Damage Control as Media Outlets Come Up With All Sorts of Excuses for Gears of War: E-Day's Poor Sales
"it's more like a million people who have bought Gears of War: E-Day so far."
We reported last the week how fans aren't too thrilled with Gears of War: E-Day, the latest entry in the longtime staple XBOX series. E-Day suffers from a litany of problems, and word of mouth hasn't been so great for the game, as a result. While sales numbers aren't set in stone because XBOX isn't really sharing them directly, various outlets are making educated guesses as to how many copies of E-Day are out in the wild. So far, the estimates are around 230,000 units moved, with only 62,000 coming from XBOX users (the rest being via Steam). That's... alarming.
Well, it is to anyone who can do basic math, but don't let that stop some members of the gaming media from telling you that everything is actually just fine for E-Day, thank you very much. Kotaku is alleging, based on the report put out by analytics firm Alinea, that Game Pass is "cannibalizing" sales of the game and that critical reviewers are simply gushing over it. Pure Xbox, meanwhile, is taking a slightly different track by saying that 1.7 millions Game Pass users have played the game, and that of that number, 722,000 people upgraded to the Premium version of E-Day, a $30 cost. As Pure Xbox puts it, "it's more like a million people who have bought Gears of War: E-Day so far," and alleges that $21.7 million was generated from those users, alone.
If this sounds a little off to you, you'd think it would to the outlets reporting this, as well. So far, most aren't pointing out that Alinea's assertions don't totally jive with reality.
The Standard Edition of E-Day retails for $69.99, while the Premium Edition is $99.99. Paying $30 for Premium access because you're already a Game Pass Ultimate Subscriber isn't exactly a "win" here; XBOX isn't making anywhere near what it wants and needs to in order to break even on the project with sales like that, let alone turn a profit. Worse still is the notion that 1.7 million Game Pass users don't necessarily equate to 1.7 million people activating, reactivating, or upgrading a subscription to play E-Day. Meaning, if it's 1.7 million subscribers who are already in the system, XBOX isn't making any extra money off of the inclusion of E-Day beyond the $30 upgrade that only 722,000 of those 1.7 million subscribers paid for. A real boon would be if a multitude of new Game Pass Ultimate subscribers are cultivated by E-Day... but only if those users stick around for more than a month. Otherwise, a bunch of folks paid $22.99 to play E-Day and then walk away.
E-Day is estimated to have a budget in the neighborhood of $400 million. No matter how any of these media outlets try to slice it, this is a disaster for XBOX. A game starring the core, beloved cast of Gear of War should be money in the bank; instead, divisive Western game studio narrative decisions and politicking hampered the game and ruined any chances of it reigniting interest in the franchise. Keep in mind that these are, as noted above, estimates, but they're not exactly being spun out of thin air. If these numbers are anywhere near close to reality, Asha Sharma and XBOX will need to take a long, hard look at what went wrong and adjust accordingly.
