Why don't Platinum Games's games sell more?

Such a quality studio, with games universally loved by critics and having hardcore following among gamers, but somehow their sales don't live up to their critical acclaim, which I think is a shame.

Why don't Platinum Games's games enjoy higher sale levels? I think their best-selling game might have been Metal Gear Revengeance due to it being tied to the Metal Gear franchise and that is really telling.

In a way, Platinum Games embody the quintessence of console gaming. If you feel you've played a lot of games and you feel that you are missing something, go play their games - because that probably was what you were missing.

To make matters worse, no one seems to care about Scalebound, their latest game.

Why is it so?

Because people generally don't want a game focused on gameplay. They want a game that lets them see cool things happen without much input.

Because they suck,there I said it.

Hey look I got hit once at an arbitrary level there goes half my Trophies and Achievements.

Maybe if they either stuck to 1 platform or kept everything multiplat, they wouldn't have such a spread-thin fanbase. (And then act like douchebags on twitter when people are understandably mad that they keep doing this)

Also just really not interested in like... well pretty much all of their games. Only got Revengeance cause it was more Metal Gear craziness.

The games they make are obscure.

Look at some of the games they make. They aren't really marketable.

The "mainstream" appealing game they've made is probably vanquish or revengeance.

anyways, it shouldn't matter they aren't wildly popular. Because if they were I bet eventually alot of these games wouldn't be nearly as special.

Enjoy the fact that platinum get to create games that they genuinely want to. Or at least that's how it seems.

Poor marketing.

They make good games. I bought Bayonetta, Vanquish, as well as Anarchy Reigns :P. Enjoyed them all.

Pretty much this I think.

The type of games they make aren't very popular anymore.

@Salt_The_Fries:

I loved what I have played from them. Vanquish and MGR were two of my favorites from last gen. Scalebound I hope to see more of.

It's simple, cause their games suck except Bayonetta which was actually pretty enjoyable and gave DMC a run for it's money.

Poor marketing and their games are short with no other modes than the story mode.

MGR had VR missions though.

Bayonetta is pretty much the ONLY one I don't like. Opinions I guess.

Marketing.

a lot of their games are a hard sell. okami (ok thats clover but platinum, as i understand it, has a lot of X clover people in it), wonderful 101, bayonetta, viewtiful joe (again clover).....whats the hook?

try pitching a dog that is the physical incarnation of the god amateratsu (wrong spelling i know) in a game desiged as one big haiku to people (especially in the west). not easy. it may have been better off as a wii launch title because "use wiimote as a paintbrush to enact godly powers" may have been easier to sell.

wonderful 101 i think got burned because on the surface it looked like pikmin. so why not just get pikmin? first impressions are important.

bayonetta is in a fairly crowded sector.

viewtiful joe....bought it. played it.....i still dont get it :S.

i saw their new game at E3 (well the trailer). looks nice...what is it?

fair dues to them though. they seem to be busy which is good. wrapping up on bayonetta 1 and 2 for the wiiu and the new game announced at E3.

handsss brings up an interesting point though. could they be better off getting into a second party situation with one of the big 3 and working on exclusive games only? most of the time multiplat makes sense but if its something a bit mote out there getting the backing of one of the big 3 (which will bring promotions and such like with it) and making it exclsuive may generate more hype. platimun do seem to hop around a lot. its probably not a decision they get to make though (bayonetta 2 wouldnt exist without ninendo for example......so fat chance thats goign to appear on a non nintendo platform. its not platimuns decision).

Did MRG fail from a business point? I couldn't find anything. But it's probably because of lack of marketing. Honestly, i think Platinum makes awesome games that can actually be somewhat challenging without having to put the game at max difficulty to die a couple of times.

I've always enjoyed their over the top design and approach. I hope they're doing well and keep making games. Honestly, if their doing well profit wise, i don't think it's good if they start getting way to big, and start expecting more and more millions in sales only to fail eventually. Like many studios nowadays.

It's more than marketing

People don't know good games till after the fact.

There's always other reasons, but marketing is by far the most important factor.

Marketing, lack of established franchises, niche games. Probably the same reason Clover Studio's didn't sell well. Platinum seems to being doing better off though, they don't need to sell billions just enough for the next project and to pay their employees.

Vanquish was one of the most underrated games of last gen imo.

Just pure action fun...the thing Platinum is good at

I love platinum games, the reason I don't care about Scalebound is because I don't like Microsoft.

Anyway, games that get critical acclaim through gameplay never sale large quantities because people don't appreciate that. Its why all the highest selling critically acclaimed games focus on Graphics and story. I mean, just look at all the GOTY winners, there will always be something game from that year with in the same genre that had significantly better gameplay.

Pretty much.

They're very good at making polished games that don't appeal to most gamers.

This, and nothing more. Even average games sell if you market it right.

@geniobastardo

Is "Immersive" really the right word ?

