Midway's Allison: 93% of New IPs Fail, Reviews Don't Matter

According to Midway senior VP and chief marketing officer Steve Allison, only 7% of the new game-related intellectual properties introduced across the past four years can be considered successful and review scores had no bearing on the sales of those games. "In other words, 93 percent of new IP fails in the marketplace," he explained on N'Gai Croal's Level Up. "So while the 90-plus review scores and armfuls of awards create the perception that titles like Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami and other great pieces of work were big successes...they were big financial disappointments and money losers."

"The truth is that there is no correlation between review scores and commercial success," Allison wrote in a followup entry. "If there were, 'great' games Beyond Good & Evil, Ico, Okami, Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus, Freedom Fighters, Prey and Midway's own Psi-Ops would all have been multi-million unit sellers. The aforementioned games are all games that average review scores of nearly 90 percent out of 100, some even higher. The reality is none has sold more than 300,000 units at full price in the U.S. and a couple of these less than 250,000 units lifetime even with bargain pricing."

[Pheneus]

they listed most of my favorite third party console games.

[kornbeaner]

I agree totally with the article. matter fact this year alone, up to 95% of the money made in the industry will be from squeals.

In a way it's a good thing because at one point all of these games were new IP's so at one point we were willing to try somthing new.

But by now alot of these games don't really expand on anything except for giving you more of what you bought it for, say 4 years ago.

We should learn on how to expand on horizon's a little more.

I'm pretty sure we have all bought at least one game from the list
but we should try harder before all we have to buy is a bunch of cookie-cutter games and then nobody wins but the publishers.

[DirtyRat]

I htink this article is skewed slightly...it's not just the current IPs which make money, that is complete rubbish, its the TOP MARKETED games which make money i.e. those which get loads of coverage and hype.

E.g. I doubt Oblivion was a failure...it didn't just get good reviews it got loads of marketing too.
Bioshock and Mass effect are two games I am really looking forward too and both are original IPs...the hype machine has been working for them well and I doubt they will fail.

I do agree however that the game design and marketing needs to court the casual game market if new IP is to succeed, and I think some of the games mentioned were not marketed nearly enough by the publisher.

[Hayabusa 117]

Oblivion isn't an original IP: it's the forth game in the Elder Scrolls series. Yet I hadn't played any of the original games when I brought it. Bioshock is also based on an old IP: System Shock, and System shock 2, and although I haven't played either one of them, I'm going to buy it. Mass Effect, on the other hand, is an original IP, but I'll be buying it based on my experience of other Bioware games (having said that though, I'd probably still buy it based on what I know of the game).

Generally though, I agree that's it hype and marketing that determine what new IPs sell. Don't forget as well, all the sequels that sell are sequels of original IP that have already sold. Halo 3 will sell, and so did the original Halo.

I do think however that Magazines reviews tend to be spot on (at least the magazines I read) so yeah, I DO go buy magazine reviews.

[Phantom_Lee]

it sickens me that games like Spider-man 3 can out sell games like Shadow of the Colossus...

it should be a crime!!!

[kewlkat007]

As soon as they stop making FF's and MG's, all the other games will see some light.

A lot of new IPs really do not make it as big as their much older counterparts.(we all know the games)(The bug GUNS we like to call them)

We need to boycott Games with sequals up to 10 so they can start innovating again. lol Let the smaller guys have a chance at the big screen. Shame.. Shadow of the Colossus, if you wanna talk about underated. ICO is another one, and some others...

I do agree these games need better marketing so they can establish their names. Just like HALO is synonymous to all gamers now. HYPE does go a long way. GEARS of WAR will be the same, GOD OF WAR and so on..

[Skynetone]

If you love the demo youll buy the game

companys not making new ips will go out of business

[Anego Montoya FTMFW]

is the best picture they could have used for this thread.
great great game.