Reason for Tomb Raider’s inadequate Sales Performance Revealed

GC: "Square Enix have released their financial statements and it’s somewhat baffling looking at their sales targets for certain games."

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

***"Turns out they expected the game to ship 5 to 6 million copies. Those are ludicrous sales targets for a franchise that was on a massive decline."***

Ludicrous indeed.

[Smurf1]

I hope it gets a sequel though! I must say I quite enjoyed the game.

[Kevin ButIer]

Lol, first of all they should fire their forecasting team, as mentioned in the article, 3 games 3 strikes... they were not even close lol, someone should be able to deliver a more realistic forecast after 2 games with those gaps...

however... they should be happy of getting TR out of the graveyard and launch a sequel which I expect can deliver quite good results

[AsimLeonheart]

The game was good and sold great. SE was just being stupid by expecting to ship those kind of numbers for a reboot which had yet to prove itself to the people.

[black911]

360 exclusives DLC hurt the franchise. Tomb Raider is a PS Franchise.

Fast Forward To 0:24

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Reibooi]

I think that yeah that was expecting a bit much for a franchise most had given up on and for some reason there was alot of people that didn't seem very eager to jump into the new one despite the stellar reviews.

That said it sold very well and this was the reboot. If it did this well it's very possible that a sequel might be able to hit the numbers if said sequel of is good as this one was.

I think it will get another game. Chances are SE did make a profit. It might not be the big profit they wanted but it is enough to further explore the series in hopes that a sequel has better numbers.

[StrongMan]

Wow. They thought this game would hit 6 million?

[RememberThe357]

Out of the gate. They're idiots. 6 mil is not hard to imagine for the lifetime of this game especially with the great review it got and the word of mouth it's getting.

But wow this only further shows that Square has some really stupid people working for them. People on this site could have given them a better forecast for this game. What morons.

[DeadlyFire]

To reboot/rebirth into a new IP what they have done so far is far better than any other reboot attempt with sales. So they are not far off their sales target if over another year or two Tomb Raider will soar and its next gen sequel will push more units.

[DevilishSix]

Those numbers are so unrealistic. I mean good grief 5-6 mill is the average lifetime sales for a Gears of War or Uncharted game from their trilogies. Those games built up a fanbase and had a following. Tomb Raider was in decline and needed a reboot, it had great production value but you can't expect those types of numbers.

Since when has Hitman ever come close to those types of numbers.

Sleeping Dogs did well, Heck it was dropped by a major publisher already (Activision) than Square picks it up (for probably pennies on the dollar) then expects 2 to 2.5 mill. I mean wow!

Sounds like Wada may have wanted to retire and receive a severance package cause all these projection numbers from recent releases seem way out in left field.

Heck I can see that and I am just an informed gamer, not an insider.

[Dirtnapstor]

Game was awesome! Definitely an expected sequel coming. Forget MP DLC, the game needs SP DLC! But apparently it's not going to happen. A shame.

[Grimhammer00]

If I was the part of the forecasting team....I'd have said 1.5-2million units sold and 3 million units shipped.

These guys are delusional.

[CommonSenseGamer]

With over 140 million consoles and goodness knows how many compatible PC's, I would have thought 5 million for a solid franchise over many platforms was still on the low side.

[KyRo]

There's a lot to take into concidaration. There may be 140 million console out there but how many are replacements? How many consoles are in the same household? More consoles in one household could mean less sales of games. How many consoles were shipped to the casual Kinect and Move crowd? How many kids own consoles who can't afford games and only get COD and FIFA for Christmas every year? So on and so on...

[DwightOwen]

KyRo makes a good point, but all things considered, I think we could safely assume that there at least 100 million unique gamers in the market, and for only 3-4 out every 100 gamers to buy these games is somewhat abysmal.

[porkChop]

Unrealistic sales expectations coupled with too high a budget. Seems to be a common problem with Square Enix these days. Their management is terrible.

[delboy]

Square Enix is the next THQ
Industry crash is inevitable/destined

[Sideras]

Considering the Hitman didn't get all to good review 3.6 millions is pretty good.
Yeah pretty dumb goals they've set there.

[jonboi24]

Great game, stupid expectations. Hell I could maybe see the sequel sell that well but not a game thats rebooting a dwindling franchise.

[tweet75]

most sales expectations these days are unrealistic. Especially in months with alot of AAA releases.

[abzdine]

the price of TR is really low by now! i'll maybe get it in the future.

[DEATHxTHExKIDx]

For a game that got rebooted it sold incredibly well most games dont even get close to 3mil.

[clintagious650]

Square Enix should be thinking of future tomb raider games & with the reboot of a series that was starting to show age they have done a great job bringing the franchise back to life. I just hope they treat the series with care & put effort into the future installments. Dont want them to try an just use the franchise as a cash cow like COD. Hope they can also make it feel like your on an adventure like old tomb raider games.

[csreynolds]

As excellent as this reboot is, 5-6 million sales out of the gate was an extremely ambitious target.

[Bathyj]

I'll have to say this for Square. I have enjoyed all 3 of those games.