Sell like CoD ? Their games dont have BroGamer appeal. Madworld = Fun Game but Niche, Bayonetta = female Protagonist, Hack N Slash, Vanquish = No Online TPS like Gears, W101 = Too Cartoony, Hack N Slash. Though I have to say I love their games and cannot wait for Bayonetta 2 but PG arent a developer who tries to please the masses but try and please people with fun and crative games.

PlatGames are good but they are never great. They have some nice gameplay that gets old fast while everything else is bottom tier shit. Everything from graphics, to characters, story, length, I mean everything. None of their games are worth the asking price.

@geniobastardo

Maybe you were experiencing "Flow"..... I'm sure you are familiar with the concept, just by a different term.

Too short games(bayonetta is the only exception) and poor marketing.

$60 for a 3-4 hour game? GTFO! I buy that stuff used or on a heavy discount.(like MGR Rising)

They never made a good or fun game so I'm not surprised.

yeah, I agree.

They hyped the hell out of Bayonetta and it still sold like shit.

that said, they are my favourite console devs

I think it has more to do with how weird their games are compared to the typical.

Great devs, though. I agree.

they make solid games but they don't make games that appeal to the mass

wounferfull 101~ no one has a wii u... Ok sure but once they came out and said the game was going be super short and live off of replay, I drop it from my list

bayonetta~ not many people like fighting games

vanquish ~ Great game but 5 hour SP with no MP

the legand of korra~~ lets see how well that goes over with activision...

MGS~ mhe

Aesthetics. The look of their games and general cheese is what cripples their sales potential. That's why MGR sold well. Wrapped in an appealing aesthetic with a known franchise and people want it. Also why I think their Legend of Korra game will sell well.

Nope

They marketed the shyte out of Vanquish and Bayonetta and they both still sold like crap. You don't need a huge marketing budget to push out a game, we're at a day in age where people spread "the word" if a game is good enough, people will spread that on forums, tumblr, reddit, 4chan ect ect. Look how successful DayZ was and it had barely any marketing, look how the word is spreading for Divinity Original Sin and it's had no marketing.

Platinum games suck and it's plain and simple, their characterization is so stereotypical, it's freaking sad and even to the point if their was a lvl below cheesy it would be there. Their gameplay is nothing to brag about ether except maybe Bayonetta's which gave the DMC series a run for it's money. Vanquishes gameplay was pretty horrible, you fought the same type of enemies throughout the game which other games got slammed harder than a pornstar on a millionaires poolside, no one ever says anything about that to Vanquish. If I wanted to play a better tps I would play Max Payne 3, not Vanquish.

As for MGRR, it was decent but for every moment that was going great for that game there was something that would kick it in the junk for me, I hated dialogue in that game, it was beyond annoying when Raiden would say something like "I'm Jack the Ripper" or some other crappy line, it's hard enough to ignore the stupid shyte he did in MGS2 and now I got to deal with this shyte, come on Platinum...

People seem to forget how much people freaked out when Vanquish was first shown

Because life just isn't fair sometimes.

Word of mouth is one thing. But the games being properly marketed is something else entirely. Not to mention they're full priced retail games. Something DayZ is not. It even started off as a free mod. Poor example. And the world has seen a tremendous jump in mouth-to-mouth advertising in a short amount of time..

And I won't even bother responding to the rest of your post since that's just opinion. And Bayonetta did around 1.5 million copies. And that number was announced in 2010.

Those games weren't marketed beyond belief. They would do better with a proper marketing strategy. And as my post stated, there are other reasons, but marketing hops out on top. It's all about making people aware of the product.

Don't even pull that "they're garbage" argument, because plenty of games, considered poo, sell insanely well.

Marketing has nothing to do with why Vanquished and Platinum games selling poorly, it's cause THEY SUUUCKED, it's plain and simple. There is no rocket science to it, when a game or movie has a "cult following" it's cause it only had a small following/targeted audience.

Vanquished had marketing, so don't blame "oh they didn't market it well" bullshyte cause they did market it and it sold poorly cause it didn't appeal to people, plain and simple. Platinum has some of the worse writing I've ever seen in a game, the sad thing is they don't even change how they do their characters in games.

• Are there Russian characters in their game?- If yes, congrats you're the cheesy bad guy
• Is there a Caucasian or American character in the game?- If yes, prepare to have the cheesiest lines ever in a video game and they'll have a maturity lvl of a 9 year old
• Is there a rockin body Caucasian female with a skimpy outfit?- if yes, they're eye candy and well have less dialogue than "The Old Man" on Pawnstars

No one can come up with a counter argument on how Platinum doesn't have horrible writing and characterization in their games cause they know it's true.

Again, your argument is based on the fact that you don't like their games. Poor writing doesn't stop Skyrim from selling millions.

And again, Vanquish had marketing, as in, "hey guys, this game exists". There was nothing fancy or blown up about that marketing. Hell, the vast majority of its marketing was in Japan only. Bayonetta had probably the most marketing of all titles, and that ended up selling over 1.5 million copies.

