NEO: The World Ends With You underperforms Square Enix's initial expectations

[sensui-tomo]

Unfortunately this may come off as mean, but I've never seen twewy as some big franchise. It's biggest moment was probably being included in kingdom hearts DDD and is probably the 1 thing most people know about it. It's got a good loyal fan base, but it was never going to go that far and SE's marketing didn't do much anyway. I'm half wondering if trials of mana outsold it.

This is nothing to say of the quality of the game.

 

[SteveWinwood]

I think it did ok. Been seeing the Kingdom Hearts games on the top sellers list quite a bit. It's not gonna work as well with a niche game like NEO though.

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Just for the record the top sellers on there are complete nonsense. They update randomly and rarely make a lot of sense.

 

[JigglesBunny]

A niche sequel to a niche, cult classic game with zero marketing? How could this have possibly happened?

 

[ZeroX]

EGS isn't where you go to grow a franchise or sell many copies. That's been proven many times at this point. All other things equal, yes this game would have sold more if it was on Steam. That's not hard to understand so it's only natural for people to bring it up when discussing the reasons it underperformed.

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I said make more money, not sell more copies. I'm sure it would've sold more copies on Steam, but Epic probably would've paid more for exclusivity than Steam would've turned a profit

If the franchise couldn't grow on Switch where the first game was available (and the original was on a Nintendo platform) while doing a lot worse on PS4, then I doubt Steam would've saved it. And this isn't me shitting on the game, I'm one of the biggest fans of it on this website, but I don't think this is a PC gamers save franchise situation. It's not like Persona 4 either where it's standalone and blows up in popularity/gets a whole new life, while a very good game, NEO is a straight up sequel with a back third that's likely gibberish to newcomers

 

[CloseTalker]

Heavier marketing might have juiced sales a bit, but I'm not convinced it would be the difference some in this thread are suggesting. It definitely gives the vibe of one of those sequels that was ushered in by a small group of vocal fans, but in the broader scheme never really stood a chance.

 

[Rare Opiums]

Never really understand the love for it. I always think it as a niche title. It's not really surprising for me if it was underperformed sales-wise.

 

[metalslimer]

Honestly the fact that a sequel even got made is a miracle in and of itself. I was not expecting a 3rd game so I can't be disappointed

 

[Ouroboros]

Bought it on switch and PS4. I did my part….did you?

 

[werezompire]

They released a TWEWY anime as cross-media promotion so I don't think you can blame this on marketing. I think it's just hard for a sequel to be huge when it's for a one-of game that came out over a decade ago and wasn't a huge success to begin with.

 

[No Depth]

Heavier marketing might have juiced sales a bit, but I'm not convinced it would be the difference some in this thread are suggesting. It definitely gives the vibe of one of those sequels that was ushered in by a small group of vocal fans, but in the broader scheme never really stood a chance.

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Absolutely this. Not sure the returns from juicing the marketing budget to attempt bludgeoning sales potential would have been worth the value. Think they were banking on the informed niche core to step up and support their long wish granted, but it seems that wasn't enough either(though other factors such as lack of Steam avail did play a role possibly).

Its a very niche title, one that always had an uphill climb regardless. They even pushed out a release demo, but i just don't imagine the broader base connects with. Personally, I bounced hard off the DS game very early in years ago, I just didn't immediately gel with the combat and premise…at all.

Factor in how the Switch port of the first game got scrutiny, now you have a sequel to a game that most didn't play or were urged to avoid when ported…I mean what are the expectations from curious newcomers?

 

[IMCaprica]

Weird, they worked so hard to raise awareness that it exists.

 

[kurahador]

I still don't understand why this game isn't released on Steam, yet Bravely Default 2 and Octopath does. I wonder if it's Nomura.

 

[crimsonECHIDNA]

Heavier marketing might have juiced sales a bit, but I'm not convinced it would be the difference some in this thread are suggesting. It definitely gives the vibe of one of those sequels that was ushered in by a small group of vocal fans, but in the broader scheme never really stood a chance.

