SuperFriendBFG: The reason it's being poorly marketed is because they are marketing the wrong features. This begs the question; I already have a 360, so what will actually MAKE me want to go out and buy a PS3 and get LBP or Resistance 2?
Now... granted the PS3 costs a buttload, and the 360 is like, $250 now? Fully featured?
I don't think they can market these games to non-PS3 owners. No game is worth $250, which is effectively what you are spending your money on, one or two games which are exclusives. Everything else is on the cheaper Xbox360. The only other thing the PS3 is offering is blu-ray, and dedicated blu-ray players do that job better.
Before I get labelled a fanboy, I am actually a PS3 owner and quite happy with the console itself. It's quiet and doesn't die every other month like that break-dancing lawnmower known as the Xbox360. It just doesn't have enough games of enough quality to justify the purchase, and that creates a massive problem when it comes to marketing the thing. Advertise something like Saints Row 2 or Soul Calibur and there is no reason why people won't go get a cheaper Xbox360 to play them instead. Advertise an exclusive, you are basically either preaching to the choir or asking people to lavish an enormous sum of cash on one or two games.
cuddly_tomato: Not sure what to think about this. Marketing is a factor certainly, but I think Sony knows in their heart-of-hearts that every single PS3 owner will know about Resistance 2 coming out, so why sink money into advertising it? I also think the person who wrote the article is somewhat off base...
"From what I have seen of it, it is hands down the best looking game on any of the current consoles, even rivaling the graphics of a high end PC. This is a game that quite honestly could sell itself solely based on graphics."
...graphics haven't sold games for a long time.
Never heard of Crysis?
And the point is that they want to advertise the games in order to attract new customers - thats the main point of advertising. Duh.
Crysis sold terribly, granted that many people bought it for the graphics but still I wouldn't use it as an example.
And people are surprised that exclusives sell less than multi-platformers? Why I never.
REALLY? Selling one million copies is selling terribly? Because Crysis sold over one million copies.
I heard it flopped, thus helping to establish my point that graphics are not really a high selling point for games.
I would add to it by saying graphics killed it dead.
They released a demo, which high end pcs could barely play because the requirements were stupidly high. I reckon if they never released a demo it would of sold more.
cuddly_tomato: Not sure what to think about this. Marketing is a factor certainly, but I think Sony knows in their heart-of-hearts that every single PS3 owner will know about Resistance 2 coming out, so why sink money into advertising it? I also think the person who wrote the article is somewhat off base...
"From what I have seen of it, it is hands down the best looking game on any of the current consoles, even rivaling the graphics of a high end PC. This is a game that quite honestly could sell itself solely based on graphics."
...graphics haven't sold games for a long time.
Never heard of Crysis?
And the point is that they want to advertise the games in order to attract new customers - thats the main point of advertising. Duh.
Crysis sold terribly, granted that many people bought it for the graphics but still I wouldn't use it as an example.
And people are surprised that exclusives sell less than multi-platformers? Why I never.
REALLY? Selling one million copies is selling terribly? Because Crysis sold over one million copies.
cuddly_tomato: Not sure what to think about this. Marketing is a factor certainly, but I think Sony knows in their heart-of-hearts that every single PS3 owner will know about Resistance 2 coming out, so why sink money into advertising it? I also think the person who wrote the article is somewhat off base...
"From what I have seen of it, it is hands down the best looking game on any of the current consoles, even rivaling the graphics of a high end PC. This is a game that quite honestly could sell itself solely based on graphics."
...graphics haven't sold games for a long time.
Never heard of Crysis?
And the point is that they want to advertise the games in order to attract new customers - thats the main point of advertising. Duh.
Crysis sold terribly, granted that many people bought it for the graphics but still I wouldn't use it as an example.
And people are surprised that exclusives sell less than multi-platformers? Why I never.
REALLY? Selling one million copies is selling terribly? Because Crysis sold over one million copies.
(I know that's old, but for such an expensive game to produce it sold terribly.)
Well, I guess that is your opinion. But anything selling to platinum levels to me is never terrible. Less than a million would have been terrible.
If a movie had a 20 million budget and sold 10 million seats but still didn't bring enough profit to the table would you still say that it was selling well?
cuddly_tomato: Not sure what to think about this. Marketing is a factor certainly, but I think Sony knows in their heart-of-hearts that every single PS3 owner will know about Resistance 2 coming out, so why sink money into advertising it? I also think the person who wrote the article is somewhat off base...
"From what I have seen of it, it is hands down the best looking game on any of the current consoles, even rivaling the graphics of a high end PC. This is a game that quite honestly could sell itself solely based on graphics."
