Crotch shot in 3......2......1.....
Sadly giving more credence to the Mature Wii Game Curse, Electronic Arts’ and Visceral Games’ Dead Space Extraction managed only 9,000 units in the month of September, according to NPD’s sales charts. With EA on record as saying that the game’s release was a “test for mature content on Nintendo’s platform,” the game’s poor sales could be a hard hit to the publisher’s future mature releases with the Wii. In an interview with Edge Magazine, Jesse Divinch, an analyst for video game sales firm EEDAR, attributes the underwhelming first-month returns to several key points:
“Electronic Arts didn’t market Dead Space Extraction as much as it does with other titles. And the success or failure of a Wii title usually correlates directly to marketing spend. If Electronic Arts spent little on marketing, I am sure the sell through was no surprise to them. So I do not believe sell through was a disappointment to EA,” he explained, “Given Wii games tend to have a flatter sales curve, I don’t think 20,000 plus units is out of the question for October and maybe we get a holiday bump in November and December.”
“Most games have a 12 to 24 month development schedule and over a year ago the industry was under the assumption that mature-rated games could succeed on the Wii.” Divinch continued, “Unfortunately, as we progressed and witnessed the sales results from games such as MadWorld, it became pretty clear the market size for games with mature-content was extremely small, much smaller than any other home platform. The truth is most core gamers who gravitate towards mature content likely own more than just a Wii.”
Given that the sales are undeniably low, do we think just marketing flops attributed to Extraction‘s disappointing launch? Is there really a Mature Wii Game Curse, as many industry professionals suggest? Comment below to give your take on what this could mean for future mature titles on the Wii!
OK, this is not that big of a deal yet, the game was only available for a few days in September, Christ it isn’t the end of the game. I bought in October, which will show better numbers, cause there is more time to sell the game, plus Wii games have better long term sales.