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My thing here is Square funded a TWEWY anime to correspond with the release of this game, so it's not like they did the bare minimum either. The reality is TWEWY was also a niche game that enjoyed a small but passionate fanbase and Square released a sequel 13 years after the fact.

 

[We_care_a_lot]

Honestly its a miracle that series ever got a second game anyway. Not everything needs to be a big yearly franchise. I think it's probably ok if that's the last game in the series.

 

[Gestault]

You know, the famous series called "NEO", so recognizable under that name that it required zero advertising.

(The series never found mainstream footing originally, and if a publisher effectively demanded that it needed to for success, I find that surprising.)

 

[Speedstersonic]

Boy that sucks since it was actually such a great game.

 

[aloner]

I'm guessing the anime has a bit to do with these expectations being a bit higher than would seem reasonable from the outside (and needing a bigger recoup on investment as a result)

 

[ZeroX]

I still don't understand why this game isn't released on Steam, yet Bravely Default 2 and Octopath does. I wonder if it's Nomura.

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What? Epic pays for an exclusivity window. It's the simplest thing in the world. It'll be on Steam 6 or 12 months after the initial release.

 

[s y]

Why wouldn't it be $60? It is a full JRPG clocking at 40 hours long with voice acting and a ton of vocal songs that probably cost them a bit to produce. The production matches the price.

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Seemed like a low to medium budget affair from the demo they released, didn't even have full voice acting 🤷‍♂️

Hard to see why this game was $60 but a game like Hades is half that.

When games like Hades, Kena, Disco Elysium and more launch at budget prices, Square was smoking crack thinking they could launch TWEWY at $60.

 

[StereoVSN]

I am sure releasing this late on PC for EGS helped those sales, SE!

 

[Bard]

SE definitely fucked up with this one though. Barely shown at E3, making it fucking egs exclusive on PC.


All that said, this series is bizarrely overrated. Games are pretty good but nothing genre defining, don't understand the strange feverish love it gets. Also Rindo's jacket with all the different patterns on it is still awful. Genuinely hate that thing.

 

[cbajd5]

I don't get why people are saying Square Enix made the anime to promote the game, it's been confirmed the biggest reason they decided to make the game was because they decided to make the anime. The anime was going to happen even if NEO didn't, so probably none of the spending related to the anime should be considered marketing for NEO except the NEO commercial that aired during it in Japan. (Which replaced a commercial for Final Remix that aired, so it probably was a slot Square reserved for themselves to advertise the games.) It didn't even include the additional story from Final Remix that leads into NEO, it ended with the same ending as the DS game which is pretty conclusive plot wise, so a person could watch the entire anime and unless they saw that commercial (which only aired during the live television airing in Japan) they could easily not even know NEO existed.

 

[Mars People]

SE definitely fucked up with this one though. Barely shown at E3, making it fucking egs exclusive on PC.


All that said, this series is bizarrely overrated. Games are pretty good but nothing genre defining, don't understand the strange feverish love it gets. Also Rindo's jacket with all the different patterns on it is still awful. Genuinely hate that thing.

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Hades is actually a third of the cost of TWEWY.

 

[kurahador]

What? Epic pays for an exclusivity window. It's the simplest thing in the world. It'll be on Steam 6 or 12 months after the initial release.

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So it's up to Epic and not Square-Enix. Make sense....

 

[OGM_Madness]

Did they ever release TWEWY to PC & Consoles? I know they did a Switch version. Also, NEO has a janky look and I wasn't sure if it was a direct sequel to TWEWY but 3D. Either way, I'm not surprised the game failed to meet sales.

 

[Speedstersonic]

It sucks to see it but I think it was expected. It just seemed to exist with little acknowledgement from SE for the most part. Do kind of wonder if they also forgot about it themselves.

I do wonder sometimes what the higher ups at SE are thinking when they set sales targets. They've always overestimated what they think a game should hit on that front, as evidenced by the modern Tomb Raider Trilogy, Hitman, Sleeping Dogs and Deus Ex, and this was always going to appeal to a very niche demographic, many who probably had moved on from the original given it was released near enough 15 years ago.