...graphics haven't sold games for a long time.
Never heard of Crysis?
And the point is that they want to advertise the games in order to attract new customers - thats the main point of advertising. Duh.
Crysis sold terribly, granted that many people bought it for the graphics but still I wouldn't use it as an example.
And people are surprised that exclusives sell less than multi-platformers? Why I never.
REALLY? Selling one million copies is selling terribly? Because Crysis sold over one million copies.
(I know that's old, but for such an expensive game to produce it sold terribly.)
Well, I guess that is your opinion. But anything selling to platinum levels to me is never terrible. Less than a million would have been terrible.
If a movie had a 20 million budget and sold 10 million seats but still didn't bring enough profit to the table would you still say that it was selling well?
Do you know what they needed to make in order to do well? I understand the point of your example but as far as I know we do not actually know how much the game cost to make.
cuddly_tomato: Not sure what to think about this. Marketing is a factor certainly, but I think Sony knows in their heart-of-hearts that every single PS3 owner will know about Resistance 2 coming out, so why sink money into advertising it? I also think the person who wrote the article is somewhat off base...
"From what I have seen of it, it is hands down the best looking game on any of the current consoles, even rivaling the graphics of a high end PC. This is a game that quite honestly could sell itself solely based on graphics."
...graphics haven't sold games for a long time.
Never heard of Crysis?
And the point is that they want to advertise the games in order to attract new customers - thats the main point of advertising. Duh.
Crysis sold terribly, granted that many people bought it for the graphics but still I wouldn't use it as an example.
And people are surprised that exclusives sell less than multi-platformers? Why I never.
REALLY? Selling one million copies is selling terribly? Because Crysis sold over one million copies.
(I know that's old, but for such an expensive game to produce it sold terribly.)
Well, I guess that is your opinion. But anything selling to platinum levels to me is never terrible. Less than a million would have been terrible.
If a movie had a 20 million budget and sold 10 million seats but still didn't bring enough profit to the table would you still say that it was selling well?
Do you know what they needed to make in order to do well? I understand the point of your example but as far as I know we do not actually know how much the game cost to make.
My father works with the type of rendering that game required and well from what I've seen it isn't actually cheap, but I guess you're right I shouldn't what I know from my experience as a general rule.
cuddly_tomato: Not sure what to think about this. Marketing is a factor certainly, but I think Sony knows in their heart-of-hearts that every single PS3 owner will know about Resistance 2 coming out, so why sink money into advertising it? I also think the person who wrote the article is somewhat off base...
"From what I have seen of it, it is hands down the best looking game on any of the current consoles, even rivaling the graphics of a high end PC. This is a game that quite honestly could sell itself solely based on graphics."
...graphics haven't sold games for a long time.
Never heard of Crysis?
And the point is that they want to advertise the games in order to attract new customers - thats the main point of advertising. Duh.
Crysis sold terribly, granted that many people bought it for the graphics but still I wouldn't use it as an example.
And people are surprised that exclusives sell less than multi-platformers? Why I never.
REALLY? Selling one million copies is selling terribly? Because Crysis sold over one million copies.
(I know that's old, but for such an expensive game to produce it sold terribly.)
Well, I guess that is your opinion. But anything selling to platinum levels to me is never terrible. Less than a million would have been terrible.
If a movie had a 20 million budget and sold 10 million seats but still didn't bring enough profit to the table would you still say that it was selling well?
It sells at average of around $49.99, just to be fair. Now, last I check one million times $49.99 is $49,990,000. Even after paying taxes that is a pretty good profit.
Sure it did not sell 5 millions copies like Halo. But who cares? EA was happy enough to make another which is well on it's way to selling over one million copies as well.
Going back on subject, I am sure that Resistance cost around the same amount of cash that Crysis cost to make. Maybe even less. I imagine that LBP did not cost over around $8-10 million to make. If both sell over one million copies then they will both make a good profit.
I would love to buy them, but damit!, with Fallout 3, Call of Duty 5, and FarCry 2, I just can't afford to get every game I want when I want it. I already own Fallout 3, next on my list is Call of Duty 5, the LBP, then R2, then into the abyss
It sells at average of around $49.99, just to be fair. Now, last I check one million times $49.99 is $49,990,000. Even after paying taxes that is a pretty good profit.
How much of that went to the publisher, retailer, marketing etc? Are you sure it sold at an average of $49.99 for all one million copies? The break-even point for video games is notoriously high these days, particularly for games like Crysis which cost an absolute bomb to develop.
It sells at average of around $49.99, just to be fair. Now, last I check one million times $49.99 is $49,990,000. Even after paying taxes that is a pretty good profit.
