• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Callisto Protocol underperformed for investors. They expected 5 million sold. Currently expecting under 2 million now

Bxrz

Bxrz

Banned
Dec 18, 2020
1,902
Also has a budget of 162 million to develop


View: https://twitter.com/BenjiSales/status/1614034139308781569

m.k-odyssey.com

Krafton′s 200 billion-paid new game sluggish...securities companies lowering target stock prices

SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) - Krafton[259960]′s new ＂Callisto Protocol,＂ which was released last month ata cost of about 200 billion won over three years, is observed to badly influenc
m.k-odyssey.com m.k-odyssey.com

Samsung Securities [016360] predicted in a stock report earlier this month, "The company expected cumulative sales of 5 million copies, but considering the current sales ranking, cumulative sales of 2 million copies will not be easy until this year."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Korea Investment & Securities also lowered its cumulative sales estimate of the Callisto Protocol from 4 million to 2.1 million on the previous day, and lowered its operating profit estimate for this year from 813 billion won to 629.3 billion won.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Gamers' reviews are also negative. Although graphics and sound technology are excellent, the length of the game is too short to be cleared in about seven to eight hours, and the stage formation is also simple.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Last edited:
DJwest

DJwest

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,155
I guess the critical reception played a significant role. I bought it day one because I want to support single player games like these
 
Papercuts

Papercuts

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,047
Bad word of mouth, high price tag, short game--shocking!

Felt like it had a lot of momentum heading into release, and I really would love to get more games in this genre...but yeah, bummer how this turned out.
 
gothi

gothi

Prophet of Truth
Member
Jun 23, 2020
4,433
Bxrz said:
m.k-odyssey.com

Krafton′s 200 billion-paid new game sluggish...securities companies lowering target stock prices

SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) - Krafton[259960]′s new ＂Callisto Protocol,＂ which was released last month ata cost of about 200 billion won over three years, is observed to badly influenc
m.k-odyssey.com m.k-odyssey.com
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That quote calling out the game's length is troubling. There absolutely is a place for 8-9 hour experiences, especially high quality ones. I'd hate to see Callisto Protocol's under-performance lead to another game that's 30-40 hours long but really should be 10-15.
 
ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
these are analyst predictions/guesses. not as valuable since it's not from the publisher
 
Doctor_Thomas

Doctor_Thomas

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,666
I think 5m was a high target for it.

New franchise and hinging on the fact that it had some people who worked on a similar, much better, game.

I wanted to like it, but the combat was so bad that I didn't even finish it despite the short length.
 
Masagiwa

Masagiwa

Member
Jan 27, 2018
9,903
200 billion won (160-ish million USD) to develop this game? Holy shit
having a sales expectation as an investor of 5 million copies around launch for a new horror ip like this is unrealistic as hell unless you are RE
 
The Bookerman

The Bookerman

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,124
I think it's a good game, i like it a lot but if you tried to play it outside ps5, you were gonna get bad performance hits. It's rough.
 
RisingStar

RisingStar

Banned
Oct 8, 2019
4,849
It probably would've if it was from a big name publisher and was critically acclaimed, to be honest.
 
CHC

CHC

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,247
Yikes, that's very off of the goals. Which seem 8th-gen-Square-Enix in terms of ambition for a first release of a linear action-horror game in 2022.

I liked the game OK, it was fun, but it's not good enough to make those numbers in this era of choice and customer sensitivity to value. Even as someone who enjoyed it for what it was, it's not really getting any word of mouth from me, like I wouldn't say anyone should rush out to get it.
 
Kalor

Kalor

Resettlement Advisor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,631
They expected 5 million for a new IP? Even RE8 took like 6 months to do that.
 
cabelhigh

cabelhigh

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,726
5 million seems crazy for a brand new horror IP. 2 million seems way more realistic even without the negative WoM
 
Afrikan

Afrikan

Member
Oct 28, 2017
17,028
Released too close to GOW Ragnarok imo... I think more PlayStation owners would have got it at launch, if it released in a different QTR.
 
poklane

poklane

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,950
the Netherlands
I think the big thing here is that Striking Distance Studios apparently received about 196 billion won, which is about $160mil, to develop the game. That's just an insane amount for a ~10 hour game.
gothi said:
That quote calling out the game's length is troubling. There absolutely is a place for 8-9 hour experiences, especially high quality ones. I'd hate to see Callisto Protocol's under-performance lead to another game that's 30-40 hours long but really should be 10-15.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
While I'd love to agree with you, the reality is that in this day and age such 30 hours experience exist, and on top of that people have access to plenty of games with their $10-$15/month Game Pass and PS+ subscriptions. Given those 2 things it's only to be expected that people really want to receive a lot of content when they spend $70 on a game.
 
Tobor

Tobor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,547
Richmond, VA
Is it just me or is the name terrible? I know it's not what killed the game, but I'm sure it didn't help. "Callisto Protocol" sounds like a 90's spy thriller.
 
Crossing Eden

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,406
Masagiwa said:
200 billion won (160-ish million USD) to develop this game? Holy shit
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Creating a cinematic game that's literally in the upper echelon of most impressive looking games ever made, from scratch, ain't cheap.

having a sales expectation as an investor of 5 million copies around launch for a new horror ip like this is unrealistic as hell unless you are RE
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They were expecting a dead space tier hit.
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,191
i mean, i'm not even much a Dead Space "fan" but i would've got at full price/near if the reviews were pretty great

i guess good news for me i can get it pretty cheap soon
 
CHC

CHC

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,247
carlsojo said:
WoM killing this game.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Definitely. I mean like I said above, even as someone who enjoyed the game for what it was, I'm not out here recommending it to people. It's just not great nor does it really cater to modern gaming "sensibilities," in that it's a linear game that doesn't offer much in the way of replayability, variety, set pieces, or storytelling.
 
skillzilla81

skillzilla81

Self-requested temporary ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,043
I skipped out because of the performance issues at launch.

