UFC Undisputed 2010 didn't quite sell as well as THQ was hoping, and rather than try to determine if there's a problem with the game, the marketing, or the simple fact that people might not want to buy an updated UFC once a year, THQ has instead decided to blame the popularity of another game. It's all Red Dead Redemption's fault!
"Our sales were softer than where we would have liked them to be," says UK marketing director Jon Rooke "We know our UFC and MMA fans have bought it, but we haven't delivered the broader sales yet.
"That's largely down to Red Dead Redmeption. Rockstar have probably taken a fair amount of our market share. They shipped 5m units, taking a lot of consumer dollars."
When one game is successful, it automatically prevents all other games from being successful. This is the logic employed by publishers and analysts. It's also rather silly logic.
THQ Blames Red Dead for UFC sales [CVG & MCV]
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Contest:
9:20 AM on 07.22.2010 | 
They don't buy games like we do. They are less likely to drop another $60 so quickly after buying the huge title their friends were talking about.
It's the same reason so many developers pulled their releases out of the holiday season last year. They didn't want to lose customers to MW2.
Okay,less stupidly,they could hold off on yearly updates to games that very few people buy for the roster of athletes unless they make major adjustments to the gameplay and leave that madness for Madden.
I. Am. Shocked.
Well no wonder it didn't do so well - you were selling it in the wrong currency! :3
Honestly, you can't say that it didn't contribute to the losses either. It most likely did, but obviously not as much as they make it out to be.
I got the same feeling with Alan Wake. I really wanted to blame RDR, but at the end of the day, it lacked a demo, Microsoft got cold feet with the marketing after their GDC promises and the game turned out to be a survival horror at heart. It would have been DOA without RDR's release date anyway. Still, blaming RDR is just quicker to write.
Sorry, not into homoerotic groping games with half-naked men laying on top of one another.
I totally agree with THQ on this however, it was a tough decision to buy UFC right after buying RDR, however because I enjoyed the first one so much and the demo showed of just how improved this years was i HAD TO have it.
i was rather disapponted by the completely borked online portion though. Don't know if it's fixed yet as I have an update issue with my PS3 (need to find a week where i can go without it and have her looked at by my insurance company's rapairmen - installs and updates fail at 14% everytime. Wierd)
if it has been fixed however (the online portion of UFC, not my PS3) I will be super stoked. I used to play the old one online for real money (bringit.com) and it was hella hella hella super fun.
I really can't wait to get into online UFC fighting with the new improved game!!!
But yeah, release the same time as Rockstar's latest game and no doubt some of your thunder will mysteriously go missing, many many many non-blog-reading gamers rock up at the game store and buy one game, every few weeks/month/few months. not like us who are all like "shit 3 games out on Friday, right I'm gonna need to trade this this and that in and gather £x together to go buy these three on release day!"
We are the minority people.
Then again, I never quite understood the need to buy an updated sports title every year, then again, I do not buy sports games.
Still...is there a lot of crossover between the two audiences? I've yet to hear anyone I know who has RDR say "eh, I was going to get UFC, but decided on RDR."
Perhaps your gay:)
Now if it were only fun to play.
I am actually more interested in EA's MMA game right now. The fighters look like themselves, and I've heard good things about the flow of the fights. Here's hoping they don't Madden it every year, either...
He even acknowledges that the games core audience bought the game. Red Dead hardly stole 'their' market share.
It seems pretty obvious that when products are fighting for limited consumer dollars, that the overwhelming success of one will diminish the other's success somewhat. It's the degree that's unknown. It's certainly not the only factor, but it is a factor.
I mean, the lean system was enough for me. that and the whole combo's no longer needing to be set series of moves ala Tekken, now being able to string together ANY moves into combos is a winner in my book.
Seriously UFC 10 makes UFC 09 look shite. - That's why i bought it.
Seriously though, I got RDR and have limited monies, which means I didn't get something else. While it's still a cop out it's not without some merit.
If a game is good, people will find a way. I still got Mario Galaxy 2 even though I couldn't really afford it, and even though Read Dead took up all my time, simply because it was that good.
How about this one THQ: try not being a yearly interation. It's a lot harder to get people to buy a game they just bought last year - even if it is improved in every way. I'll betcha Madden sales of any given year are comprised mostly of people who bought it 2+ years ago (plus a very small segment of die-hard fans and even fewer new entries to the series). If you do it every other year, you'll have more features to harp on and more people will be more excited about it in general.
But seriously folks, THQ isn't whining. They're stating a fact. People from group A (consisting of the MMA fanbase) bought their game more than people from group B (those not of the MMA fanbase). And odds are that if UFC released in a vacuum, then more people would've bought it.
I mean this is just marketing common sense. You don't WANT your game to come out a week after a monster Game of the Year (ish) game. Why do you think Medal of Honor is squatting on an October release nearly a full month before COD? Remember too how Red Dead delayed its release at the final stretch. UFC was supposed to have a nice little buffer to sell their game, but that plan went to shit after Rockstar shifted to May. Welcome to the world of, well, every entertainment release ever.