Why did Enslaved flop?
Why did Enslaved flop?
When Borderlands succeeded
Mark Raymond shares some thoughts as to why he thinks Enslaved flopped.
SADLY, AND unsurprisingly, Enslaved: Odyssey of the West has bombed. It’s so far sold an estimated 75,376 copies on the PS3 and 76,607 on the 360, a combined total of 151,983 worldwide. According to GfK Chart-Track, it entered into the UK all-formats chart at number 7 on the week ending 9th October 2010, fell out of the top ten to 11th place the following week, then to 25th, and now it’s hanging on at 28th. Already, sites like The Guardian and Play-Mag have articles up, exploring why this may have happened and who or what is to blame.
Yet, I think what’s interesting is the context within which this product failure occurred. Compare Enslaved to Borderlands, and you’ll see some similarities:
Both occupy hugely popular genres – third-person adventure and first-person shooter, respectively.
Both launched in the same month, in the fall season, just before the release of a new, super high-profile Call of Duty game.
Both were original IPs.
Both launched on the PS3 and 360.
Both were critically acclaimed, hitting an overall batting average of around 80-82 on Metacritic between formats.
One went on to be massively successful, moving an estimated 2,652,560 units worldwide, spawning four DLC packs in its wake; the other will probably end up a cult gem, gone but not forgotten, along with its friends Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts and Mirror’s Edge. What gives?
Why?
I think it comes down to two things: too unusual a creative design; and a lack of content per £/$ spent.
The first is to do with what I’d characterise as the game looking straight-up weird to a mainstream audience, who are far more comfortable with what they already know and love. In Enslaved, you’re not a space marine, pirate, explorer, soldier, cloaked assassin or superhero; you’re an ape-like dude named Monkey, wearing a sash that almost looks like a tail, bare-chested and footed, wielding a big pole which you use to smash apart robots in a colourful world overrun by nature. It’s an interesting, but unconventional, character design – and I say this with hesitance, but I think Monkey looks a bit dorky. He is just not cool, and I think a lot of people saw the character, thought “That looks dumb”, and picked up Medal of Honor instead.
The game simply looked too strange and quirky for its own good, people didn’t know what they were getting when they were thinking of buying it, and so they hedged their bets and went for something they knew they would like. And I don’t think this is the fault of the game-buying public, either. It’s the fault of the marketing department, who had a tough sell and couldn’t follow through (unfortunately), and it’s the general fault of the industry that games are priced so high that it’s not worth consumers taking a risk on something potentially new and interesting, rather than tried and tested. (This makes me wonder if Enslaved would have sold better as a series of episodic games available digitally, as opposed to being a full-priced retail package.)
Borderlands, after Gearbox had decided what the eventual tone and style of the game would be, established what it was pretty quickly with a series of gameplay videos and comical webisodes starring the game’s quasi-mascot, Claptrap. It was set in a post-apocalyptic world, something gamers were likely familiar with given Fallout 3’s popularity at the time, and it pitched itself very clearly as a co-op first-person shooter with lots of guns to, er, shoot, with role-playing elements. Conceptually, Borderlands was fairly recognisable as to what type of game it was or was going to be.
Value added
The second part, though, and very important, is the value proposition. Enslaved is a single-player-only game, which is reportedly quite short in length (I’ve heard between four and twelve hours from beginning to end) and doesn’t feature elements which would typically aid a game’s replay value. On the flip side, Borderlands was a huge game in terms of content, had both single and multiplayer functionality, and even had a mode dedicated to a second playthrough. You could literally spend dozens of hours in that game world and still be experiencing stuff for the first time. If you were to compare Enslaved to a game like that, it clearly doesn’t even compete, and it’s understandable that people would be reluctant when they’re being asked to shell out £30-40 for an experience as short as that.
As unpalatable as it sounds, Enslaved failed because of a lack of bullet points on the back of the box. It wasn’t a male wish fulfilment fantasy; nor was it the next brain-training. It didn’t offer ‘x’ amount of hours in gameplay. It didn’t have multiplayer. Overall, it didn’t fit into the mainstream paradigm, or the perception, of what a video game should be.
