Epic: Bulletstorm Didn't Make Any Profit
Despite the positive reviews, Bulletstorm "under-performed" on the charts and didn't even earn a profit for Epic.
Epic Games president Mike Capps claims that he doesn't regret Bulletstorm, the first-person shooter from Polish developer People Can Fly (Painkiller) released back in February 2011. Selling less than 300,000 units in its first month, the game didn't generate any revenue for Epic, but apparently that's just fine and dandy for the Gears of War developer.
EA said it "under-performed."
In speaking with Kotaku, Capp said that Epic could have taken the easy route by making the People Can Fly team churn out new Gears of War content after Epic purchased the studio in 2008. But Caps didn't want the new team to take the Gears route – he placed his bets on the new IP called Bulletstorm instead. "The studio has shipped AAA content," he said. "The next thing we do with People Can Fly will be great."
The fact that Bulletstorm wasn't a real moneymaker for Epic is surprising given the game's overall score. Metacritic reveals that the PC version has an 82-percent average, falling to the bottom of the list behind the PlayStation 3 version which has an 83-percent average and the Xbox 360 version which has an 84-percent average. Still, despite the positive reviews, the game tanked at the sales counter.
The Epic president will be giving a keynote speech at the Game Developers Conference Europe next month called "Size Doesn't Matter: How Epic Brings AAA Attitude to Every Game, from Gears of War 3 to Infinity Blade." The idea, according to Kotaku, is to "dispel myths people may have that Epic's games are high-quality due to infinite budgets or unlimited development times, neither of which the studio actually enjoys." There's speculation that Capps may talk about why the game performed poorly in retail despite its critical success.
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Because the game sucks?!?!?! This is what happens when a game is produced by some diva with a degree rather than someone with a gaming background.
Probably went something like this...
Clueless oily weasel exec "That girl is hot, and I like her more than the overweight guy who talks about game theory all day. I mean, that girl with the degree doesn't even talk about games, so put her in charge."
I don't trust Metacritic scores anymore. Just look at the spread most EA games have between critic and user reviews.
Bulletstorm fails because it is an average game with below average multi-player in a crowded field with little marketing support from EA.
Most of the cross platform tiles to come out so far in the last couple of years have failed. If your going to make a PC game, make a PC game. Don't try to port a console game to the PC. Crysis 2 , Bulletstorm, Just Cause 2,and Duke Nukem Forever to name a few. The only titles that worked well across all platforms were Batman Arkham Asylum , Dead Space 1 and 2 and the Mass Effect Series.
i am not surprised it sold poorly. it had framerate and textures from day one. and these were not really addressed by the developer until very late.
the gameplay was excellent ,BTW.
JC2 was amazing on the PC!
Because all of us gamers grew up by now, and the kids today only play the Wii
JC2 was amazing on the PC!
+1, That was a fun console port....the controls where not too bad either.
So worth buying....
the game looks fun but.. its just another fps, guess ppl are getting tired of them.
(I am at least)
I never tried the multiplayer, but I had a hell of a time playing the campaign. Bulletstorm gets a A+ in my books.
I had fully intended to buy this game but after the stupid comments about PC gamers by Blezinsky(You did get your start with PC games Cliffy, it might be a good idea to remember that.), the late PC demo(the game was developed on the PC, why was the PC demo late?), and the very short and uninteresting demo, I stopped caring.
I've been waiting for a good sale. $120 + tax is expensive for my wife and I to play a single game for 6 hours. Lots of sp / coop campaigns are around the 6 hour mark making it ~20 bucks an hour to play. I'd be better off paying someone to do yard work at that price.
Played the demo. I found it just to be another horrible console port.
JC2 was amazing on the PC!
This. But, I do think it's the exception. That and Crysis 2, although it wasn't completed until three months after it was released.
This was released? Epic Marketing...
Cheers!
i know why it failed financially.
you tied a beta or demo for gears 3 to it.
people decided that upon hearing that, the game was crap and you wanted to make a 60$ beta/demo money off a mediocre game.
game was great, but thats how most people saw it.
I had fully intended to buy this game but after the stupid comments about PC gamers by Blezinsky(You did get your start with PC games Cliffy, it might be a good idea to remember that.), the late PC demo(the game was developed on the PC, why was the PC demo late?), and the very short and uninteresting demo, I stopped caring.
yea, cliff is the reason i hate epic, treat the pc gamer right and we treat you right back, f*** us and we f*** you back
Jesus, how's your spell check there at Tom's?! You misspelled Capps' name 3 times ::- D.
