Why Beyond Good and Evil Tanked

Via Joystiq, a post on the JumpButton blog talking with a PR manager at Ubisoft about the title Beyond Good and Evil. Despite critical acclaim and crackerjack gameplay, the title just didn't do very well commercially. The rep explains why it did so badly in the stores, and what that means for future quality game titles. From the article: "When BG&E was released in 2003, it was competing against some of the strongest franchises in gaming. Like a weak wolf cub in a litter, it was forced to fight its siblings for attention and nurturing. Strong brands such as Tom Clancy and the reinvented Prince of Persia were the favourite sons that year. While XIII, a stylish FPS based on an obscure Belgian graphic novel, almost suffered a similar fate to BG&E, but sales in European territories still managed to qualify that game for Sony's best-seller Platinum label. It was only late in the piece that IGN.com managed to arm us with a majestic and summarizing quote for the difficult BG&E: 'Zelda for grown-ups.'"

Not enough hype

[SIInudeity]

I did enjoy this title, very much. I think it got overshadowed by the typical Christmas volley of releases. That, and you have to compete with the general ineptitude of the average gamer.

Followthrough.

[Anonymous Coward]

A VERY relevent story for this forum. Everyone's always complaining about gameplay. Well BG&E had gameplay*, and look what happened. Apparently people were unwilling to put their money were their mouth is.

*I'm playing it right now.

I never understood...

[tarun713]

...the whole 'Zelda for adults' tagline. I played BG&E and didn't think it was any more 'adult' than zelda. Maybe they were just riding on the more cartoonish look of Wind Waker at the time, but BG&E didn't look very realistic either. Both are great games, and I don't really get the 'adult' comparison. Even the difficulties were pretty even.

Re:Or Maybe...

[PjotrP]

Agreed, blaming the competition is just the easy way out. "If our game would have been the only game released that year, we're pretty confident it would have been that years best-seller."

If they, by some magical device, would be able to choose in which year they'd release the game, which year would they choose? I bet other years had some pretty big name games as well, as does practically every year.

The other games mentioned weren't even that big imo. Tom Clancy franchise? Prince of Persia revisited? I'm wondering if those games actually only were big sellers because no real big games came out that year...

Re:About this game: BUY IT NOW.

[chrismcdirty]

How much did Ubisoft pay you for that post? I liked the game, but I definitely don't see it as one of the best games of all time.

Re:One reason? Gallic weirdness

[Amerist]

Yes. Initially I found PJ to be an instant turn-off.

Why? Possibly because my entire childhood has been tainted by Disney and I find anthropomorphic animals to be downright stupid, especially in what seemed to be a SciFi game. A little bit of playing, though, and I got over that immediate suspension-breaking issue. Especially after I met the orphans--well, actually, most especially after meeting the Mamago rhinos.

Even if he is a pig, PJ is still a card. He has a personality that lights up the room and I found it easy to ignore the animal appearances of many of the characters after I was drawn further into the story.

PJ still did create a major hurdle. I actually put the game down for almost a month after trying to play the demo and seeing PJ jump into the scene. That coupled with getting killed by the beginning boss fight because I didn't have a good grasp of the controls yet--which is sad because that fight is actually extraordinarily easy.

Once I finally swallowed the hook--the opening fight and its mysterious implications--and got onto using my camera, suddenly the game became the best thing in the world. The detective work and gotta-snap-em-all nature of the camera compelled me onwards to explore, wind through the story line, and ultimately kept me entranced. All in spite of my aversion to the cartoon animal characters.