I loved the original, its easily one of my favourite DS games. Just live everything about it. I did try the demo for this and thought it was fine I guess. It didn't really grab me and I wasn't entirely set on the combat and the combo system there. Came away from that not sure about the game and didn't pick it up and genuinely felt sad because after all these years, to finally get a sequel and not have it click that the original did was hugely disappointing for me.

Maybe I'll give it another shot come the new year, too much to play before then anyway but I'll give it another go and do my part buying it then.

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You should def give it another shot, the combat gets really cool and there is a lot you can do with comboing with it especially once you get more party members

 

[Bard]

Hades is actually a third of the cost of TWEWY.

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Did you quote me by mistake?

 

[ZeroX]

So it's up to Epic and not Square-Enix. Make sense....

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It's up to both of them. Epic makes the deal, offers them X money to only release on EGS and not Steam for a set period of time, and Square-Enix chose to accept.

Did they ever release TWEWY to PC & Consoles? I know they did a Switch version. Also, NEO has a janky look and I wasn't sure if it was a direct sequel to TWEWY but 3D. Either way, I'm not surprised the game failed to meet sales.

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No just Nintendo platforms and mobile, making PC and PS a weird choice for a direct sequel.

 

[Surakian]

They released a TWEWY anime as cross-media promotion so I don't think you can blame this on marketing. I think it's just hard for a sequel to be huge when it's for a one-of game that came out over a decade ago and wasn't a huge success to begin with.

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The anime that never once even references the existence of NEO beyond maybe some commercials? Keep in mind this show aired at like 1am in Japan lol

They didn't even add the sequel bait content from the Switch port to even make people consider there was more to the story. If they were trying to sell NEO with the anime, that should have been a priority. Also they should have ended the show with the new game's logo and a shot of Rindo to make people go "oh! A sequel!"

So no, the anime was not marketing. All that did was sell the original game.

 

[cbajd5]

Did they ever release TWEWY to PC & Consoles? I know they did a Switch version. Also, NEO has a janky look and I wasn't sure if it was a direct sequel to TWEWY but 3D. Either way, I'm not surprised the game failed to meet sales.

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No, just the Switch and mobile ports since the game really needs a touchscreen like interface to work unless they completely change how it plays again but even more drastically than the DS to mobile/Switch conversion. (PC with mouse could probably work, but considering they didn't even update the Android version to meet the new Google Play 64 bit app requirement they probably wouldn't want to bother.)

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

What? Epic pays for an exclusivity window. It's the simplest thing in the world. It'll be on Steam 6 or 12 months after the initial release.

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Pretty sure it's a comment on how SE games seemingly aren't all EGS exclusive or even exclusive based on scope but rather only Nomura games have been moneyhatted (KH, NEO, Chaos and reportedly FF7R). Cause Octopath, Bravely Default and now Forspoken are on Steam.

 

[ZeroX]

Pretty sure it's a comment on how SE games seemingly aren't all EGS exclusive or even exclusive based on scope but rather only Nomura games have been moneyhatted (KH, NEO, Chaos and reportedly FF7R). Cause Octopath, Bravely Default and now Forspoken are on Steam.

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I doubt it has anything to do with Nomura and everything to do with negotiations between SE and Epic

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

I doubt it has anything to do with Nomura and everything to do with negotiations between SE and Epic

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Sure. It's just funny that they really did just get the Nomura bundle. Well for now I guess…

 

[CloseTalker]

People commenting on how EGS is a contributing factor here need to get a grip. The OP says that the game sold below their initial expectations, which you have to assume would factor in the decreased unit sales due to not being on Steam. When a publisher takes on an exclusivity deal like EGS they know there are going to be decreased sales involved, that's why the deal involves money. They have teams and data meant to forecast approximately how many Steam sales they're losing out on, and that helps dictate what the EGS deal is worth. If Epic felt they could prove that being exclusive to EGS wouldn't result in a single lost sale, they wouldn't be offering monetary deals like they do.

So the game performing below their expectations, that would include the adjusted expected unit sales due to not being on Steam.

The simplest solution is likely the right one and the game just underperformed, probably because not enough people wanted to play it.

