Jurassic World Evolution 2 sales lower than expected and Elite Dangerous: Odyssey under-performed
Frontier lowers expected revenue for financial year.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 sales aren't great and Elite Dangerous: Odyssey under-performed, developer Frontier has said.
In a trading update, the Cambridge-based company said sales of Jurassic World Evolution 2 were "lower than expected" on the PC platform specifically. Frontier believes this is the "short-term effect" of a crowded release window, with a number of other highly-anticipated PC games launching in the same window.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 launched on 9th November, which, it turned out, was the same week Sports Interactive's Football Manager 2022, Playground's Forza Horizon 5, Rockstar's GTA Trilogy and Bethesda's Skyrim: Anniversary Edition came out.
Frontier said Jurassic World Evolution 2 sales on PlayStation and Xbox "are largely as expected".
There's hope for the game, though. Frontier said it believes Jurassic World Evolution 2 will overtake Jurassic World Evolution in terms of revenue in its first 12 months from release, and called the initial PC sales "primarily a phasing issue". Frontier reckons it will see "significant" sales around Christmas off the back of over 440,000 Steam wishlists, and also expects a boost when the delayed Jurassic World Dominion film comes out in June.
As it stands, according to Frontier boss David Braben, Jurassic World Evolution 2 has around half a million players across all platforms.
"A massive thank you to everyone involved with the launch of Jurassic World Evolution 2," Braben commented. "Whilst initial sales on PC have been lower than we targeted, the game is already being enjoyed by around half a million players across all platforms, and showing very strong critical and player reviews. We are confident that it's another terrific addition to our great portfolio of games. Frontier's future looks strong and our portfolio continues to grow."
On to Elite, and the much-maligned Odyssey expansion appears to have had as hard a time at the virtual tills as players have had in the virtual cockpit. In its trading update, Frontier said sales of the space game have been "more muted" so far in its 2022 financial year.
In July, Frontier was forced to delay the Odyssey update on consoles indefinitely to focus on fixing the PC version. At the time, Braben said the studio accepted the "frustration" players had with the Odyssey expansion since it came out in May.
Odyssey, which finally gives players the much-requested ability to step outside their ships and stroll around the galaxy in first-person, was lambasted by players when it launched, quickly accruing a 'Mostly Negative' rating on Steam as purchasers highlighted performance issues, server outages and a heap of bugs - despite Frontier having held a month-long paid alpha prior to launch, ostensibly to fix any glaring problems ahead of release.
A raft of updates have been issued to try and sort out the problems, which has had the knock on effect of slowing development of Odyssey on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The under-performance of Jurassic World Evolution 2 and Elite Dangerous: Odyssey caused Frontier to revise down projected revenue for the financial year ending 31st May 2022 from between £130m and £150m to between £100m and £130m.
Looking to the future, Frontier highlighted the release of its first F1 management sim in 2022, as well as the launch of its Warhammer: Age of Sigmar real-time strategy game. It also has a few games from external developers it intends to publish, such as Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters.