Dead Space 3 Fails to Meet Sales Expectations, Sequel Put on Hold - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 05 March 2013 / 16,071 Views
Dead Space 3 sales have failed to meet Electronic Arts sales expectations according to sources speaking with VideoGamer.com. This also means that Dead Space 4 which was in pre-production at Visceral Games has been put on hold.
EA Labels president Frank Gibeau told CVG a year ago that Dead Space 3 needs to sell five million units to justify Dead Space 4. Dead Spoce 3 has sold just 880,000 units at retail as of the week ending February 23, 2013, according to VGChartz. This is the total sales after three weeks on sale.
"In general we're thinking about how we make this a more broadly appealing franchise, because ultimately you need to get to audience sizes of around five million to really continue to invest in an IP like Dead Space," said Gibeau. "Anything less than that and it becomes quite difficult financially given how expensive it is to make games and market them."
Visceral Montreal who was suppose to develop the title has gone under a restructuring, according to another source. The studio is rumored to have closed its doors. A former Visceral Montreal employee has told Game Informer that "the entire studio has been laid off."
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5M?
what did you expect? -.-'
Quit trying to make survival horror games into crappy action titles and you'll be fine saleswise. Turning horror games into action ones only worsens sales, just ask Resident Evil.
Another EA piss poor business practices relapsing... Money > fans. 5 million!?... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? YOU STRIPPED MUCH OF THE GAME'S PARANOIA AND HORROR, NOW YOUR EXPECTING 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN THE FIRST MONTH!?
EA: We just toned down some of the game's distinctive elements... now give us 5 million worth of sales or we cap this franchise.
Another one bites the dust..
Exactly what I was afraid of. And selling 5M of almost any game outside the biggest franchises seems to be implausible with the continuously collapsing console game sales. Sad to read, I love the franchise, but it seems the consumers voted with their wallets. :(
Something has gone terribly wrong at Electronic Arts. Sales of over eight hundred thousand are generally considered to be fairly healthy. That means they made more then fifty million dollars worth of sales. That should easily cover development costs, and offer up a reasonable profit. If they are needing five hundred or six hundred percent returns on investment. Then obviously someone in management doesn't know a fucking thing about this market.
Well, they did claim that micro-transactions in every game possible was the future. FIFA: "Your player's energies are too low to play their next game. Please wait for more energy. For 100 gold ($1.00), energy can be restored to full." They just made a mix for the game that wasn't really acceptable to most players. No introspection about their decisions at all for these people. Sad.
That's what you get for pushing the only viable platform out of the market (that was Wii), not to mention making games SO expensive to make, just so that they can WOW the 15 year old crowds like cheap Hollywood movies.
Enjoy your demise, third parties :-)
EA is really not thinking straight if they really just laid off the entire staff of one of the best new studios this gen. Visceral's work on DS1 and DS2 was superb. Even if EA doesn't have them work on another game in the franchise, to just throw away all of that talent instead of having them work on a different IP is just plain stupid.
You're confusing Visceral Monreal with the Visceral Games, the main studio and development team behind Dead Space. That studio is, as far as we know, very much alive.
Fatcats the top of EA want to much as take home. Strip the fat cats of their bonuses and their massive yearly salaries that they don't deserve and we can keep a Franchise. The game was not as good as the first 2 but it was still good. Next game go back to the roots of the game.
What a bunch of idiots ... 5 million?? Really? Can EA just go broke already.
damn another game that flops and makes the company doubt about a sequel, screw that wii u! Oh wait this is for the almighty PS360?!
OH AND START RELEASING HORROW GAMES AROUND HALLOWEEN, WHEN PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY AND SEE THIS SORT OF THING. I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE RELEASE DATE WAS A DUMB TIME. SOMEONE RIGHT EA AND TELL THEM THIS.
OH AND START RELEASING HORROW GAMES AROUND HALLOWEEN, WHEN PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY AND SEE THIS SORT OF THING. I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE RELEASE DATE WAS A DUMB TIME. SOMEONE RIGHT EA AND TELL THEM THIS.
I would definitely argue this is due to the amount of people who opted to skip this title due to the micro transactions. Yes, they're optional, and yes I see where people are coming from when stating they don't see what harm it does by including optional things for you to buy with real money, but it doesn't make sense at all when the price of admission is $60. Mass Effect 3 did it, and sold it after I found out, and just completely passed on DS3.
Ahahaha. Good.
Now stop making crappy sequels which add nothing to the series and come up with some new ideas.
People will blame the dev costs again? Come on, they removed all elements of horror in the game and tryed to change it in an action title. They alienated their fanbase. And to make things worser, they put microtransactions in a full price game.
Unfortunately, that is a shame. It's a good game, maybe not as much as the others, but its pretty good. EA killed tre franchise for nothing, several famous franchises survived several flops and recovered. EA just killed it without blinking.
Dead space is one of the better gaming series this generation. It just never caught on like it should have. I think all the games are great. Its both ea and the fans fault for dead space 3s failure. Ea was expecting the game to sell 5 million when it barely sold over 3 million each of the games. The fans complain about micro transactions you don't even notice or are required to do. Or how co op is in the game but as far as I've seen, its not required to play through the game, just for some additional missions. There are minor changes to things like upgrading your suit and weapons, the weapons themselves, and universal ammo, but the gameplay is the same as the other ones. Don't even compared re6 to this. Re6 was almost a whole new gar from 5 to 6. Its just dead space don't have the re sales. Fans are the reason the new devil may cry will fail too, crying about things about the game and not even playing it or listening to the cry babies instead of making their own opinion by playing the game. If you have played ds3 and didn't like it, fine, but I see a lot if peole saying they enjoyed the game.
Dead space is one of the better gaming series this generation. It just never caught on like it should have. I think all the games are great. Its both ea and the fans fault for dead space 3s failure. Ea was expecting the game to sell 5 million when it barely sold over 3 million each of the games. The fans complain about micro transactions you don't even notice or are required to do. Or how co op is in the game but as far as I've seen, its not required to play through the game, just for some additional missions. There are minor changes to things like upgrading your suit and weapons, the weapons themselves, and universal ammo, but the gameplay is the same as the other ones. Don't even compared re6 to this. Re6 was almost a whole new gar from 5 to 6. Its just dead space don't have the re sales. Fans are the reason the new devil may cry will fail too, crying about things about the game and not even playing it or listening to the cry babies instead of making their own opinion by playing the game. If you have played ds3 and didn't like it, fine, but I see a lot if peole saying they enjoyed the game.
Well they knew they wasn't gonna sell that much anyway. EA is on a power trip. Besides I'm tired of Dead Space it's time for Issac to rest he's been through enough.
Sad but I know when we can enjoy more DS3.
http://thegamingtable.tumblr.com/post/44637524599/leak-dead-space-3-awakened
