MyReviewPoint

All eyes are on MadWorld, can we get this out there before we continue with our editorial? While there are no “official” NPD data records for March, gamers, both Wii owners and non Wii owners, are battling each other on the forums trying to defend their opinions over suspected sales data. Many within the gaming industry believe that MadWorld would be a clear indication if a traditional “core” title can sell on the Wii. The immense scrutiny that MadWorld and its publisher Sega is facing is astounding, given the title released the same week as Resident Evil 5 and its an original IP. I bought MadWorld just last week after renting it from GameFly. The price: $30.99 after a $5.00 member discount and 10% off the Keep It Price. Sega gave Wii owners 2 new titles aimed at satiating their hunger for a core game, yet the first title House of the Dead:Overkill only sold 45K copies in February. What is causing the delay in purchases of core titles? What caused me to finally purchase what I personally feel is a “must have” action game for the Wii? It’s simple; PRICE.

No More Heroes, Okami, House of the Dead 2 & 3, and Resident Evil 4:Wii Edition, all have enjoyed varying degrees of sales success on the Nintendo Wii. While some of these titles definitely outperformed expectations, they all shared a commonality: PRICE. Despite being released at $49.99, No More Heroes quickly dropped to a more “mass market” price of $29.99 shortly after release. The title continues to sell and has amassed a cult following and great Word of Mouth Marketing from gamers. House of the Dead 2 & 3, which has recently amassed 1 million sales worldwide, released at a very manageable $29.99 for a compilation of 5 year old Arcade titles. Capcom hit gold once again with Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition as those who already owned the title double dipped, or in some cases triple dipped for this amazing title for $29.99 and then $19.99. Okami, to a lesser extent debuted at $39.99, but then saw a sales spike as it dropped to $29.99.

While the Wii currently leads the console generation with almost 45 million owners, the audience is more unpredictable as to its current game purchases. The titles just mentioned have all benefitted from very long sales legs at retail because of their prices and strong following. While “core” gamers traditionally purchase several titles, they can become more selective as time and money become a factor. The common phrase of “BackLog” comes to mind. By keeping the price of these titles below $30.00, publishers can reach the “mass market” and the “core” as they will inherently make additional “impulse” game purchases. Word of Mouth can also help increase sales as many of us rely on our friends opinions and input.

So lets look quickly at House of the Dead:Overkill and MadWorld. These two titles share many elements in common. Both are published by Sega. Both are fantastic games for their respective genres. Both were designed for the Wii from the ground up from talented development teams. And both received strong reviews amongst experts and gaming publications. However, the two titles also shared 2 additional elements that might be causing delay in sales. HOTD:Overkill is inherently an arcade game released on a home console only that lasts at most 4 hours and costs $49.99. MadWorld, a creative masterpiece for an action brawler, clocks in at 6 to 8 hours and also costs $49.99. There are so many choices for gamers today that length and cost are definitive factors in when and if they purchase a game. HOTD:Overkill sold through 45K copies in February against the first Street Fighter sequel in 10 years. MadWorld released the same week as Resident Evil 5, easily the most anticipated game of the year thus far. MadWorld and House of the Dead:Overkill were not designed for the Wii Sports family, it was designed for the Street Fighter / Resident Evil type of gamer. Would these titles have sold stronger if they released at $39.99 or dare I suggest, $29.99? At those price points, the core crowd impulsively buys games. So what if its 4 hours, its 4 hours of great gaming and it only cost $30 bucks right? What about the developer and publisher, this is a business right? Consider the following for a moment, the February sales data of HOTD:Overkill. With 45,000 copies sold at the retail price of $49.99, Sega earned almost 2.3 million dollars.
Now imagine that with each $10 dollar drop, you hypothetically can double your sales. If Sega drops the price to $39.99, it may move 90,000 units equaling 3.6 million in sales. If they slash it again, 90,000 may turn into 180,000 units at $29.99 totaling another 3.6 million in sales. So now Sega has sold through 315,000 units and earned almost 10 million in revenue. Sure its a theory, but 1 million units sold of House of the Dead 2 & 3 at $29.99 or $19.99 says that I might be on to something here.

