Aliens: Colonial Marines has been through the wringer for a variety of reasons, but despite all the bad publicity, the game sold 1.31 million units since it released on February 12, according to Sega's year-end financials.
The report, which covers the year ended March 31, shows the game was one of Sega's best selling titles, with Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed performing slightly better at 1.36 million units sold, followed by Football Manager 2013 and the Olympics tie-in game London 2012.
The game has gone through numerous large patches to improve the game. Sega has had to deal with a lawsuit over its ad campaign for the game, and weathered a debate over why the game was released in such a poor condition.
So despite pretty much all publications giving this game negative reviews, it still sold quite well. Go figure.. It just goes to show that even a turd can sell copies as long as it has name recognition. COD anyone? haha..
It does bring up an interesting question though. How did this game sell that many with such crap reviews, but other well reviewed games sell much less? I assume they are including console sales, which as we know with this generation people throw money at complete trash.
It does bring up an interesting question though. How did this game sell that many with such crap reviews, but other well reviewed games sell much less? I assume they are including console sales, which as we know with this generation people throw money at complete trash.
Adam Sandler is a great example of that. He hasn't made a good movie in 20 years but still sells out, double entendre intended
SimCity sold 1.6million copies despite almost universally negative reviews. Both are established franchises. People buy what they recognize, even if it is a turd.
The theory is SqEnix is throwing Eidos under the bus. They'll point to those games as the reason for a bad quarter while Japan will get a pass (how much $ has FF14 burned through at this point).Curious though, Square was disappointed with the ~3M that Tomb Raider did but Sega is happy with 1.3M on Aliens. Huh?
The theory is SqEnix is throwing Eidos under the bus. They'll point to those games as the reason for a bad quarter while Japan will get a pass (how much $ has FF14 burned through at this point).
1) A lot of those purchases were pre-orders, before reviews came out.
2) Not everyone looks at reviews. (Think of Average Joe. He's bored, goes to the store to buy a new video game, sees A:CM and buys it because the artwork looks cool and it has "Aliens" in the title.)
3) The game had a lot of hype behind it. It was obvious from the beginning that it would be a mediocre corridor shooter, but apparently some people had really high expectations for it (I'm not sure why).
4) Aliens fans. They will buy it because, you know, Aliens.