The Game
Prey (2017), developed by Arkane Studios Austin, published by Bethesda Softworks.
The Problem
Prey did not sell very well at all, despite decent ratings from critics (81 on Opencritic, which is actually lower than I thought). While we don't know exact figures, SteamSpy - before Valve sabotaged it - indicated that it sold around 250k copies on Steam in its first month, fewer even than Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (~325k) and Dishonored 2 (~375k), which were labeled as commercial failures themselves. Related or not, Arkane co-founder and president Raphael Colantontio resigned shortly after Prey came out. A sequel to Prey seems very unlikely at this point.
The Cause
Here's where I start speculating as to why Prey failed to sell well. I'm personally pretty fond of Prey, and I think it's a well-made game. However, I also think it was doomed to be a commercial failure from the start.
Reasons commonly given for Prey's commercial failure
Some people assert that Prey's usage of the name previously used by the Human Head game from 2006 pissed off fans of that older game, which made them not buy this one. Well, I think there might have been some people out there who held off buying 2017's Prey for that reason, but I imagine the number being quite tiny. 2006 is a long time ago, and that game wasn't a hit with the mainstream either.
More commonly, people claim that Bethesda's marketing let the game down. Which is quite likely, I suppose, but I want to argue the problem lies deeper. It is my opinion that Bethesda couldn't market this game very well because they were 'dealt a bad hand', so to speak. I personally believe that Prey is inherently hard to market, especially to a mainstream audience.
The Premise
With the word premise I mean the idea of the game summarized in a description of a single sentence, or maybe a single picture. In an ideal world, the majority of customers would probably read multiple long and informative reviews before they'd buy a game. But I think we have to accept that this is not the case in our world, where most buyers act on their hopes and dreams, they buy into an idea, or a fantasy perhaps, of what they think the game will be like. See: No Man's Sky's commercial success.
Location
One way you can entice buyers' minds into a positive fantasy about your game is impressive environments. Games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3 or the Assassin's Creed franchise can show screenshots or video of their massive exploreable open worlds that can make the mind wonder 'what else is out there to discover?'. Recently these tend to be colourful and inviting, helping players escape their daily lives which are usually spent in offices or locations that are even less appealing. Prey has a lot of neat little details in the space station its set on, but produces no screenshots or video of wide open spaces, ancient castles or tombs or even huge, bustling cities. Prey is mostly about functional objects and machinery, really. And while it's great how everything on Talos I feels like it has a role to play and is not just there to make the environment look pretty, there's really nothing marketable about the setting.
Protagonist
Another way to entice the buyer is to promise them to fill the boots of a recognizable protagonist. Lara Croft, Kratos and of course superheroes like Batman and Spiderman are all great for marketing a game. They don't even to be that recognizable if they let you do awesome stuff, as in the case of Rico Rodriguez from Just Cause, for whom the game world is a playground, one that is full of big explosions (that Torgue would be proud of). DOOM's protagonist is not very fleshed out, but that's not the point, his weapons are what counts. The point is that player gets to be someone they could never be in real life.
In the case of Prey, the player gets to do some cool stuff occasionally, but is usually fighting against the odds. Instead of being empowered, the player is the opposite, most of the time. Even worse is that the main character is not recognizable at all, just a generic man or woman in a space suit, as seen in the banner at the top of this post. Morgan is not voiced, customizable or even visible most of the time. And, as we've seen with the 'Cyberpunk first-person controversy', people like to see and customize their player character. In Prey, you get neither the strong character of Geralt, nor the customizable player character of Elder Scrolls games, so you're basically offered the worst of both worlds.
Enemies
Opposite the generic player character in the aforementioned Prey banner is a dark shape. This is an antagonist from Prey. It is, however, without any name or personality (that we know of). It doesn't really do cool things that could be in a trailer, either. This is no robot dinosaur from H:ZD, no huge serpent from God of War, it's a dark shape with eyes that could potentially be scary. It sure as hell doesn't have a personality that motivates you to defat them in a way the Joker or even the nazis from Wolfenstein do. The enemies in Prey aren't even scary, like something from Resident Evil or any other good horror game/franchise, really. As a self-proclaimed 'sci-fi thriller' (source: official Prey website) it makes a lot of sense to put a distinguishable villain on the cover of your game, but Prey either does not seem to have one on offer.
The Verdict
I like Prey, but I have to say it was never going to be a huge mainstream success with its premise of a generic protagonist isolated on a space station, hunted by dark shapes (without going full horror, even). Prey's key selling points are extremely abstract: well-executed gameplay mechanics, player choice, attention to detail, environmental interactivity (kudos to funyarinpa for this word) and a mysterious story for the player to explore through e-mails and voice recordings.
Prey's premise (not the execution) feels like it's stuck in 2004, trying to imitate Half-Life 2 (without Alyx) and/or System Shock (without SHODAN) over a decade later, without taking into account the fierce competition for mainstream attention in the current gaming landscape.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on how Prey could've been marketed or changed to become more marketable, but please refrain from posting spoilers, thank you.
