marketing, a demo plagued with issues on one platform and reviews post release despite them being quite good almost guaranteed this was going to happen. Sucks but it seems to be Bethesda's MO these days.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Really surprised. May doesn't have many major releases and the were releasing footage for it every few days for months. Seemed like it had a strong online marketing push. Game is excellent too.

Hopefully once reviews get out things will change.
 
M

Mr.Deadshot

Member
Will buy this in 1 or 2 months for 20€

I know, I am part of the problem, but too many games and I still have to play Deus Ex and Dishonored 2.
 
B

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Nirolak said:
Well I mean, ZeniMax owns them and is still hiring for them, so I assume they're just changing the direction of the studios (longer term, I expect Dishonored 2 standalone DLC) instead of shuttering them.
Click to expand...

That's good to hear, but I have to wonder about what that direction is.

ISee said:
Maybe positive reviews do help bethesda?
Click to expand...

I'd argue even negative reviews are better than no reviews. That way, at least people know your game is coming out.
 
S

soultron

Banned
There was little marketing during key moments. Other announcements of games like CODWW2 dominated the news cycle last week too, IMO. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 came out this weekend as well, so consider that.

Nobody is talking about it on twitter. This reminds me of Mirror's Edge 2's launch but worse.

I haven't started it yet because I'm still playing P5 but I'm in the final hours there.

I feel bad because it looks like a great game but launching on a Friday to no fanfare and a crowded entertainment slate was probably a big mistake. Launching earlier in the week might have been better for WOM on twitter, Twitch and YT.

The demo was a smart move, IMO, but without the marketing to drive players to it, it was sent downstream without a paddle.
 
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