Ninja Theory Made No Money on Heavenly Sword

Ninja Theory Made No Money on Heavenly Sword




Sony’s PlayStation 3 may have plenty of good games these
days, but that wasn’t the case once upon a time. In fact, there was a
time when pretty much every game hyped as being the Big Game for the
console (before MGS4, that is) – the game that would finally
justify its existence and $600 price tag – ended up releasing to a big
fat “eh.”
Heavenly Sword(s) was one of those games, a “martial arts
drama” whose ambition overextended its execution, and whose one real
distinction was having its demo as the very first Zero Punctuation
review here on The Escapist.
But it was a high-profile PS3 title in the Premetalgearian
eon, which is why it’s slightly surprising that developer Ninja Theory
is going multiplatform with its next title, Enslaved. It
wouldn’t be surprising if we had a look at the balance books, though –
as Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades told CVG, exclusivity can be very difficult for
smaller developers.
“It’s difficult. Heavenly Sword came out pretty early on the
PS3, and we sold, I think, a million and a half copies, and that’s
still not enough as an independent studio to break even,” said
Antoniades. “The publisher potentially breaks even at that point, but
the developers don’t … It’s just that when so many people have Xbox – I
mean over half the market or more has Xbox 360s – why limit yourself to
one platform?”
It is a very good point – why intentionally limit yourself so
heavily? Ignoring a potential audience should never be done without good
reason. Hopefully the company will actually be able to turn a profit on
its next game, because getting to pay your employees is probably really
awesome.

Enslaved looks like it's going to be good.

Hopefully their next game is longer than 4 hours and is good

good move on their part

It didn't turn a profit because it wasn't a game worth owning. Would you pay $60 for a 4 hour God of War knock off? No, I didn't think so. It was worth a rent and nothing more.

It failed because it never had a price drop, its still $60 at most stores. If it was $20 , I'd buy it, just like Lair, which I enjoyed and didn't mind the controls.