How to sell games by the millions

Author: | Balu | (186 Articles)

Balu is tech-Gaming reporter @DNA, Bangalore. He started Game Bashing as a personal blog, a few years back. He writes on PC gaming, Gaming scene in India apart from doing game reviews. Feel free to mail author or tweet him

Last month I read an article at Gamasutra on disappointment of Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, at the lackluster sales of Wii in home country – Japan.

"If the U.S. sold two or three times as much as Japan, it would be tolerable," Iwata added. "Yet, I feel that something is wrong when the U.S. is selling ten times as much as Japan on a weekly basis."

That’s what he said.

I read yet another feature in Gamasutra which addressed the issue of “Can You Create A Must-Have Wii Game?” Fabulous, must-read article I say… It mentions how some good games never sell as much as some sad ones on the console. As an example, they put forward the case of THQ’s de Blob which according to them, is a really great Wii game. However, Ubisoft’s “inferior” game – The Price Is Right, outsold it 3-to-1.

“So did THQ’s Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader: Make The Grade. That’s sad. But it tells you who the audience is."

Tells you who the casual gaming audience is? Well of course it does. It is mostly a bunch of parents who don’t know sh*t about gaming, but want their children to get the right type of gaming; read – “no harmful content.” I am sure most of them go by the cover of the game and do not even bother to check the review of a game on Metacritic or IGN. The result, game developers reap in money despite producing an inferior product.

Talking about inferior products making money, I recall the case of Ghajini, (an Indian PC game based on a movie by the same name) which sold approximately 500% more than any other PC game sold in India. But the quality was simply poor. Of course they did raise the level for “fully developed in India, for the Indian gamer” type of games by quite a margin. So how come they managed to sell so many games?

Well it was simple, the game was based on a Bollywood movie which had set box office records, was marketed really well and was priced really really low (Rs 200). Oooh did I mention that Bollywood film actor Amir Khan was the protagonist in the game.. well. That my dear friend, is the recipe for success to making a successful games.

Create publicity, price them cheap, catch the unaware. The n00bs and those who buy it because his n00b friends have it! So much for the high-def!