How much of that went to the publisher, retailer, marketing etc? Are you sure it sold at an average of $49.99 for all one million copies? The break-even point for video games is notoriously high these days, particularly for games like Crysis which cost an absolute bomb to develop.
The math says it all. Of course most of the cash went to EA. The paid for the game to be developed. They ponied up the $22 million. I have no idea what the actual break down in, but it is obvious that Crysis did not sell "terribly".
SuperFriendBFG: The reason it's being poorly marketed is because they are marketing the wrong features. This begs the question; I already have a 360, so what will actually MAKE me want to go out and buy a PS3 and get LBP or Resistance 2?
Now... granted the PS3 costs a buttload, and the 360 is like, $250 now? Fully featured?
I don't think they can market these games to non-PS3 owners. No game is worth $250, which is effectively what you are spending your money on, one or two games which are exclusives. Everything else is on the cheaper Xbox360. The only other thing the PS3 is offering is blu-ray, and dedicated blu-ray players do that job better.
Before I get labelled a fanboy, I am actually a PS3 owner and quite happy with the console itself. It's quiet and doesn't die every other month like that break-dancing lawnmower known as the Xbox360. It just doesn't have enough games of enough quality to justify the purchase, and that creates a massive problem when it comes to marketing the thing. Advertise something like Saints Row 2 or Soul Calibur and there is no reason why people won't go get a cheaper Xbox360 to play them instead. Advertise an exclusive, you are basically either preaching to the choir or asking people to lavish an enormous sum of cash on one or two games.
So what you're saying is that they should advertise all of their great exclusive simultaneously?
needausername: I would love to buy them, but damit!, with Fallout 3, Call of Duty 5, and FarCry 2, I just can't afford to get every game I want when I want it. I already own Fallout 3, next on my list is Call of Duty 5, the LBP, then R2, then into the abyss
Don't get Far Cy 2 if it means missing the others. And I'd advise missing Call of Duty 5, but then I hate its premise.
I think there is 3 causes for 'poor sales' if thats the case:
1) Where in the middle of the peek season for game releases. 90% of the games I've looked forward too over the past year have arrived within the last 3 weeks or so. LittleBigPlanet is fighting alot of games for sales during an economic downturn. COMPETITION IN ECONOMICAL BAD TIMES.
2) The (unnecessary in my opinion) delay to remove the 'offensive' track from the game didn't help. Nor has the deleting of 'copyright infrigment' levels. SELF-CENSORSHIP.
3) The single-platform release. I don't own a PS3 and I imagine quite a few people don't. And given the economy, people who don't aren't likely in the mood for buying another console. Don't get me wrong, I hate all single-platform releases when they can be avoided (I mean, seriously, a PC could handle LBP). Mass Effect made me roll my eyes when it was 'XBox only', as do all 'XBox only' games. Most PC games are ported to consoles too, although its a pity when they get 'dumbed down' for the transfer. REDUCED MARKET SIZE.
So, in the middle of economic downturn, they have the following reason that could be the source too:
1) Competition. 2) Self-censorship jading people and causing a delay. 3) 'Limited' market (from the PoV of the games market as a whole).
SuperFriendBFG: The reason it's being poorly marketed is because they are marketing the wrong features. This begs the question; I already have a 360, so what will actually MAKE me want to go out and buy a PS3 and get LBP or Resistance 2?
Now... granted the PS3 costs a buttload, and the 360 is like, $250 now? Fully featured?
I don't think they can market these games to non-PS3 owners. No game is worth $250, which is effectively what you are spending your money on, one or two games which are exclusives. Everything else is on the cheaper Xbox360. The only other thing the PS3 is offering is blu-ray, and dedicated blu-ray players do that job better.
Before I get labelled a fanboy, I am actually a PS3 owner and quite happy with the console itself. It's quiet and doesn't die every other month like that break-dancing lawnmower known as the Xbox360. It just doesn't have enough games of enough quality to justify the purchase, and that creates a massive problem when it comes to marketing the thing. Advertise something like Saints Row 2 or Soul Calibur and there is no reason why people won't go get a cheaper Xbox360 to play them instead. Advertise an exclusive, you are basically either preaching to the choir or asking people to lavish an enormous sum of cash on one or two games.
So what you're saying is that they should advertise all of their great exclusive simultaneously?
Not necessarily, although it would be better than doing what they are doing now in my opinion. Certainly they should advertise a bunch of exclusives at the same time on sites like IGN where gamers trundle through on a daily basis, although it wouldn't work on a TV ad. Advertising is about awareness and putting an idea of what you are selling into someones head. MGS 4 alone might not sway many people, neither might Resistance 2, simply because the amount of people willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a single game is tiny. So they see the MGS4 ad, decide it looks interesting but not worth $250, and forget all about it. Result:- advert wasted.