I mean, feel free to use this thread to jump on Platinum for cheesy characters and writing, but there's plenty of other studios out there that do the same thing, and their games sell a lot better.

Stop bringing up this argument because it is flawed beyond belief.

The same thing that hinders Suda 51's games, Niche Market appeal.

I do not like Suda 51's games btw

They don't have the "Capcom" name behind them. They have to start new IPs up from scratch instead of using existing ones of the previous games they worked on. People generally follow franchises and not the talents that make them.

Bayonetta, Vanquish, Wonderful 101, love their stuff. Haven't got too far in Infinite Space yet but heard good things. Looking forward to Bayonetta 2. Didn't really care for Mad World, and had no desire to try or Anarchy Reigns, but I'm still cheering for this studio. Would like to try MGR sometime but haven't got around to it yet.

Anyhow, it's been like 8 years now and nobody has really talked about what the heck happened between Clover and Capcom that caused this mass exodus of employees. The move has obviously taken the best of Capcom's talent with them to Platinum, hence why we saw Capcom for a long time doing remakes late ports. And the games they did make lacked polish. I think it was clear Seeds/Platinum headhunted the best programmers from Capcom on way out... still, Platinum hasn't been vocally bitter about the transition. Neither has Capcom. And nobody from the gaming press has stuck their nose into this story.

Skyrim sold well cause it was a good game, it was a damn good looking game and it may not have the best writing but it was better than Vanquishes writing, you had the freedom to do a lot of shyt in that game and even more with mods. The ES games sell well cause it's a franchise that has amazing mod support on the PC and you may not like the series but TES has a huge fanbase.

The only person that has a flawed argument is you, Vanquished had marketing, it may not have had "hey let's buy those Vanquish Doritos at the store" or the insane Destiny crap we see everywhere but it still had trailers, E3 coverage and was talked about on web sites so don't play dumb with me and say Vanquish didn't have marketing cause it did.

Vanquish sold poorly and their other titles cause it did not appeal to a lot of people, I had the luxury of buying them (Vanquish I actually bought 3 times trying to give the game a chance) and found them to be pretty overrated and awful except Bayonetta. You may have not liked Skyrim but A LOT OF people did, there's a big difference between Skyrim and Vanquish.

Think a major reason is their artstyle(s). This is the era of Nolan's Batman and not Burton's. Platinum are too quirky for the mass market.

"Skyrim sold well because it was a good game"

I love how you're still rolling with that argument. And I do like The Elder Scrolls games. My point just flew over your head like all of my other ones. I wasn't even referring to the fanbase or the fact that the franchise has been around for long.

What do you expect someone to say that doesn't like Skyrim? "It sold bad because I didn't like it."
Well no, it actually sold well. And what does that mean for PG games? Where does your argument work there? It doesn't.

Also, regarding Vanquish' marketing, since you seem so keen on bringing up how well it was promoted:
"plus lacklustre marketing support for MadWorld, and the publisher effectively sending Vanquish out to die in October, one of the busiest months of the year, with little promotion."
Source

Every game gets shown on E3. Doesn't mean that everyone runs out to buy them. Same goes for messageboards.

Pretty much every PG game sold badly because of a lack of marketing. They are fully aware of that themselves. Now I see you bring up the fact that they're niche games. Finally. A worthy excuse as to why they don't do so well instead of the "I think they're garbage"

That's also one of the reasons why they don't do well. Along with the fact that they had to start over, making a name for themselves, and the fact that they're constantly putting out new IPs instead of building a fanbase with a continuing one. It also doesn't help that they make exclusives so much, but that's how they roll. They're not tied to one publishers. They work for whoever's paying them.

Getting a fanbase like that is tough.

Now can you see where my post is coming from, because I genuinely feel bad for you if you don't.

Bingo.

They are unabashedly Japanese with their design. And frankly they are better for it as a game studio. Vanquish was a cool shooter, Bayonetta is fantastic, Wonderful 101 is something completely unique in that genre, and Anarchy Reigns/Madworld...kind of suck, whatever with those 2 though. But the type of games they make are limited in how much they would sell. They aim for cheese and crazy with a sense of fun, as opposed to lets take our game world super serious and write some shitty videogame story.

Not that all of Platinum's jokes hit, some are a bit much, but otherwise yeah if they made primarily the pure design and someone else handled their aesthetic they would do better. Because while you can definitely tell in game design this is the studio that used to be Clover, you can't get that from the art direction in their games. That stuff was clearly Capcom.

Besides the gameplay, this is why I love Platinum Games.

And Anarchy Reigns was awesome.

I honestly wonder how well they could do if they let another studio handle art and thematic direction. Like I said, I imagine their Legend of Korra game is gonna do fantastic because that is a really appealing world. Their games have fans because there is nothing like them, I think if they can just nail down a cheesy but western appealing world, they could make 2-3 million selling games easy.