Nail smacked firmly on the head.
I do wonder if anyone from ms learns from mistakes. I guess we'll have to wait until tgs to find out if they even bother turning up in a dead territory.
Tomb Raider exclusivity fallout thread *spawn
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Nail smacked firmly on the head.
I do wonder if anyone from ms learns from mistakes. I guess we'll have to wait until tgs to find out if they even bother turning up in a dead territory.
They got funding, from a partner, which was MS in this case. Frankly this is the only thing that makes sense from CD/SE's point of view.
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But the title will still be published by Square Enix who is supposed to fund their own games, so it's not like they absolutely needed the money.
If they didn't need the money, why would they make this deal?
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Because more money from Microsoft equals less risk for Square Enix.
Regardless, I think they're already regretting such decision, IMO. I don't think anyone would've enjoyed this amount of negative reaction - be it Microsoft, Square Enix or Crystal Dynamics.
The game will probably be good and would've sold several million units on release had it been available for all platforms on day one.
One thing I do find to be rotten is that tumblr post from Crystal Dynamics.
Microsoft making ambiguous statements during Gamescom is kind of expected and a bit excusable because they don't really have to announce on stage if the game is coming to other platforms (not until they're asked, at least). But that tumblr post reads "Microsoft ordered us to take ambiguity to a whole other level".
If that post wasn't ordered by Microsoft during this deal they've made (which is why I suspect this to be the shady work of Don Mattrick and not Phil Spencer), then this Darrell Gallagher was a complete idiot to think this statement was a good thing.
Well, taking the money to lower risk is basically a variation of the same thing. If they didn't get a deal from Microsoft, the game would have likely received less funding, maybe not enough money to put it up to the standard of the first title. I guess it's a matter of perspective.
I don't see any reason they make this deal if they can easily fund on their own and have access to likely 30+ million PS4 customers (by time of release) on day one.
I don't see any reason they make this deal if they can easily fund on their own and have access to likely 30+ million PS4 customers (by time of release) on day one.
Nothing is an absolute, even with announced titles. How many titles did Crytek just jettison? This industry is in constant churn.
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Best business decision == Whatever makes the most money
If MS money is greater than the expected loss from fan anger, it's the correct business decision from SE. If there's more impact from fans reaction than they expected (i.e. fan actually skip the game, vote with your money, etc...), it's a bad decision. Making a sum of all this when they sign the deal isn't easy. This could back fire mostly against SE.
If the deal contains a clause which stipulates they're not allowed to tell the gamers how long the exclusivity is... that's called hush money. The business incentive is clearly there, and the secrecy is clearly the profitable angle for MS. This secrecy is not the profitable angle for SE, quite the opposite. Anytime SE wants to reassure their fans they can say how long that exclusive lasts, and their reputation is saved with no loss of sales. The only reasonable conclusion is that this clause exists. It's kind of the norm for a timed exclusive, isn't it? Whenever there's a timed exclusive, be it Sony, MS, Nintendo, they can never say how long it lasts.
If MS money is greater than the expected loss from fan anger, it's the correct business decision from SE. If there's more impact from fans reaction than they expected (i.e. fan actually skip the game, vote with your money, etc...), it's a bad decision. Making a sum of all this when they sign the deal isn't easy. This could back fire mostly against SE.
If the deal contains a clause which stipulates they're not allowed to tell the gamers how long the exclusivity is... that's called hush money. The business incentive is clearly there, and the secrecy is clearly the profitable angle for MS. This secrecy is not the profitable angle for SE, quite the opposite. Anytime SE wants to reassure their fans they can say how long that exclusive lasts, and their reputation is saved with no loss of sales. The only reasonable conclusion is that this clause exists. It's kind of the norm for a timed exclusive, isn't it? Whenever there's a timed exclusive, be it Sony, MS, Nintendo, they can never say how long it lasts.
Its possible that the contract could contain pretty much anything (legal); its possible that contract states payments to SE will be in the form of goats.
What is unlikely is that the contract does not state exactly how much money (at least) will be spent on marketing. Generally speaking these deals are tied by an overall value, but probably the minority of that value will be physical money that passes from one to the other, the majority will be a marketing value and then NRE. That's why these deals are not that uncommon, because they are not necessarily that expensive for a platform holder in the mid-tier of publishers. MS already have a marketing budget for Q4 and that will inevitably dwarf anything that SE could dedicate to a single game - it is not harmful for MS to make sure that Tomb Raider is now featured in xx% of that marketing over that period; so there may be no incremental marketing spend from MS but SE now gets a much wider exposure for the title.
