Duke Nukem Forever sales lower Take-Two revenue estimates
Duke Nukem Forever may not be the sales success that publisher 2K Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive had expected.
Duke Nukem Forever may not be the sales success that publisher 2K Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive had expected. While its eventual release drew a lot of attention, it appears the fanfare hasn't translated into the numbers originally expected. According to Gamasutra, analyst firm Wedbush Morgan lowered its fiscal Q1 estimates for the company thanks to drastically lower sales than originally predicted. Initial estimates predicted sales of 3 million; the company now expects half that.
Offsetting the disappointing sales of Duke Nukem Forever is LA Noire, which is now expected to sell between 3.5 and 4 million copies. Ironically, in spite of Duke's less-than-warm reception, it's more likely to receive a sequel than Team Bondi's troubled crime thriller.
Duke Nukem Forever will also be available on Mac in August. A PC version of LA Noire will be available this Fall.
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Shacknews
replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Duke Nukem Forever sales lower Take-Two revenue estimates.
Duke Nukem Forever may not be the sales success that publisher 2K Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive had expected.-
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nah, it was the upside down logo on some promo stuff that confused people.
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lol
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I think some of the reviews were just "hanging with the traffic".
Take for example how PC Gamer gave the game 80% and they've had to defend that against criticism by others. People dismiss their review as either being clouded by nostalgia or being paid off somehow.
Also note how the first reviews, and the most damning, were from lesser-known sites. Sure, IGN gave it a 5.5 (it didn't "blow them away") but that's not a 3/10 like eurogamer.
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... because that's how the 10-point review scale is implemented?
Unplayable games get less-than 6. Playable bad games get a 6-7. Average, but niche, games get a 7-8. Average, but mainstream, games get a 8-9. Good games get a 9-10.
Giving a playable game a 3 is making some asinine statement.-
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I think he's saying that the low scores are not consistent with how these publications have acted prior to now. Games with severe technical issues get 5/10. By that logic either a game that doesn't have technical issues should rate higher, or they're saying that this game is actually worse than games which crash all the time (i.e., the reviewer would rather play a game that he can't play due to technical issues than this game). I believe this is what GeorgeB3DR was trying to get at as well.
But no, a game should not get a 7/10 just because it doesn't shit the bed.-
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that's one rogue guy who reviews games.
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Rogue?
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It doesn't, but that's how the review system works.
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perhaps it got 6 for being playable minus 3 for being severely offensive to them on every level
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Being playable is 7/10? Jesus.... thank god you don't review games.
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Jeff Gerstmann, June 2006 rant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=698llLo1T94
Take that, and every other time DNF has been mentioned thereafter. Plenty of thorns in his side. At the same time, I found that I found the most enjoyment from DNF by doing the following:
1: Approaching it as a "museum piece" of sorts
2: Playing Duke3D first for the action gameplay mechanics and timing (aside from Duke's running speed not being 120 miles per hour, it feels close).
It doesn't help that many of these reviewers have 13 years of brewing vitriol rekindled when Gearbox announced last September that they were finishing DNF.-
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plus jeff is grumpy about everything they should name him Grumpy Jeff
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Jeff *loved* Borderlands, hated DNF.
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It was Jeff:
http://www.giantbomb.com/duke-nukem-forever/61-20721/reviews/
Posting that video was weird. Not sure what the point was. All it sounds like he, and EVERYONE ELSE, was wondering where the f the game was.-
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I completely agree.
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Some people don't like a game you like. Some people hate it. It's not a fucking conspiracy. What you're asking for is a perpetuation of the industry's bullshit ratings systems which is one of the things that needs to change before the medium can grow up.
Guess what Ebert gave Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. A fucking 0. Guess why? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW HE FELT ABOUT THE FUCKING MOVIE. Giving it anything higher would mean he's a shitty reviewer. -
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If you approach it as "a museum piece," or sorts, then it has failed as a game.
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right wing conspiracy http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/images/07-minister.jpg
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0_o
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Lol, DNF doing well would ruin pc and console games. That's a new one.
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If Bin Laden was still alive the game would have done better. But DNF came out too late.
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Nice, Crabs.
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This guy is amazing.
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Oh, for fuck sakes. No.
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I have to know how would it succeeding ruin pc/console gaming?
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The amount of people taking Crabs seriously really makes me D:
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Well, I can't speak for the others, but in my defense...there's been a ton of this type of talk going around.
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wtf is going on here. lmfao
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You are so funny.
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LEAVE DNF ALOEN!
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This is what happens when you take the better part of a generational gap to develop a game. I just lost interest in the past 15 years since I played DN3D. And a lot of the gaming community now were just toddlers (or not even born) when DN3D was popular. How do you expect them to related to DNF?
