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Why does everyone assume Read Dead Redemption 2 is a guaranteed to have massive sales?

Polygatari

Polygatari

Banned
Sep 29, 2018
217
Every single ad break I've watched while watching football since last week has had RDR2 on it. I'm not exaggerating, every SINGLE ad break.

This is the most unmuted of marketing campaigns, contrary to OP's thoughts.
 
Tetra-Grammaton-Cleric

Tetra-Grammaton-Cleric

user requested ban
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
8,958
Phendrift said:
Before y'all begin roasting everyone with hot takes I don't think many were saying the game would bomb, just that it won't be GTAV big. I know that's what I've said and will continue to.
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Well, to be fair, GTAV's success is off the fucking charts.

I love that game and purchased it no less than three times on three different platform and even I can barely fathom it selling nearly 100 million copies.
 
SageShinigami

SageShinigami

Member
Oct 27, 2017
30,474
Datajoy said:
Yeah I was referring to the widespread negatively toward the game I've seen in other threads. Please don't take my post as an attack OP, I think your original post was actually fairly measured and sensible, if a bit misguided.
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Nah. Whether or not this is a "good" game has nothing to do with whether or not it'd be a success. That's a different argument, and nah the original post was a bad question.
 
Phendrift

Phendrift

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,300
Tetra-Grammaton-Cleric said:
Well, to be fair, GTAV's success is off the fucking charts.

I love that game and purchased it no less than three times on three different platform and even I can barely fathom it selling nearly 100 million copies.
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Yeah totally. I just didn't understand the sentiment that everyone needed to "move their games a month away or else they'll get obliterated!!!!!"

Like I feel like Smash, Pokémon or CoD could've released this Friday and been fine lol
 

Deleted member 37917

Banned
Jan 10, 2018
7,207
Tokyo
Datajoy said:
Yeah I was referring to the widespread negatively toward the game I've seen in other threads. Please don't take my post as an attack OP, I think your original post was actually fairly measured and sensible, if a bit misguided.
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I have seen negativity about this game far beyond this forum though. The biggest French news outlet even had an article discussing the discrepancy between the press rating and the early feedback from players. It´s obviously too early to reach a consensus but we can at least start saying that this game seem more divisive than what the metacritic score should reflect.
 
Waltz

Waltz

Member
Oct 28, 2017
35
São Paulo
Jugging by the GTA strategy, I think Rockstar has reached a point where their titles just make an impact on gamer community. This factor grants them minimal base sales for success... Other than that, unlike regular titles, they tend to extend the life building a strong on line community... these two factors kind of compensate for the need of a strong marketing campaign like spider man had... they are not looking to make all the revenue they can in the first two months because the game will get old... rather they focus on keeping a steady sale throughout the long run of the game life...
 
SENPAIatLARGE

SENPAIatLARGE

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,501
8gFRKSd.gif
 
Mr Spasiba

Mr Spasiba

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,779
I know the actual discussion of the thread is old and now it's just laughing at OP. But really, it's a game from the people who made the most profitable piece of media ever. There isn't a safer game to bet on having massive sales than this one.
 

Deleted member 47843

User Requested Account Closure
Banned
Sep 16, 2018
2,501
Phendrift said:
Like I feel like Smash, Pokémon or CoD could've released this Friday and been fine lol
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I mean those definitely could. Smash and Pokemon appeal to a pretty different crowd. Sure, a lot of people that like GTA/RDR play those games too, but Nintendo also has a huge market that are people that don't like those type of games, kids who's parents won't buy violent games, fans that always prioritize their first party stuff and so on. Simlarly, CoD appeals to the online gamer crowd. Some might have skipped it for a bit to play RDR2 if they were in the mood for a long single player game, but lots of CoD players only play it (and maybe other online games) and don't care about single player games so it would have done well still even if released along side this.

It's really an issue for other story-driven single player games. If too many come out too soon some are pretty much sent to die as gamers only have so much free time for games (as well as limited budgets). Thus games get skipped and maybe bought for less later--but often just skipped as many just always play the latest and greatest game they're hyped for and don't go back for the things they skipped over.

