Market/business performance of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 *spawn

[Nesh]

The idea is that once someone's subbed they check out other stuff and warm to Gamepass.

I know people who see no value in GPU's offering according to their gaming habits and games they are interested to play, and just subscribe in special cases where they know they can play a specific game at a fraction of what it would cost if they bought it a full price by subscribing for a month.

HB2 is the perfect case for that, where they can just finish it in a day or two and they can just play it for $16 instead of paying in full. Interested or warmed up in GP? Not at all. For others? Maybe. But if they discover the games they are interested in playing are not there, or calculate that they don't spend time with it and end up purchasing games outside of GP that are not in Gamepass or games that leave GP after they start playing, they just don't brother

 

[cheapchips]

That's a win for MS, though, right? I paid for Netflix for the last couple years, and haven't watched anything on it from before Christmas until I watched Madam Web the other day.

Ninja Theory and Microsoft can only dream of content that limbos so gracefully under the quality bar.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Well 30 million people have GP in some form, so MS is doing something right.

 

[see colon]

Ninja Theory and Microsoft can only dream of content that limbos so gracefully under the quality bar.

The voices in Senua's head have a broader range of line delivery than every actor in Madam Web. I am described by my friends as a superhero movie apologist. I watched Black Adam twice on purpose. Madam Web is bad. I wish I could have held up on an analog stick to make me feel like I was getting somewhere while I was watching that movie.

 

[iroboto]

I know people who see no value in GPU's offering according to their gaming habits

I know the opposite that see immense value in GP especially in their indie title selection.

Let’s be real here, If there was no gamepass they would never had purchased HB2 regardless.

most of the people exploiting game pass (there are some) were never likely to purchase the game or wait until a super discount anyway.

 

[Nesh]

I know the opposite that see immense value in GP especially in their indie title selection.

Let’s be real here, If there was no gamepass they would never had purchased HB2 regardless.

most of the people exploiting game pass (there are some) were never likely to purchase the game or wait until a super discount anyway.

Didn't say there arent any.

Regarding the rest, you dont know that, plus as I said before it shows the unsustainability of GP's day 1 releases as well as how people are exploiting it without real growth.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Not really if the numbers are small. You haven't demonstrated anything really other than that you know a couple cheap gamers.

 

[Seanspeed]

Btw, no one on the industry forums should be surprised that consumers often behave irrationally.

I know people that haven't played a game in 6 months that are subscribed to GPU.

I mean, that's probably like 50% of the 'subscription' business model in general. For almost anything, going back decades. If everybody was responsibly managing their subscriptions with convenient 'cancel at any time' clauses, then I doubt many subscription services of any kind would ever work out. There's a reason that basically every subscription service has auto-renewal on by default.

 

[Nesh]

Not really if the numbers are small. You haven't demonstrated anything really other than that you know a couple cheap gamers.

"Cheap" is another word for efficiency and value maximization from rational behaviour.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

most of the people exploiting game pass (there are some) were never likely to purchase the game or wait until a super discount anyway.

None of us know this. On the one hand, Hellblade 1 sold over 6 million, but it was a slow burn. First 500k took 3 months. So it grew. However, it was a novel experience. HB2 is more of the same, lacking that originality of the first. Were the 6 million players of HB1 invested enough that they'd continue the story, and HB2 could have expected millions of sales at launch? Or did they largely feel they had done that game/experience and didn't need a revisit?

We have no way of knowing, making these discussions very theoretical. There are no numbers pointing to anything - they are just numbers that can't really be interpreted with any degree of confidence.

 

[Nesh]

None of us know this. On the one hand, Hellblade 1 sold over 6 million, but it was a slow burn. First 500k took 3 months. So it grew. However, it was a novel experience. HB2 is more of the same, lacking that originality of the first. Were the 6 million players of HB1 invested enough that they'd continue the story, and HB2 could have expected millions of sales at launch? Or did they largely feel they had done that game/experience and didn't need a revisit?

We have no way of knowing, making these discussions very theoretical. There are no numbers pointing to anything - they are just numbers that can't really be interpreted with any degree of confidence.