But make them think of Resistance 2, Killzone 2, MGS 4, and Motorstorm all at the same time and you might just hook them in.
While I've seen LBP ads all over the net, I can't recall seeing an ad on TV, whereas I see Fallout 3, GeoW2 and Fable 2 ads all the time. Sony should have probably pushed LBP harder on all mediums to maybe sway those people, coming into the Christmas period, who aren't sure of what console to buy.
The original Resistance was just above average so that's going to make it harder for people to get behind the sequel, regardless how hard you push it. LBP on the other hand seems genuinely awesome.
Programmed_For_Damage: While I've seen LBP ads all over the net, I can't recall seeing an ad on TV, whereas I see Fallout 3, GeoW2 and Fable 2 ads all the time. Sony should have probably pushed LBP harder on all mediums to maybe sway those people, coming into the Christmas period, who aren't sure of what console to buy.
The original Resistance was just above average so that's going to make it harder for people to get behind the sequel, regardless how hard you push it. LBP on the other hand seems genuinely awesome.
LBP does have a television ad
it has several in fact.
One of them talks about what life would be like if fun weren't allowed, the other just shows sackboys frollicking in game.
I'd say it's not that Sony's marketing is to blame for poor sales on their console, neither Resistance or LBP have sold badly so much as Microsoft's marketing is responsible for massive and sudden success of software on theirs. In any other week, LBP and Resistance putting out 300,000 units apiece would have been fantastic for Sony, but it wasn't any other week, it was the week Gears of War 2 came out, and it destroyed them, and the rest of the top five put together, in sales.
And it doesn't just extend to internet marketing and tv spots, there's Major Nelson's daily update of stuff you want for your Xbox, weekly podcasts from various divisions (it took Sony ages to set up ThreeSpeech, and it was pretty amateurish at the start (not listened to it recently), whereas Larry Hryb was already a professional radio broadcaster), but it extends to the console itself, you turn on an Xbox and bam, there it is, big ad for a game that's coming out this week or next week. Adverts are massively effective at getting people to buy stuff.
Quite simply, Microsoft are far better than Sony or Nintendo at actually communicating with their audience.
SuperFriendBFG: It does make sense. Let's compare Sony to a wealthy family.
In a wealthy family the child doesn't need to learn everything the average child does, mainly because they are going to inherit a lot of money, and thus can buy the services of others to fill in the gaps of what they haven't learned. There are some exceptions to this, the parents that put their foot down and say "You aren't getting a penny until you get a job, and keep it."
Sony is a huge company that doesn't seem to know how to market an underdog product in general, this is because they never really had to. When you look at the PS1 and PS2 they were both great success stories. This was because yes, the console was solid and it came with good backings. Even for the PS1 most of the marketing was done not by Sony, but by everyone else.
We'll take Little Big Planet and compare that to Spore. Both games are very similar. They are both very content driven games, and by content I mean content that is created by the user. During most of Spore's development cycle, the editors were always in the spotlight. Maxis made sure that the single best features of the game were always under the shining light. Now look at Little Big Planet, when we look at it you see a platform game that has this unknown and mysterious editor that can supposedly allow users to make great user content.
When you look at the Little Big Planet advertisement, you get little to no actual footage of the editor. And I'm pretty sure the same goes for many of the Little Big Planet trailers. Sony had to get out there and tell people "Hey, we have a great simple game that has an amazingly complex editor. You can do whatever you want with the editor, and play through your created levels using some easy to use and fun controls." But they didn't, they barely even demonstrated what the editor really looked like, or was capable of.
Despite Spore's bad rap, we can't deny that Spore is the start of something that is potentially amazing. Someone out there is bound to take these great ideas that we saw in Spore and blow us away with a much better representation of those ideas. And despite Spore's bad rap, it sold like hotcakes because it was so amazingly well marketed.
Oh and Crysis sold like ass. I'm sorry, but graphics is one of the least efficient ways to sell a game.
Yeah, you're absoloutely right. LBP has been getting a LOT of tv advertising time where I live, but rather than leaving me wanting to play the game, I was left feeling that it was a rather simple platform game in which you could customize you character. Of the several primetime ads I've seen, none of them even mention much less demonstrate the level editor.
Little Big Planet maybe. It's something new and maybe the advertisments couldn't get that across. Trying to sell Resistance 2 on the otherhand is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs.
Decoy Doctorpus: Little Big Planet maybe. It's something new and maybe the advertisments couldn't get that across. Trying to sell Resistance 2 on the otherhand is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs.
