Despite the negative reception, Aliens Colonial Marines has debuted at the top of the UK Charts this week. It also managed the best opening week sales of the year so far beating Dead Space 3. It didn’t, however, outsell 2010’s Alien vs Predator game.
Gearbox’s panned FPS Aliens: Colonial Marines has shot to the top of the UK charts despite its massive critical drubbing.
Aliens: Colonial Marines also enjoyed the best opening-week sales of any game this year so far–beating Dead Space 3, which Aliens: Colonial Marines also shunted into second place in the charts.
But could the sales numbers be down to the fact Aliens: Colonial Marines launched on a Tuesday, whereas Dead Space 3 launched on a Friday?
Colonial Marines didn’t manage to outsell Rebellion’s 2010 take on Aliens vs. Predator, however. Last week one reported former Gearbox employee said the development of Colonial Marines was a “total train wreck.”
Thats the point im making. The people behind Prometheus (Fox) were way more careful in their lines of BS than the people involved with A:CM (Fox) and at the end of the day (week 1) if the people at the top who are ultimately responsible for the marketing and direction (Fox) make a couple bucks from their audience (us) then ratings and content and quality are secondary motivators.
You must have been in tears after AvP:R came out because Fox wouldnt allow something worse than AvP for a quick buck right?
And in the end I guess it doesnt matter because weve since gotten Prometheus and A:CM to make up for it.
Its a slippery slope and if youre willing to compartmentalize a general business strategy im sure Fox will greenlight all you can eat.
It's the difference between getting your hopes up over thinly veiled, carefully worded teases and out and out bald faced lies. They would have had to show crawling walls full of xenomorphs created JUST for the Prometheus trailers for this to be even in the same neighborhood.
At the end of the day, Prometheus was a decent science fiction movie with ties to Alien. (as advertised) And Aliens: Colonial Marines is buggy, sluggishly plodding, sometimes unplayable, brainless romp through corridors coated in visual nostalgia.
Um, not to nitpick or anything, but if you wait 'til all the reviewers evaluate a game when it comes out, and only later on buy the game, it's not a pre-order anymore. At least that's what it seems to me, 'pre-order' = 'before actual release'.
On topic, I agree with you, but only mostly because of this whole "Pre-order X game for Y bonus content" sorta deal that sucks tons of gamers and fans alike into purchasing crappy games like our turd-for-a-game A:CM. It's why I never pre-order anything.
It was until Nintendo came out with Mario and saved the gaming industry. That's why Mario takes the most important role in gaming.
AVP
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/avp-alien-vs-predator
AVP-R
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/avpr-aliens-vs-predator---requiem
Both sit idly on 29/100 with different user rating. And Prometheus is pretty mixed bag with bit more positive viewings.
Just check fan vote here.
Btw what's E.T ?
Gamers have been at a tipping point for a long time now about how the industry works and id be shocked if there isnt long term damage beyond GBX and Sega. Its definitely turned me off to other games by getting burned for 90 bucks on A:CM and probably 800k more who are feelin it too. Even reviewers have woken up a little bit here lately.
I actually cancelled my HotS preorder just because Im so fed up with payin out the ass for 39.99 titles. Keep your preorder crap, your toys and boxes and hype and ill buy video games when they hit a reasonable price. Ill buy Dead Space 3 when it goes to Steam (never) and goes on sale for 15 bucks (never) because I only want the first half of the game and thats what its worth. Watched a 4 hour long LP of Crysis 3, aint no point in spending 60 bucks on another 4 hour game...
A:CM and a whole pile of other titles need to be buried in the desert with E.T and the whole industry is begging for an enema.
Source: VG Chartz.
Well, I wonder what the fallout will be. Does SEGA sue GBX? Does SEGA sell the rights to make up for the bleeding this game caused them?
Time will tell.
Huh, Elicas... SHUT UP... Don't give them ideas...! HAHAHHA
Do a live action Aliens vs The Avengers crossover that Fox takes as canon?
Huh, dumb question: did Hicks and Ripley even... huh, ya know... do the hunkachunka...? HAHAHAHAHA
PS - Oh, never mind... I got the joke... FINALLY... HAHAHAH Well... since the franchise is already ruined and Hicks and Ripley are kinda AGED, why not? What more can they do to further annihilate this franchise?
Awesome.
Personally I think way too many people gave prometheus a free pass just on its entertainment value and more than once ive seen the argument that the lists of issues it has are merely "nitpicks" over what is an otherwise solid movie. It made enough money to justify its existence and itll prolly have sequels. Might not have been a "free" pass but it passed lol. AvP:R passed too.
What if the early numbers, the real ones wherever they are are matched up with the real budget... whatever it is, and when the numbers come in, the thing made a few bucks. How long is it gonna be before the next movie/game comes out and we go through this all again... and slightly more offensive to fans. Thats what im worried about for the games and movies, the trend just keeps going downhill and these things succeed by the skin of their teeth.
Aliens: Colonial Wars presented by Sega and developed by Square Enix and Eidos. "We want Aliens on earth but were gonna do it right cuz were fans, also canon".
Alien 5: Resolution. Hicks is locked in a long cryosleep until after the events of Alien Ressurection and him and Ripley have half marine/alien babies and come to the realization that Xenomorphs arent that bad. "Its a new storyline set in the Aliens universe. Narrated by Lance Henriksen"
Sadly I would too, which makes me very depressed to say.
