Personally I hate to make a thread like this but I was surprised that 3.5 million copies, both physical and digital of Final Fantasy VII Remake Episode 1 in just first 3 days. Despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, it didn't stop the fans from getting their hands on it. Given how big the hype and marketing campaign for it as well as FFVII popularity, it shouldn't be a surprise. Persona 5 Royal in other hand still struggling despite launched nearly 2 weeks earlier than FFVIIR. The ongoing pandemic as well as lack of appeal(it's a classic, turn-based JRPG with anime aesthetic) and very limited marketing, again it shouldn't be a surprise. It did much better in Japan last year though as it sold about 260k copies by the end of December 2019. Of course P5R didn't need to be sold as much as FFVIIR because its development cost were much lower. Atlus can consider P5R a success even it sales don't reach 1 million copies as its already profitable enough. The vanilla version Persona 5 sold about 3 million copies at the end of 2019 after it was launched in late March 2017. However its sales peaked more than a year after it was launched especially during Black Friday and Holiday seasons with massive price cuts. In other words people are treating it as a "junk food" game which bought a very cheap price and to be uninstalled by their owners less than a week later as no reason to return it back as it was bought with ten to fifteen dollars. Compare that to first Dark Souls which sold only about 2.3 million copies at best but today it is one of the most iconic video game ever made and the critical and financial success of its spiritual successor Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice proves us that.
Okay, I need to stop talking about Persona, Final Fantasy and Dark Souls because they are good games as they are all in "green" zone of Metacritic. What about some games that inside "red" and "yellow" zones but outperformed the "green" ones in term of sales? For examples Watch_Dogs 2, The Division 2 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are critically acclaimed games in recent years that are flopped or at least failed to reach it target despite good reviews from critics. As for the first 2 games it could be contributed to Ubisoft's reputation in last few years. Deus Ex one even more complicated as it was published by Square-Enix but even that failed to raise it sales.
What about some bad games that still sold better than the good ones? I have at least two of them in my mind: Hatred and Huniepop. Both are trashed by critics when they were launched but sold relatively well(both are made with low budget) and today both are considered as cult games. Another example Left Alive which slammed by Japanese critics and consumers alike upon release. It also flopped that it was sold less than 1000 yen less than a month later after its launch. Western critics joined them to bash the game when it was released in North America and Europe about a week later but consumers in other hand react very differently. Left Alive sold very well in the west especially North America for effective marketing(it was promoted as an effective Metal Gear Solid clone). Its Metacritic scored 37 by critics and 8.3 by users, a large gap. Some fanservice-driven games like Senran Kagura and Gal*Gun sold very well in west despite lacking in marketing and hype.
Perhaps we should stop using sales to measure a game's success. Persona 5 Royal is a success despite its low sales in launch week. It had very limited appeal to begin with as people who hates turn-based JRPG have no reason to play it all. Even those who like turn-based JRPG may hates its anime-like aesthetic or vice versa. Perhaps its current unpopularity may have been a blessing in disguise as it could be a cult game several years from now just like Beyond Good & Evil today which was launched in 2003 with disappointing sales.
As a conclusion, both good and bad games deserves their attention. We need to stop judging their sales and look at their qualities instead.
Log in to comment