Rise of the Tomb Raider underperforming?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Dec 1, 2015 10:21:58 GMT -5 MGNoxa said:

It's no secret that the new Tomb Raider sequel has had terrible sales for a AAA title. Microsoft and Square Enix won't let you know that, they say they are happy but what they are really saying is that they like the game and are proud of Crystal Dynamics for making a good game.

So with the poor sales of Rise of the Tomb Raider is this just bad luck releasing it so close to other titles that have much more anticipation? Halo 5, Fallout 4 and Black Ops 3 certainly would've impacted TR's sales. But Rise survived releasing between Metal Gear Rising and Bioshock Infinite, granted there was a week or two between them but Bioshock Infinite was one of the most anticipated games that year.

Microsoft is spending a lot of money putting Rise's DLC on show at The Game Awards this Thursday in a hopes to push the Christmas Sales, knowing what the DLC is I don't think this is enough to get people to buy the game.

Big Titles certainly would've chipped away at TR's sales but other years games that should've been swallowed by big games managed to stand up to the competition, titles like Far Cry 3 and 4 shouldn't of been able to hold their own but they did and Rise of the Tomb Raider is arguably better than those games so this isn't the case of a crappy sequel.

In Comics when Marvel announced the Female Thor, the first issue had amazing sales numbers but they quickly dropped with the second and third and fourth and so on. Could the Tomb Raider reboot be facing a similar problem? A new progressive(?) Lara caught many eye's and they bought the game to see what the buzz was about, with the buzz now gone has the Tomb Raider reboot failed? Did the new direction alienate it's old audience and not bring in a new audience big enough to sustain the hefty AAA budgets?

If Rise of the Tomb Raider featured the old Lara Croft and old style of gameplay you could argue that the small dedicated fanbase would've kept the game afloat in this busy time of year.

However it's also important to remember that Rise is a Xbox One exclusive, releasing just two weeks after their biggest exclusive of the year, Halo 5, did Microsoft just bite themselves in the foot by buying temporary exclusivity? Will sales pick up with the PC and PS4 versions later next year? (mid year for PC Users) Or has the damage been done?

So what do you think happened? Is this just a bad release schedule? Is Xbox Exclusivity hurting it? Or has the novelty of a new Lara lost it's appeal?

Could be several factors.

1. The extreme cost of making these games makes it very difficult to make up for it.

2. They released it around the same time as other mega-titles which hurt it.

3. The actual gamers don't like the new Lara as much as the old one. Maybe they prefer "superhero" Lara over "realistic" Lara.

4. Maybe they haven't counted sales on all platforms (if it's coming to PC).

5. The novelty with the SJW-ized character has worn off now.

6. People prefer Nathan Drake now.

It could be any of those factors. Things with women don't sell as much as things with men unless it's raw appearance based (modeling, porn, etc.), that could be it as much as other things. I say it's a combination of those factors.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

People have called Lara the "female Drake" for some time now, lol.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Dec 1, 2015 11:22:17 GMT -5 MGNoxa said:

Dec 1, 2015 11:16:37 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

People have called Lara the "female Drake" for some time now, lol.

It started with Nathan being called Dude Raider but then Tomb Raider started copying Uncharted and now she's Drake with tits. I still think it was a bad move copying Uncharted. I mentioned in my review that they have put themselves dangerously close to Uncharted so they need to do as much as possible to differentiate themselves.

That's just due to modernization of games. They make games big cinematic experiences and full of button prompts. I have to say I don't like the new "game movie" approach. Then they went the "dark" route to differentiate it. Solid game, but I love the old school for a reason.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Also this is why I really don't like exclusives, especially timed ones. Just dumb. But it isn't surprising if they're sales are hurting largely because of that.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Dec 16, 2015 21:34:43 GMT -5 MGNoxa said:

Crystal Dynamics Studio Head was secretly fired a few months ago and will be leaving at the end of the year. Rise came out a little over a month ago, could they be connected? Important to note that he is also responsible for the delay of the new Deus Ex and Hitman which probably pissed off the money guys and with him not being able to deliver a successful sequel to Tomb Raider this was probably the reason he was let go.

tombraider.tumblr.com/post/135279174310/new-studio-leadership-hi-everyone-after-spending

So is this all a coincidence or is this proof that Rise hasn't just underperformed but it underperformed for the Xbox One? A question which will never be asked on Mainstream sites is if this is to do with Lara Croft, do the mainstream public prefer the old Lara? Or was Lara Croft just not interesting enough to stand up against Fallout and Call of Duty? Rise was definitely the better game so it's a shame to see it fail like this.

