Marketing Let Enslaved Down

Speaking with Gamasutra, Tameem Antoniades, Chief Creative Officer of Ninja Theory, explains that a new IP needs a big sales push to have a chance at being seen, and bought, by consumers.

”But it needed support, it needed a drive, a big push, and I don’t think it necessarily got that. I really kind of hate it when people make, say, ‘Oh, marketing didn’t support it,’ but a new IP needs to be visible, and I didn’t feel like it was. A lot of people still even haven’t heard of the game.”

He also expressed confusion at seeing Publishers under-spend on marketing for new IP’s.

”Why bet on triple-A if you’re not going to spend for triple-A? You can’t have it both ways. But, you know, I think we’re proud as a team that we’ve got the game done, we got it on time. We thought that we did our job.”

Enslaved received generally positive reviews, and was more or less enjoyed by the people who bought the game. However it didn’t sell as many copies as hoped, selling 730,000 units as of April this year. Ninja Theory is currently working on the new Devil May Cry game for Capcom.

While I don’t think marketing was the only reason the game faltered, I’m sure it played a big role. I’m sure the pricing played a large part as well. After all, who’d be willing to spend $60(or more, for people outside of the US) on a game they haven’t heard or know nothing about?

Via – Eurogamer