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therell probably be 12 years between diablo 2 and diablo 3
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but diablo 3 will be a good game
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QED
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OWNED
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This is the DNF I wanted to play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-BPJajW-Sc
If they had finished that and released it in 2002-2003, it would have been.... great?-
What 3DRealms has said and done over long years just turned out to be a disappointment. It's probably for the better they don't exist anymore, at least not in its earlier form. Gearbox doesn't even have an incentive to revive the franchise as a strong competitor, they can easily keep co-existing as a shallow videogame company and be profitable. For all we know, it has been reinforcing to know where to put your trust and where not.
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It would have been hilarious if they did and people would say the retro look is bold and exciting.
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just wait a year and it will be on sale for $10 or less
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Well, bummer. Better luck next time Duke!
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Sometimes bet on Duke
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Yeah, I'm enjoying it, I'm having fun playing the game and exactly as you said, I get to see the game and have closure. It really would have bothered me if the game never came out. I'm glad to pay for the game and just finally get to play it. And yes parts of it look and and it plays like an old shooter, there are also some excellent ideas in there which are still fun and funny. It's not everything it could have been, but there is still good stuff in there that I'm very glad I saw.
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The shocking part is that they were expecting 3 million in sales.
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So... Michael Pachter (or his parent company) being a douche?
"...analyst firm Wedbush Morgan lowered its fiscal Q1 estimates for the company..." -
The core problem with DNF is audience. There are two audiences for DNF:
1. Older gamers who were aware of DN3D. These people are acutely aware of the history of the game and most of us have made fun of it at some point. DNF had become a laughingstock until the past year. Also, playing DNF as a college kid vs. playing it as a busy middle-aged father are two different things. Even with solid 7/10 reviews it wouldn't have sold well to this group. It would take 9/10 across the board to do that.
2. Kids who don't know who Duke Nukem is. The game is an anachronism, and works better as nostalgia than as a new IP in the market. (Which is how these kids would see it.) Again, 9/10s and a lot of word of mouth might have saved it, but that wasn't in the cards.
I think the reviews do reflect a desire on the part of reviewers to really beat up on a game to increase their credibility when they give out 7-9 scores all the time to AAA games. But I don't think that really hurt the game much... I think it was doomed from the start and I was frankly surprised that Gearbox decided to take a chance on it.
I still hope to play it sometime (maybe on a big Steam sale) because I think there's some core fun to be had in there, but as one of those busy older gamers, I can guarantee that there are at least 5 much better games already on my backlog, so I'll wait and get to it at some point.-
I think #3 would be older gamers who loved DN3D back in the day and snatched up the game both for nostalgia and also for the sheer principle of playing it. This would include dognose and some others on the Shack. For these people the reviews didn't matter. But there's not that many of them so it couldn't save the game at retail.
The main reason Gearbox took a chance on it, I think, was that it was a solid IP they can now use in the future because they own it, and because the game was close to being done when they bought it. Note how the announcement that they had taken over was less than a year ago. One way or another the game had $20M+ of work already in it that were sunk costs from 3DR.
What's going to be weird is when DN5 comes out in a few years and it's better (in more mainstream, reviewable ways) than DNF and everyone will say "oh wow, this is what DNF should have been".-
I fall into group 3 and actually enjoyed the game. It is flawed and not a masterpiece but I just don't get the 50% or less review scores. The humor may be a bit dated but so am I so enjoyed it. But not liking the humor is not a reason to demolish the game in a review. I also notice that it's okay to claim that someone who liked the game is biased but if you intimate that a poor review is bias then you're just looking to have your opinion justified. I just want some consistency. Some reviews, the worst of them, seem to miss obvious details. Few offer what I consider valid reasons for such low scores.
But it's not the first time I've disagreed with the din of reviewers (Too Human, anyone?) and probably will not be the last. I've gotten to where as much as possible I just ignore reviews. I visit sites for previews and other information before release or to hear about games I've not played yet.
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The internet is saying the sales are only half that so far (~700k, with the 360 leading followed by PS3 and then PC) so it's hard to say if they mean by the end of the year, fiscal or otherwise, or lifetime. VGChartz show the PC version is the lowest selling as well, but digital sales still aren't tracked like retail afaik so the overall number could be a tad higher. That's still not quite the bomb I figured it would be.
The numbers in general aren't reliable, even if Take-Two were to come out and say what they are. We probably still wouldn't know if they meant sell-throughs or just sales to retailers.
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Ya, when it takes $15 I will consider it.
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Plus it released right next to CoD4 and UT3. Both Epic and Crytek threw a hissy fit that it took them so long to get over 1 million. Epic stopped releasing PC games (excluding Bulletstorm, which I wouldn't count since it's People Can Fly's game, GFWL, and a console port), and Crytek went on the Draconian DRM Bandwagon.