Due to the release of Rise being so close to many gaming juggernauts it's impossible to predict what happened but hopefully the PC release (January 2016) and PS4 release (Q4 2016) will gives us some answers. However I think it's safe to say Lara Croft is no longer the gaming icon many feel she is.

It's possible. I'll have to hear more though.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

These modern games are expensive, so they can be big sellers and still lose money. The first Tomb Raider Reboot game didn't make a profit for a while.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

They might have to cut their budget in the future but who knows?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Tomb Raider was best with its own style but the new games are impressive.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Do you think it falls behind Uncharted in presentation? Tomb Raider led the way for Uncharted and now it's copying it except they made it darker.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 4, 2016 15:39:29 GMT -5 MGNoxa said:

Jan 4, 2016 15:08:33 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Do you think it falls behind Uncharted in presentation? Tomb Raider led the way for Uncharted and now it's copying it except they made it darker.

It falls behind it in every way. The only thing Tomb Raider has going for it is the violence so it's imperative that the third game in the series (assuming they stick with this style of gameplay) keeps the violence.

Uncharted has better characters, graphics and set pieces. Tomb Raider should have Lara Croft be on Nathan Drake's level but she's not, Underworld Lara was on his level and Rise could've been but they dropped the ball, the only thing Rise has that's better than Uncharted is the villain, Uncharted has always had terrible villains so if the sequel could get another awesome villain then that would be another plus.

However right now as it stands, Tomb Raider keeps falling short of Uncharted and I think that's down to the talent involved behind the scenes. Rise to it's credit has put much more of a focus on stealth and gathering resources to craft bombs and weapons so they clearly know they need to differentiate themselves so hopefully the third game is when they finally do it.

Shame I never finished the Uncharted games. I had all 3 of them but I was playing other stuff.

I think Tomb Raider suffers from being modernized. Making these games more like movies with buttons and less like games. That's why it's harder for me to get into them.

[spliffybaz]

X1 only release for the console version hurt it badly, that and it just doesn't look appealing to me and other gamers at all. A lot of games are under performing on X1, the system needed more memory and a better launch without Kinect and the stink of DRM. I like the console but it has a memory leak in Forza 6 (which also under performed sales wise) and the game has some crash/freezing issues in 2 player offline versus mode, from the memory leak in X1. PS4 sold a ton of consoles, but doesn't really have any games for it, both companies are already focusing on PS5/X2 as it's been reported the new APU's for them are currently under development. PC gaming will eventually overtake console gaming I believe, or atleast be more even with it, but being exclusive to X1 means you probably wont be doing great sales numbers this gen (unless its an fps).

[spliffybaz]

For me it's a stale and uninteresting platformer, I don't really enjoy platformers in general. If the game was really gory or had something more mature feeling and something darker to it then I might enjoy it, but Tomb Raider was a franchise i've always avoided as a gamer and would never purchase. I watched some stream on the new Tomb Raider as I had friends playing it and I just wasn't impressed with the style of gameplay. Puzzling, platforming, that is not exciting or entertaining to me. I am fine with more thinking games like strategy types of games, but action games need to be more than Tomb Raider for me to purchase them. The X1 exclusivity guaranteed bad sales, PC gamers have much better games to choose from than Tomb Raider and overrated console titles, so a PC release is whatever for it. By the time it releases on PS4 everyone will be playing something new and more hype, I will be buying Quantom Break on X1 as that game looks awesome! So compare the Quantum Break gameplay with the Tomb Raider gameplay and tell me which is more appealing to you, and yes I am aware Quantum Break is also a platformer but one i'm looking forward to (great action, blood, violence, gore). Tomb Raider is for very young children and die hard fans of the franchise if anyone at all. That is my opinion on the game/franchise and I wont touch it.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

The games feel like other modern games. They feel like movies with button sequences though and that's what made me hesitate. Sure it has good set pieces. That sounds exactly like a movie. Maybe I'll get my hands on it if it ever comes to PC.... which will be never lol.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 4, 2016 19:12:45 GMT -5 spliffybaz said:

X1 only release for the console version hurt it badly, that and it just doesn't look appealing to me and other gamers at all. A lot of games are under performing on X1, the system needed more memory and a better launch without Kinect and the stink of DRM. I like the console but it has a memory leak in Forza 6 (which also under performed sales wise) and the game has some crash/freezing issues in 2 player offline versus mode, from the memory leak in X1. PS4 sold a ton of consoles, but doesn't really have any games for it, both companies are already focusing on PS5/X2 as it's been reported the new APU's for them are currently under development. PC gaming will eventually overtake console gaming I believe, or atleast be more even with it, but being exclusive to X1 means you probably wont be doing great sales numbers this gen (unless its an fps).