SE would be really stupid if that were the case.
Of the games they own, TR was easily one of the best selling. The only negative to it was a slow start and it didn't make back its money until later. They could probably have done with a marketing assist back then to drive early sales. However, the sequel is a shoe-in. They can budget for a likely 4 million sales. They could spend just as much as they spent on the first TR, having made that back in profits on the game, and be comfortable they'd be far lower risk than the last TR because there's >6 million TR buyers and the game reviewed extremely well and spread by word of mouth, which means sales were based on the quality of the game and not the quality of the marketing.Just Googled this:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...arly-double-its-3-4-million-first-month-sales
"The company thought its Lara Croft reboot could sell at least 5-6 million units in four weeks - "
That raises questions about the management and forecasting. Considering the long-term 6.5 million sales of the game represent the highest ever of any iteration of the franchise, wanting that much in the first month is plain crazy.
Maybe they budgeted for 6 million early sales, 10 million long term, and it was too expensive in the end? Maybe now they're looking at 2 million early sales and some marketing and financial help will help cover the cost of targeting a six-million seller?
It's probably time we moved more attention on to the SE side of this situation.
Edit: If we factor in the 'action adventure library' aspect, MS want a third-person cinematic adventure which they currently don't have (as Spencer explains). Meanwhile, TR would butt heads with UC4. A delay for PS4 probably wouldn't hurt TR on that platform, and it'd enrich XB1's library, so the choice seems mutually beneficial. The only real downside was fan flak and how it was handled.
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You mean.. "HEY.. DON'T LOOK AT THAT FIRE, LOOK AT THIS FIRE!" ? ;-)
But I'm willing to give Phil Spencer a break. He's in a new roll which AFAIK is nothing like anything's he's had to do before. He's going to make the odd snafu as he learns aspects of messaging he didn't have to worry about as Head of Microsoft Studios. I do wonder where his PR/marketing advisor was though, there job is to stop the boss blundering into these sorts of interviews.
A sneak insight in to AMD/Microsoft deal perhaps
Are their bonus goats for good yields?
Unless you believe Spencer is lying or wrong, that's the clear inference the interview gives.SE would be really stupid if that were the case.
Did you not read the rest of my post?
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FWIW, Square Enix was heavily criticized when they announced that the initial 3.4 million sales of TR was deemed as "below expectations". Assuming they're getting around $40 from each $60 sale, this means $136M in revenue. How is $136M not capable of covering the costs for the game?
Microsoft offering them "4 million sales" would mean offering about $160M. That's a lot of money, and quite a big chunk of Microsoft's first year investment of $1B for games.
Agreed. If anything, the lack of financial availability from SE is at least partially to blame for the exclusivity.
Perhaps that's what Crystal Dynamics meant with that tumblr post. SE wouldn't give us the money we needed to make the game we wanted, so this was the best we could do for the franchise.
Yeah but that's nothing compared to the use of a fortune teller for their head office relocation. It's so weird.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/128880/This_week_in_Japanese_news_Square_Enix_to_Otome.php
Who knows, maybe Pao said MS would bring fortune to the company? Sometimes we wrongly assume someone that high up is a perfectly rational human being.
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It's more like $27. Therefore $92 million.
More on this. So perhaps $100 million to break even. Of course, the most obvious road to that much money is by reaching as large an audience as possible. However, a major expense is marketing. I believe we've heard more being spent on marketing of some games than production. So let's say $50 million to make the game (sequels should be cheaper with the engine and some assets already made) and $50 million for marketing being footed by MS. This comes under MS's marketing budget as Dave says, so it's no cost to them, while it's $50 million saved by SE. At $27 a unit profit, that's nearly 2 million units needed to break even.
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That's actually still a lot! If it sold more on PS than XB, and factoring in PC sales as well, I'd peg 2 million at something around the maximum expected XB buyers. That pretty nicely shows the game has to go multiplatform if SE are to make any profit on the game.
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Kotaku link to the L.A. Times. The same L.A. Times who published this.
Just saying!
You're right to question sources and ask for second opinions. Here's Eurogamer's breakdown. Reckons £12 on a £40 game to the publisher, so even worse. At best, you're looking at 50% of the retail price goes to the publisher.
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