"Hey guys. Check it out! It's generic!"
Exploding Magnum rounds, invisible enemies, 8-player co-op, 60 player competitive, a gun that shoots sawblades.....what other games hold all of that again?
Decoy Doctorpus: Little Big Planet maybe. It's something new and maybe the advertisments couldn't get that across. Trying to sell Resistance 2 on the otherhand is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs.
"Hey guys. Check it out! It's generic!"
Exploding Magnum rounds, invisible enemies, 8-player co-op, 60 player competitive, a gun that shoots sawblades.....what other games hold all of that again?
You mean te invisible enemies that every review says are a cheap dick move on the part of the developer to extend the game through trial and error instant deaths?
Decoy Doctorpus: Little Big Planet maybe. It's something new and maybe the advertisments couldn't get that across. Trying to sell Resistance 2 on the otherhand is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs.
"Hey guys. Check it out! It's generic!"
Exploding Magnum rounds, invisible enemies, 8-player co-op, 60 player competitive, a gun that shoots sawblades.....what other games hold all of that again?
You mean te invisible enemies that every review says are a cheap dick move on the part of the developer to extend the game through trial and error instant deaths?
So suddenly actively adding some measure of difficulty to the experience is a cheap move?
Indigo_Dingo: So suddenly actively adding some measure of difficulty to the experience is a cheap move?
If it's fake difficulty "you die here to something you couldn't have predicted unless you'd died here before and knew about it", yes, that's called cheap.
Decoy Doctorpus: Little Big Planet maybe. It's something new and maybe the advertisments couldn't get that across. Trying to sell Resistance 2 on the otherhand is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs.
"Hey guys. Check it out! It's generic!"
Exploding Magnum rounds, invisible enemies, 8-player co-op, 60 player competitive, a gun that shoots sawblades.....what other games hold all of that again?
the multiplayer I'll give you.. the exploding magnum rounds and sawblades? well.. not so much the magnums, but saw blades are a staple of FPS weaponry.. UT had the ripper for instance. I hated the blasted things but they've been there..
and invisible enemies?
Metroid Prime had invisible enemies, and they were ass. THat's not a selling point at all.
Decoy Doctorpus: Little Big Planet maybe. It's something new and maybe the advertisments couldn't get that across. Trying to sell Resistance 2 on the otherhand is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs.
"Hey guys. Check it out! It's generic!"
Exploding Magnum rounds, invisible enemies, 8-player co-op, 60 player competitive, a gun that shoots sawblades.....what other games hold all of that again?
Just playing Devil's advocate but with the gravity gun in Half Life 2, in the Ravenholm level, you can use it to shoot sawblades. Also I think the Ripjack in Unreal Tournament does the same thing. Pretty sure the exploding magnum rounds have also been done.
Indigo_Dingo: So suddenly actively adding some measure of difficulty to the experience is a cheap move?
If it's fake difficulty "you die here to something you couldn't have predicted unless you'd died here before and knew about it", yes, that's called cheap.
Well technically if you payed attention and listened you would hear them. Doors open and your not near them? Chameleon. Sound of mini-godzilla running at you? Chameleon.
Decoy Doctorpus: Little Big Planet maybe. It's something new and maybe the advertisments couldn't get that across. Trying to sell Resistance 2 on the otherhand is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs.
"Hey guys. Check it out! It's generic!"
Exploding Magnum rounds, invisible enemies, 8-player co-op, 60 player competitive, a gun that shoots sawblades.....what other games hold all of that again?
Just playing Devil's advocate but with the gravity gun in Half Life 2, in the Ravenholm level, you can use it to shoot sawblades. Also I think the Ripjack in Unreal Tournament does the same thing. Pretty sure the exploding magnum rounds have also been done.
You can not bitch about R2 unless you play Co-Op. Until then its not allowed.
I don't think they can market these games to non-PS3 owners. No game is worth $250, which is effectively what you are spending your money on, one or two games which are exclusives. Everything else is on the cheaper Xbox360. The only other thing the PS3 is offering is blu-ray, and dedicated blu-ray players do that job better.
Before I get labelled a fanboy, I am actually a PS3 owner and quite happy with the console itself. It's quiet and doesn't die every other month like that break-dancing lawnmower known as the Xbox360. It just doesn't have enough games of enough quality to justify the purchase, and that creates a massive problem when it comes to marketing the thing. Advertise something like Saints Row 2 or Soul Calibur and there is no reason why people won't go get a cheaper Xbox360 to play them instead. Advertise an exclusive, you are basically either preaching to the choir or asking people to lavish an enormous sum of cash on one or two games.