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

Heres some Bayonetta 2 pics.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/07/bayonetta_2_environmental_artist_outlines_sources_of_inspiration_including_gorgeous_screenshots

I don't know man it's weird. I absolutely love Vanquish, Bayonetta and MGS Rising. And back when they were Clover Studio they developed amazing such as God Hand and Okami.

I guess games with heavy emphasis on gameplay don't sell.

If you honestly think more marketing would have helped with the sales of Vanquish, Mad World and Anarchy Reigns...I don't even..you must be one ignorant person to think marketing could have helped those niche games, which btw I say niche as a kind gesture instead of meh or horrible cause I did enjoy Bayonetta and MGRR had it's moments when Raiden wasn't been a twerp (seriously they've should've have had him say nothing in that game).

Like I said earlier you don't need a huge marketing campaign for games now and days cause if a game is good enough and gets positive reviews from ether professional reviewers or user reviews (pick your poison) people will buy it. Look at Divinity Original Sin, it's getting praised out the arse cause it's a pretty damn good game, it may not sell 6 million copies but it will probably make Larian Studios happy with themselves. Even games like Minecraft had less marketing than Vanquish, look how successful that game was.

But you know what I'm done arguing cause honestly if you believe that the lack of marketing was why Platinum games don't sell well you must be one gullible person or a Platinum fanboy.

@Salt_The_Fries: Most of their games are pretty niche except for games like say Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengeance. You can't really say games like Bayonetta, Vanquish and Wonderful 101 are big names or particular revolutionary

Indeed. Bayonetta received significantly more marketing and sold better than Vanquish.

I think it's ignorant to believe marketing would've done ****-all.

You're not bringing up the best examples of this. We're talking about full priced retail games here. Not Kickstarter projects or games that released on every platform known to man. Not to mention that Minecraft's success isn't the standard for games becoming successful because they weren't marketed well. Minecraft is an entirely different animal.

And I'd also like to add, once again, that my post wasn't just referring to marketing. But let's be real here, you haven't been paying too much attention. Your entire argument was based on the fact that you thought they didn't sell well because you thought they were bad. Brilliant.

And you don't have to stop arguing, because you weren't arguing in the first place. You were skimming over my posts to tell me how bad Platinum Games' games are. It's funny how even Platinum admits that marketing hurts their software sales, yet here you are saying otherwise.

They make very niche titles. Madworld, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Anarchy Reigns, The Wonderful 101, etc. All of them, good or bad, are very niche and "strange, kooky" games that unfortunately just never hit home with mainstream audiences.

Platinum Games should consider themselves lucky though. Almost every game they've made so far has flopped commercially. Double-Fine made two titles that flopped and haven't released a retail title since (except for Once Upon a Monster but, I mean come on..)

That's another good point! Hideki Kamiya even said during development of Wonderful 101, "If you don't like games that you can complete in one day, don't bother picking up mine." Way to shoot yourself in the foot. That probably killed plenty of interest in the game for some people.

What I don't get is why people still Slam on Platinum Game's narrative, character's and plots..... They maybe a niche studio but its common knowledge that they just don't care about that emo non-sense.

They make awesome games, I just think they need the right partner to develop a AAA game with, I believe Scalebound will be that game

except for few most of their games are the same.... new IP looks interesting.. at least the trailer

Damn.. I need to pick this up.. lol

That, is a hit jokes wise ;p

Anarchy Reigns I like as a concept. Specifically the multiplayer. A little too chaotic and unbalanced, but entertaining. The campaign is repetitive as hell though.

I would say that they serve a niché audience and tend to be rather short. They often stray from the "comfortable" Vanilla protagonist, antagonist and story (which feeds into niché audience).

But they are quite good, I would like more games from them.

I think they are fairly successful as they have plenty of offers to publish games. As for scalebound it was foolish for them to go exclusive to Xbox one.

Niche games, that dont appeal to the masses.

I love PG but people should stop acting like everything they do is gold. Madworld was repetitive and Anarchy Reigns was straight out mediocre. Shinji Mikami is also no longer at PG so theres that. I loved Bayonetta, MGR and Vanquish but somehow Scalebound didnt seems interesting to me. I think the somewhat juvenile artsyle turned me off. I need to see gameplay 1st to judge but I wont make the mistake of thinking Scalebound will be good just because its made by PG

Because their games suck and it totally has nothing to do with marketing.

It's a mix of poor advertising and the general gamer population being terrified of games with actual gameplay or any sense of fun.

