Ascendant Studios CEO: Immortals of Aveum Poor Sales Were Due to a Crowded Market - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 20 November 2023 / 3,727 Views
Ascendant Studios CEO Bret Robbins in an interview with Xbox Expansion Pass said the poor sales for Immortals of Aveum that lead to the studio laying off around 45 percent of employees was due to the crowded game market.
"It’s a crazy time right now," said Robbins via VideoGamesChronicle. "There’s an article every day about some kind of huge layoff, and it’s unfortunate. It’s certainly the hardest thing I’ve had to do.
"You work really hard with people, they’ve put their faith in you and their trust in you, and you want to honour that as much as you can, so when you have to make a decision like that it really sucks.
"We are an independent company. We’re not EA, we’re not a large organization. Our bottom line required us to sell a lot of video games, and we didn’t meet our targets, and that’s just the unfortunate dollars and cents of it, and that meant we had to do some layoffs.
"There are so many things when you’re making a game that are out of your control – certainly the market can be largely out of your control – and it was unfortunate for us, but my hope is that I can work with a lot of those people again and that with our next project, or future projects, we continue to grow."
Robbins was asked if releasing the game during one of the busiest years ever for big video game releases contributed to the poor sales.
"It’s maybe the craziest time, I’ve ever seen," said Robbins. "One huge game after another. We knew some big games were coming – we knew Starfield was going to be huge, we knew we were releasing the same week as Armored Core 6, and we knew that would be big. We know that Assassin’s Creed and Spider-Man, games like that were coming out.
“But we didn’t realize that Baldur’s Gate 3 would blow up in the way it did right in front of us, it seems to have caught everyone by surprise. And before that, Jedi Survivor, and now we’re seeing even games like Alan Wake doing huge, so it’s been one after another.
“And it’s hard when you’re a new IP, especially from a new studio that no one had heard of, to cut through that noise. So for us, release timing was crucial and really did affect how much people have engaged with the game."
He added, "I’m happy that people that have engaged with the game really like it and enjoy it, and we’re really hoping that with our new push coming out later this week, that a lot of people who didn’t have the time for it because there were so many other things to play, they find it.
"We’re also going to have a big reduction, a half-off sale, and things like that, so that hopefully will help people too."
Immortals of Aveum released for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC Steam and Epic Games Store on August 22.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Good game, bad release timing. I am currently playing it and enjoy my time with it.
I was looking forward to this but it's just not very good with some horrible writing
I think the name of the title is stupid, it didn't help.
so true marketing has a lot to deal with it true
That's not the reason. It was an average game with alot of technical issues and very low res and no stable frames. Also made a mistake not releasing it on gamepass day 1
We knew some big games were coming out then he names starfield armored core spiderman 2 assassins creed but doesn't address why you especially being an independent would release at a time that has traditionally been the starting point for the buying season where some of the years biggest games get released . instead he strangely points the finger at BG3 's success.
i think the market has always been crowded.
https://www.metacritic.com/game/immortals-of-aveum/
Insert John Cena "Are you sure about that" Meme with this as the background.
It wasn't becoz there was so many badazz releases,
It's just that the game sucked,
Looks good on the trailer though hahaha
Then why release the game inside a window that has traditionally been crazy for games, and you knew it was gonna be crazy this year as well? And maybe the game was just meh anyways?
Well at least he is not blaming silly stuff. But if you already know the time slot is crowded work around to avoid it
I’ve heard the game is actually pretty good.