Nice opinions but you are leaving out some other very important possibilities:
1) It’s made by Ninja Theory, the guys who blamed its customers over and over again for poor sales of Heavenly Sword although they shifted 1.5million copies on a console which had just been released. Naturally, they didn’t make any friends by behaving like little whiney fools.
2) NT blamed Sony for poor sales and constantly felt the need to play down the PS3 thereby cutting off many many fanboys and owners of a ps3 console.
3) NT like bragging about themselves and blaming others when things go wrong. no one like arrogant people who are stuck up their own arses.
4) NT are making DMC and DMC fans are not happy with the new look of Dante. In hope that DMC is not made by NT they have refused to buy enslaved, praying that enslaved bombing may get Capcom to reconsider being their hired dev.
5) NT at some point claimed it would be better than uncharted2 and GOW3. Very big and bold statements to make considering you are against the 2 games which have set new bars in gaming. NT failed since the controls are not tight, the fight mechanics are boring next to GOW3 and platforming is rubbish next to uncharted’s.
Along with the reasons you have given and combining these, NT has dug their own grave. If at some point NT would have pulled their head out of the sand (or backside) and stopped being such arrogant shits, this game could have done pretty well. Now I wonder how Capcom feels looking at what DMC sales maybe like considering the image NT has given themselves hmmmmm…
why do you think enslaved deserves more ? its mediocre from start to finish why do you even bother with this? borderlands has better gameplay and infinite more hours of game time unlike enslaved.overall enslaved i think is a pathetic excuse of a game and anyone who bothers and writes why it didnt sell is just an x360 gamer which who doesent have the slightest idea games like uncharted 2 or even one and zelda have platforming and action sequences memorable beyond anything that this game serves you, so the bottom line quit bitchin and play a game that deserves the praise!!!! not this pile of…. extrament!
There’s no conundrum to this really! Enslaved was a very sub-standard game and Borderland was a well designed game.
I didn’t complete Enslaved as I was simply too frustrated with the over-simplified and imprecise controls, dull combat and very mediocre visuals. Sure the voice acting was good (not great) but this is a video-game and I want my money’s worth of game-play! And that’s all I really care about!
And what’s a real puzzlement to me is how anybody can actually consider comparing Enslaved to Borderland. Borderland is in a complete different league with so many layers to its game-play.
Not convinced anything about the game was as revolutionary or different as you say. I played the first 4 chapters and it feels like an action melee game. Run around and beat up monsters – nothing more. Monkey doesn’t look that unusual to me – no more so than any of the gang in Gears of War – and his tremendous upper body does fit the whole climbing gymnast persona.
I didn’t buy it because Enslaved is too platformy and holds your hand far too much. It’s annoyingly linear and the icons to tell you where you’re allowed to climb are borderline condescending. Sure, Trip has her uses as a distraction but that’s not exactly a feature that will make a game fly off the shelves. Story and characters are nice, but the core gameplay just isn’t worth £30+.
All that being said, I honestly believe that Enslaved should do very well at a lower price point. It’s polished, it’s pretty and it’s fun.
Don’t compare a game that is yet another linear walk-from-here-to-there (let’s go… to the WEST) and press b to hit people with a stick game with uninteresting characters, but ultimately adding nothing new to anything, to the gem of originiality, interesting new gameplay mechanics, and some of the best level design ever that is Psychonauts.
Enslaved bombed because look at it: it sucks.
Fundamentally made well, but unable to appeal to anyone because none of it was anything new or interesting.
My brother enjoyed the Enslaved demo and he had decided to buy it but he also wanted Fallout New Vegas and Fable III and he could only afford to buy one of those games.
In the end, he bought Fallout New Vegas.
NT really deserves this! Im so glad this game flopped! I did buy the game when it first came out but, then about 2 hours or so into playing the game there was a old shake Monkey walks into and asks Trip “whats all that stuff” and on the ground is some boxes that say 3DTV and others that say CELL on them she replies by saying “oh thats just some old redundant technology” I thought to myself really! I mean why have that in a game your trying to sell to PS3 users? If they are die hard PlayStation fans then your game just got traded in at GameStop and now someone else will will be buying it used instead of new. I am a bit of a Sony fan so I did end up selling my game and am very pleased to NT having such a bad time with this new IP. LOL! LOL!
