Shadows of the Damned flops in the US

By Fred Dutton Published 15 July, 2011

Child of Eden also struggles.

Suda51/Shinji Mikami collaboration Shadows of the Damned is having a hellish time of it at retail.

According to Joystiq, the EA-published actioner only sold 24,000 copies in its first month on sale in the US. In comparison, chart-topper L.A. Noire shifted 419,000 during its second month on the shelves.

The game, which won a sturdy 7/10 from Eurogamer's Simon Parkin, has also struggled in the UK, debuting at a dismal number 31 in its first week.

And it wasn't the only new release to post underwhelming figures in this month's US chart. Tetsuya Mizuguchi's spiritual Rez follow-up, Child of Eden, only managed 34,000 sales, debuting at number 83. That said, it's yet to launch on PlayStation 3.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (70) Latest comment 10 months ago

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  • mrboshingles #1 10 months ago

    Shadows of the damned child of eden

  • Daddy-Doom-Bar #2 10 months ago

    Child Of Eden didn't do that well in the US cause the fat gits couldn't be assed to get off their fat backsides.*

    *Might not be true. Probably is, though.

  • jambii267 #3 10 months ago

    Shadows of the damned is awesome, maybe marketing it would have helped eh?

  • kirankara #4 10 months ago

    all we ever hear is people complaining how devs release same, tired old games , but once again, anything remotely imaginative bombs.
    Sad

  • HyperTails #5 10 months ago

    Alice: Madness Returns only sold just over 120,000 as well apparantly.

    *sigh*

    Why do great games not seem to get the recognition that they deserve?
    Edited by HyperTails at 15/07/11 @ 21:28

  • Der_tolle_Emil #6 10 months ago

    Suda51 games never sell all that much, do they? A shame, I really like his games. Will definitely pick up Shadows of the Damned as well; I usually even pre order his games but I somehow completely missed that this was even coming out. Maybe one of the reasons why it didn't sell?

    Edit: Made proper sentences.
    Edited by Der_tolle_Emil at 15/07/11 @ 21:35

  • KDR_11k #7 10 months ago

    SotD was expected, Suda just doesn't result in sales.

  • landlock #8 10 months ago

    Shadows of the Damned did really bad in the UK aswell but releasing just after Red Faction 4, Duke Nukum Forever and FEAR 3 at the end of a pretty busy month wasn't really a great idea.

    Another good example would be the Witcher 2 is meant to be getting a XB360 release in the US/Europe in November but that's crazy it's gonna tank big time. With Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed Revelations already hogging the month completely.
    Edited by landlock at 15/07/11 @ 21:35

  • Trafford #9 10 months ago

    I bought both. SotD flopped with me, like an ugly shag.
    Child of Eden was Rez2 wrapped in new age guff. Kinect gave me repetitive strain injury and the music was crap.

    £70 down. Thanks gaming!

  • Bartacus #10 10 months ago

    7/10 games are not good enough in today's economy if it's not great don't bother or release it at a bargain price.

  • Shotofen #11 10 months ago

    Niche games are niche. I feel like both of those games didn't cost too much to make (in relation to their awesomeness), so this headline might be a bit alarmist. Hey No More Heroes got a sequel right -- AND and PS3 release. Niche games don't have to have COD sales to have their own market (or LA Noire sales for that matter, a game that cost a shit-ton of money and wasted lives to make I might add).

  • Khosrau #12 10 months ago

    Shame about Child of Eden. Hopefully it will do better on PS3.

    I will surely buy a copy, that much I know.
    Edited by Khosrau at 15/07/11 @ 21:58

  • alcides #13 10 months ago

    "Right, but does this "child of eden" wield a gun? Perhaps we could change the name, rebrand it, like, Destroyer of Eden. Make it Hell harbinger. There should be tits and lot of cussin'. That'll sell.

  • Anciegher #14 10 months ago

    Niche games should be priced accordingly and they would see a lot more sales. Shadows of the damned should have had a launch price of 29.99 and child of eden 19.99. Any more than that is absurd in this day and age with every month having AAA games released.

  • The_Inquisitor #15 10 months ago

    That it's also summer doesn't help. I haven't been playing many games these last couple of weeks.

  • ronuds #16 10 months ago

    Some marketing probably would have helped. Not sure about SotD, but I never saw a single advert for CoE.

