• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Callisto Protocol underperformed expectations

trikster40

Member
Game was on my radar, but I always have a horrible feeling with these “spiritual successors.”

Most of them are living in the past and don’t breakaway enough from the game they’re trying to be.

I’ll pick it up on a sale, but def not spending $70 on it.
 

Clover904

Member
All I can say is gamers f*cked up this time. The sales should have been there. This was a hell of a game, especially considering it was the first game from a new dev team. A sequel would have been bolder, the gameplay would have been more fleshed out. It already looked and sounding stellar. The tone and atmosphere was fantastic. But now a sequel will never see the light of day because the sales aren’t there.

It’s a damn shame. The Callisto Protocol could have been one hell of a franchise.
 

jigglet

Banned
I don't understand why a publisher that made its mark in a huge GaaS multiplayer game pivoted to making a niche single player horror game. Whether the game was good or not, it was never a right fit for the company. IMO even if this was a 10/10 game and was highly praised, it would have sold meh (relative to PUBG's success) and would have been axed eventually for not being aligned to the company's strategy. This game / franchise never had a future IMO under this publisher.
 
Last edited:

raduque

Member
I wish I had paid for it. I got it from AMD Rewards from a friend who has no interest. I'm sorry Callisto Protocol, you deserved better from everybody.
 

FeastYoEyes

Member
I bought day one but can't bring myself to finish it. I'm at the first repeat boss fight and it's just lost me. Between the combat being unfun and the lack of enemy variety, it's a huge letdown.
 
Last edited:

MOTM

Banned
Am I reading it right that they expected 5 million in sales, actually sold 2 million and still consider it a failure? 5 million seems insane for a game to succeed. I know it isn't impossible and many games do, it just seems like if that's the bar for all new IPs...that seems unrealistic.
5 million for a new IP seems bonkers
 

Thief1987

Member
Need to say that all the numbers in the article are analysts guessing. Some of them really hard to believe, especially budget figure. Also producers should be really out of touch with reality to expect 5 million of initial sales, long established horror IP's don't sell that much.
 

jaysius

Banned
I wonder if they’re counting the number AMD is giving away with cards as sales? That would definitely be inflating this turd.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This game didn’t cost $160 million. Please don’t fall for this bs nonsense.

Games dev costs have increased in the last ten years but they have not gone up 8x. Uncharted and tlou used to cost $20 million ten years ago. The costs have maybe doubled or tripled, but 8x??? No. Not for a linear game like this made by a brand new studio that didn’t even scale up until its last year.

This is probably $40 million max with another $30-40 million in marketing costs.
 

lukilladog

Member
It seems like it got bad rep from it's gameplay design choices (Everybody on twitch had something negative to say about it), launch day performance on PC was a disaster, plus it was evident that the Xbox version was subpar compared to the ps5 one. I hope EA takes a look at Dead Space price tag, which is ridiculous.
 
Captain America Lol GIF by mtv
Season 2 Lol GIF by Friends
Michael Jordan Lol GIF


Can you imagine a video game actually costing that much, fuck me I'm dying.
Chris Roberts can.
 

Kupfer

Member
The fact that the review embargo was only lifted on release day was no coincidence. Everyone involved knew that the game was mediocre, and yet they acted as if they had developed the bringer of salvation.

I will eventually buy the game for 10 or 20 euros and play it, if you know what you are getting into, it is certainly fun,.
But these misleading, calculating and deceitful advertising promises and the inflated hype around the game are reasons why I have no sympathy for the disappointment of those behind the expected sales figures.
 
Last edited:

Sleepwalker

Member
2 million + is actually a good number for a new IP, specially horror.... I guess they overshot their expectations by a lot.

Shame, the game is not perfect but I enjoyed my time with it and will checkout the DLC, a sequel could've been great if it addressed some problems. Don't think it happens now.
 
Wow turns out shimmying 400 times sideways , crawling through vents, etc isn’t an actual game.

Wait you mean combat and enemies that never do anything more than bore you to death isn’t a winning formula ?

Surely it had great scares and atmosphere ? Oh … it didn’t ?

Glen needs to retire and go make mobile games.
Whats with all the hate on this around here? You guys act like it's the worst thing ever. It's not that bad. Yet gaas Shit gets a pass. We need to support single player games, and realize launch issues sometimes happen. Im having a great time with the game. Why does everything need to be open world now? There is room for both
 
This is not good. Single player new AAA IP and it fails miserably. Publishers will use it as an excuse to put our more GAAS shit for kids and colorful ass FPS games.
My thoughts exactly. Bye bye realistic games. Hello shit. And watch people like me not buy anything. As I don't play multiplayer, woke garbage or colorful neon fps crap. All because people follow group think and "influencers" like sheep.