For instance, I imagine Shadow of the Tomb Raider would have sold better if it released in a less busy time. I loved the first two games and still passed on it for now as I opted for Spider-man and then this as my SP games this fall. I imagine many others have done similarly and held off for now because of those games or other stuff like CoD and what not that hit near the same time. There's only so many hours in the day/week/month for gaming and most reasonable people aren't building backlogs of $60 new releases they don't have time to play. So publishers need to pay attention to what the specific audience for that game is, what other games they will be competing for that same audience with during potential launch windows and there odds of winning those competitions. Nintendo is the only one that really has the luxury do launch when they want as there are few games from other publishers of the style they focus on. Otherwise, unless you're a huge brand like GTA/RDR, CoD, AssCreed, Fifa etc. publishers should be mindful of not sending big budget games out to die given how many slow months we have with few AAA releases outside of the late summer through holiday window.
 

Deleted member 11421

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,935
zakatana said:
I have seen negativity about this game far beyond this forum though. The biggest French news outlet even had an article discussing the discrepancy between the press rating and the early feedback from players. It´s obviously too early to reach a consensus but we can at least start saying that this game seem more divisive than what the metacritic score should reflect.
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There's negativity about any game these days and this is probably the biggest game released in a year full of hits and record breaking sales.

People frequently complained about the controls and slowness 8 years ago, too, but social media wasn't quite as evolved as it is now.

I've been seeing a lot of people change their tone after they play a bit longer, due to the slow start that doesn't just throw them into the open world with most things unlocked like most do nowadays.
 
JeffGubb

JeffGubb

Giant Bomb
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
842
Jam said:
Oh hey. Apparently common sense was right again.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/re...ggest-opening-weekend-of-all-time-725m.77843/

Seems like it outsold Bioshock Infinite's LTD in three days, and even by the relative size of the production it's going to make a hefty profit.

Game's budget was likely $300m~, and if the first three days had a sell-through that brought $765m then well damn, we have the the holidays, traditional long legs of R* games as well as Online coming up.

Rockstar getting a 40% cut of that would already recoup development cost from just the opening three days.

Game has sold well. To the surprise of no one*.

*except the people who believe it wouldn't, the moon landing was fake, and we're living in a simulation.
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As soon as I saw the reviews, I had little doubt it would succeed. That combined with the marketing push was enough to convince me. I was only ever unconvinced before that.
 

Deleted member 44371

Banned
Jun 1, 2018
4,523
Publisher Take-Two has beaten its third quarter revenue targets following the huge success of Red Dead Redemption II.
The open world action game from Rockstar has seen 23 million copies sold through to retail, beating Take-Two's expectations.

The title shipped more in its first 15 days than the first Red Dead Redemption shipped in eight years, and it has the highest opening weekend of any title in entertainment history of any sort - $725 million.
 
Crossing Eden

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,334
marzoo said:
Publisher Take-Two has beaten its third quarter revenue targets following the huge success of Red Dead Redemption II.
The open world action game from Rockstar has seen 23 million copies sold through to retail, beating Take-Two's expectations.

The title shipped more in its first 15 days than the first Red Dead Redemption shipped in eight years, and it has the highest opening weekend of any title in entertainment history of any sort - $725 million.
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Why did anyone doubt this being the outcome?
 
plake

plake

Member
Nov 3, 2017
205
marzoo said:
Publisher Take-Two has beaten its third quarter revenue targets following the huge success of Red Dead Redemption II.
The open world action game from Rockstar has seen 23 million copies sold through to retail, beating Take-Two's expectations.

The title shipped more in its first 15 days than the first Red Dead Redemption shipped in eight years, and it has the highest opening weekend of any title in entertainment history of any sort - $725 million.
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Well, there you go. Surprised that some people did not expect this considering the IP and its massive marketing and critical acclaim/word of mouth.
 
labx

labx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,326
Medellín, Colombia
There you have op a lesson learned. 23 million copies. The average Joe is the one that cares about R* pedigree. Most of the people are not armchair critic, they just look that big R and throw money. The same as Call of Duty, FIFA, etc.
 
RoninChaos

RoninChaos

Member
Oct 26, 2017
8,338
I hadn't seen this thread before today. Man, OP, even without the quarterly report, how could you not know what a big deal rockstar is to most of the public? You sound like a guy who plays a bunch of niche games and doesn't get why games like FIFA, CoD, or Red dead are popular. There's a pretty big world outside of gaming forums and a lot of people in that world and those people still buy a lot of games.
 
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