Prometheus hardly got a free pass, there are a healthy section of the fans who can't stand it. Personally i'd rather have a A:R, AVP and AVP:R marathon on while playing A:CM than watch five more minutes of Prometheus ever again.
Prometheus did well because people love Ridley. It's got an average of 65/100 from critical reviews, so it hardly got a free pass from many reviewers. The film did well from very strong marketing, shiny shiny special effects that admittedly looked very good, and the hype train of the Alien franchise being back in the hands of the fellow who gave us the classic original.
I'd expect the follow up to do much worse, especially if they're still moving it 'farther away from Alien'. Prometheus barely had anything to do with Alien in the first damn place.
Im glad this game has gotten backlash the way it has. Prometheus got a pass for practically everything people hate about this game. Lies, half truths, bold statements from the people in charge, 90 degree turns in what the content was going to be like every 3 months, terrible nonsensical writing, trailers full of things not in the product, unused concept art thrown around like its gospel and if you buy more... youll get ALLLLL the answers baby.
but because it looks like ass... people ripped into it like wild animals. Of course the thing got great day 1 sales but unlike prometheus, they didnt dress up their shit sandwich with special effects before they served it.
If they were true fans they would fix it, but Fox doesnt seem to contract fans anymore. It got a nice day 1 in sales but thats hopefully as much as it ever gets. (without serious help)
Not this time, asshole. Not this time.
Hear, hear!
As much as SEGA pisses me off, if the next game is GOOD, and I mean like 8 outta 10 good, then I won't care if SEGA keeps the rights. I think a highly rated Alien game would make a lot more money than AVP or ACM would. Maybe it would be a turnaround and force SEGA to hire better developers.
Time will tell.
As awesome as that would be. If Creative Assembly's new A L I E N based game does gang busters. Then I think it's safe to say the the Alien license would stay with them for sequels and the like.
I know how you feel. It's a double-edged sword. The game does poorly = GBX suffers for their deception and maybe SEGA sells their rights or get a developer in the future who is more reliable. The game does well = GBX is off the hook, sort of, and SEGA doesn't learn their lesson and keeps putting out crappy games because they know us fans will buy anything.
All I am hoping for is one giant patch that puts the game together more and solid DLC. At least by that point I will have played the game enough to get my moneys worth. If Bug Hunt mode is actually well done then that will keep me playing for a while.
I am interested to see if SEGA sells the rights to reclaim some cash that we know they bled on ACM. I'd kill for someone with a good publishing background to pick it up and save us.
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/24855/aliens-colonial-marines/Global/
85% drop worldwide for the game on the 360. LOL. I hope Gearbox feel this to the bone.
http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=aliens%3A+colonial+marines
Game sales are at 730,000. With that nasty second week drop it is safe to say this dog does not cross a million. Good riddance.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Most_expensive_games
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs
Also, just to illustrate how much the ad campaigns and marketing increase the cost of a game:
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2s-launch-budget--200-million/
Hope it sheds some more light and hope you enjoy...
Cheers!
Damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. That's baller.
I am just surprised they had spent that much considering Halo CE and Halo 2 had come before it. You would think the game would sell itself. But, good for them. I fell in love with Halo the minute I played Halo 2 MP and Halo 3 as a whole. Only one I have not beaten yet is Halo 2, which I just borrowed off my cousin.
Makes me wonder if the advertising and all that is included in this 60mil number for A:CM if not then man... someones ass is really on fire.
What I did find is a list of the top 10 most expensive to develop games (from 2010) and reputable place and look at how A:CM stacks up. Absurd no matter how they got there...
http://digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/top-10-most-expensive-video-game-budgets-ever/
The game started out with a much smaller budget, because they made some mistakes, took too long, and ultimately played hot potato with it, it ended up going way over their initial projected budget. Which was closer to 20 to 40 million.
They could have at least outsourced it to Infinity Ward and gotten 9/10ths of a decent shooter rather than 1/3 of a bad one.
Sort of. I read AAA titles have between 75 and 100 million. This game should have been a lot better if it really got the rumored 65 million.
That's what happens when you have a distended development cycle with 1500 companies fingering the pooch.
I find it amazing that this game will probably break a million on hype alone despite being a sub-par game. I wish this game was half decent. It be selling a hell of a lot more than a million.
Sales through the 16th (4 days after release), 630,572.
Depending on how many people bought it late (week or 2) this sad piece of crap may hit a million easily. Was kinda of hoping it would really tank and not sell that many.
This game would be LUCKY to sell 1.2 million copies.
It's game over man, game over. LOL, perfect time to say that.
Indeed, and that was if they were getting the full $60 from every sale, which they sure as hell are not. They're looking at having undersold the budget by over a million copies. You'll be looking at a typical return of 50% at retail, very roughly. So far they'll have made around $13,950,000, which is a current working loss of $51,050,000. That's a hell of alot of ground to still make up.
My estimation is they need (if they're making $30 per $60 retail sale) 2,166,667 sales to break even on the investment (at a $65,000,000 investment). Not. Going. To. Happen.
Wow, those numbers are pretty awful for a AAA FPS release. They need a minimum of 635,000 more sales to break even on the estimated $65,000,000 budget.
http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/41322/UK/
http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/41322/Germany/
I think that's around 465k copies according to them.
Bye bye, ACM!