Fans Should be Worried about Tomb Raider’s Future; Square Enix at Fault Not Consumers

VG Republic Writes: Tomb Raider, the origin story of Lara Croft, release just a month ago to an eager fan base failed to live up to the expectations that were set forth by publisher Square Enix. In a statement released today, reported first by IGN, the company stated that the expected sales for the title were 5 Million copies for the first month of its launch. The funny part about those numbers is that the figure that was achieved, 3.4 Million Units, is considered to be an exceptional amount for any game that isn’t a Call of Duty franchise. There is no embarrassment in selling 3.4 million units in the first month of the launch of any title, so why Square Enix set the bar so high is beyond anyone’s imagination.

[Godmars290]

People should be worried about Square, period.

They matched advertising with production costs apparently, then they set their sales expectations to high.

They let the supposed value of their brand name go to their head.

[DeadlyFire]

Considering its a reboot and almost like a new IP itself. Selling 3.4 million units is far beyond DmC's launch. Its a success as far as I see as new IPs typically sell about 1-2 Million at most.

5 million is unrealistic goal for a reboot/first entry into the series. Now for a sequel to that said reboot/first entry with numbers like 3.4 Million for the first one. Then 5 million looks more than possible.

[sithsylar]

May we never forget this:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/...

[konnerbllb]

Not relevant.

[DEATHxTHExKIDx]

They have no idea how good they did with this game.

[Donnieboi]

All Square has to do is lower their sales expectations. They have to understand that Tomb Raider is 3.4 million copies of games that they would not have ever sold had the game never been released. So, they should just make sure that the sequel's budget reflects those sales expectations.

[koehler83]

The sales projections were set to disingenuously bolster their financial projection for the year. They never actually expected 5M+ sales of the game. They needed those games to not only cover their own dev/marketing budgets and profit. They needed those games to completely buoy the company financially while their Japanese core continues to flounder spectacularly. It was a hefty bet on their own financial shell game.

They knew full well how these games would perform. This was just them deflecting blame toward their overseas divisions who are out of arms reach and in no position to defend themselves from accusations of failure. As time passes, it seems that despite the Eidos half of their business being the GOOD half, they were only purchased to act as a smokescreen.

"Blame the gaijins!"

[luoshuigui]

Everything explained here
http://www.gametrailers.com...

Instead making and supporting good games, SE just cant let go those Fag Fantasy games

[Bathyj]

Tell em theyre dreaming.

[Pozzle]

Thumbs up for The Castle reference! :D

[Donnywho]

I look at it as a company keeping games I like alive. I'm definitely a Square lover. I don't care. I'm not going to pretend I have a business degree.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

You don't need a business degree to see the decline in Square Enix. The quality of the games has dropped for a start and when they do make/publish something worthy of notice (Tomb Raider) it's not successful due to their complete arrogance and stupidity.

[Donnywho]

Yea, or not.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

Good argument.
Or not.

[grassyknoll]

Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy xiv & Final Fantasy vs xiii have become massive financial black holes. Tomb Raider was a massive success, but just didn't solve the company's problems. Another victim of the MMO bubble in this industry.

[Orionsangel]

Square, you will make a new Tomb Raider and there will be a Mansion in it! That is final!

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

Haha something I really wanted in the reboot!
It's not a Tomb Raider game unless you can lock the butler in the freezer!

[NeloAnjelo]

Square Enix are living in a bubble. Lets recap on the games which have been successes and "failures".. Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics... Sleeping Dogs,Deus X:HR, Tomb Raider,Hitman. All underperformed by Square's "standards". Now these guys are doing Theif 4.

Now lets see what Square did... FF13, FF13-2, FFXIV... All rubbish and were a dissapointment. They need to stop ploughing money into these pretentious high production dissapoitments. The best JRPG this gen is Ni-No-Kuni. Where are these from you?

Put your money into the guys who are making games which are not only performing better but also earning much more critical and domestic acclaim.

I know ironic from the guy with a FF Avatar!

[DEATHxTHExKIDx]

Well FFXIII sold 6mil copies almost 7 mil copies on PS3/360 combined. SO by Squares "standards" it was financially successful I guess. BUT understand what ur saying FFXIII is far from the standard quality ppl would expect from a Final Fantasy game.

[NeloAnjelo]

Yes you get exactly what I mean! I just wish those games I mentioned got more recognition! Such good titles.

[miyamoto]

Well, Wada you know ... its Wada's Greed!
These great franchises don't deserve Wada.

[imahustla19]

Selling that many games in a month for any games is great.square enix needs to get its head out of it ass and think about their sales figures.5 million copy's is ridiculousness.honestly i would have said 3 million is crazy given the economy but it still did 3.5 million.over the rest of the year it will sell another million worldwide and still be close to what they thought but it definitely wasn't gonna happen on its release month.it was a great game i even wrote a review for it.

[gamer7804]

Perhaps they need to take a closer look at what makes a tombraider game, in their rush to please the masses they lost some of what made it special, in both personality & char design and gameplay. They could have sold more that way.

[DarkZane]

I liked Tomb Raider back in the days. In my opinion, they shouldn't have tried to revive it, it should have stayed buried, where its memory was good.

[CaptainN]

Well maybe they should have made a Wii-U version since it needed a solid game and it would have been a whole bunch of gamers in need of a game like this who would have purchased it !!!

You exclude a whole demo-graph and console....therefor you reap what you sow !!

[level 360]

Article is mainly talking about the *marketing side of things about the game which I think is a load of turd.

It's putting down an incredibly terrific game just because they didn't reach their quota in money terms, thus not getting the bonuses they expected.

This is **assumed greed at best by people outside the developement of the game who expect too much in return.

As for the game itself, I say to those who haven't played or even demo'ed it at the shops - it's an astonishing gaming experience.
The people/artists' behind this rebooted version should be congratulated for sure.

[SOULJER]

Should of gave her back her DDs and her booty. You would have made your money back already.