Will pick it up on sale when I have time to play now.
 
Noctis Winters

Noctis Winters

Member
Sep 23, 2018
1,086
Isn't this game funded with PUBG money? Probably not a huge loss for them.

I was really interested in the game but all the chatter around it has been negative , really I need to look at some gameplay because I've been led astray before .
 
poklane

poklane

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,950
the Netherlands
Tobor said:
Is it just me or is the name terrible? I know it's not what killed the game, but I'm sure it didn't help. "Callisto Protocol" sounds like a 90's spy thriller.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, same with the key art honestly. Like if you looked at the image below, how would you ever know that it's a horror game?
the-callisto-protocol-art-HD.jpg

I'm no marketing guy, but when people look your game's key art they probably should be able to have some idea of what the game is, but nothing about this name or key art tells me it's a horror game.
 

Calvinien

Banned
Jul 13, 2019
2,970
gothi said:
That quote calling out the game's length is troubling. There absolutely is a place for 8-9 hour experiences, especially high quality ones. I'd hate to see Callisto Protocol's under-performance lead to another game that's 30-40 hours long but really should be 10-15.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Same. The big thing that seems to be missing from game dev/criticism vocabularies right now is REPLAY value.

I played through god of war 4. I won't ever sit through that again. But I'll play through the previous games with different artifacts/costumes.
Resident evil 6 is like 3 times longer than any other game in the series....and yet I have no reaso to play it again. But I will gladly do an initial equipment only run in re4. I just finished death stranding and I uninstalled it without playing the post game because 160 hours of that game was about 5 times too much. I replayed MGS3 like a dozen times trying out different gear like the secret camos, the ez gun, going full rambo or doing a full stealth run.
Games need to embrace secrets/unlockables and modifiers again and focus on creating a campaign that leaves us wanting a little more so we have the impetus to go back and play it with the new toys we unlocked or simply by trying different tactics.
 
Treestump

Treestump

Member
Mar 28, 2018
8,365
5 million for that is crazy. They can call it AAAA all they wanted but a poor launch causes bad word of mouth and that's going to kill sales right there. It needed to be better and expectations for sales numbers needed to be more realistic.

gothi said:
That quote calling out the game's length is troubling. There absolutely is a place for 8-9 hour experiences, especially high quality ones. I'd hate to see Callisto Protocol's under-performance lead to another game that's 30-40 hours long but really should be 10-15.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Even though I haven't played it yet I agree. Game length means nothing if it's well recieved and we've seen such results in sales numbers. Length needs to stop being blamed.
 
Meg Cherry

Meg Cherry

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,281
Seattle, WA
TheOrder1886isGreat said:
Isn't this game funded with PUBG money? Probably not a huge loss for them.

I was really interested in the game but all the chatter around it has been negative , really I need to look at some gameplay because I've been led astray before .
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sure, but as their first big forray into single player games this probably sets the tone for them bankrolling future projects like this.
 
FooF

FooF

One Winged Slayer
Member
Mar 24, 2020
686
who was coming up with these sales expectations? 2010s capcom? Even if the game came out perfect it wasn't hitting 5 million

edit: looked up the dead space 2 sales. It sold 2 million in it's opening week.
 
Casa

Casa

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,561
gothi said:
That quote calling out the game's length is troubling. There absolutely is a place for 8-9 hour experiences, especially high quality ones. I'd hate to see Callisto Protocol's under-performance lead to another game that's 30-40 hours long but really should be 10-15.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I would agree that there is a place for shorter games, but a full priced, $70 game that you can realistically beat in just one sitting is nuts.

Think 15-20 hours for a high quality, single-player only title is the sweet spot.
 
Lord Error

Lord Error

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,372
Maybe shouldn't have priced it $94 then. That's at least the price in Canada, and I think it makes it the most expensive regular edition game I've ever seen. I assume that its price in other regions is similarly higher than the already very high regular prices.
 
Veil

Veil

Member
Jun 4, 2022
89
Didn't we know what absurd sales number EA expected Dead Space 3 to sell? Was ir above or under 5M



They should have set Callisto protocol in the PUBG universe after all
 
Nida

Nida

Member
Aug 31, 2019
11,216
Everett, Washington
I'm surprised they went all out with the marketing. It's a brand new IP and they created a radio drama companion piece with celebrity voice actors.

I'm the prime target for this game but once I heard how reliant on dodging and using hand-to-hand combat the game is and how it's incredibly frustrating I sort of lost interest. I wanna shoot guns, not swing a baton.
 
gothi

gothi

Prophet of Truth
Member
Jun 23, 2020
4,433
poklane said:
While I'd love to agree with you, the reality is that in this day and age such 30 hours experience exist, and on top of that people have access to plenty of games with their $10-$15/month Game Pass and PS+ subscriptions. Given those 2 things it's only to be expected that people really want to receive a lot of content when they spend $70 on a game.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That feels a bit like more of a pricing issue than a content issue tbh.

I personally (a subscriber to both Game Pass Ultimate and PS+ Premium) are happier paying full price for a quality game of shorter length (10-15) hours than I am paying full price for a game that drags itself out for 10-20 hours longer than it really should be just to reach 30-40 hours in length. Appreciate that there's plenty of folks who feel the exact opposite though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.