Dead Space 3 is the latest game to have officially failed

"It had co-op and cover-based shooting, but Electronic Arts' flailing attempts to make Dead Space 3 "appeal to a wider audience" apparently failed. Visceral's latest game now joins Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution and Resident Evil 6 as the newest mainstream game to have failed its masters."

[MilkMan]

Keep it going folks. Hope you got a good stable of games ready for when this industry implodes.

[Blacklash93]

Hopefully these big publishers and studios realize these sales expectations are absolutely loony and shift their development efforts and budgets accordingly.

There is something seriously wrong if a game selling millions of units and is still considered a commercial flop.

[zerocrossing]

If we're talking about EA, I wouldn't hold your breath.

[Reibooi]

I agree. The sad thing is it's always these huge publishers that get annoyed with a game not selling 10+ mil. I mean SE with Tomb Raider and EA with Dead Space 3.

Bottom line is that most publishers or developers would be thrilled to sell the numbers these games have and would consider doing so a MASSIVE success.

But if this big companies are flat out not making money then something is wrong. They need to bring the cost of the games down and in turn make that few million look better to them. Or if it's just greed and they want every game to sell CoD numbers then they are flat out insane.

[DARK WITNESS]

They will never realise, never....

The writing on the wall could not have been any clearer.

It's not like they were not told by the fans, they were, but they just tried to justify what they were doing to themselves and make it out like its going to make the game better.. who did they think they were fooling?

For me personally DS3 is the most painful example of everything wrong about games this gen. The reason being that the original DS was and is still my favorite new IP this gen. The setting, the story, the gameplay elements etc..

I loved every second of that game and till now it's my most played single player game. I think I finished it like 6 times. Most games I will finish once. An exceptional game I may play through twice.

It could have been the survival horror king of this gen, but it turned itself into one of the many generic games that would rather be more "accessible" instead of being true to itself and what it originally stood for.

ok, maybe i am being over the top but it just F1£^k's me off just thinking about it.

Will they learn anything from this, prob not!

[zeal0us]

"There is something seriously wrong if a game selling millions of units and is still considered a commercial flop."

This is what happen you shove tons of money to into a game. The more money that used to fund the game, the more units are required to sell. In order to get a profit or at least cover the budget of the game, these games have to sell ridiculous amount.

[Blacklash93]

The worst part is that not only are games getting harder and more costly to make, they're generally becoming shorter and of less value at the same time.

And when you put more money on the line for a game, the more you need to appeal to broad, mainstream crowds. And that just bleeds out the creativity and risk-taking the industry needs. Dead Space 3 here is a textbook example of conforming for the sake of profit.

These videogame engineers should be put to more focus on making lasting engines and renewable tools that can be utilized across multiple games. Finding effective, yet less expensive forms of advertising. More emphasis on the uniqueness and inventiveness of titles instead of pouring money and staff into pretty graphical effects.

Lowering development costs and promoting innovation is what will make for a sustainable AAA market, not these colossal-budgets or blockbuster-shooters and their imitators.

[Davoh]

I miss the PS1 console generation, game devs were popping up everywhere, nobody cared about having the best graphics and game devs could release weird and niche games without the risk of financial ruin.

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

@Davoh

Yup, maybe I was just too young to care but back in PS1 days I wouldn't ever hear about game sales comparison... The most we would see were a top 10 games sold (ever, year, month, whatever) list on some magazines... Some. Most wouldn't even bother reading it. I remember the argument with friends about which platform, game or character were the best, but I cannot remember anyone ever mentioning sales back in the day.

[zme-ul]

don't forget they pay the dev team by metacritic's ratings ... what the *****

[Kurt Russell]

I bought it this weekend, now I feel like a failure :(

[Tapioca Cold]

I thiught the game was fun. played with my friend and had a blast. isn't that all that matters.

[kupomogli]

It's all that should matter, but this is the internet. If your opinion doesn't align with the others you're talking to, then your opinion is wrong.

It may have been more shooter than the first two but it was still a good game I though. They even have other modes like classic and survival once completing the main game. They probably should have included these modes at the start rather than making you finish the game, for those that want a harder game, why not just play the extra modes.

[Root]

Good....they ruined the franchise

[zerocrossing]

The worst decision they made other than a game breakingly poor attempt to work in a coop campaign, was removing the "Space" from Dead Space and having you treck around an ice planet, the claustrophobic emptiness and isolation of space was what made the original games scary to begin with IMO.

Through the entire game I kept waiting for the scares, I waited and waited and then, the end credits rolled...

[Root]

I know...same here

I'm actually glad some people voted with their wallets....there are times when you get really proud at the gaming community.

May aswell kill the franchise then ruin it with each instalment like RE when that went the action route

[SonyPS4]

I voted with my wallet. I bought DS 1&2, but not the third, and never will buy it either. The first was great, the second was good.

