Tomb Raider, Hitman, Sleeping Dogs all failed Square Enix

Back for yet another look at the current industry. Here is a clue it's seriously messed up and over bloated.

Despite each game clearing at least a million sales, Square Enix has revealed Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs all failed to meet their targets. This news comes on the same day the company projected a 13 billion yen loss and saw its president resign.

The company particularly points its finger at the North American market. They claim 2/3 of these sales are from the European market. Shame on The NA market.



The publisher's report is yet more evidence of the so-called "AAA" market's downward spiral, where you can't even be considered a success in the face of selling millions of copies. Mainstream video games have officially gone wrong.

They are AAA. But the market to support them less and less exist.

Enix's strategy of buying foreign IP to get themselves more local colours seem to have failed.

Maybe the biggest earners in those deals were the sellers of the IP. Enix not making the sales to cover the costs, it might include that they did not recoup their franchise investment.

Best thing might come: Enix selling the IP, and pooof, next games based on the IP are resounding five millions sales.

Hitman is currently on sale at Steam for less than 8€.

Maybe it's as simple as their specific NA market strategy failing. NA is by far the biggest market. Missing your targets there by a big margin means trouble.

If you look at the whole report you'll see that Squeenix only missed their revenue projections by ca. 5%. Not all that much. So maybe there's other trouble too.

I've read an editorial on GamersGlobal yesterday (on a different topic but with reference to Hitman), which made me think that maybe Squeenix has gone too far on the path of making AAA games overloaded, faceless feature lists. Who the fuck needs bonus / malus points for everything and achievements in a game like Hitman? Achievement pop-ups mean pulling the player out of the game world.

Another point might be that the their sales expectations were simply unrealistic. Tomb Raider is a reboot of a franchise way beyond its peak. The last Hitman game was before the war. Sleeping Dogs was a new IP, which is a risk.

I found it surprising too that they don't mention digital distribution (aka "The PC platform" nowadays) at all. Their report talks about failed console games. Almost all PC ports were outsourced to the same Dutch studio, which according to the reviews reliably delivered excellent quality. The ports must have earned Squeenix many millions - and they don't mention the whole platform with a single word?!

Gorath said:

I found it surprising too that they don't mention digital distribution (aka "The PC platform" nowadays) at all. Their report talks about failed console games. Almost all PC ports were outsourced to the same Dutch studio, which according to the reviews reliably delivered excellent quality. The ports must have earned Squeenix many millions - and they don't mention the whole platform with a single word?!

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As far as I know steam doesn't allow posting official sales numbers.Many devs/publishers say how much approximately they sold but they can't post official numbers.

Squeenix certainly uses more than one distribution platform for the PC.

Their report completely denies the existence of the PC platform at all though.

That always bugs me with excepted sales reports. Digital numbers are always hard to find. Someone has them there just not released publicly.

They either spent more than they should during development of or spent to much on advertising. There are many factors to factor in. Still even with the sale figures given they should of made some profit.

Yes, we're definitely their biggest customers! (Zloth looks at his waistline) I mean market! Biggest MARKET! <ahem>

Missing a target isn't losing money, though. It's hard to tell (at least from what I know) where that 13 billion yen loss is coming from. Assuming it's all from those three games sounds like a really bad bet to me, though. We know, for instance, that they are working on a new engine for next gen consoles. That's not cheap and it won't start earning returns until next year.

Ah thanks for the heads up Gorath I've been waiting for the latest hitman to go on sale.

Mis-reading from my side : "Tomb Raider : Hitman"

I fear that this mis-reading might reveal a bit more truth then it was intended to.

Tomb Raider - many, many older gamer remember this game as an almost … well, from today's view almost "family friendly" game … This reboot is oriented towards newer gaming generations - and it is not family-friendl at all, despite of the developer's efforts to say it is. It is just too "dark & gritty" for some people.

So, in my opinion, Tomb Raider might be a twofold thing : A success for those who like games in that style - and a failure for those who just don't.
What we don't know at all, hoever, is, how big each group actually is.

Another thing might pop in there : All of tjhse games are loosely "shooter" games.

It might be - I recently thought - that the market is lready over-saturated of the shooter genre. Maybe, people want something new ? Something fresh ?

Not mentioning the PC platform is something odd, indeed.
Wasn't Square Enix mainly a console company ? Maybe they don't have that high priorities for the PC platform at all ?

I wonder.

Square Enix should cut the crap and finally make Fullmetal Alchemist nomobrespawn RPG. For PC.