 

[Viale]

They apparently did some retcons that made the anime the canonical version of the original story preceeding the second game(iirc?) but took like half a year to get the English dub of it started, only to not use the game voice actors. And apart from Epic's exclusivity, the PC version also took forever to come out. TWEWY was my favorite childhood game but the hype was killed for me, still on the backburner.

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Nah. If anything, the anime doesn't do enough to catch new people up on what happens, because NEO distinctly assumes you have knowledge of the new day in final remix, something the anime doesn't cover at all iirc and is rather important.

 

[Slacker247]

This was always going to disappoint, surely? It was for a niche crowd not even the average JRPG person would've cared much for.

(it's also a sequel to a just-ok game, but that's hardly the point)

 

[RPGam3r]

I don't think marketing would help this game do much, if any, better. It's just not that popular, never was.

 

[jukeboxhero2396]

There was like no marketing for the game lol, so I'm not so surprised.

 

[Yoshi88]

This was always going to disappoint, surely? It was for a niche crowd not even the average JRPG person would've cared much for.

(it's also a sequel to a just-ok game, but that's hardly the point)

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I mean niche appeal and personal opinions granted, but in several retrospectives and GOTY-lists the first TWEWY was heralded as one of the DS library's defining games.

 

[Surakian]

This was always going to disappoint, surely? It was for a niche crowd not even the average JRPG person would've cared much for.

(it's also a sequel to a just-ok game, but that's hardly the point)

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It wasn't super crazy niche. Clearly the Switch port of the original sold well enough to warrant a sequel. They definitely anticipated more people coming out for this based on that, but they didn't even promote the game.

 

[Zukuu]

Not surprising, as someone who isn't a fan, the game looks straight up bad from the material they released for it.

 

[Kyougar]

Also releasing this on Epic but not on Steam sure helped a fuckton.

I hope whatever cash they got was worth it, I guess?

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They didn't meet the expectations WITH EGS money, why do EGS exclusivity when it doesn't even help to meet the game's financial expectations?
Unless it was a bundle deal with 5 games for X amount of Dollars.

 

[CloseTalker]

I'm genuinely curious what people mean when they say this game wasn't marketed enough. I mean, I saw trailers and previews? It's not a broad enough title to justify massive ad spends on, those are expensive as hell and they'd almost certainly not make the money back. I feel like considering the size of the IP the marketing felt appropriate. Just because a game is good doesn't mean it warrants ads in Times Square and on national TV, the value proposition doesn't make sense.

 

[Surakian]

They didn't meet the expectations WITH EGS money, why do EGS exclusivity when it doesn't even help to meet the game's financial expectations?
Unless it was a bundle deal with 5 games for X amount of Dollars.

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We don't know how much EGS paid for exclusivity and we don't know if that was included in this report.

 

[Yoshi88]

I'm genuinely curious what people mean when they say this game wasn't marketed enough. I mean, I saw trailers and previews? It's not a broad enough title to justify massive ad spends on, those are expensive as hell and they'd almost certainly not make the money back. I feel like considering the size of the IP the marketing felt appropriate. Just because a game is good doesn't mean it warrants ads in Times Square and on national TV, the value proposition doesn't make sense.

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It's more about the type of marketing, not the amount.

The marketing didn't play to the strengths of the game at all. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, they didn't show much of 3+ character gameplay. The demo suffered from that flaw as well. They focused on cool clothing and food items instead of gameplay systems, enemy designs, pin combos etc.

The release was not that well communicated (people interested in the game either missed its release or didn't know about the platforms).

Also the confusing naming etc. plays a part in marketing as well as the nearby release of an anime of the prequel seemingly connected to it, but not really, which itself was heavily marketed in conjunction with NEO before its release but wasn't really easily available to a wide global audience.

Small misssteps like these hurt a smaller IP like TWEWY.

EDIT: HylianSeven down below makes an excellent comparison to SMTV.