I don't understand anyone that doesn't like their games and I don't want to understand them. PG is one of the few developers that consistently delivers fantastic, interesting, fun games.

I like some of their games. Though gameplay cant save annoying music and unlikeable characters im looking at you bayonetta.

Bayonetta has great music and characters though. Bayonetta is such a good character.

I personally didint care for any of the cast.Same goes for music. It hampered my overall experiance and while the combat was fun I just couldint take the other stuff anymore.

I personally believe that their games aren't very fun, but since that's an opinion it wouldn't be a very good answer to the TC's question.

It certainly isn't just one single thing, it has to do with a mix of a lot of different elements working against it. But as pointed out earlier in the thread, Bayonetta has sold well in the past.

It probably has something to do with their games generally requiring some degree of skill to play.

Isn't that what Platinum does best though?

Western developers sometimes outsource pre production concept art to freelancers/big studios (like the famous weta workshop), but having a studio handle the entire art related process? I don't know if that's possible. But I literally have no idea how pre production works in Japan, I imagine it's less structured.

Like the actually art direction is one of the first things that comes up during development, and it can spark ideas and shape the gameplay, not the other way around. They can't program the game without assets to work with, they can't create assets without guidelines, the guidelines come from the concept art.

The cool stuff only happens if you input the precise combination of button presses. If you just mash attack, it's slightly less cool.

I told a friend of mine about Vanquish. I told him that it was amazing, easily one of the best shooters in years. He tried it and said that there was too much going on at any given time for his tastes. I think that is definitely a turn off for many people. The games are chaotic and as such could be seen as having a high barrier to entry.

Yeah, I honestly have no idea. I was just tossing ideas. I would prefer them to just keep trying as opposed to outsource even if it was possible.

I think pretty much anyone can pull off the right buttons, even bro gamers. :P Platinum makes games where cool stuff happens, I think most gamers like that kind of thing. I think what puts a lot of people off is the Japanese aesthetic, as some have mentioned already. Also the lack of billion dollar marketing lol.

Nah. They do require some skill to master but their games are mostly easy on their normal difficulties

Um, no. Platinum's games are entirely gameplay driven.

I've beaten DMC3:SE on Hard with Dante and Vergil and there were tons of moves in Bayonetta that I couldn't string together.

They aren't hard to beat, but they are hard to play if you aren't a dedicated gamer with experience playing older games. A game like Viewtiful Joe or Bayonetta is very hard to sit down and play in comparison to a top-selling game like Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Skyrim, etc. The control schemes are just too complex for most casual gamers.

I don't know if Bayonetta's controls are complex, if anything that's the games best asset gameplay wise is the controsl themselves. They are simply enough and tight given the dodge is on the trigger, and the combat is two button stuff, with pauses between slashes. Majority of the "difficulty" comes from navigating the chaos which is where your point of the game not being as pick up n play friendly. You can't half ass Bayonetta, and not end up with stone trophies all day.

You need to be right into it and paying attention to everything happening on screen. Same thing with Vanquish, W101, and Revengeance. Vanquish and Bayonetta had fantastic controls though. Revengeance and W101 do such a SHITTY job teaching you the game.

@PurpleMan5000

No they're not. infact they Are relatively simple yet the game still has depth, and this is something all games should strive for, you want controls that are simple to use but the gameplay should be still be challenging.

@jg4xchamp

I had to google how to Dodge in Metal Gear Rising, the Tutorial doesn't even teah you how to parry. Unless if one would count "press <^> + X to parry" as a tutorial.

Only things that really needed to be explained better were parrying and dodging in MG Rising. The fact that the latter was hidden behind an upgrade you had to buy was idiotic design as well. Once you know how to parry effectively and how enemies telegraph their attacks, the game becomes fun and rhythmic.

Other than that, Rising was one of the best games I played last gen. Definitely the best Metal Gear game I played last gen.

You think they are simple because you have experience playing a variety of video games. I have friends who only play games like COD, Madden, and Assassin's Creed, and they would quickly give up on a game like Bayonetta where you are constantly dodging chaos and have to remember combos. Just look at the biggest sellers every year. They are games that somebody who is playing their very first video game could sit down and have fun with. No penalty for dying and you almost never die anyway. One button combat, with a large world to explore and map markers to tell you the exact GPS coordinates of where you are supposed to go. It is very hard to have mass market success with a complex game on consoles, and with a AAA budget, the only games that aren't going to post heavy losses are games that the vast majority of the gaming community buys into.

This. They make obscure niche titles. But this is what allows them to always be weird and unique. If they had mainstream success then they would be corrupted and make annualized crapola.