  • IronGiant #17 10 months ago

    Just goes to show how few 'hardcore gamers' are kinect owners, awful sales like that for C of E will just push devs further towards investing in family friendly kinect games. PS3 version is £14.99 preorder at play which hopefully will help it sell!!

  • King_Edward #18 10 months ago

    SotD seems to have achieved some kind of super-bomb. Really poor sales even by Suda standards. Shame, cos it's fucking excellent.

    CoE probably did as well as anyone at Ubi expected.

  • Evets.Yurgundur #19 10 months ago

    As a full boxed game Child Of Eden hasn't enough gameplay to justify the expensive price. That holds it back from selling well IMO

  • Killerbee #20 10 months ago

    Hang on, Microsoft keep telling us they've sold millions of Kinects in the US, and yet what is arguably the best 'core' game yet released for the peripheral can only manage to sell 34,000 copies?

    Sort yourselves out, US gamers!!!!

  • lolercopter #21 10 months ago

    Considering EA put absolutely no marketing on it I'd say it's a decent number. Now, blame Sega for not advertising Bayonetta and Vanquish. Oh, wait, they did.

  • Yuroko #22 10 months ago

    Barticus got it in one. I don't have the gaming budget I used to have and can only buy the really special games that come along a few times a year. Everything else is a rental.

  • Daeltaja #23 10 months ago

    Ya know, if some production values were held back (not like they're massive anyway..) along with several other reduced costs, this could have been released as a digital download and sold shit loads more at budget price.

    Ok, so the marketing budget was non-existent, but how would they have marketed anyway? It's a niche title, better served up as an indie release. Anyway, what was the budget on this? "Failing miserably" is a relative term.

    When will the industry learn? The boxed retail market is steadily becoming mainstream titles only.

    Edit: Late night typos..
    Edited by Daeltaja at 15/07/11 @ 23:26

  • oerhoert #24 10 months ago

    It's not niche. Tarantino, grindhouse, and mexico are all rather mainstream concepts these days.

    I blame this one on the marketing, and probably reviews/coverage.

  • riz23 #25 10 months ago

    Well SotD will come my way when the price goes down. Mercenary perhaps but economically necessary. Sorry Suda51, gomensai Mikami-san, and a tough titties to EA.

  • Mono_X #26 10 months ago

    But we all know it's only possible for a Suda51 game to flop on the Wii - we all know that had No More Heroes been released on the HD consoles it would have had massive sale right, right?

    Ironically Shadows of the Damned probably would have done better if it had been released on the Wii!

  • jonbwfc #27 10 months ago

    Let's face it folks - there's now pretty much conclusive evidence that while Suda51's 'name' alone may wow the critics, the public at large simply don't give a toss.
    Edited by jonbwfc at 16/07/11 @ 00:33

  • metamorphic #28 10 months ago

    Shadows of Been there, done that. Add to that little or no media coverage.

  • Ceatlan #29 10 months ago

    Shadows of the damned was always going to be a niche title that only appealed to juvenile adolscent males, to whom gore, swearing and action appeal. The trouble is though, that the majority of that group is also dominated by people who love there big name franchises, like gears of war, call of duty, etc. Marketting it would have helped, but I don't think it would have helped much, especially given the mediocre reviews.

    However Child Of Eden could have been much bigger if it had been a £12 XBLA release (like everybody I know thought it was going to be), or at most a £19.99 Games On Demand release. It was never going to sell as a full price retail box release. It has way less game play in it that loads of XBLA games released these days, and its all about the concept, which I'd love to experience but will wait until you can pick it up for under £20.

    Edited by Ceatlan at 16/07/11 @ 06:55

  • JayKwon #30 10 months ago

    Shadows of the Damned wasn´t even featured in EA´s E3 show which was showing supposedly 10 ´awesome´ games or so. It was then already, I realised that EA lost their trust in the project. I mean E3 is meant for hardcore gamers, and if they don´t even want to show it there!? Alice didn't get air time as well in their show, but managed to sell marginally better because of the licence I think.

    EA had a good idea that if you pre-order one of the aforementioned games, you'll get a soundtrack cd of the game for free. They never really marketed that though. I don't understand why they can't try marketing a slightly old game again and build up some hype or make an attractive package deal with both games for a good price? I also don't understand why (almost) every game has to have the same starting price only to (most of the time, Nintendo is a big exception here) drop in price quickly after. Why can't we have more different price ranges for a game, it would definitely be more succesful. If Shadows of the Damned was 29,99 from start I would've bought it immediately, now I have to wait till it hits that price, but then again when it will, I might be interested in other games coming out then and I will forget about it and end up buying the title a few years later for a bargain or jus not at all (yet).

