Never played it but why are some saying it's low? Isn't this suppose to be extremely high for a game with this budget? The base game seems around the same budget than Wukong and Stellar Blade. It's definitely higher in budget than either of them with its DLC but still way lower than the higher AAA games. So 3 million seems a lot for this.
When you consider how much advertisement the game got, how much praise it received, and the fact that it launched at 60 bucks instead of 70 2023, it puts into perspective that this was not a smash hit.
I'm sure it's a good number for the studio, but it doesn't elevate them or secure them for the next decade or something - South Korean wages are just a little lower than Japanese.
Expedition 33 eclipsed 3m already and just came out couple months ago, new IP and AA budget as well. Which was also on Gamepass so that negates that argument.
It definitely is a faster selling title, but E33 also launched at 50 dollars as compared to 60.
Again, this is a game that benefits from a less bloated team in a much lower cost center. A success for Sandfall and one that should be congratulated.
Are either of these titles "lessons" for the industry as they're made out to be? I would argue no. As much as people say that companies like SE should learn from them, think about the numbers. Assuming that each copy so far has been sold at 50 dollars, they take away 115.5 million. As it was on Gamepass, let's also add another 34.5 million as a guess, just to get it to 150 million dollars.
Is that the kind of money SE wants to be taking away even within the launch window of their major titles? The answer is a flat no.
For frame of reference, the best selling Killzone games never really cracked 3 million copies individually (though they were always one platform exclusive).
Yeah, and they don't make Killzone anymore.