I’d have to agree with all of you. The demo was weak, plain and simple. The main character looks like a bad saturday morning cartoon and his name is Monkey! NT have talked way too much trash and made way too many foolish claims. Does it have an interesting premise? Yes that could be said, but I personally didn’t enjoy Heavenly Sword so I decided not to buy anymore NT games. As for DMC, Capcom needs to tear up that contract they signed with NT.
It’s pretty simple. Ninja Theory [Enslaved] didn’t gain fans before the title launched.
If you’re going to make an original IP, you have to have fans who are going to buy the game. The easiest way to do that is to make a console-exclusive game, the hardest is what Gearbox did.
Gearbox did an awesome job interacting with the community so by time the game came out everyone was talking about it.
I agree that NT’s marketing didn’t do the game any favours, & it used to be content is king but I dissagree. In this social decade Community is.
“Both launched in the same month, in the fall season, just before the release of a new, super high-profile Call of Duty game.”
My memory is hazy but I hope you are referring to Borderlands being released last year before Modern Warfare 2, cose it certainlt didn’t come out the same time as enslaved.
I don’t understand why all the analyzing of Enslaved? It didn’t bomb because it was too creative or unusual – thats ridiculous. Enslaved bombed because despite the creative nature the game-play was as generic as they come.It Bombed for one simple reason — it wasn’t fun. I was REALLY looking forward to this game – then when I played the demo I was 100% disappointed. Platforming was a joke, they pretty much held your hand and made it so you couldn’t make a wrong jump. The enemy design was about as stale as could be and the fighting (at least in the demo) fell below what expected after beating Heavenly Sword. Trust me I really wanted to like this game I beat the demo 3 times just to see if it grew on me. It didn’t so I bought Castlevania -Lords of Shadow instead, and that was a great choice!
It bombed because they simply complained and whined about a game which was a complete and utter success [HS]
They then go on to make an average game, that doesnt really play that well after the likes of the almighty GOW – GOWC – UC2 – AC2 – They were just dwarfed by the quality of their competition.
They should go off and lick their wounds, followed by a quick realisation and reinvention……
Why don’t we examine why the game industry and publications like you can’t understand that most people would not buy a game like this for $60 bucks? Why can’t we call the industry out on charging console players $60 dollars for a game that the PC gets for less each and every damn time?
RIP: New IP
Gamers buying habits will ensure that publishers will be hesitant to fund new IP for disc based releases, developers will be tasked with making sequels and annual franchise games.
Sure, there were a few misses in #enslaved but widening the debate to include other quality but low selling titles like Valkyria Chronicles and even the recent Vanquish.
VC was a huge critical success, but a sales flop. SEGA obviously liked the IP but the cost of development on the HD consoles ensured that sequels were to appear on the much cheaper to develop for PSP.
Vanquish again a critical success, but a relative sales flop. Once it was released and bombed out the charts SEGA said they were going to divert more of their development funds and attention to Facebook & iPhone gaming.
Owners of HD consoles will soon have little more to play than annual franchises, there was an interview on Eurogamer yesterday where EA said the fantastic Criterion will now be working on 2 year development cycles on Need For Speed, and sure the forthcoming Hot Pursuit looks fantastic, but what about other stuff Criterion could work on like Black or SSX and of course Burnout or even altogether new IP.
Unless buying habits change then PS360 owners will only have themselves to blame.
I rented borderlands and it sucked shit whereas I bought enslaved and i can tell you it is one of the best games ever madehould have sold millions of copies and borderlands bombed. ENSLAVED FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vanquish looks like it’s going the same way in that it’s obviously underperforming, despite what Sega says. It didn’t even enter the top ten! Just putting Enslaved’s bombing in perspective, though, Vanquish on the PS3 has accumulated more sales in one week than Enslaved has in three on the same platform.
Assuming for the moment that Vanquish’s sales don’t pick up, it’s another valid example of a new IP selling very badly during the same period, occupying a wildly popular genre, launching for both platforms, critically acclaimed, but also being quite short and missing a multiplayer mode. The difference between Vanquish and Enslaved, though, is that Vanquish uses a very typical setting and occupies it with very typical characters, yet just because these aspects are familiar to players, it hasn’t seemed to make a difference in terms of sales, which partially breaks my hypothesis.
