Topic: Ubisoft Comments on Avatar's Disappointing Sales

[NWR_pap64]

Ubisoft CEO blames the film's release date on the game's failure.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=20786

 In a recent conference call, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has expressed his concerns over Avatar's failure across all consoles. Despite the movie being a box office success the videogame game adaptation has been both a critical and commercial failure, not appearing on the NPD's top 20 best sellers list. According to the CEO, the film's late December release date affected the game's overall performance.    

"We knew we were taking [some risk]," Guillemot stated. "The fact that the movie was coming in December was a potential problem, and it did result in a problem."    

Guillemot expresses further that buying the rights to a film about to be released in December will be harder in the future. "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]. It doesn't work as well for a video game company."    

The Ubisoft CEO has also expressed that the limited development time also affected the game's overall quality, stating that "We want to make sure with those kinds of games, we have time to polish as much as we want. The pressure of the release of the movie is always difficult in our industry, so I would say our goal in the future is to make sure we can have those games ready a long time in advance."    

CFO Alain Martinez, however, still believes that the game could become a profitable success in the long run, explaining that "Avatar is not a loss-making project. When we lose 1 million sales [from our projections], that's about 30 million euros in sales and 65 or 70 percent of gross margin that has been lost."

[pyrokamileon]

Obviously December is a bad time to release a product, I mean look how poor the movie did...

[EasyCure]

I was just surprised that this wasn't another 3rd party blaming wii. Wow! I wonder if no one bought it because, well, licensed games tied to movies seldom come out good?

[NWR_pap64]

I've yet to see a licensed game do well, or at least break half a million.


Easycure: The CEO was talking in general. None of the versions of the game broke the top 20. So the game is a failure overall.

[NWR_insanolord]

My reaction to TV commercials of this game, which I assumed used footage from the HD consoles, was that it looked awful compared to the movie. There are those that believe the 360 and PS3 approach photo-realism, but this instance really drives home how much of a distance there is between game graphics and movie CG.

[ThomasO]

I've yet to see a licensed game do well, or at least break half a million.

If it counts, some Disney games on the Super Nintendo managed to break a million: Aladdin, The Lion King, and Magical Quest, to name a few.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I've yet to see a licensed game do well, or at least break half a million.

If it counts, some Disney games on the Super Nintendo managed to break a million: Aladdin, The Lion King, and Magical Quest, to name a few.

Everyone learned their lesson after the unfortunately wildly successful Enter the Matrix.

This is how you fill up pre-owned game shelves.

[NWR_pap64]

I've yet to see a licensed game do well, or at least break half a million.

If it counts, some Disney games on the Super Nintendo managed to break a million: Aladdin, The Lion King, and Magical Quest, to name a few.

Funny you should mention that...

Both Lion King and Aladdin were made to create hype and awareness of each film, yet you wouldn't know that if you played them. They may not have been stellar but the graphics actually managed to capture the look of the films, as well as the sound and music.

If Ubisoft had been able to truly replicate Avatar with great gameplay would it have been a bigger success?

[EasyCure]

Easycure: The CEO was talking in general. None of the versions of the game broke the top 20. So the game is a failure overall.

I know Pap, i read the article..

I was just a pleasant surprise that the CEO didn't throw in some anti-wii statement in there somewhere, given the atmosphere of the industry as of late.

My reaction to TV commercials of this game, which I assumed used footage from the HD consoles, was that it looked awful compared to the movie. There are those that believe the 360 and PS3 approach photo-realism, but this instance really drives home how much of a distance there is between game graphics and movie CG.

So i wasn't the only one who thought that huh? I actually thought i was watching footage from a PSP version of the game though, it looked awful.

[broodwars]

I've yet to see a licensed game do well, or at least break half a million.

Batman: Arkham Asylum, unless you were specifically referring to movie-based games.

[NWR_pap64]

I've yet to see a licensed game do well, or at least break half a million.

Batman: Arkham Asylum, unless you were specifically referring to movie-based games.

I was referring to movie based games. Even though they are made to ride off the hype and success of a movie I've yet to see the game versions do just as well as the movie.