Xbox shot itself in the foot big time. Didn't know they were talking about PS5 and Xbox 2 already. Wow.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 4, 2016 21:35:21 GMT -5 spliffybaz said:

For me it's a stale and uninteresting platformer, I don't really enjoy platformers in general. If the game was really gory or had something more mature feeling and something darker to it then I might enjoy it, but Tomb Raider was a franchise i've always avoided as a gamer and would never purchase. I watched some stream on the new Tomb Raider as I had friends playing it and I just wasn't impressed with the style of gameplay. Puzzling, platforming, that is not exciting or entertaining to me. I am fine with more thinking games like strategy types of games, but action games need to be more than Tomb Raider for me to purchase them. The X1 exclusivity guaranteed bad sales, PC gamers have much better games to choose from than Tomb Raider and overrated console titles, so a PC release is whatever for it. By the time it releases on PS4 everyone will be playing something new and more hype, I will be buying Quantom Break on X1 as that game looks awesome! So compare the Quantum Break gameplay with the Tomb Raider gameplay and tell me which is more appealing to you, and yes I am aware Quantum Break is also a platformer but one i'm looking forward to (great action, blood, violence, gore). Tomb Raider is for very young children and die hard fans of the franchise if anyone at all. That is my opinion on the game/franchise and I wont touch it.

I don't think it is necessarily for kids. Some people like platformer elements and some don't but I think the modern Tomb Raider does what other modern games do which is make them a movie with button presses. The older Tomb Raider had a cool design to them and I personally liked Anniversary when they cleaned up the controls.

I'm definitely with you on the consoles part. I'm not in a rush to get any of that. You can even emulate PS3 games now lol. The gap is closing.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Yikes. Why even bother? I hate that about consoles because now you have to start over again.

[spliffybaz]

Well for X1 Forza 6 is really an amazing game and the best racer i've played since NFSU2 on PS2. I feel the quality of console games on X1 this gen is higher than it was on PS3/360 last gen, but they released the consoles far too soon, they should have come out just now in this winter, not 2 years ago. To this day they have pretty incomplete libraries and they wont last long as PS5 and X2 are already confirmed. I am fine with my X1 purchase but it is a bit of a waste given the fact it will be abandoned in a year or two and the fact that Microsoft cannot secure any fighters for their platform is a big disappointment. Playing games on PSN is really subhuman and intolerable to me so I can't give into PS4 until they have some truly epic games for me to play. So far they have nothing, SF5 is a complete joke and like SF4 series it will run better on PC than the Sony machines. Forza 6 is better than any game I played last gen however so there is a good quality that will be present in the few solid titles that get released on X1. PS4 has a lot of games shared with PC and PSN is utter trash so i'm not feeling it despite being a big Sony Fan since PS1 days (get rekt sega).

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 5, 2016 11:50:53 GMT -5 spliffybaz said:

Well for X1 Forza 6 is really an amazing game and the best racer i've played since NFSU2 on PS2. I feel the quality of console games on X1 this gen is higher than it was on PS3/360 last gen, but they released the consoles far too soon, they should have come out just now in this winter, not 2 years ago. To this day they have pretty incomplete libraries and they wont last long as PS5 and X2 are already confirmed. I am fine with my X1 purchase but it is a bit of a waste given the fact it will be abandoned in a year or two and the fact that Microsoft cannot secure any fighters for their platform is a big disappointment. Playing games on PSN is really subhuman and intolerable to me so I can't give into PS4 until they have some truly epic games for me to play. So far they have nothing, SF5 is a complete joke and like SF4 series it will run better on PC than the Sony machines. Forza 6 is better than any game I played last gen however so there is a good quality that will be present in the few solid titles that get released on X1. PS4 has a lot of games shared with PC and PSN is utter trash so i'm not feeling it despite being a big Sony Fan since PS1 days (get rekt sega).

There are quite a few good racers on multiple systems and especially on the PC thank goodness whether it's arcade or simulation.

You think they should have had a longer waiting period on the last gen? I remember the PS3/X360 having a "meh" start too, but this gen does seem very disappointing. With the PC getting better and better it's more "meh" to me.

Still interesting they're making a new gen so soon. That means people will be starting over again. Sucks for them.