    The game got good enough reviews to interest me, but not impressive enough to go for an instant full price buy. Therefore I don't have enough time nor money as I still have a pile of older excellent games to go through.

  • bad09 #31 10 months ago

    No surprises here.

    Shadows Of The Damned, I looked at the gameplay vids on EG and it looked liked an RE4 clone that wouldn't look out of place last gen with sexual innuendo, dialogue and jokes for 12 year olds. Like all Japanese games the dialogue is still laboured and just plain awful (quite frankly western devs have spoilt us and we expect a lot better these days). The Japanese style hasn't progressed in the last ten years and it's just rubbish compared to the west. Outside of Ninty Japanese gaming in the west is a niche now not the main of previous console generations, some of you hate this fact but it's still a fact and one even the Japanese industry knows.

    The truth of Child Of Eden is that the only people excited about that was the small niche who liked Rez, it was never gonna set the world alight.

  • Inmediasress #32 10 months ago

    Well I can understand Child of Eden, it's a creative game and 90% of people are braind dead, so they can't apriciate games like these.
    Shadows of the Damned probably lacks marketing, if one thing I learned from any industrry is that marketing sells everything even literal crap just depends how much money you are willing to pour in it.

  • jon1138 #33 10 months ago

    it's very sad...nowadays players are lobotomised with COD and others "fast food" games...

  • JorgeLuisBorges #34 10 months ago

    Blah blah blah cod, blah blah blah blah blah.
    I'm no cod fan ( sold the last one after 2 weeks) but can we stop banging on about it!! if we don't talk about it it might go away.

  • mungolikebeans #35 10 months ago

    It didn't sell because it's not very good (sotd).

    Love or hate cod, it's a better game.

  • bad09 #36 10 months ago

    What the hell is a "fast food" game?

  • SpaceMonkey77 #37 10 months ago

    What's happening to japanese games is that some of them are now developing a long tail. To expect high sales from them, especially with a lack of advertising is a bit much, and thus this is what's happening. The industry has to adjust to this situation, as many japanese games aren't going to do huge sales like CoD, BF3 or WoW, in as short an amount of time.

    I think japanese games need a year, to get their money back, instead of the first two to three months. Calling SotD a failure, a few weeks after release is kinda mad. Saying that though, japanese games don't add enough multiplayer/co-op extras that would have gamers keep their games more, for extended play. Vanquish was awesome, but also suffered from not have such too. Multiplayer would have added more value, achievements and fun, and boosted sales a bit, via DLC. When japanese games get more of a grip on multiplayer (and good multiplayer at that, for which they should seek some western help), they stand to do much better.

  • TRUTH #38 10 months ago

    Child Of Eden is on Kinect - games hardly sell on Kinect (except for fat people fitness games). Also this is a game that you play for an hour then forget about it, it's also a niche market. I managed to play this and it's a fun game for small doses. It just does not have the appeal to keep playing as becomes to familiar and waving your arms around gets boring, esp if your not into abstract games. This is a game is more suited as a budget DL!...Kinect is actually quite shit for gaming other then a fun-fair dumb games...Hope Steel Battelilon does not entirely depend on waving arms around - this I think will spoil the game!
    Edited by TRUTH at 16/07/11 @ 14:38

  • Slipstream #39 10 months ago

    Sudi developes fantastic games rich in gameplay with a constant barrage of bizzare and surreal set peices, many of which don't appeal to westerners because they simply don't get it. Advertising of a clever nature can remedy this. Suda is more than capable if his games are anything to go by, so he really ought'er.

    Sorry to hear about Child of Eden, another fantastic game, but I can tell that the Kinect is collecting dust for many people alreay. Besides, it can be used with a controller, right? Perhaps this should be emphasised more, especially so it can catch the eyes of those who appreciated REZ, but don't have a Kinect.

  • M1chl #40 10 months ago

    I hesitated with buying Child of Eden (I bought SotD) and as I see, now its the time to redeem myself and buy this game, to support original games. Kinect collectiong dust, I collecting weight, so its perfect product for me right now...