The game got way more hate then it deserved. Too many people forget what games were before open world and they won't except a linear game.

Could it of been better, sure, but its not as bad as people moan about.
 
Last edited:
Whats with all the hate on this around here? You guys act like it's the worst thing ever. It's not that bad. Yet gaas Shit gets a pass. We need to support single player games, and realize launch issues sometimes happen. Im having a great time with the game. Why does everything need to be open world now? There is room for both
c'mon, now - we need to support all single player games? & 'launch issues' sometimes happen? well, yeah, they do. but of course, many will tell you that 'launch issues' weren't the only issues with callisto project. not by a long shot...
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
The Dead Space remake is coming soon, and Callisto Protocol was only ever a pretender.
It had potential, but SDS just didn't deliver and whether or not they'll be able to do the oppisite with a sequel, is under a serious question now due to overall reception, terrible PC port and not so great sales. I mean, 5 million was out of question for a new IP, I don't know what they were thinking, sound like SQE-like stupidity to me. They can probably sell 5 million eventually after a bunch of years during sales, but that won't help them to at least start thinking about the possibility of a sequel. We'll see, I hope SDS will have an opportunity to make another game and make it better, cuz what they were after is worth a second chance, there's great ideas in the first game already, waiting to be fully realized.
 
Last edited:
This is what happens when you make a AA game with AAAA budget.

Don't invest so much in visuals if you don't have mechanics/ level design that's truly groundbreaking.
 

Justin9mm

Member
I enjoyed the game and I dont regret playing it but it has very obvious bad design choices which weird seeing it was made by one of the creators of original Dead Space.

But at same time its no where near bad as some reviews made it out to be.
I completed it and imo it was as bad. I enjoyed aspects of it but doesn't stop it from being shit overall
 

Ozriel

M$FT
I enjoyed the game and I dont regret playing it but it has very obvious bad design choices which weird seeing it was made by one of the creators of original Dead Space.

But at same time its no where near bad as some reviews made it out to be.

Can’t blame this on professional reviewers if it truly is only at 61% from user reviews on Steam.

Am I reading it right that they expected 5 million in sales, actually sold 2 million and still consider it a failure? 5 million seems insane for a game to succeed. I know it isn't impossible and many games do, it just seems like if that's the bar for all new IPs...that seems unrealistic.

To be fair, they consistently use the word ‘underperformed’. So even if it were profitable at 2 million units sold, it seriously underperformed if they projected significantly more sales.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
In the true words of the developer


They could have had the same success as high on life. But chose to risk it.

Well ya, I mean they had such a long tack record of trying game pass and then it not working out, so they had a lot of first hand experience..........oh wait, it was their first game.......
And how did they spend 160 million to make this game if the average AAA game is 60-80 million?
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
How the hell did this cost $160 million? That's bloated for all but the most opulent of Sony exclusives.

Seriously! And they couldve done so much more with the setting, but all they settled on was a vents and corridor shooter with very little innovation or interesting ideas.

It just has so many baffling design and gameplay choices. Shitty checkpoint system, major performance issues (initially) on PC, very close-ended (vents ahoy!) design, sudden spikes in difficulty due to the combat system and so on.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
They could pull a no man sky and simply release updates and fixes.... that'll definitely make the game popular again.
Performance fixes aside on PC, I just don't see how they can make it happen without some serious overhaul of the whole game design-wise, adding more levels, expanding scope etc. Krafton will not go for it after what happened.

Comparison with NMS is not accurate. They simply added features and it worked cuz the scope of the game is massive and there's an enormous room for improvement still. TCP is a significantly scaled down from original Dead Space in terms of design and there's almost no room for significant improvement to do a NMS-like comeback. Story DLC cab be better, but how long will it be, 2-2,5 hours long at best and how will it make original game better? Idk, I just don't see how SDS can turn things around in a significant way without making a much better sequel.
 
Last edited:
Does the $160 million include marketing budget? If it does, prob $60 million to $80 million (maybe more) was marketing expenses.
 
Last edited:
I think it goes to show that it is best to fix performance before release. PlayStation marketed this to hell and back and it looks like it hasn’t helped.

I do hope that reviewers dock all games for it if they’ve dinged this game for it (rightly). If Starfield, for examples releases with issues, I’m willing to bet that it wouldn’t end up in the 70s.

I also think more publications should do a re-review of games and scores updated. Days Gone for example got dinged early on party because of features and performance lacking - but Bend did a great job adding to it and improving.
 
Top Bottom