Tomb Raider has crossed into profitability
Tomb Raider gained profitability by the end of last year, according to executive producer Scot Amos.
Tomb Raider initially fell short of expectations, as Square Enix expected it to sell a third more out of the gate. It did eventually recoup, though, as executive producer Scot Amos says the game has now turned profitable.
"By the end of last year, Tomb Raider is in the black," Amos told Eurogamer. "We've crossed the line of profitability for the last-gen and PC versions." That means that whatever cost was put into the next-gen Definitive Editions, Square will be starting from profitability instead of counting on it to make up the difference.
On the subject of the Definitive Editions, though, he claimed that this wasn't an effort from Square Enix to recoup losses. "The dev team wanted to do the port," he said. "Square didn't approach us saying to do XYZ, at the end of the game the dev team said 'there's all these things that we want to do', but we'd pushed those machines to the limit at the time. This was in the bag and on the way even before anything happened with sales expectations or where things were at. We were having this conversation at the end of 2012 when we first heard details and rumors of next-gen consoles."
Amos also said that Square Enix has "clearly invested in us," citing both the sequel and Definitive Edition. "They've always been behind us, regardless of maybe what was said or how it was said in the press, and certainly at the end of the year we've actually gone over expectations because we've managed to get profitability back. We're very happy to say that from a partnership internally, we're committed to it totally. Square Enix talks about it as a key franchise, so we're very happy with where we're at."
Square had expected 5-6 million units in just four weeks, which made its actual figure of 3.4 million a disappointment.
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Steve Watts posted a new article, Tomb Raider has crossed into profitability.
Tomb Raider gained profitability by the end of last year, according to executive producer Scot Amos.-
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Square enix shouldn't of predicted COD sales and this crap won't happen in the first place. This was a fantastic game and worthy of a purchase but a good game will sell itself and doesn't need the millions spent on advertising. This is why big companies fall and end up closing game companies because of wasted money spent on things not needed in this digital age. One tweet or reddit post could sell a game and it's completely FREE to do!
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Agreed; the megapublishers just can't bet on multi-million sales anymore for every title they plan to release in the fiscal year. EA fell into the same trap last year by forecasting Dead Space 3 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter to sell 5 million copies in retail on launch month. THQ was hoping for Darksiders 2 to sell huge to save them from what was ultimately a bankruptcy and liquidation at the end of 2012. Capcom got burned really bad by forecasting 7 million sales worldwide for Resident Evil 6.
There's a number of things that scare me about big-budget game development getting bigger: "too many cooks spoil the broth" (see: Resident Evil 6), the "If we have to do a huge title, we should ultra-script the game to make it easier to balance and playtest" phenomenon, as well as having the biannualized-franchise starting to become as rushed as the annualized franchise (hopefully the 2013 releases are an anomaly due to the console generation transition, but we'll have to wait to see how the 2014 and 2015 releases fare).-
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UDraw on Wii sold 1.7 million units when THQ announced the decision to make a 360 / PS3 version. http://www.shacknews.com/article/68318/thq-bringing-udraw-tablet-to
Of course that's during a time when almost all Wii properties were tailing off, and after the plastic peripheral console game accessory market had fallen off after the cancellation of Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
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Hm, I actually saw it as a big step down from their last 3 outings. Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld were far better in terms of gameplay. I just played TR (picked it up when the price went below $10) and it's full of quicktime events (argh) and combat (where the series has always been weakest).
A pretty engine didn't make the game any more fun to play.-
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I think the openness of the levels was a plus, but it was used minimally (how many rabbits and deer are you going to hunt? exactly enough to up XP and salvage to max out skills and weapons). It was pretty easy to get lost in some of the levels as well.
The other games had plenty of openness in exploring the tombs. In fact I don't recall nearly as many gates and cutscenes as in this latest outing.
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I am also surprised since they must have sold a hell of a lot of $10 copies last year to make it profitable. At least a lot more than they would have had to if the price stayed higher for longer.
I am wondering if this is an example of how making a game reasonably priced and selling more copies can make a game money rather than making it expensive and selling it to a few. I would like to know how many cheap copies were sold and how much money they made that way.
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I remember advertising for it, they HAD to dump a ton into it.
2 months leading up to the game I probably say 10-20 commercials a day for it. As a matter of fact I'm STILL seeing adds for it once every 2-3 days.
Stop with all the tv spots, stick to the video game magazines, put out a demo and you'll make the money! -
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