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DERP
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You cited "brutally avant garde hardware requirements" and "fuck all for optimization." Crysis was classic PC FPS in that regard -- a game that could not be played with settings maxed for years to come. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line PC gamers developed from respectable individuals to giant, whining faggots who both criticize games for not taking advantage of the power a PC has to offer and not being able to run with everything maxed on their 3 year old budget hardware.-
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This is truth and anybody who complained about that shit is a fucking moron. Medium ran great on midrange stuff for the time and still looked better than everything else out there.
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Because console gamers aren't really "gamers", right?
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Make a game that can be maxed out on current hardware: OMG NOT TAKING ADVANTAGE OF MY SUPERION 983000!!!!!!
Make a game that can't be maxed out on current hardware: OMG I CAN'T MAX IT OUT ON MY SUPERION 983000!!!!!!!!
You really can't win with "hardcore" PC gamers.-
You also can't win by making stupid generalizations that can fit any demographic you want to deride.
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I recognize your name, so you've been around here for awhile, so you can't deny that both of those types of posts were everywhere on the Shack and on other gaming forums when Crysis came out.
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No you're right about that. And there's a group of people who'll bitch about anything just for the sake of bitching.
But then there are seemingly rational people who throw around this "PC gamer" bullshit as, what? Platform wars?
Since the NES (maybe before) all platforms have gotten shitty ports, or games that look awful or run terribly. It's the same bullshit we've put up with for 20 years or more but now there's a group of assholes who turn every complaint (no matter how valid) into a platform superiority contest, and the "PC gamer" bullshit is almost always an example of that.
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Did anyone think that this game was actually going to sell well?
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randy pitchford probably
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I bet even he had reservations.
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I'm afraid you're wrong. Single player is not crap at all.
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he thinks it is, you think it isn't. You are shooting yourself in the foot here if you are trying to sell him on the MP. He'll just assume you have an inflated view of that too
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Lol. You didn't see the part where he said he hasn't played it.
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Console gaming has nothing to do with it. There are plenty of major, successful games on the 360 that have more than 2 weapons at a time.
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Broussard disagrees.
Just a few random posts on the subject, but there are more:
http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=23904897
http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=23931239
http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=26031903-
wow..he really was blinded by bad design choices. Bad designers can ruin games, case in point, Lair. All the lower level designers HATED the controls in that game, but the head guy wanted the dragon to control like you were driving a bus, bulky and unweildy. And we all saw where that went..
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What a bunch of sour grapes you are. I'm willing to bet the consolitis had nothing to do with this things downfall. There were about 200 hundred other problems that needed to be fixed first before worrying about a 2 weapon limit.
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Or, just maybe, gameplay standards evolved in the years since Duke Nukem 3D's release. That seems much more plausible, imho, than simply crying "consolization".
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What a waste of money this DNF was... What the hell was 2k thinking, Oh I know GearBox will put it's overhyped media on it and it'll sell millions! This game deserves the poor score and sales. On top of that all the crap merchandise was another wtf, while other game developers struggle to get their games to sell this pile of crap gets all this attention for a game that was awful.
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this is the worst argument i've seen anywhere today. Thanks for filling that quota.
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It kind of blows my mind how much money they spent on the advertising campaign. I obviously don't have hard numbers but man I saw ads everywhere.
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I blame gibbie and his bathroom tweets.
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For what it's worth, I really enjoyed the single player campaign for Duke Nukem Forever. The story didn't blow my mind and I wasn't expecting to going in, but the action has been excellent and the crass humour was what I was expecting.
Over the last few weeks of owning the game, I've loaded up a multiplayer game at least once a week. DNF is perfect for me to just jump in to a quick deathmatch game and gib people with an RPG while flying with a jetpack. The response of the shotgun gets a smile put of me every time.
I don't want to worry about keeping up with the joneses in some modern combat simulator clone by levelling up and getting exclusive access. Sure, DNF has levelling up and stats, but there's nothing to them; no limitations or exclusive weapons. -
Whaaat. No way... I don't believe it.
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At-least I got a mouse pad.
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That I paid for.
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I knew this game was gonna suck as soon as they actually started showing footage. There is no excuse for the garbage this turned out to be. And I don't feel bad for all the developers who got laid off in the closure of 3DR. If I wasted 13-15 years of time creating a POS, I'd get fired too - why should it be any differeny for these fucktards. Horrible horrible way to ruin a good franchise.
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don't blame the artists/programmers/designers attached to the project, they are innocent and had nothing to do with the feature creep and bad design decisions. blame the head man himself.
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Did everybody miss the part where this is all just analyst speculation?
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