Prey (2017), developed by Arkane Studios Austin, published by Bethesda Softworks.
The Problem
Prey did not sell very well at all, despite decent ratings from critics (81 on Opencritic, which is actually lower than I thought). While we don't know exact figures, SteamSpy - before Valve sabotaged it - indicated that it sold around 250k copies on Steam in its first month, fewer even than Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (~325k) and Dishonored 2 (~375k), which were labeled as commercial failures themselves. Related or not, Arkane co-founder and president Raphael Colantontio resigned shortly after Prey came out. A sequel to Prey seems very unlikely at this point.
The Cause
Here's where I start speculating as to why Prey failed to sell well. I'm personally pretty fond of Prey, and I think it's a well-made game. However, I also think it was doomed to be a commercial failure from the start.
Reasons commonly given for Prey's commercial failure
Some people assert that Prey's usage of the name previously used by the Human Head game from 2006 pissed off fans of that older game, which made them not buy this one. Well, I think there might have been some people out there who held off buying 2017's Prey for that reason, but I imagine the number being quite tiny. 2006 is a long time ago, and that game wasn't a hit with the mainstream either.
More commonly, people claim that Bethesda's marketing let the game down. Which is quite likely, I suppose, but I want to argue the problem lies deeper. It is my opinion that Bethesda couldn't market this game very well because they were 'dealt a bad hand', so to speak. I personally believe that Prey is inherently hard to market, especially to a mainstream audience.
The Premise
With the word premise I mean the idea of the game summarized in a description of a single sentence, or maybe a single picture. In an ideal world, the majority of customers would probably read multiple long and informative reviews before they'd buy a game. But I think we have to accept that this is not the case in our world, where most buyers act on their hopes and dreams, they buy into an idea, or a fantasy perhaps, of what they think the game will be like. See: No Man's Sky's commercial success.
Location
One way you can entice buyers' minds into a positive fantasy about your game is impressive environments. Games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3 or the Assassin's Creed franchise can show screenshots or video of their massive exploreable open worlds that can make the mind wonder 'what else is out there to discover?'. Recently these tend to be colourful and inviting, helping players escape their daily lives which are usually spent in offices or locations that are even less appealing. Prey has a lot of neat little details in the space station its set on, but produces no screenshots or video of wide open spaces, ancient castles or tombs or even huge, bustling cities. Prey is mostly about functional objects and machinery, really. And while it's great how everything on Talos I feels like it has a role to play and is not just there to make the environment look pretty, there's really nothing marketable about the setting.
Protagonist
Another way to entice the buyer is to promise them to fill the boots of a recognizable protagonist. Lara Croft, Kratos and of course superheroes like Batman and Spiderman are all great for marketing a game. They don't even to be that recognizable if they let you do awesome stuff, as in the case of Rico Rodriguez from Just Cause, for whom the game world is a playground, one that is full of big explosions (that Torgue would be proud of). DOOM's protagonist is not very fleshed out, but that's not the point, his weapons are what counts. The point is that player gets to be someone they could never be in real life.
In the case of Prey, the player gets to do some cool stuff occasionally, but is usually fighting against the odds. Instead of being empowered, the player is the opposite, most of the time. Even worse is that the main character is not recognizable at all, just a generic man or woman in a space suit, as seen in the banner at the top of this post. Morgan is not voiced, customizable or even visible most of the time. And, as we've seen with the 'Cyberpunk first-person controversy', people like to see and customize their player character. In Prey, you get neither the strong character of Geralt, nor the customizable player character of Elder Scrolls games, so you're basically offered the worst of both worlds.
Enemies
Opposite the generic player character in the aforementioned Prey banner is a dark shape. This is an antagonist from Prey. It is, however, without any name or personality (that we know of). It doesn't really do cool things that could be in a trailer, either. This is no robot dinosaur from H:ZD, no huge serpent from God of War, it's a dark shape with eyes that could potentially be scary. It sure as hell doesn't have a personality that motivates you to defat them in a way the Joker or even the nazis from Wolfenstein do. The enemies in Prey aren't even scary, like something from Resident Evil or any other good horror game/franchise, really. As a self-proclaimed 'sci-fi thriller' (source: official Prey website) it makes a lot of sense to put a distinguishable villain on the cover of your game, but Prey either does not seem to have one on offer.
The Verdict
I like Prey, but I have to say it was never going to be a huge mainstream success with its premise of a generic protagonist isolated on a space station, hunted by dark shapes (without going full horror, even). Prey's key selling points are extremely abstract: well-executed gameplay mechanics, player choice, attention to detail, environmental interactivity (kudos to funyarinpa for this word) and a mysterious story for the player to explore through e-mails and voice recordings.
Prey's premise (not the execution) feels like it's stuck in 2004, trying to imitate Half-Life 2 (without Alyx) and/or System Shock (without SHODAN) over a decade later, without taking into account the fierce competition for mainstream attention in the current gaming landscape.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on how Prey could've been marketed or changed to become more marketable, but please refrain from posting spoilers, thank you.
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