But why focus on HB2 only? Any game that appears on Gamepass Day 1, is a potential loss. Games that are destined to fail ( third parties?) may benefit (or not?) arriving on Gamepass. But any game that is bound to succeed, must bring the equivalent of subscriptions that bring the revenue to the levels that the game would get if it was sold to it's high demand in the market. All games on GP share the same pool of revenue and the same users. Adding more content, the more the revenue is diluted between all titles, with users having access to play titles at a lower cost than the actual retail. The possibility and size of opportunity cost is larger the more successful a game is supposed to be.

It is the reason why Sony sells games normally and adds them in Plus according to how well they do "post-mortem" giving more flexibility and control over a title's potential and life cycle extention. Their math don't work for d1 release

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But why focus on HB2 only?

Because this thread is about Hellblade 2?

Any game that appears on Gamepass Day 1, is a potential loss.

There's a thread for discussing the economics of subscription services. Importantly though, and pertinent to Hellblade 2 and my point above...

Games that are destined to fail ( third parties?) may benefit (or not?) arriving on Gamepass. But any game that is bound to succeed,...

What is 'succeed' and how do you know a game is bound to succeed? What exactly were HB2's sales going to be if it wasn't released on GP? We don't know. No-one knows. Sales can't be predicted that well. If they could, publishers wouldn't release games that bomb, because they'd know they were going to bomb and would stop making them.

And then 'succeed' might not be about direct returns as people have tried to explain here. A title might be given away as a loss leader to drive the service, 'lose' $100 million, but then end up securing $350 million in additional subscription income over the next ten years that otherwise you'd miss out on. It might even be considered a success if the intention was to win awards and it does, adding prestige to GP and lots of people who don't care one jot for HB2 who'd never play it free or not being positively influenced to try the "platform full of award winning games" to play the run-of-the-mill popular titles they care for.

There are lots of possibilities here. We can't label HB2 a success or failure without a lot more info. Well, we can if we pick our own standards to measure it against, as 'success' is relative to a challenge. But we've no idea how MS or Ninja Theory perceive it.

 

[Nesh]

Because this thread is about Hellblade 2?

There's a thread for discussing the economics of subscription services. Importantly though, and pertinent to Hellblade 2 and my point above...

What is 'succeed' and how do you know a game is bound to succeed? What exactly were HB2's sales going to be if it wasn't released on GP? We don't know. No-one knows. Sales can't be predicted that well. If they could, publishers wouldn't release games that bomb, because they'd know they were going to bomb and would stop making them.

And then 'succeed' might not be about direct returns as people have tried to explain here. A title might be given away as a loss leader to drive the service, 'lose' $100 million, but then end up securing $350 million in additional subscription income over the next ten years that otherwise you'd miss out on. It might even be considered a success if the intention was to win awards and it does, adding prestige to GP and lots of people who don't care one jot for HB2 who'd never play it free or not being positively influenced to try the "platform full of award winning games" to play the run-of-the-mill popular titles they care for.

There are lots of possibilities here. We can't label HB2 a success or failure without a lot more info. Well, we can if we pick our own standards to measure it against, as 'success' is relative to a challenge. But we've no idea how MS or Ninja Theory perceive it.

I m talking purely on financials of GP. HB2 serves as an example how people can "cheat" their way to paying less for more, regardless of it is a success or not. In general the math don't work for GP supporting games. I have yet to see growth numbers that show the scenario where D1 can work universally for all games.

You said it yourself. We can't know if HB2 benefited from GP release or not and we have to assume specific scenarios where it could benefit, such as being a market failure if it was released normally. That alone shows how D1 releases for every MS owned IP is not a good strategy, unless again we assume the crazy (current or future) growth numbers that we aren't seeing. The best strategy so far is releasing games in the market then adding them in the subscription service, unless a company has reasonable indicators that the game just won't do well in the market from launch therefore let GP eat it and hopefully will drive numbers there

 

[see colon]

Any game that appears on Gamepass Day 1, is a potential loss.

Any game published anywhere is a potential loss. That's how risk works in this industry.

It is the reason why Sony sells games normally and adds them in Plus according to how well they do "post-mortem" giving more flexibility and control over a title's potential and life cycle extention. Their math don't work for d1 release

That doesn't mean the math doesn't work for others. Look at the best selling games of this year so far. 3 of those games (Sea of Thieves, MLB The Show 24, and Persona 3 Reload) were day 1 Gamepass releases. Minecraft wasn't a Day 1 Gamepass release (it's older than GP), but it was in GP all year, still in the top 20. Madden 24 got added in Feb., still in the top 20. Microsoft, being not constrained by the strategy of protectionist console exclusives, have the flexibility of releasing games on other platforms if need be.