Price will always remain an important factor in the overall success of a title. Marketing and Reviews can only reach a finite audience. Fast Food Restaurants introduced the “dollar menu” to help spur impulsive additional buys at the register, and game publishers can entice the core audience who own a Wii similarly if they price accordingly.

House of the Dead

2009 has started off very strong for the Nintendo Wii, especially if you are a long time traditional gamer.  In the first week of February, not one, but THREE games were released that are geared towards the salivating traditional core gamer on the Wii.  House of the Dead: Overkill, Tenchu 4, and Deadly Creatures are all receiving solid reviews from the well known video game news outlets and luckily yesterday, I bought Deadly Creatures..

Deadly Creatures, the latest title from Rainbow Studios and THQ, is geared towards the traditional gamer crowd, who throughout the entire second half of 2008, had very little to play or praise for the Nintendo Wii.  Immediately upon reaching the title screen, gamers will know they are in for a treat because of the terrific soundtrack and exceptional character models and movement.  Even scrolling through the menus, you are bound to be impressed by the small details that Rainbow carefully included.

Upon jumping into the game, you are greeted with the chilling barotone voice of Billy Bob Thorton.  Thorton voices one of the only two human characters in the game, the other is voiced by Dennis Hopper.  The first character you’ll play as is the freakishly real looking tarrantula.  The character models for all of the creatures are absolutely fantastic.  As I maneuvered my way with the giant spider, I felt almost uneasy at times due in part to the realism of the creatures and the dark atmospheric soundtrack and sound effects.  Not to be outdone by the character models, the level design is also top notch.  The “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” like perspective is compelling and the detailed dessert plants, caves, and even discarded human elements like a bike wheel bring the world of these creatures to life.   Yes, I am already glowing about this game, as I play the first level.  I haven’t had this experience with a Wii game since Okami.

Rainbow Studios clearly invested their creativity in developing the concept of this video game and then used their talents to execute their imaginative vision.  They also implemented clever uses of the Wii Remote’s motion control along with traditional button prompts.  Moving the speedy spider is fluid and easy, although because it can crawl on walls and even upside down, I did find myself disoriented and going the wrong direction a few times.   Nothing too drastic to make you frustrated, but still worth mentioning.   At the end of the first level, you will encounter the first boss, a giant, lifelike rattlesnake.  It was an awesome moment as the snake slid into its position and reared its head back with its fangs exposed.  Rainbow Studios has done a great job of making the interactions between the creatures very cinematic.

The next chapter of the game introduces you to the scorpion that you will control.  The scorpion is way slower than the tarrantula, but his move set is more varied and his context sensitive kill moves are awesome.  Did you say “context sensitive kill moves”?  Yup, the scorpion once it inflicts enough damage can finish its enemies off with specific Wii remote and nunchuk gestures.  Again, well envisioned and well executed by the design team.  Playing as the scorpion I don’t feel as uneasy as I do when I am playing as the tarrantula, however, the small sound effect of his six legs walking is creeping me out and making it feel like this deadly creature is in the room.

I have finished the first 4 chapters of this game in about 2 1/2 hours on Normal difficulty.  I am loving every minute of this game so far and the characters don’t even talk.  THQ and Rainbow Studios should be rewarded for this type of effort for a unique original IP on the Nintendo Wii.  If you like video games that offer rewarding gameplay, strong graphics, a cinematic feel, and an outstanding atmosphere and soundtrack, then RUN to your local store and pick it up.

