Alone in the Dark to sell 2-3m units

By Ellie Gibson Published 11 April, 2008

"We want to stop losing money."

Infogrames bossman David Gardners has said he reckons between 2 and 3 million copies of Alone in the Dark could be shifted once the game launches this June.

"We want to stop losing money," he told Reuters. "This management team's number one goal is to get a business plan together that gets us to a break-even level."

Gardner wouldn't say how or when it plans to do this but it'll probably involve former Sony big deal Phil Harrison, who was recently appointed as president.

And Alone in the Dark, of course. The PC, Wii, PS2 and Xbox 360 versions are out in Europe on June 20th, with a PS3 offering "to follow".

You'll find all manner of AITD-related screenshots, videos and previews over on the gamepage.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bionutz #1 4 years ago

    Let's see if it's good enough tho.
    oh and yeah: First! \o/
    Edited by 1 at 11/04/08 @ 08:28

  • muscleblade #2 4 years ago

    Sorry Infogrames. I think your game will be very good but im going to play Ninja gaiden 2 all summer.

  • Triggerhappytel #3 4 years ago

    "We want to stop losing money."

    Quote of the day. This guy should be appointed head of every ailing business when he has masterful strategies like this.

  • BooMMooB #4 4 years ago

    muscleblade - NG2 is not everybodys cup of tea you know. I, for one, plan to play both. (if AitD turns out good) :)

    I think AitD could very well hit those numbers across all systems. The premise is there.

  • Xerx3s #5 4 years ago

    If this is anything like the original series, it should be pretty good. A resurrection of Gabriel knight next please.

  • lambtron #6 4 years ago

    "Quote of the day. This guy should be appointed head of every ailing business when he has masterful strategies like this."

    Yeah but at least he is to the point and honest regarding this. Something which is all too lacking in this industry.

    Of course that may well never happen again now that Phil H is involved ;)

  • bad09 #7 4 years ago

    if it plays as good as it looks I'm sure it will do that well. I know I'll be picking it up launch as a AITD fan.

    The only problem will be waiting for the darkness on those long summer evenings, it's a problem I have now with Condemned 2, it's just no good in the light of day :)

  • Vice.Destroyer #8 4 years ago

    I know that it is multi-format, but isn't 2-3m units a humungous number? Let's hope that Infogrames shifts that, but Alone in the Dark does not excite me.

  • zoidberg #9 4 years ago

    it won't sell that much

  • Prodigy_BE #10 4 years ago

    Setting targets for yourself is a BAD idea.

    Me, I NEVER set targets for myself!

    /goes back to his (only) chair in his one room social housing apartment

  • Olemak #11 4 years ago

    "Let's stop loosing money" sounds a lot smarter than press release babble like "we're going to leverage our brands to maximize value for shareholders" or whatever garbage people usually vent into the cybersphere.

    I wonder how well though-out the release date is. They're going up against a lot of strong titles - but they would do that with any release date this year. There's a pretty impressive lineup ahead, and apart from the GTA IV launch, which will dominate the charts for most of the spring and summer, the market will just become more and more competitive towards the end of the year.

    I sort of thought the PS3 would be the primary platform for this title for some reason; probably it would have been a good idea to release it simultaenously on all platforms.

  • ChaK #12 4 years ago

    @zoidberg : yeah, I thought the same.

    It'll probably be a great game, but first of ESRB rating will be high (I guess), not everybody enjoy scary/dark game, and to many people buying game, AITD ain't that much of a well known franchise (like GTa, pes or whatever).

    And delayed again on ps3, guess we'll play it by christmass :(
    Edited by 1 at 11/04/08 @ 09:31

  • nickthegun #13 4 years ago

    Yeah, break even is a sound business plan, alright.

  • Eraysor #14 4 years ago

    Unfortunately I bought Rock Band so I am on benefits for the rest of my life now. Also I have never found "Alone in the Dark" to be a very awe-inspiring title for a game.
    Edited by 1 at 11/04/08 @ 09:34

  • Frosty840 #15 4 years ago

    Not a big fan of the series and, to be honest, haven't seen enough hype for the thing to really raise my interest.
    All I can really remember reading about it is that there's a realistic "setting stuff on fire" engine.
    Yay?

  • bad09 #16 4 years ago

    "not everybody enjoy scary/dark game"

    Capcom would disagree......

  • mingster #17 4 years ago

    If its better than the original AITD on the PC from 10+ years ago it should be OK.

  • Dizzy #18 4 years ago

    >We want to stop losing money.

    Easy. Make good games.

  • Quint2020 #19 4 years ago

    If Alone in the Dark is as good as i hope it's going to be it will be my game of the summer.

  • alimokrane #20 4 years ago

    Personally, they have me convinced with what I saw and I did preorder the game. Dont fail me!

  • muscleblade #21 4 years ago

    Didnt like the very original but for me not very promising idea about skipping chapters if your stuck. Sounds like its very easy to get stuck. Skipping chapters is nothing i would do anyway.

  • captainrentboy #22 4 years ago

    I wasn't interested in this, I haven't played any of the other titles (Unlike Res Evil), but then I watched all those recent videos that Eurogamer have put up, the ones that show off the spanking new game engine and what you'll be able to do with it, and let's just say if the gameplay is as good as what the engine looks it'll be a corker.

  • UKLL #23 4 years ago


    I was interested in this but not as much after seeing the recent videos.

    It does look revolutionary and unique but the combining a bunch of items and going all Blue Peter on enemies doesn't look like fun to me, it looks tedious. The video I watched had some woman droning on for about 5 minuites about combining sticky tape with various items to make items to kill enemies in which time I think the enemies had already died of old age.

  • BadBoyBonner #24 4 years ago

    You can down load the vids on Xbox Live that show not just the engine in motion but have the developer talking you through how you can combine stuff and how you interact.

    After watching it, combining elements in the game and how they interact with each other seemed like an advanced version of Bioshock. After watching them I have gone from a definitely maybe to an almost definite purchase.

  • Bulbatron #25 4 years ago

    I'm really looking forwards to this game. The Xbox 360 needs more horror games in my opinion.

  • brommers #26 4 years ago

    okay, so the 1st is old school now and played a lot like the resi evils of the same day. I only ever completed number 4 and that was too long ago to remember but with this new engine and a good degree of polish i'd say it's well worth a purchase. So the combining may be a bit tedious but that's just one factor of the game. You still have a great physics engine and a gun to fly things round the screen. Imo 2-3 mil may be a bit optimistic but good luck to 'em. Should be fun.