Beyond Good, Evil, Sales, As UbiSoft Ponders Popularity

Thanks to GameSpot for reprinting news of UbiSoft's improved financials, but disappointing specifics, as the company noted in particular: "In a very competitive year-end market, sales of new brands such as Beyond Good and Evil and XIII, products which had been heavily marketed, were lower than the early-December forecasts... this had an impact of 10 million euros ($12.5 million)." Coincidentally, GameSpy has an editorial discussing the allegedly disappointing sales of UbiSoft titles, and notes: "Many of my peers felt that BG&E's style was too eccentric and didn't convey what type of game it was." Although Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has "sold 2 million units worldwide", UbiSoft's welcome announcement of a Prince Of Persia sequel with reference to "improved marketing positioning" implies some dissatisfaction with the initial sales, and GameSpy argue "the [U.S.] advertisements for both [BG&E and PoP] were horrendous", but overall, this didn't stop UbiSoft becoming "the second largest publisher in France, the third largest in Germany, and the sixth largest in the UK" over the holiday period.

beyond good and evil is incredible

[enigmatichmachine]

it ranks up there with windwaker, and metroid prime as THE games of the last year. (so, yea, perhaps prime is a bit old now, but it was years ahead of its time) these are the games that make consoles worth having, and its a shame they flop in comparison to the crap sequels that are getting so mass produced these days.

Worthless tech support team makes me mad.

[LordJezo]

What a worthless company.

In Beyond Good & Evil (pc version) there is a game ending bug. Affects a whole lot of people. Message boards everywhere have people desperately seeking an answer as to what is wrong (search on Google for the second triangle key bug) and guess what Ubisoft says about it.. NOTHING!

So all of these people, including myself, are completely screwed. Ubisoft hasn't released a fix for it and hasnt said a word. The only reason I have even been able to get past that point is because I stumbled across an unofficial hack that some guy wrote to specifically get past the part in the game that is broken.

So sure, there is a fix, but what about all of those people who aren't as good at the internet and can't find it? Or the little kids who got the game as a present and don't have internet access? It wasn't an official fix, it wasn't found on the BG&E site, there were no notes on the tech support pages. It was only through searching on Google and bouncing myself around on different message boards did I eventually find the fix. Heck, FAQs on gamefaqs even mention the bug and say that if you find it your best bet is to find someone with a save game past that point.

Releasing a game broken and then refusing to fix it is a huge mistake on their part. As soon as a bug like this is found they should release an official fix for it the next day, not drag their feet and maybe address it in a few months.

Splinter Cell (PC) had the same sort of problem, in many cases a player would shoot his weapon and the sound would go completely nuts. Loud static would make it unplayable. Gamers would have to quit out of the game completely and go back in to make the sound go back to normal.

So what did Ubisoft do to address the problem? Jack. They did nothing. People were trying to find an answer but they provided nothing.

So sure, they can release killer games but if they keep releasing them broken and refuse to support the people who spent their money, why should anyone bother?

Re:Less than 10 hours of gameplay

[Masem]

It may be short, but I think it has reasonable replay value (in that you can pump up the difficulty and not have to worry about how to solve the jumping puzzles). Plus, I've read that you can unlock both the original 2D PoP and the PoP sequel within the game by getting to certain special areas.

I rather have a short, immersive extremely well done game (PoP:SoT, Elite Force (the first one) or Max Payne 2), then to have a game that can give lots of gameplay time but with poor mechanics/plot/whatever that make it a grueling experience (Super Mario Sunshine for example).

Re:Wow...

[PainKilleR-CE]

From Gamespot's review of BG&E:
Nonlethal stealth is quickly becoming one of those "love it or hate it" gameplay elements, and while the stealth in BG&E is handled well, there's enough of it to turn off people who don't care for it.

Running around dark corridors isn't the only thing you'll do in Beyond Good & Evil. The game's 10- to 15-hour quest [...]

Personally, it takes a lot to make me go out and buy a game that's only 10-15 hours in length. Additionally, I'm in the latter crowd on stealth gameplay. While PoP's ads were decent, BG&E had some of the worst video game ads I've ever seen (ok, FF:TA was worse, by far, only showing that ads won't deter me from a game I really want).

Prince of Persia is also noted as being a short game, but I've still considered picking it up.