Platinum Games' audience already knows about their games. Spending an additional 20 million hoping mainstreamers will be into their weird niche japanese games is a gamble not worth taking. Even worse a gamble that could cripple the studio. Their games are not crazy expensive and sell well to the intended audience who already know about the game.

I believe the reason the studio has not caved in is because they have kept cost in line with sales expectations. Instead of blowing 200 million on one game they have respectable budgets and get plenty of free advertising through gaming channels.

I love how gamers throw around marketing like it's just some easy solution to a problem. Or as if it's always a problem. They don't need COD sales to survive and that is why they have survived this long. I always go out of my way to buy a Platinum Games release. I follow them like people follow a band they love.

My friend, this is wonderful. Sadly, the point of marketing is to reach out to people who aren't aware first and foremost. This (believe it or not) expands an audience and creates more money.

That's exactly my point though. They don't NEED to waste millions advertising to POSSIBLY HOPE that a mainstream audience will understand their bizarre idiosyncrasies. They get enough sales to exist as is. I wouldn't ad an extra dime to their advertising budget. It's a waste. That's like spending 40 million to advertise a david lynch movie to mainstream audience who aren't going to like it in the first place.

My friend, you seem to view marketing as a very black and white thing with limited perspective.

A very good example of marketing in recent years as a whole was an expensive movie with an inexpensive but highly creative and well thought out marketing. The Dark Knight viral campaign.

In simple more traditional terms, using a trailer, long before the movie was actually ready, with nothing big a simple logo teasing the Jokers voice ramped up the hype level and interest immensely.

When people say" oh oh oh marketing is expensive" "oh oh oh it's a waste of time" it indicates the person has 0 idea or concept of marketing. Good marketing can be done with very little resources and generate much interest and consequently profit.

Money doesn't mean shit if the thing being sold, is being sold badly.

@PurpleMan5000

You're Right, I suppose it is Relative. However you said the controls were complex, they aren't anymore complex than Madden. The gameplay is complicated sure but the controls are simple. Thats what depth is.

"......map markers to tell you the exact GPS coordinates of where you are supposed to go."

The Alternative is you get lost and thats a total waste of time. I agree that games have been becoming more accessible in all the wrong ways but the Giant Arrow on the Screen telling you exactly where to go is a God Send, every game is better for having it. Why should reaching a destination be a pain in the @ss ?

I've noticed that the industry and community are beggining to polarize these concepts. Its become tradition for games to reacted to any new concept by going in the Exact opposite direction only to a higher magnitude. So as games get easier and easier ever so slightly, hardcore games respond by demanding the game to be impossible, unfair and unbalanced. This is what created Dark Souls, its just an Exegerated Opposite Reaction to a slight change.

Both of these issues are ruining gaming, not just one of them.

I'l even go as far as saying the game telling you what to do is a fantastic too. It worked just fine for DiRT 3 and Forza.

@Lulu_Lulu: The problem with the map marker is that you only really see it in open world, supposedly non-linear games. It defeats the whole purpose of both said open worldness and nonlinearity. I can't count the number of times I have heard people say that TES games have great exploration. You aren't really exploring anything if the entire world is already mapped out for you, down to item locations, though. You are just playing a game that has been watered down to accommodate the non-linearity rather than a tighter, more linear experience all for the sake of having an enormous world that you won't bother to run across more than once because you can just fast travel right next to the destination. It's just pointless.

@uninspiredcup said:

My friend, you seem to view marketing as a very black and white thing with limited perspective.

A very good example of marketing in recent years as a whole was an expensive movie with an inexpensive but highly creative and well thought out marketing. The Dark Knight viral campaign.

In simple more traditional terms, using a trailer, long before the movie was actually ready, with nothing big a simple logo teasing the Jokers voice ramped up the hype level and interest immensely.

Loading Video...

When people say" oh oh oh marketing is expensive" "oh oh oh it's a waste of time" it indicates the person has 0 idea or concept of marketing. Good marketing can be done with very little resources and generate much interest and consequently profit.

Money doesn't mean shit if the thing being sold, is being sold badly.

I wouldn't use the dark knight as an example. WB spent god knows how many millions advertising that movie. Not to mention public awareness of that movie was through the roof before they ever spent a dime. Even those viral marketing campaigns weren't free and probably cost a bundle. What seems cheap to you probably cost millions to them.

There's better examples of your point...just don't use a movie that cost 200 million to make, prob 100 million to advertise, and made one billion world wide at the box office.

Platinum's games don't tend to be very mainstream. They also don't have much advertising.