EA has been turning out a lot of crap lately.
Bulletstorm fails because it is an average game with below average multi-player in a crowded field with little marketing support from EA.
Couldn't agree more.
This game only took me less than four hours to beat, and at $60 that's not acceptable. Those few hours were full of fun but that's still too much for a game with little to no replay-ability. I suspect its poor market performance is a result of the consumer being fed up with its lack of play time.
... i liked it... but the single player campaign waz too short... fun, but too short...
The game has stoopid ending,
I hate the ending.
Maybe I'm just getting old but the mouse and keyboard controls seemed too confusing. I had a lot more fun playing the 360 demo using the controller, to the point I almost bought the stupid PC version of the 360 controller. Maybe I just need one of those nice and expensive gaming keyboards
Most of the cross platform tiles to come out so far in the last couple of years have failed. If your going to make a PC game, make a PC game. Don't try to port a console game to the PC. Crysis 2 , Bulletstorm, Just Cause 2,and Duke Nukem Forever to name a few. The only titles that worked well across all platforms were Batman Arkham Asylum , Dead Space 1 and 2 and the Mass Effect Series.
Not exactly... Mass Effect was a good game, yes, but it wasn't without the usual port problems by ANY means. The first Mass Effect didn't even support wide-screen and the textures would pop in and out in odd places due to console optimization. It was a port. The game was great, but it was still a crap port (from a technical standpoint).
+1, That was a fun console port....the controls where not too bad either.So worth buying....
JC2 crashes my system reliably after about 20 mins of play. Tech Support said it was a known issue.... still hasn't been fixed. Still a crap point, but a good game.
yea, cliff is the reason i hate epic, treat the pc gamer right and we treat you right back, f*** us and we f*** you back
I'm sure plenty of PC gamers either pirated the game or boycotted it based on the anti-pc comments alone. I, for one, won't be buying any Epic games because of that. I don't think any self-respecting PC gamer should buy them either.
"How Epic Brings AAA Attitude to Every Game" ????
UH... explain UT3. The Unreal Franchise was destroyed instantly when you released a very unfinished game PORT with shitty map designs. Most Vehicle maps were tiny. Vehicle ZOOM is DISABLED!! (stupid!) in which a 16k mod file re-activated. The game came with 32 maps, in which about 2-3 maps out of 4 game types were even playable!
A feature of the game is the ability to have FOOT players use a grapple hook to ride on back on team-players jets craft. BUT, since you can't see behind your jet, you can't SEE if team-mates are trying to hitch a ride. Its kills the fun... adding the MOD makes the game so much better.
Vehicle Zoom is when You use your mouse wheel to ZOOM from inside a craft to about 25 feet behind.
Remember the crappy maps? Seriously, we'd be stuck playing a map for over an hour - begging players to LET the other side to score so we can change maps and with so few servers, we were stuck (compared to UT99's 500+ servers in 2001). So it meant 2 maps over and over again (Bridge).
The Menu GUI was for consoles which SUCKED SUCKED SUCKED, designed by retards.
For multi-players, the server listings would show BOTS as "humans".
After a year, by the time the user base had made hundreds EXCELLENT maps, only a handful of servers have humans are left. And worse... 3 out of 4 (there or 6~8) of them are running crappy STOCK maps that nobody wants to play. UGH
Simple fixes could save the game, like UT2004. Fix what is needed, repack the game with 150 maps rename it as UT3.5 or UT4.
Epic has lost how to make great games... they should have known better.
I can't say that this game was bad. It had a good story line, great gameplay and all that, and to top it off, a bad console port. EPIC really didn't care for the PC gamers. They did a really bad job of porting the game.
UT3 has a great game engine - probably the best in all of gaming. It's too bad Epic just doesn't know what makes a good GAME anymore.
Because the game sucks?!?!?! This is what happens when a game is produced by some diva with a degree rather than someone with a gaming background.Probably went something like this...Clueless oily weasel exec "That girl is hot, and I like her more than the overweight guy who talks about game theory all day. I mean, that girl with the degree doesn't even talk about games, so put her in charge."
that happens at the insurance office i work at... thanks to that, we ahve a bunch of yes men and people with zero original ideas
i played the demo, i was like this seems fun but not worth more then $30/$40..