  • canoot #41 10 months ago

    I'm not surprised SOTD flopped,it was ok up to chapter 4 then it turned to shit.

  • metalangel #42 10 months ago

    @Daddy-Doom-Bar: Do you struggle to eat with your rotten, crooked teeth?*

    *May not be true. Probably is.

  • mr2ange #43 10 months ago

    Aww a real pity in my eyes, well done for creating something great and different. I very difficult comination to achieve.

    I'll probably pick up COE once it comes out for the ps3.

  • super_monty #44 10 months ago

    I have pre-orded COE for ps3 can't wait to have a crack at it with Move.

  • kongzi #45 10 months ago

    weird and colourful japanese game released with little to no marketing push in a marketplace dominated by gray US army propaganda.. flops....consider me shocked yeah.

    I don't buy them because i don't give a rat's ass about weird, japanese and colorful anymore. Once the epileptic seizure wears off, there's very little substance underneath.

  • MrVengeance #46 10 months ago

    Child of Eden looks great, but its short so isn't worth full price in my opinion. I'll buy it at a more sensible price.

    Shadows tone doesn't do anything for me. Tired of dark themes in games in all honesty.

  • DarthMartious #47 10 months ago

    I'm not surprised. SotD looks like an average third-person shooter with knob-gags and CoE is an 800 point XBLA title not a full price release.

  • Mister-Wario #48 10 months ago

    "yet those same people who ask for innovative games buy yearly franchises with minimal to no improvement and buy fifa, cod or anything that mimics cod. these are also the people who bash nintendo for releasing mario and zelda.

    f****** hypocrites."

    I assure you, this isn't always the case. The only shooters I'm interested in right now are Bioshock Infinite and Resistance. And I'm really only interested in Resistance because I picked it up with my PS3, it's by Insomniac, it's a solid enough shooter, and it fulfils my "shooting at aliens" quota that I occassionally need to satisfy. But unless the shooter is radically original I don't even give it a look because shooters just don't interest me that much.

    The problem with original releases for me is that, yes, it's wonderful that they're trying something new, but a lot of the time the games are either good but not great, or just don't appeal to me. Take Brutal Legend: I liked Psychonauts and Double Fine's downloadable titles but as someone with no understanding of metal I just knew it would completely go over my head.

    And regarding Zelda and Mario: I like them both but I'm in no rush to buy Mario 3DS or Mario Kart 3DS at all. Skyward Sword looks great but to be honest I'm more interested in Rhythm Paradise right now for Wii. Not meaning to attack you, I just want to assure you not all gamers are giant hypocrites.

  • Averice #49 10 months ago

    Where was the marketing? I haven't even heard of either of these games before. I must have glossed over the reviews apparently, cause I missed those too. Did the publishers not pay enough to keep the reviews up on the front page or something?

  • Demiath #50 10 months ago

    Not that I have played it myself, but Shadows of the Damned is basically a Resident Evil 5-esque third-person shooter (albeit with some deliberately outlandish art design) and thus could not really be described as "niche" in any other way than not being part of an established franchise and/or featuring American soldiers killing evil Muslims.

    If anything, it's the so-called "mainstream" that has become incredibly narrow and insular as of late...

  • syntheticreality #51 10 months ago

    Shadows of the Damned sold a paltry number in the US because it looked utter shit. Garcia Hotspur? Weapons called The Boner? This is a perfect example of the Japanese trying WAYYYY too hard to make a Western game and attempting to guess what Westerners like when it doesn't come naturally to them. Hence, we get a game with apparently sluggish controls, an overly recycled storyline and dick jokes galore. There's a reason Americans bought LA Noire in droves instead of SotD: LA Noire is a great game, plain and simple.

  • Vortextk #52 10 months ago

    Surprise surprise, no marketing from EA and another suda game falls on its face. It's a miracle people still hire him, despite how much I love his work I don't think he'll ever make a game that finds a large audience.

    And please synthetic. Suda doesn't cater to shit, he makes what he wants to make. You don't know the developer or the studio. His games ARE more westernized than most over there because that's his style, it's not some awful trait he developer in the past 2 years like every other japanese studio.
    Edited by Vortextk at 17/07/11 @ 09:45

  • Xboxfanuk #53 10 months ago

    Launch it on Games on Demand NOW for £30.00 and advertise the shit out of it on the dashboard, sales will boost.