 

[HylianSeven]

I'm genuinely curious what people mean when they say this game wasn't marketed enough. I mean, I saw trailers and previews? It's not a broad enough title to justify massive ad spends on, those are expensive as hell and they'd almost certainly not make the money back. I feel like considering the size of the IP the marketing felt appropriate. Just because a game is good doesn't mean it warrants ads in Times Square and on national TV, the value proposition doesn't make sense.

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I mean you can see as evidenced by the number of people in this thread that didn't even know the game was announced and/or already released. No one's asking they do things like putting ads in Times Square, but maybe putting the game in Nintendo Directs, Sony State of Plays, or maybe for more than three seconds in THEIR OWN E3 PRESENTATION would have helped? It's not like they needed any publicity stunt or anything. At least as far as the west goes, it also probably didn't help than the anime had no dub until after the release of NEO.

I brought it up before, but Shin Megami Tensei V isn't exactly a "Times Square ad" kind of game either, yet that's had plenty of relevant mindshare and seemingly done better than NTWEWY (we don't have completely hard numbers yet, mainly based on things like UK sales, eShop charts). SMTV had appearances in Nintendo Directs, daily demon videos, streams, monthly trailers, monthly "SMTV News" videos, previews, etc. Did NEO need to go the extra mile and do something like daily videos? No, but they probably could have done a lot more than what they did. EGS exclusivity also wasn't helping matters. While it wouldn't count within launch numbers, just imagine how much impact having this game on a Steam Sale this winter could have been.

 

[ArcheTenix]

They didn't really market it that well, it just sorta came out

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This is always a common refrain when something performs under expectations. Marketing takes up a huge chunk of budgets and it's not always possible; it's also something that's understood to not do much to move more copies for certain types of entertainment products.

 

[CloseTalker]

I mean you can see as evidenced by the number of people in this thread that didn't even know the game was announced and/or already released. No one's asking they do things like putting ads in Times Square, but maybe putting the game in Nintendo Directs, Sony State of Plays, or maybe for more than three seconds in THEIR OWN E3 PRESENTATION would have helped? It's not like they needed any publicity stunt or anything. At least as far as the west goes, it also probably didn't help than the anime had no dub until after the release of NEO.

I brought it up before, but Shin Megami Tensei V isn't exactly a "Times Square ad" kind of game either, yet that's had plenty of relevant mindshare and seemingly done better than NTWEWY (we don't have completely hard numbers yet, mainly based on things like UK sales, eShop charts). SMTV had appearances in Nintendo Directs, daily demon videos, streams, monthly trailers, monthly "SMTV News" videos, previews, etc. Did NEO need to go the extra mile and do something like daily videos? No, but they probably could have done a lot more than what they did. EGS exclusivity also wasn't helping matters. While it wouldn't count within launch numbers, just imagine how much impact having this game on a Steam Sale this winter could have been.

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Yeah, I dunno, maybe. I feel like there's a distinct possibility that no one here seems to want to recognize that there just isn't a very big audience for this game. Maybe there's another 200K sales left to the videos and streams they didn't produce, maybe not. If there is, then discounts, word of mouth, and the eventual Steam release should help pick up the slack.

I also feel like the comparison to SMT is a bit disingenuous. SMT isn't Final Fantasy but it's a pretty strong franchise, especially over the past decade with Persona's popularity helping to bolster it a bit. SMT and TWEWY aren't really in the same category.

 

[Wispmetas]

Not surprising, as someone who isn't a fan, the game looks straight up bad from the material they released for it.

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As a fan and someone who bought and completed the game, I have to agree. Gameplay looks chaotic as all hell and doesn't really translate well to videos and trailers how fun it is. Graphics arent really that good or impressive and the style can look very busy a lot of times. And most of the game story is delivered through pngs and text bubbles, so not that exciting also to show on trailers and such.

I don't think this was an easy game to market at all to people that did not like the series beforehand.

 

[DNAbro]

Yeah, I dunno, maybe. I feel like there's a distinct possibility that no one here seems to want to recognize that there just isn't a very big audience for this game. Maybe there's another 200K sales left to the videos and streams they didn't produce, maybe not. If there is, then discounts, word of mouth, and the eventual Steam release should help pick up the slack.

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the point is that there should be a bigger audience for this game.