I really do think there is a pattern here, and publishers are going to take notice. I also kind-of wished I’d come up with the title “RIP: New IP” (catchy!). However, I think the reason I didn’t go too far with that angle is because publishers will always be on the lookout for the next Guitar Hero, Modern Warfare, WoW, Wii Sports, Gears of War, Halo, etc., because they know that if they don’t innovate, ultimately what will happen to them is the same thing that’s happened to EA, and what would happen to Activision if they didn’t have Blizzard.
My problem is that the graphics look okay but too samey from level to level. It’s a simple platformer isn’t it? The idea is clearly a rip-off that Japanese Series ‘Monkey Magic’ and well I loved Monkey back in the day and didn’t fancy a futuristic day rip-off. NT’s female character resembles Heavenly’s Sword Nariko too much and personally I would had preferred a Heavenly Sword 2. NT dissed my choice purchase of Heavenly Sword as one of the lack lustre customers. Thank’s for not supporting your fanbase. And nothing really stood out exceptionally… sorry what’s the name of the hero? What’s it about? Even the reviews bored me. At least Heavenly Sword had some things worth talking about… loads of enemies on screen, being a guy it did have 2 hot heroines, a believably,interesting and emotional storyline, still looks and plays fantastic today, programming genius for PS3 so early in it’s adoption. Wasn’t like anything back then.
while i agree with the weak gameplay, i have to disagree with those of u saying its a piece of garbage, the story and voice acting r awsome and it follows an old japanese story of monkey with a post-post apocolyptic twist,it turned out to b one of the better story lines in a game in a long time, i think u mis understand nj’s idea behind enslaved, this was meant to be art, but as you said voice acting and story are hardly worth $59, as it drops in price id recommend this game to anyone that can find it for around $20
Maybe it flopped just because it’s not much of a game? It is certainly very pretty, very well animated, has some interesting ideas, and good voice acting—but there’s not really much to interest the player in playing it. I am, admittedly, judging the general direction and ambition of the gameplay from just the demo—my full opinion of which is here: http://backslashn.com/post/1456141543/the-player-enslaved —but as the demo fails so badly in its ludic elements I can’t reasonably suppose the rest will be better.
For one these games are from two different genres so it’s kind of hard to compare them. Borderlands is one of my favorite games this generation and I have all the dlc (the cap increase patch went live yesterday for PS3 and PC, 360 is still nowhere to be found). But Borderlands is a first person action shooter with RPG elements while Enslaved is a third person action adventure game. Borderlands was slow to start (it came out over a year ago) so the same could happen for Enslaved if the DLC is fitting and they put a big enough marketing push behind it (for a second time).
Holiday season is always a rough time to release a game. This game, and many others, would have done themselves a favor had they come out in the summer when little to nothing came out for 2 or 3 months. Instead they all wait until the mighty 4th quarter then wonder why their games don’t sell. Even tried and true franchises (Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia in 2008 come to mind) didn’t sell well due to increased and superior competition.
Another example, and maybe one you should have considered using instead of Borderlands, is Dead Space. It has NOW sold over 2 million but it only sold about 700K initially at the full price point. Once it dropped in price and became available on games on demand for the 360 then sales started to creep up. This generation is picky, and if games have no multiplayer, co op or online (which Borderlands has but Dead Space and Enslaved both lack) most games, and especially new IPs, will more than likely suffer.
I really don’t like when people compare games from different genres because it’s not fair to either game, these games are nothing like each other in any way other than the fact they were new IPs. And for the record I played, beat and liked Enslaved. I rented it because reviews said it was short and I don’t pay $60 for any game that is only 8 hours long with no MP no matter what (God of War III was an exception to be honest, it’s one of my favorite franchises so it got a pass). I would however advise others to buy it if it were on sale but there is not much replay value with Enslaved imo unless you are achievement/trophy hunting. The game was solid, pretty well put together, looked good (but not great like everyone says) but do you really expect people to continue to pay for games like this when the price of games are $60 new? Castlevania: Lord of Shadows was a reboot to the franchise (so it’s new to most consumers/gamers of today) BUT that game is 20+ hours long so which one would you advise people to buy? Both games have repetitive gameplay but at least one is longer than the other. You see where I’m going with this?