As an example, Ice Age 3 is currently the biggest animated movie of the year. You would think that with that kind of success people would pick up the game in the same manner as Enter the Matrix. Yet not a peep. Same with Up, same with Monster vs. Aliens, and note that these are games based on family movies, which should have a big following.

[King of Twitch]

If there were a shortcut that easy, turd parties would've found it by now.

[Chozo Ghost]

Ubisoft should start licensing Uwe Boll's movies and making video games based on them.

[Chozo Ghost]

But seriously, at least this game flopped on all platforms which means there won't be the usual Nintendo directed blame this time around.

[GearBoxClock]

Good games usually do well. This isn't a good game. It's mediocre at best.

[BlackNMild2k1]

But seriously, at least this game flopped on all platforms which means there won't be the usual Nintendo directed blame this time around.

It's because there was a Wii version that the game became a critical and commercial failure.
If they did not have to spread out resources to create a Wii version then they could have used that time and resources to add the polish that was needed to make this game truly capture the experience of the movie.

The Ubisoft CEO has also expressed that the limited development time also affected the game's overall quality, stating that "We want to make sure with those kinds of games, we have time to polish as much as we want. The pressure of the release of the movie is always difficult in our industry, so I would say our goal in the future is to make sure we can have those games ready a long time in advance."

Avatar has been in the making for 14 years. 14 YEARS!!!
how much time to you need to finish the game?

Add the following to my post: :

indeed.

[Deguello]

Jeez, is it ever a third party's fault for anything these days?

[Chozo Ghost]

Zap called them "turd parties", which I think is hilarious. That's how we should all refer to them from now on. Lol.

[TJ Spyke]

Avatar has been in the making for 14 years. 14 YEARS!!!
how much time to you need to finish the game?

To clarify for those who don't know (I know BlackNMild is joking), James Cameron first came up with the idea of Avatar in 1994 and he intended to start making it after releasing Titanic in 1996. He changed his mind though because he didn't think special effects were advanced enough to make the movie he wanted. In 2005 he finally though special effects were good enough and started working on the movie.

The game got terrible reviews. Maybe they might have gotten a few more sales if they released it on the same day, but I think it still would have done terribly.

pap, many licenses games do "well" (by which I mean they sell enough to make a profit). If you mean big sellers, the PS2 version alone of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" sold 2.51 million, the PS2 version of "Spider-Man 2" sold 1.93 million, the PS2 version of "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" sold 1.7 million, etc. Movie based licensed games usually sell pretty well. If you want to count games based on movie licenses but not based on specific movies, you could add games like "007: Agent Under Fire" to the list of million sellers.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Zap called them "turd parties", which I think is hilarious. That's how we should all refer to them from now on. Lol.

My vocabulary has increased tremendously.

[King of Twitch]

That's how we should all refer to them from now on. Lol.

That might make things confusing. According to google, that term is already in use... by soccer moms no less.

[Chozo Ghost]

The game got terrible reviews. Maybe they might have gotten a few more sales if they released it on the same day, but I think it still would have done terribly.

That's just flat out wrong. The film is both a critical and commercial success.

From Wikipedia:

The film received generally positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 82% of 246 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.4 out of 10.[147] Among Rotten Tomatoes's Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs,[148] the film holds an overall approval rating of 94%, based on a sample of 35 reviews.[149] The site's general consensus is that "It might be more impressive on a technical level than as a piece of storytelling, but Avatar reaffirms James Cameron's singular gift for imaginative, absorbing filmmaking."[147] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 84 based on 35 reviews.[150]

Edit: My mistake, you were talking about the game. I thought you meant the film, so that was definitely my bad. Please disregard this post.

[that Baby guy]

I didn't like the movie very much, so there was no chance I'd waste my time even touching the game.

But generally, I don't play licensed games unless they're approached with a different or unique philosophy, a la Astro Boy on the GBA or Batman: Arkham Asylum.

[Dirk Temporo]

Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that licensed games are all mediocre trash piles, right Ubisoft?

If you didn't like Avatar, you probably hate filmmaking.

[Chozo Ghost]

The Lord of the Rings games on the Gamecube weren't too bad. They did deviate from the movie a good deal, but then again the movies also deviated from the books, so its all good...