It's possible that Bethesda is cutting costs on the marketing side to save money.
One difference is that one of their primary owners wants to do an exit, which means that Bethesda has to start considering actions that will either maximize an IPO (a public stock exchange listing), or maximize the value of the company when selling it to another publisher (or another company that wants to enter the industry).
I don't think it's overestimating. Games like DOOM, Prey and Dishonored 2 would have benefitted greatly from prerelease coverage as they're all incredibly goodPeople pointing out their review policy as a reason for the low sales are overestimating the importance of reviews. Most people don't give a shit about reviews and i don't blame them.
Bethesda just needs to learn how to market the games that don't have Elder Scrolls or Fallout in the title.
So are these games definitely not making a return on their investment or is it just disappointing sales but still profitable? (I guess it's a bit early to tell).
Wait what? Is this a new rule?Well, I have some NPD numbers too, but we're not supposed to post those publicly.
I do think something like Wolfenstein is easier to work with on this note, since games like this seem to sell at $30 or less.Wolfenstein needs to have it's well fleshed out single player campaign but it also really needs the old school Team Fortress style multiplayer of RTCW and Enemy Territory to come back. That game was essentially WWII Team Fortress Quake III/Doom, was fun as hell, and is mostly what everyone remembers the Wolfenstein series for.
It's really insane that Doom got a separate dev team to work on multiplayer alone whereas Wolfenstein did not. Halo Quake in hell on ID Tech 6 was fun, but didn't catch on like Doom Fortress in WWII would of.
Bethesda and Rockstar are the last bastion for AAA single player games.
Good games. Terrible marketing. Their approach to reviews has only hurt them. All of those games reviewed well. They also need to get these games out at different times of the year. I bought and loved TEW2 and Wolf2, but they were released in the busy season. Same as Dishonored 2 last year.
In general, publishers need to spread out their games more effectively. All of the games listed are good to great, but they are second tier AAA games. They're not small games, but they're not COD, Madden, NBA, Assassin's Creed or FIFA. Or even Destiny (which is really just replacing Halo). Leave October and November to the heavy hitters and GTFO of the way.
I think Fallout and Elder Scrolls could survive in OCT/NOV, but not these second tier AAA titles.
True. You can also add Nintendo.
Is the problem Bethesda or is the UK losing interest in videogames?
Meh, Wolf II got a lot of hype at E3. A lot of outlets pegged it as game of the show.I kind of think their games are too under the radar. They need to setup an event that's far removed from the e3 loudness esp. when they're focusing on sp games.