Gamers buy what they want and until developers figure out exactly what that is outside of Call Of Duty and Halo, every new IP released is a crap shoot. I wonder how the DMC reboot will do? (Ninja Theory is developing that too, but that game is backed and published by Capcom not Namco Bandai)
Just a thought, maybe you should actually play the game before writing an article next time. You say you “heard” it was short? I heard it was short too but then I rented it and beat it so I KNOW it is short. Online journalism at it’s finest smh
It’s because they’re both mediocre, except Borderlands has guns so people flocked to it even though it lacks a good story or any sort of real characters whatsoever
It’s actually a bit disgusting to see people act like a title so poor deserves to do well. More than anything else, you need positive word of mouth to get yourself a sleeper hit – what Ninja Theory expected they had on their hands. People loved and talked a lot about Borderlands. But the few people that are bothering to talk about Enslaved are split – folks who think the story and art direction are good enough to excuse everything else, and the people who don’t like the game’s automated platforming, poor combat and myriad technical problems. Only the press is uniformly positive, something that’s all to do with supporting the industry’s desire to be Hollywood. I don’t see how this failure is anything other than just – regardless of whether it’s a function of the quality or external factors like its place in the release calendar. An inferior product is underselling. That’s Capitalism at work.
If it’s a good game and it flopped, gamers opted to buy other games. If it’d weighed in at say £20, maybe it’d of been different. Stores and publishers just don’t get it. They need to wake up and realise that not all games are going to sell at £40, because gamers only have so much money to spend, and it’s not like there’s 48 hours in a day. 7 out of 10 games flop, lower pricing is needed.
I would say it was the marketing/advertizing lead up to the sale of the game. I have never heard of Enslaved until this article, but I had been hearing about Borderlands for months before it was released.
I honestly was looking forward to the game until I downloaded the demo and I personally thought it sucked 10x more than heavenly sword did. I actually bought heavenly sword and beat it. It was pretty good, Not amazing. The thing that totally killed enslaved for me was the fact that it just seemed totally half assed. The main characters name is what he obviously looks like… When he said his name was “Monkey” i literally just lost all interest. Try to at least have an original name. And combat was intensely boring. I quickly realized that all i would have to do to win every battle was hit the one attack button enough times until the robots were dead. So they added very dull gameplay on top of a boring story (And when your game is a single player only, it BETTER have a good writing.) And the climbing mechanics were almost non existent, you press x, that’s it. With the exception of moving up and down you only press x to move to the next platform. you don’t lean at all, I even tried to jump off and fall on purpose and that didn’t happen, Which I feel really shows the developers either lack of care, or lack of confidence in their players. And yes, for some reason Ninja Theory holds themselves in the highest regard. When they said that uncharted 2’s animations were “too much” or “over the top” I lost all my respect for them. Seeing as Uncharted 2 has the most realistic characters ever made in a game. And you can NEVER over do an animation. If you ever take an animation class you’ll find that out.
I thoroughly enjoyed Heavenly Sword, however, I think enslaved was dumbed down as a multiplat game. NT was disappointed with the sales of HS, so they decided to go the multiplat route and look where it got them. Maybe a little extra effort(like being able to actually die) and being exclusive would have helped. Either way it would have received a lot more advertising funds and sold a hell of a lot more. Go back to the ps3 NT. You had something good and you threw it away. Look at uncharted one and two. Two sold WAAAAY more copies, and it wasn’t exactly THAT much better.ND just had a lot of fans and good word of mouth from the first.
I completely agree with what some of you guys are saying. I feel bad saying it, but they really sold out by dumbing their game down to meet the multiplatform general direction they went through. They definitely modeled trip after Nariko, which in a way is weird for them to rip off their own character. Them blaming bad sales on ps3 really urked me, because the userbase wasn’t that high in the beginning and the game is STILL selling. I see it being sold online for $25 and up on various occasions. While it didn’t meet reviewers expectations, it was highly supported and well received in the gamers community. I was definitely disappointed in Enslaved. Maybe I’ll buy when its cheaper. Plus it definitely tried releasing aside of a KOJIMA GAME. I STILL didn’t get lords of shadow, but I want it badly. I only have so much money, and they constantly forget we’re in recession. More gamers than ever are using gamefly to rent instead of buying games. Just costs too much money. $60 could feed you for a week, two if you’re conservative about what you eat. Ninja Theory can only blame themselves really.
why did it fail?