You said it yourself. We can't know if HB2 benefited from GP release or not and we have to assume specific scenarios where it could benefit, such as being a market failure if it was released normally.

I think this is backwards. Hellblade 2 doesn't need to benefit from a GP release, GP has to benefit from a HB2 release. That's the point of the first party games going in day 1. The other thing I think you may be overlooking is that HB2, being a Series only game, means that it was released on the console with the smallest installed base this generation. The economics of releasing this game, or any big budget game, as a 100% paid only console exclusive like Sony does, is unquestionably fiscally irresponsible. That's the reason they do day 1 PC releases, because that's a whole separate market. And that's why they do Gamepass releases, because a game's reach can be astronomically wider, because GP includes streaming.

 

[cheapchips]

I went to watch Furiosa last week and the two guys behind me were chatting enthusiastically about the Hellblade trailer. One of them had to explain what Gamepass was but 'it was only on Xbox so you wouldn't be able to use it', much to his friends disappointment.

The screening only had around 18 people in. Based on that, 6% of people in the entire world would like to play Hellblade but can't because they don't own an Xbox. Since I was also there, 6% of people in the entire world, also played it and enjoyed it.

 

[see colon]

I went to watch Furiosa last week and the two guys behind me were chatting enthusiastically about the Hellblade trailer. One of them had to explain what Gamepass was but 'it was only on Xbox so you wouldn't be able to use it', much to his friends disappointment.

The screening only had around 18 people in. Based on that, 6% of people in the entire world would like to play Hellblade but can't because they don't own an Xbox. Since I was also there, 6% of people in the entire world, also played it and enjoyed it.

It's weird that 100% of the people in the world watched a movie that had such a poor box office.

 

[cheapchips]

It's weird that 100% of the people in the world watched a movie that had such a poor box office.

The box office wasn't that bad. Anyway, if you project that 18 people watching it every three hours, eventually everyone in the world will have seen it!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Much good maths.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I thought of something else too. It wouldn't surprise me if 20% of GP users don't have an Series console yet or PC. Hellblade 2 also serves the purpose of getting people that only have an Xbox One to upgrade to a series console to play the latest and greatest graphical showcase.

 

[iroboto]

None of us know this. On the one hand, Hellblade 1 sold over 6 million, but it was a slow burn. First 500k took 3 months. So it grew. However, it was a novel experience. HB2 is more of the same, lacking that originality of the first. Were the 6 million players of HB1 invested enough that they'd continue the story, and HB2 could have expected millions of sales at launch? Or did they largely feel they had done that game/experience and didn't need a revisit?

We have no way of knowing, making these discussions very theoretical. There are no numbers pointing to anything - they are just numbers that can't really be interpreted with any degree of confidence.

That’s not true. You do know this. It is a pattern repeated across many industries and events. If you simplify the situation, take any experience, like a concert, there will be fans willing to pay for said concert.
Now make that same concert free and the attendance will 10x. But shortly after it begins people will start walking out.

This happens with many sporting events etc. the people walking out are the people that would never had paid for the ticket to begin with. They are just trying to take advantage of an experience that they are now willing to give their time because it was free. They were never vested in the product to begin with.

but amongst that crowd, some people will discover that they do actually like it, and they will like the event and want to do more in the future.

When we apply this to games on game pass, the vast majority of the 100 titles on game pass that are played, players had no intention in buying. We know this because the average player purchases something like 10-15 (2-3 Aaa titles per year) AAA titles per generation. There’s just no time or money to purchase 100 titles. Most of it is just trying things you haven’t played.

So the idea that these individuals who pay for gamepass, play and game and quit, all would have been real 80 dollar purchasers, is statically impossible. That’s like saying 100% of first party titles are bought by everyone in the ecosystem. We know that is false, no first party title has anywhere close to that penetration level.

HB2’s sales performance is a problem of itself. Its just not designed to generate massive sales. It’s cost per hour played is the highest we know of almost any AAA title.

Relevant Explanation below