LittleBigPlanet selling as well as Fallout 3
LittleBigPlanet has created quite a stir in the gaming industry. It is dubbed as the breakthrough game of the year. LittleBigPlanet (LBP) is also the second highest rated game on metacritic after Grand Theft Auto IV of all times. Media Molecule talked recently about how they felt the sales performance for LBP held up and a bit about the content copyright issue.
Considering LBP is one of the highest rated games of 2008, many were expecting super sales straight of the bat. Games like Call of Duty: World at War was able to rake in multimillion unit sales within a month on all platforms despite being scored much lower than LBP.
LBP is panned by practically every game critic out there as one of the best games to date. So we know it is a good game, but did it flop sales wise? According to Media Molecule head Alex Evans, he is absolutely satisfied with the sales performance of the game.
Evans indicates that since the game was able to sell toe-to-toe with Fallout 3, in his mind sales are great. He also states that there were several factors that did hamper game sales though. The holiday season was absolutely crowded with tons of games being released during a time of recession. I am sure many gamers were not able to purchase every single game they were interested in within the past two months.
Evans also says that LBP did in-fact sell just as well as many of the existing franchises. He said, “Every other game that we were keeping pace with was a third or fourth iteration, and this is our first one.”
Evans also discussed the copyright issue that crept up for some user created levels. According to him the problem was very minimal. Apparently there were even some companies encouraging Media Molecule to leave those levels in place.
He said:
But then there’s been these two mad positives; one was the high quality of the levels, including the infringing ones. The other point is the number of IP owners who came up to us and said please whitelist us – we’ll never ever ask you to pull infringing stuff. I can’t say who that is, but those two things really shocked me, I think it shocked [the IP holders], who were like, hang on, my IP’s being represented and it’s being represented really well.
It is good to hear things are going well for LBP and Media Molecule. Many have indicated games like LBP are healthy for the industry and could be the evolution of Gaming 2.0. With sales estimated to be around 2 million units and a new Metal Gear Solid 4 expansion pack released on the PSN, things are looking good for the little game.
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14 Responses to “LittleBigPlanet selling as well as Fallout 3”
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December 27th, 2008
LBP may or may not be the end all, be all product to bring ALL gamers together like Sony wanted it to be. But I feel that anyone that has tried the game has to realize that it is a game for the ages.
December 27th, 2008
its gonna have a decent life time sales… Id like to see it sell 1 million in a month… but thats not possible… but Pacific Rift has already sold 1 million copies… so thats something…
December 27th, 2008
I tried making a level last night, though I’m still at the ‘frustrated child who cannot put lego together stage’.
I keep getting “That shape is too complicated” when making my complex volcanic structure. I thought it was the game being nasty, but it was just that I wasn’t doing it properly in the end.
My level is going to have docks, boats, beaches, coconut launching and fiery volcanoes.
December 27th, 2008
Is LBP really that good?
It just doesn’t look all that interesting to me.
December 27th, 2008
Royzy, you know im the first person to test your level don’t you lol (apart from you obviously) I’m just going through single player to collect as much crap as posible, i need an idea though. So far i was thinking of creating a gamer.blorge level, where we have to defeat the xbots like harry and Kev (joke) I got nothing.
December 27th, 2008
Of course Bourne, your my No.1 beta tester. Currently it is pre-alpha.
lock_down, if you haven’t tried it, I advise giving it a go. Though if you don’t see the appeal to it, it may not be the game for you anyway.
Were you one of the people who were really excited to be able to make your own crazy skate park levels in the old Tony Hawk games? Because I sure was!
Even if your not into creating content, with all the other people doing it, you are still guaranteed new content and levels every day of the week.
December 27th, 2008
I was thinking of making a level based on purely video game charactors… and their names would be cleverly hidden… gonna call it… Little Big Copyright Infringement…
lock_down… it depends on your taste… with the inclusion of paint ball guns… theres probably gonna be shoot em up levels now… but I think you should rent it first…
December 28th, 2008
Spore was also dubbed as the breakthrough game of the year, and look how bad that is. This smells of a sony PR spin. … “LBP is panned by practically every game critic out there as one of the best games to date”. ? by who? panned as in bad. yeah it was
December 28th, 2008
Yeh shoot em up levels will come in mass now I reckon. The levels that come with the DLC show how hectic it can get and how useful the paint ball gun can be for all sorts of stuff. Has it’s own trophies too
.
December 28th, 2008
remember how they made a gradius level and a fully functional tank (made of 200 different pieces)
and this was BEFORE the paint ball gun…
SHOW ME YOUR SKILLZ GAMERZ!!!`
December 29th, 2008
Dudester,
If you believe in critics, the statement is almost true, as LBP came in after GTAIV as one of the highest rated games on MetaCritic (yes, that again) for PS3… and it received lower scores overall than BioShock and The Orange Box on 360 (though BioShock was rated lower on the PS3 for some reason, maybe because it came out a year earlier but still had a lot of the bugs, I don’t know).
The best thing about LBP seems to be (sorry I haven’t played it yet) it’s originality and allowance for user creativity, which would seem to extend the games longevity. GTAIV and The Orange Box are long and excellent games, but besides GTAIV’s DLC for 360, there is really nothing that stands out for longevity, and nothing really allows for user creativity as much as LBP. In that regard alone, it is probably considered among the top games.
December 29th, 2008
carl you forgot about mgs 4… and for some reason… even though “some” people claimed otherwise… MGS 4 seems to get a lot of “best graphics” awards from sites…
maybe kojima paid them off… BASTARD!!!
December 30th, 2008
darkwhitehair,
If you are talking about the inclusion of MGS4 themed elements in LBP, then yes I forgot to mention it… but it was left out of the statement above because MGS4 did not get an average aggregate review score higher than LBP on MetaCritic:
http://www.metacritic.com/games/ps3/
MGS4 actually wound up getting the same average score as BioShock and Call of Duty 4 on PS3, and the same score as the original Gears of War on the 360.
What is your point about the graphics? I’m sure it got a lot of site awards for them, especially considering the investment and resources expended to make it the showcase title of the PS3. Unfortunately, graphics does not necessarily translate into the highest review scores or sales:
“Early Metal Gear Solid 4 reviews might have been too flattering, and the cutscenes might have been too long.”
http://kotaku.com/5119518/wow-metal-gear-solid-4-sold-out-today-at-some-store
94 is nothing to sneeze at, and MGS4 is still the biggest selling title in Japan, at over 600,000 copies sold. I’d rent it if I had a PS3.
January 1st, 2009
“Little Big Planet Selling as well as Fallout 3″ on PS3.
Fallout 3: 2.5 m (total sales 360 and PS3)
LBP: 1.52 m (PS3)