[trenso1]

Couldn't agree more it deserved to fail after what they did, i was so excited for dead space 3 until i saw how much they ruined it.

[caseh]

Tomb Raider and Hitman failed?

They both shifted approx 3.5mil units, each...SE projected higher sales so apparently this = fail. Talk about greedy.

You wanna see fail numbers, look at any game Sega releases outside of Japan...thats what a fail looks like.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

Yet Yakuza 6 has a higher chance of being made instead of another Dead Space. Funny aint it?

[Baka-akaB]

i dunno why people pretend there is a trend and relationship between what happened for those SE/eidos games (unrealistic projected sales) - games that were highly successful - and Crysis and Dead Space 3 literrally getting their fans angry for the most part , and growing distant with the franchise , while gained no new fans .

It is a completely different case . Topping a chart when there is no other major release is no feat .

[aliengmr]

I wouldn't say the Total War franchise has failed.

[caseh]

Its probably not failed as such, I guess different companies have different ideas on what a fail is. But compared to some of the bigger franchises like CoD, Sega barely sell as many units across multiple franchises as CoD does in a single release:

Binary Domain: 0.24m
Vanquish: 0.36m
Yakuza 4: 0.88m
Valkyria Chronicles: 1.11m

Each of these games are some of the best i've played this gen. Its no wonder they have been focusing on Sonic games, those are the only ones that shift numbers to match the likes of EA and SE.

[aliengmr]

I'm sorry but using COD to measure success is a scary concept to me.

The issue is "railroading" a franchise into having to achieve sales it simply shouldn't have to achieve with bloated dev costs.

I guess the better question is did those franchises actual profit. COD is an extreme outlier.

[chasegarcia]

I think it is better to expect the average game to sell 1 million copies instead of 5 million. To keep development & marketing cost in check.

[Ulf]

These games spend FAR too much on advertising. The impact of it is NOT effective enough to outweigh, and more than double, the development investment.

[jc48573]

way to ruin everything publishers, especially right at the end of the generation.

[TheUndertaker85]

I bought a copy of Dead Space 3 then turned around and sold it after. There was too much shooter there but that wasn't my deterant.

#1 reason I sold mine? Co-op without an option for local co-op. I had plans to play with my friends and family here, not via online. The worst part was they didn't bother to mention that fact on the case or in previews.

I hope for a new Dead Space but not like 3. They had good ideas with it but terrible execution. For example I liked the idea of being able to customize my weapons via the Bench plus the addition of co-op was welcome for me at least. I didn't like the fact that it turned into too much of a shooter rather than a Dead Space game plus online only co-op.

[kamanashi]

I just checked my copies box. It is a launch copy too. Has right on the box that Co-op is online only.

[TheUndertaker85]

Really? Cool story. Interested to know where it specifically says online only co-op...

http://vgboxart.com/viewful...

[soniqstylz]

Cool story. That's not the official box art.

http://www.covergalaxy.com/...

"Players 1"
"Network Players 2 co-op"

[MegaMohsi]

well it should have failed, this game sucked compared to the first 2. Developers love to make games "mainstream" and then ruin a perfectly good franchise.

[00]

I hope game companies start to learn not everybody wants a "COD lite" game and all those COD like players will not buy your games just because copy.

[gantarat]

Capcom,EA and SQUARE-ENIX Should Stop expect so high.

[mydyingparadiselost]

Anyone excited about Star Wars anymore?

[sak500]

So they are making less millions and would like to make much more millions? What these kind of statements are being made now so that they can justify the price hike for next gen games. Kind of psychological game play like a mechanic will tell you that it's going to cost $100 to fix something and later he bills you about $80 and you then don't have a reason to haggle with him.

[HmongAmerican]

1 to 2 millions is still a lot of sales or maybe they got spoil by COD sales.

[Roper316]

DS3 & Crysis 3 where thrown together in 2 years and can't seem to make a profit. Then you have a game like Heavy Rain that was in development for like 5+ years and really pushed the whole facial animation tracking forward.

Now how can a game in development for twice as long and actually pushed the industry forward in a certain area make a huge profit like Heavy Rain did where these thrown together in 2 years games can't?

These big publishers are idiots that don't know how to make a proper budget for their projects. I kind of am hoping for another industry crash because just like when your playing a game you need to hit the reset button and start over again from the top to fix the mistakes you made along the way.

[animegamingnerd]

EA if 5 million sells is a failure GTFO of this industry then

[Gamer-Z]

Publishers need to stop trying to compete with COD its ruining good games and putting dev teams out of business. To be honest COD these days isn't all that great it really has turned into mediocre garbage but people keep buying them, why? Because COD is like the Facebook of gaming everybody has to have one. Publishers need to understand that COD cant be beat in sales because its too mainstream it has literally become a type of social hub like FB.

[Evil_Ryu]

I refused to buy any of these titles because they did not stay true to there original inceptions

[MasterD919]

I actually enjoyed some of these "flops".