The game industry isn’t what it used to be in its early generation. On some levels, that’s fine. After all, with each generation, we get new technology to improve games. We also get new looks at what gamers like, new ideas for genres to keep them fresh, etc. But one thing that is unequivocally true about the industry is that, unlike in previous generations, they’re willing to take a risk and make a subpar title in the hopes that people won’t mind and thus make money off it. That’s not how things work, and that’s why the Saints Row Reboot cost the Embracer Group a ton of money.
The statement comes from Twitter, where an insider states that the game cost over 100 million dollars and that because of its underperformance, the Embrace Group lost money across PC and console sales. Of course, it’s never fair to blame one game for a company’s underperformance, but in this case, it’s easy to point the finger at it versus other titles. The other games that Embracer Group released last year did well in sales. But not this one.
That’s not to say the Saints Row Reboot was doomed to fail from the start. The franchise had carved out its part of the open-world genre by having wacky stories, incredibly over-the-top characters, and spoofing everything they felt they could handle. They had Keith freaking David be Keith freaking David! It was awesome!
It was understandable that they needed to reboot the franchise because they had done almost everything possible with the original characters. But the problem with the reboot was the shoddy nature of which the game was comprised.
The characters in the new game didn’t hold up to the legendary characters from the previous titles. Despite the somewhat unique location in the American Southwest, the new setting didn’t offer much. The gameplay wasn’t nearly as tight as the games in the past were. But most importantly, the game didn’t try to change that much. By that, we mean the game was stuck in the past and didn’t try to embrace what modern games had done to push the open-world genre and action genre forward.
The game heavily underperformed and was released in a very buggy state. Some gamers and reviewers couldn’t finish campaign missions because of bugs. That’s not good.
So hopefully, Embracer Group will learn its lesson and doesn’t make another half-hazard title. You know, unless they want to lose more money.