In the last few days, there have been a few reports published regarding trepidation from 3rd party developers that are developing or have released “hardcore titles” on the Wii.  These developers are mostly concerned with the actual sales totals of their titles on a console that current does not feature or cater to the hardcore demographic of traditional video games.  If you follow the gaming industry, you are well aware of the stigma that follows all 3rd party publishers and their reported struggle to gain “success on Wii” with their game releases.  So we wanted to ask the question, what defines “success on the Wii” for a 3rd party?  Is the sole success measurement for a Wii hardcore title how it measures up at retail?  We examine why core titles that are released on Wii should be viewed as independent movies are in the film industry, as they help add diversity to the overall Wii game selection and deliver solid sales despite possibly missing the coveted platinum status.

Video Games despite it being an incredibly enjoyable form of entertainment, is a business.  And with every business, your sole objective is to make money.  Its simple.  That is why so much of a developers success rests solely on how well their title does at retail.  Until 2009, there have been very few core gaming titles released on the Wii by 3rd party publishers as they had their internal studios and core title releases developed for the more traditional gamer’s consoles, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  The few core titles that were released, such as Ubisoft’s No More Heroes, and Capcom’s Zak and Wiki garnered favorable reviews, but in spite of the praise, published reports indicated that these titles weren’t selling well.  As of this writing, VGChartz.com, reports that worldwide there have been 390,000 copies of No More Heroes sold, and 530,000 copies of Zak and Wiki purchased life to date.   At first glance these totals might seem low and very troubling for a publisher or developer.  It might even lead them to believe that their “hardcore gamer” audience doesn’t exist on Wii.  They would be wrong to assume both of these theories.

Let’s look a bit closer at the true performance of these titles.  No More Heroes sells 390,000 copies worldwide.  Let’s say that the average purchase price is $25 since it did receive a few price drops.  This means that No More Heroes grossed over $9,750,000 dollars.  Now subtract the development costs of 3 million dollars, a marketing budget of $2,000,000, and a distribution cost of $2,000,000.  These are all estimates as I do not have access to the accurate totals, so I am speculating.  That leaves Ubisoft and Grasshopper Manufacturer, the developer, with a Net Profit of $2,750,000. An almost 3 million dollar net profit seems good for an original IP title released on a “casual gamer” console.  Similarly, if we look at Zak and Wiki from Capcom, we see that the title grossed $13,250,000 if we use the same average purchase price of $25.  Even with a more taxing budget, Zak and Wiki, must have returned an investment (ROI) of above 3 million dollars.

Some might argue that these small profits are not indication of a success for the publisher and that if these titles were released on a more “core gamer” console than they would perform better at retail.  One can speculate that this is the case, however, if you look at some very traditional core titles such as Virtua Fighter 5 Online, Too Human, and Unreal Tournament III released on the Xbox 360, you will find that these titles performed suprisingly poor for being released on the targeted audience’s console of choice.  The reported sales of those titles are 190,000 copies worldwide for Virtua Fighter 5 Online, 540,000 units sold for Too Human, and only 460,000 units for Unreal Tournament III.  Look towards a casual family title such as Rare’s Viva Pinata Series and the two titles combined have accounted for 620,000 sales, or an average of 310,000 copies sold per game. 

 Similar to the way that Independent Films provide a break from the traditional set of common film releases, a Wii hardcore title offers a distinct experience that differs from the flood of casual branded titles available to the current Wii audience.  Nintendo has been able to disrupt the environment of video games.  The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3’s main audience is the traditional gamer who do not stray from the genres or games that interest them the most. It is evident that even some successful IP’s have seen dimished returns with releases on these consoles.  The Wii on the other hand, has a more diverse audience.  While many Wii players are new generation gamers that gravitate towards casual oriented titles, a large section of core gamers own the console and will seek and purchase hardcore titles  Wii hardcore titles are the independent films for the console.  Some may break the million copies sold mark, while others will sell respectively in the mid to 3/4 of a million range.  All of them will provide entertainment and unique experiences to a loyal audience and that is successful.

**All Sales Figures are taken from VGChartz.com, a leading website in monitoring sales and marketing figures for the video game industry.  All development costs are speculative in my theories and are not factual.**