In case you hadn't heard, or hadn't assumed, James Cameron's Avatar: The Game sucks and its sales suck too. Much like any good game developer who has a flop game that was supposed to be a major seller, Ubisoft has begun to march in the excuses. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot laid them out in a recent company conference call. It turns out that it's the movie's fault (came out at the wrong time), the holiday's fault (missed the holiday sales window) and release schedule's fault (couldn't hold on to post-holiday sales), but it is not because the game sucked.
"We knew we were taking [some risk]," Guillemot said. "The fact that the movie was coming in December was a potential problem, and it did result in a problem." Ubi thought the game might continue to sell well in the new year but it followed the traditional post-holiday declining sales curve.
"It will be difficult in the future to buy rights to a movie that comes in December, because it's too risky, and it cannot [capture] Christmas season [sales]," he added. "It doesn't work as well for a video game company."
Guillernot went on to say that the short development cycle on tie-in games was also to blame for the overall quality of the game and that Ubisoft would be doing far less movie tie-ins and focusing more on putting out high-quality offerings of its established franchises.
What is so great about all of this is that it completely and totally contradicts every word that came out of Ubisoft's mouth at E3 last year. Avatar was a centerpiece of their press conference, with James Cameron rambling on about it for more than 30 minutes and the devs discussing how they had had unparalleled access to the film and plenty of time to work on the game. They even discussed how major movie tie-in games were a big part of Ubisoft's future plans in becoming a multimedia giant. Ubi claims that the poor sales of Avatar were not that bad, but if that is the case why does it sound like the company has completely changed their business plans based around the sales of this game?
Ubisoft CEO Guillemot Explans What Went Wrong With Avatar [Gamasutra]
Contest:
3:00 PM on 01.16.2010
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And of course the game sucks. Movie tie-in = suck.
-We saw the movie, so now we don't need to play the game.
-People have got use to ignoring movie tie-ins
-We, as gamers, do not like James Cameron because he says mean things about us.
Money, dear boy.
[b][size=200]AAARGH
AAAARGH
AAAAAARRRRGH[/b][/size]
^^;
Whoa that's a weird typo.
/sarcasm
I saw this tipe of mumbo jambo before.
They will continue to make bad movies adaptations. They can´t sell millions of copies (generaly) but the development it's low budget, without polishment and the marketing it's almost for free so...
Regardless if the game sucked or not - the games would have sold well in other sales period simply due to the strength of the movie. Who the fuck buys non-clearance games right after christmas?
We didn't want it because Halo came out in 2001.
Dohohoho.
Well, that and it just outright sucked.
Phew glad I could fix that.
If they don't see the marketing problem here, I recommend they fire everyone and hire me instead. Alternatively, they could hire a monkey, dress him in a suit, and he could tell them the same thing half the time.
MovieGames will most likely never ever make a lot of money (dunno how X-Men Origins Wolverine did) unless they had been working on the game to make it a game and it's not really tied to the movie at all except for story elements. And then there is only a chance.
"The game was so repetitive and the gameplay was so awkward that I took it back to Blockbuster the second day without unlocking for than 100 achievement points."
Sounds like you're describing ac2. srsly, ubi makes some of the most overrated crap ever. splinter cell? sucks. GRAW? sucks. R6? sucks. FarCry? sucks. PoP? sucks. AC? definitely sucks. Am I missing something? how do they remain in business?
Hope that cleared up your little mystery moment for you.
Releasing it before the movie was an absolutely retarded decision.
The movie's simplistic, uninteresting plot that bordered on melodrama, and the cast of shallow, one dimensional characters (everyone but Sully), basically ruined every other thing the movie did well, like the exploration of the Na'vai culture, the extraordinary setting, etc.
People who are replying to say "Thats your opinion, man" are fucking wheedling idiots. This is not opinion; it is fact.
That's just, like, your opinion, man.
But that's just your opinion too...? And this is mine?!
O_O
It seems... dialogue is impossible!
cause wolverine was actually fun to play, and the real time damage system was one of the best ever made.
Even old Batman games sold, despite being complete crap off the power of Batman movies...that were crap (talking the Joel Schumaker years. I know I spelled his name wrong, that man doesn't deserve the respect of a correctly spelled name).
Even if it were pong with the the head of one of the blue aliens for the ball (hmm, that could work on Xbox Arcade, I bet), it should have sold okay to some customers who are more casual gamers and don't know better.
Maybe this is all a brilliant marketing ploy in reverse psychology. I had no interest in the game, but now I have to rent it. My curiosity is too high to just how bad it must be.
If you think it's a game that sucks, go and play rogue warrior and shellshock and then you might notice the difference between a game thats flawed but solid and outright sucking.