1. i was released same time as MoH, VanQuisH and Lords of Shadow
2. More fighting less platforming puzzles. But this game has more platforming/puzzles and less fighting. And I don’t think the fighting is dead in terms of combos:/
3. Lords of Shadow or Enslaved? Both had perceived adverts online but it’s done to content. LoS is castlevania people loved, by Kojima, it’s a reboot so people wanted to know what mercury Steam had to offer and they sold the game to gamers with the 10min video gameplay trailer.
Oh noes! Ninja Theory are gonna b*tch about this game’s failure just like they did with Heavenly Sword, no knows because of this sales they might quit the gaming industry:P But come on man, everyone is expecting Heavenly Sword 2 and they gave us this:/
I wouldn’t mind Odessy to the West but I don’t like the design of this game. I want it to feel like XIN comic style.
fighting is deep*
Well, based on the comments already posted, I’d say the simple answer is that most gamers are twats who aren’t nearly as intelligent as they think they are.
I’m seeing a lot of unwarranted negativity towards Enslaved – and most of it stemming from people who actually only played the demo, or not even played it at all. Having only an XBox, I haven’t had the opportunity to play Heavenly Sword, so I can’t comment on Ninja Theory’s previous title – but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed Enslaved.
I picked up both Castlevania LoS and Enslaved (which I have finished), and I’m in the process of finishing Castlevania. In my opinion Enslaved is the better game in terms of story and character progression. What NT has done in terms of creating believable characters is nothing short of astounding. Sure the game’s not as polished as it could have been and the combat’s a little simplified – but I play games for the immersion, atmosphere and (where applicable) the story. Borderlands was dull and I lost interest about half way through.
If you care about games as an entertainment and artistic medium, I’d say Enslaved is almost the perfect poster child. My only hope is that other developers look past the numbers and apply the advances that NJ has made with their latest title.
Borderlands was released on the PC as well. Probably got them some extra sales and attention.
Anyway, I don’t really think Enslaved looked quirky. It just looked bland. Like I’ve seen this game before many times (maybe in less colourful versions, but still). It’s one of those games I forgot about as soon as it was released.
Borderlands, OTOH, looked interesting and unique right from the first announcement.
Another thing that has not been taken into account with the sales on this game.
Namco’s name is on this product, that means it’s got thousands of Tales fan boycotting it, combine this with also having Ninja Theory’s name on it and it’s just a recipe for fail.
DMC fan and Tales fans are actually taking direct action to discredit this game so people don’t buy it. I can’t blame them for this either.
Namco is a company that has been ignoring it’s fans for years now and then turns around and tried to shove this game down the throats of their fans.
This game deserved to flop, not just because it’s the most mediocre game to be released this year, but also because both of these companies need to learn that pissing off an entire fan base has serious consequences.
JayLin’s hit upon a very interesting thing there. Many of the people panning Enslaved genuinely don’t know what they’re talking about since they’ve not actually played the game and in some cases not even touched the demo. I had one guy argue with me how Castlevania was the superior game, and that he was going to rent Enslaved to check it out at some point. So, he hadn’t actually played Enslaved but decided that a game which he had played had to have been better than it.
When word of mouth replaces the words coming from your own mouth, something’s gone terribly wrong.
I don’t personally have Castlevania nor Enslaved. I’m being a lot more careful about the way I’m spending money, so I research reviews both professional, and amateur, check out the demos, and make decisions about what I want based on those three factors (money in wallet, reviews, my own impressions). So for anyone to say I’m making an uneducated decision on what to buy, my question to you is how do YOU decide? My philosophy on games is similar with other products. If manufacturers and developers blame their users on their bad sales when the products missing the mark, then that’s just bad business. Either they can wait to see how the market will gradually accept their product (like many companies do) , or they can complain about the money they missed out on by blaming its user base. Ninja Theory definitely came off as the stepchild that blames the other kids for spilling the milk. With that said, those now 4 things put them on the bottom of my priority list. Am I still interested in the game? Of course. I wish I could play EVERY game that comes out. Unfortunately, that would be unwise on both my bank account, and my time schedule. So no go for me :/ sry guys.