Rare questions Piñata marketing News
Xbox 360 PC News by Robert Purchese
Rare has questioned owner Microsoft and its decision to pour more money into marketing Gears of War rather than Viva Piņata, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
Software engineer James Thomas felt sales of the new family-friendly game were affected by the decision, which propelled Epic's already very sought-after creation to worldwide chart success.
"Most interestingly I think from our point of view, it was interesting to see how the marketing budget was split last Christmas, because obviously everyone knew that Microsoft were publishing Gears of War and Viva Piņata," said Thomas, talking to Gamasutra.
"Yet, so much of the money went towards publishing Gears of War, which was going to sell millions anyway."
"It was a bit like, 'what about the other franchise?' I think we got left in the wake somewhat. Hopefully the PC version this Christmas, it might get something of a second wind."
In the same interview, Justin Cook, who worked as a designer on Viva Piņata, notes that the game has sold "close to half a million sales now, so that isn't a terrible debut for a game."
In contrast, Epic's Gears of War broke records on release, becoming the fastest-selling next-gen console game and hitting 3 million sales within ten weeks, as well as becoming the most played game on Xbox Live.
Epic Games president Michael Capps said earlier this year that much of the success of the game was due to a big marketing budget, and the company was "extremely lucky" to have the backing of Microsoft.
However, Microsoft does still has faith in the Piņata franchise. At E3 this year it unveiled Viva Piņata: Party Animals in development at Krome Studios, and Climax's Games for Windows version of the original is due shortly. A DS version is also in development.
Viva Piņata is due for release this Christmas, where it will ironically share shelf space once again with Gears of War, albeit the PC version due out on 9th November.
News lurks everywhere, which is why GamesIndustry.biz is far more important than breeding animals or chainsawing Locust.
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projectmayhem
15/10/07 @ 15:05
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It wasn't the marketing that hurt the game, it was the game being from the studio who brought you Perfect Dark Zero. It's a gardening sim on xbox360, a console who's sales feature shooters ALL THE TIME. What market did they want with Viva Pinata?
Pull a Bungie, break free and get back to Nintendo ASAP. |
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Nostromo13
15/10/07 @ 15:11
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Rare have a lot of cheek to say something like that, considering the amount that Microsoft paid for them they really haven't shown to be that valuable, call that an unfair statement but the proof is in the sales.
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Viva Pinata was a damn hard prospect to sell, if you ask me.
Sure, there's a nice little gardening game in there, but it is buried under layer after layer of patronizing fluff and irritating presentation masquerading as "polish". The whole product feels so schizophrenic... you have this deep, complex, difficult game, but presented as if it was for 5 year olds. It's all so inappropriate - it is as if both Rare and Microsoft had totally different games in mind. I'm not surprised Microsoft didn't pour as much money into marketing Viva Pinata - if anything they should have held back from releasing the game entirely until they figured out (a) what the game was and (b) who the game was for. Anyone who really thought that Viva Pinata was going be "Nintendo for the 360" or open up Xbox 360 to a more family audience was deluding themselves. |
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"Rare has questioned owner Microsoft and its decision to pour more money into marketing Gears of War rather than Viva Piņata"
Microsofts Answer : Yeah, we looked at one, perhaps the defining co-operative action game of the year, and the other, an annoying broken garden simulator, and decided to go with the first option....
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 15/10/07 @ 17:00
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Two things here:
1/ I can't reason why so much money would be spent marketing GOW either given the uber hype that it already had behind it. Yes I know some of that hype was paid for but still it was at least as high profile as H3 at the time ... 2/ I liked VP but it was another token effort by MS to break away from the FPS-athon that is 360. The problem was that it was sooooo far removed that it was like playing a game for 6-8 year olds (which absolutely was MS' design insistence). A bit like their RPG stuff, uber old-fashioned JRPG turn-based combat FTL ... You can't have most of your stuff at one end of the spectrum and then toss in a couple of token efforts at the complete other end of the spectrum and think you have a balanced portfolio of games for your console ... |
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kangarootoo
15/10/07 @ 16:10
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I think the sales say more about the 360 installed base than the marketing spend for each game.
He is probably right that GEoW got the lions share, but that was probably the right thing to do if the best return on the investment was important (which of course, it was). |
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infoxicated
15/10/07 @ 16:16
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"However, Microsoft does still has faith in the Piņata franchise."
...and can has cheeseburger |
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Viva Pinata is really one of the better titles on 360. I thought it was too kiddy for my tastes but, after playing it, I was totally hooked. The art style and gameplay are very unique and it is one of thos games that doesn't want to be tough or scare you, it just has this warm atmosphere that's really refreshing.
I hope that more people try it out and Rare sells a lot more copies. They deserve it for making such a unique, fun game. |
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Penguinzoot
15/10/07 @ 16:22
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I loved Viva Pinata, but it was difficult the more you progressed.
Creating a TV series to publicise the game was a great idea. But I think part of the problem with sales of the game was the fact that the game was NOT really like the TV series: characters in the game didn't vocalise with the voices from either the TV series or the game trailers. I.e. the game wasn't "about" their favourite characters from the TV show. As a result, marketing it to kids who have expectations raised by seeing the TV show was always going to be a problem. What those kids probably wanted from the game was an adventure/story/activities (or whatever) involving their favourite characters from the show. Not the deep and engrossing gardening sim it actually is. Shame really, but no real surprise. For that audience, Viva Pinata Party Animals seems a much better idea. But at least Viva Pinata may have done some of the hard work by establishing the franchise.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 15/10/07 @ 17:25
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Monkey_Puncher
15/10/07 @ 16:37
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Rare aren't dead, Viva Pinata proved that!
The Banjo team at least is still there and still intact. I think he has a point in all honesty, Pinata was treated a bit like mutant cousin that nobody wants much to do with by Microsoft last Xmas. I was expecting a few adverts and bit more of a push of the game by Microsoft, instead it made its way onto shelves in Europe with barely a whimper. Oh and thank god it didn't have the voices from the cartoon in the game, I'd have ended up chucking the disk out of the window if I had to listen to those things every time I turned the game on. |
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Viva Pinata is an excellent game and deserved to do well. It's the only game in my household which is played by my 6 year old, my 9 year old twins, my wife and myself. We all have gardens in progress and the last play session on it was yesterday.
Not bad considering how long it's been out. Don't know about marketing budgets, but it certainly must have struggled against the shiny and exciting Gears of War. Of course, GoW was played by me alone for 2 weeks and then sold. So it's not hard to see which game I think is better. Wendelius |
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It was a great game, with a couple of flaws, but easy to loose vast amounts of time on just 'doing a bit more'...
I'm also glad the voices of the cartoon were nowhere near the game, I hated those voices. The game would have done better on Nintendo systems but it wouldn't have looked as good that's for sure. :) |
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cyber_nicco
15/10/07 @ 18:33
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Viva Pinata is a great game. Most people who own it would agree (it seems).
'Nuff said. |
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deepmenace
15/10/07 @ 20:54
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viva would never sell to the average 360 owner.
ps3 is better suited demographic. shame. |
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The Bodybuilder
15/10/07 @ 20:57
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Personally, I couldn't get into VP. The game had so much tutorials, it put me off. I just don't have that time to invest into getting past a tutorial.
Rare are partially right. But they seem to have forgotten.. 1. MS pays thier wage checks. 2. MS paid a lot for them. 3. MS invested, hyped, and wasted money on, Perfect Dark Zero, conkers, and virtually all other rare games before this. |
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Penguinzoot
15/10/07 @ 22:53
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@smelly
Kameo may be a tarted up Cube game, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Controls were shit though. |
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NegativeZero
16/10/07 @ 01:21
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I think a good part of the reason that it never sold is that it's very much a game looking for an audience. It's too hard for kids, but too kiddy for adults.
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Viva Pinata can reach an audience on the Xbox 360, only that audience didn't really exist at release. It still doesn't, and that is Microsoft's fault for not marketing said audience enough.
If they keep pouring all the marketing dollars toward the FPS-centric crowd then that's the only audience they'll have. They need to start treating non-FPS/mature titles as viable products on the platform. That's all about marketing. Pretty simple to understand. |
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