But they have pretty unrealistic expectations.

Maybe Just Cause 3 can shift 5 million. Make it happen.

[stuna1]

This just proves that SE is more out of touch, then previously thought!

[Kurt Russell]

I loved TR but with all the other great games out around the same time, they were dreaming :(

[imahustla19]

tomb raider was a great game and i wish it would have sold as good as they hoped but what world were they living in when they came up with that?so many big name releases just b4 and just after killed any chance it had of hitting 5 to 6 MILLION copies.

[cleft5]

Everyone says they where delusional, but Square Enix is looking at this game from the perspective of how much money they invested in making the game and then in marketing it.

This isn't even a next-gen game and yet they are thinking that this game needed to sell 6 million copies to redeem cost. That number just isn't based in reality and they aren't the only company needing their games to sell so many copies. Look at EA and Dead Space 3.

So the question becomes how do they sell this type of game and still manage to be profitable. Now in comes the microtransactions and dlc. It's sad, but the reality is that next-gen games are going to cost a great deal more than current gen games if the company is trying to push graphics like Square Enix and Eidos was going. Tomb Raider was an amazing game and this should have been an all positive sales and critical success for them. Instead, they invested so much money that they expected to sale 6 million copies. This just wasn't realistic.

[HappyWithOneBubble]

Tomb Raider were made very close to Uncharted and I think they was hoping for it to have Uncharted type sales. Just like others try to copy COD and GOW but they fail because all they looking at is sales. Tomb Raider isn't a fail to me and the sale are good.

[Tyre]

Uncharted 2 sold 1 million in it's 1st year, so them wanted it to be like Uncharted 2 would be irrational from the start. They've mistaken lifetime sales for 1st week sales. Tombraider is a hit, these stupid expectations and stating it like it is a failure will only hurt further sales. Have they lost their marbles at Square Enix? No patience & short term thinking...this game will sell 10 million over it's entire life-time, are they stupid at SE? Almost 4 million in 3 weeks!!! It took Gears & Uncharted YEARS to get to 4 million in sales. Stop this Nonsense already!

[dragonyght]

correction Uncharted 2 sold 1.5 within its first month and 3 million in its first year in a single platform there's no comparison there

on topic
those goal where not unreasonable it was release on 3 platform with over 140 mil install base not to mention TR is a old and well known franchise with its passionate fan-base it should have able to push those numbers specially with high praise from critics

[Root]

It's a reboot plain and simple, your going to have people not liking the new direction just like with DMC. You have to start small when it comes to a reboot you can't think "Oh it's Tomb Raider it will sell a ton" because it dosen't work like that

Make the sequel play like an actual Tomb Raider game and you'll see sales pick up

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I am guessing the reason for Squares disappointment was they were looking to these 3 games to make up slack from their under performing and disastrous Final Fantasy IPs.

I have no doubts that Square's President more or less forced the higher targets on these games to help ease investor tensions about the company going into 2nd half of 2012. If people see expected sales of 5 to 6 million for both Tomb Raider and Hitman that looks really good on financial reports. When both fall short by large margins the axe comes down on those who set the company up for failure. Any organization that relies on unit sales needs to have good accurate forcasting...even if its not as good as you "want" it to be. You are better off giving realistic numbers versus what you think the higher ups want to hear. Companies fail and go under because of this kind of poor management. Heads needed to roll over this...

[Z501]

^ I'm with NoWayOut. IMO they thought they would get Uncharted type sales. I'm sure they got focus groups together (gamers). Enough of them who said the game reminds them of Uncharted + it's multiplatform.

[mochachino]

Very few games are shipping 5-6 million these days, this generation is pretty much over, what did they expect.

[Tales RPG addict]

I love TR but i felt Skeptical as Square-Enix being the owner of Eidos they haven't made smart decisions and taking forever to release "Final Fantasy Versus XIII" is one of them.
Now said to be titled "Final Fatasy XV" has shifted development to PS4 since SE had troubles adapting Final Fantasy to HD.

They need to demote Motomu Toriyama to Even planner like back in the SQUARESOFT days. He sucks as a Producer.

[Tales RPG addict]

FFXV will be PS4 Exclusive as "Final Fantasy Versus XIII" has been retitled FFXV.

[tiffac008]

Those 3 games mentioned (TR, Hitman, SD) probably made money but SE wanted the sales of those 3 games to cover whatever loses they made somewhere else.

SE's unrealistic expectation gave no justice to those 3 games and their developers.

I hope the next one that will lead SE has more sense than the one stepping down.

[Supermax]

People are much more bargin shoppers in today's times they wait for games to go down and buy used copies,wich in turn hurt developers tr will sell more than 20 million copies but the reward will go to GameStop not to the developer that is invested in it.gamers see what's coming its eather no used games or no more aaa titles.once there's no used games there will be more sales on games that don't sell we'll just look at the success of steam and developers won't be taking losses and continue to make great games.i would rather support developers not gamestop.

[KillrateOmega]

How unrealistic can you get? The game was incredible, but it was a reboot to a dwindling franchise.

They're forecasting team is a joke...