  • Lunatic4ever #54 10 months ago

    too bad for Shadow of the damned BUT somehow good for me because I intend to buy it anyway and from the look of it the price is going to drop very soon.

  • peacefuloutrage #55 10 months ago

    I don't understand why publishers have these ridiculous time horizons to be profitable. "You're game hasn't sold 1 million copies in 3 weeks, pack your bags, your services are no longer required!"

  • maxb #56 10 months ago

    Having got sotd on release I can say I think its crap but I'm not a fan of the unreal engine so my opinion is swayed by that but I do think it deserved a bit of marketing to help it sell.

  • silversun #57 10 months ago

    I think way it was advertised was not great , if focus had been on gameplay elements, it might do better.

  • higgins78 #58 10 months ago

    Average/above average videogames report low sales figures in this economical gloom...massive surprise no?

  • Lord_Gremlin #59 10 months ago

    Sadly SotD has too much shit in it. Sure, it could be a masterpiece, but certain broken, boring repetitive mini-games drag this game to hell.
    Which is sad - it could truly be a masterpiece. But they ruined it. Why? Who knows. Maybe they ran out of money. Maybe maybe team had a couple of really bad, amateur developers in it and they spoiled the whole game.
    That said, worse games sell more.

  • spudsbuckley #60 10 months ago

    I predicted that both of these game were going to be utter bombs, it was a bit obvious really.

    Suda makes bad genre-games, dresses them up in "wacky" and people call him a genius because his stuff looks a bit different. Shame his games are almost universally very poor at the whole, you know, actual game part.

    Child of Eden is trippy Space-Harrier and it ony has a handful of levels. Should have been a 10 buck XBLA game.

  • MattEdWithCheese #61 10 months ago

    Well, in the last few weeks I bought Child of Eden, Shadows of the Damned, Alice: Madness Returns and Solatorobo and I told all of my Twitter and Facebook friends about and told them to buy them so I doubt I could have done more.

    What about you Freddie?

  • layleeloo #62 10 months ago

    That's because unless it has COD or MADDEN on the front cover the yanks are about as adventurous as a eunuch in a whore house!

  • Freek #63 10 months ago

    Child of Eden would have been a fantastic XBLA/PSN game, as a full priced retail title it's a little hard to swallow if you're not a die hard Mizuguchi fan.

    Shadows of the Damned was sent to die, little to no marketing and verry difficult to find, EA had no faith in the product.

    It's hard to blame the public for not buying original games when they get next to no retail presense and high price points.

  • spudsbuckley #64 10 months ago

    But they're not original games at all. They're genre games with a slightly non-traditional lick of paint.

    SOTD is a Resi 4/5 clone and COE is a Space Harrier clone.

  • spekkeh #65 10 months ago

    The first time I read about SotD was with the review, and that didn't exactly sell it to me. I still want to buy Child of Eden, but I'm a bit bothered by the fact that the PS3 version is half the price, specially considering I don't have a kinect. Makes me want to wait for the next price drop.

  • TruSmiles #66 10 months ago

    Rez was a full priced game on the shelves, and that actually had less content than Child of Eden, if you include all the extras and unlockables you can gain from repeat play-throughs.

  • Otis_Inf #67 10 months ago

    all we ever hear is people complaining how devs release same, tired old games , but once again, anything remotely imaginative bombs.
    Sad

    That's because they're not totally new concepts to gaming, but existing concepts in a new jacket. I don't know child of eden, but SotD is a game which could come across as 'weird' to some people, due to the non-typical world: not everyone likes that.

  • Dave52 #68 10 months ago

    KillerBee: "Hang on, Microsoft keep telling us they've sold millions of Kinects in the US, and yet what is arguably the best 'core' game yet released for the peripheral can only manage to sell 34,000 copies?"

    Two problems. Firstly MS probably haven't sold Millions of Kinects, they're not saying how many they've actually "Sold Through". If it was Millions, we'd know about it. Secondly, COE lasts about ten minutes, so most gamers will be waiting for it to hit the Bargin Buckets. It'll be the same on the PS3. I know I'll be waiting for the £15 mark, but I will be definately buying uit.

  • bigtechno #69 10 months ago

    you can pre-order Child of Eden on PS3 for £15

    on play.com

  • wizbob #70 10 months ago

    I buy the long tail idea - like Resident Evil 4 and No More Heroes, you can probably expect ports of Shadows of the Damned to next-gen formats for when people have actually heard of it.