January 4, 2007
Don't place that Bully 2 pre-order just yet.
When it launched in October, reviewers gave Rockstar's controversial PS2 title Bully high marks. Down in Miami, attorney Jack Thompson's bizarre attempt to have Bully declared a public nuisance was at least as entertaining as the game itself.
But don't expect Bully 2, says a leading financial analyst who covers the video game industry.
Michael Pachter (left), Managing Director of Research for Wedbush Morgan Securities, told GamePolitics:
Bully sales trailed off pretty dramatically in November. In October, the regular edition of the game sold 125,000 units (I think that the collector's edition sold another 30,000 units...) in the U.S., so we should assume it sold a combined 250,000 worldwide.
In November, Bully sold 105,000 units... My guess is that the game did NOT sell particularly well at holiday, so probably another 150,000 units worldwide in December. We expect it to sell another 200,000 or so units over the next few months, and to disappear from retail shelves.
Those estimates total 800,000 units at an average wholesale price of around $30, so it will likely generate around $24 million in revenues. Since the game took three years to develop, it likely cost Take-Two close to $15 million in R&D, and my guess is that the company did no better than to break even. I would NOT expect a sequel.
Comments
Re: Bully 2 ??? Industry Analyst Says No
first of all,it doesnt matter what this dude thinks,it only matters what we,the gamers think,fuck sales number,if the sales were so badly failing,why did it become a greatest hit in under a year?i didnt play it until 2008,but it was amazing just the same,please make it,because i have some great i deas for it,
name-Bully:Mass Destruction systems-PS2,PSP,Wii,PS3(now its bound to make sales!!!) speacial features-if you have a PS2,or wii saved file,you can upload it,and have all clothes,money,and room weapons you had.
setting-town of bullworth,school,new school,new sections,new town areas.
all the same people,but a new school,in a newbry town builds rivalries,new kids in the other school,
bullies-Tommy,Benjamin,Joshua,Mitchell,Mike,Clide(black), girl-Bethony(black)
Nerds-Morrie,Robert,Orrin,Brenden,Johnny,Logan,girl-Tiffany Geeks(new!,read comics all the time,draw all the time)-Morgan,Tyler,REX,Shad(black),girl-Kylie
Jocks-Andrew,Kyler,Michael(black),Theodore,Jeffeory,Mthew,girl-Michelle
Goths(new!were all black,purple,blue,easy to make friends with)-Jonathon,Corey,Taylor,Talon,Tim,,girl-Sahra
Emos-(new!always stay in the dark,walk around at night,always crying,ready pussy poetry)-Raptor,Blackheart,Betrayed,King of shaodows,girl-Kasey
Preps-Ryan,Taylor,Dalton,Derwood,Hunter-girls-Currie,Rain,Sandreen
Greasors,no new greasors
Hippies(new!were faggot camo shirts,when they see you fight,they say,fight the system dude,yeah!)-Spencer,Homer,Lenny,Carl,Rob,Jon-girls-Lois
Drugies(new!basically like townies,except their alway getting high)leader-???? secondary-????
thats all,if you thought this was good ideas,message me at Myspace URL-noxiecwy,Or email-noxie1@yahoo.com
Re: Bully 2 ??? Industry Analyst Says No
Hey guys! I`m from germany and even here we think its high time for another BULLY game. I hope it will be released someday, even if i know its pretyy small chance rockstar releases it before 2010. i would buy a playstation3 for this game, if it is not available für PS2. BULLY 2 would be worth it.
Re: Bully 2 ??? Industry Analyst Says No
fu guys there should be a nother bully because i really loved that 1
Re: Bully 2 ??? Industry Analyst Says No
IDEA 1 :THE GRAPHICS
The graphics should be a little more realistic. People LOVE games with good graphics if you let out a bully 2 with really good graphics i bet you would have a lot more bully fans
IDEA 2: THE MISSIONS
Some people think bully 1 was just too short so if bully 2 has more missions on the game. even more people would enjoy playing bully
AND IDEA 3: THE VIDEO GAME ITSELF
You guys should make bully 2 people are begging for one it is a video game makers dream to have people beg them to make more video games
Re: Bully 2 ??? Industry Analyst Says No
Hmm, what if it was all an diabolical scheme by Pete, Where half of the teachers and students have left, with new students and teachers who dont know Jimmy come in, and Pete betrays Jimmy?
Or if it were a PREQUEL to bully! (lol, Bully:Elementary edition)
If they make another one, Jack Thompson might try to ban it and lose his license. Let's all buy the first one and maybe even send letters to Rockstar Games telling them what a great game it is. Hey, everybody, think about this. It could finally end Wacko Jacko's legal carreer if he bites at the sequal. He has been reprimanded in the past by the Florida Bar Association and he has not fully recovered yet from his loss in the first Bully case. You all want to get his license revoked? This is the way to do it. You know he'll bite if they make another Bully game. Spread the word. Let's all buy Bully and ask Rockstar Games to make a sequal.
This is one of those JT stories I had but declined to print. It's just bluster...
I'm surprised it got such wide play
I'm guessing someone familiar with GTA series and trying to finish quickly could beat the game in less than 10 hours, so rent for a few days and play a few hours a day and you could beat it easily.
Then again, a lot of crappy games have made sequels. Why not Bully?
http://www.jolt.co.uk/index.php?articleid=7834
Yeah, sorry. Looks like we'll have a cheap drama in our hands again.
In a way, it was very kind of a lot of people to give Bully all that free publicity or it might never have made the amount it did.
Between his admitted bias against the game and his active imagination (lots of "my guess is..."), I'd take this with a sizable grain of salt.
While everyone seems to be buzzing about Bully of late, at least one respected financial analyst thinks sales of the game won't match the hype. Bully is scheduled for October release on the PS2.
Michael Pachter, who covers the video game industry for Wedbush Morgan, told Red Herring, "I think it sounds like a dopey game. But I've always thought that."
Pachter explained that video games generally fall into categories, and added that titles like Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft and Halo are "escapist" and "aspirational."
"I don't see how Bully is aspirational for anyone but 14-year-olds," Pachter said. "I don't get how this is going to resonate with (Rockstar's) constituency."
Pachter made similar comments to GamePolitics last summer. At the time, Pachter said, "Bully will be a stupid game, and will rock in England. Doubt it sells well in the U.S."
I'm split on the sequel issue. I enjoyed Bully a good deal, flaws and all. And I actually wanted the story to go on longer than it did, which is always the mark of a good game; I enjoyed GTA 3/VC/SA, but most of the time, I was glad to see them end.
I'm not sure there's really more story to tell, though, unless they go the GTA route and have a new story about a new character in a new place.
As for Bully, I enjoyed it at first, but got bored of it halfway through. Just seemed each season to be the same thing, albeit ending in some different style of punch-up. Still finished it to see what would happen, but had no interest to go back to it... which was shocking for a R* game.
For supposedly disappointing sales, the industry must be in serious trouble if Bully is considered to be doing crappy overall, yet still beating out many other titles... ;)
I still find it frightening that parents will buy their kids GTA, named after a crime that you can go to jail for, maybe even get executed for if you do it enough, but a little red light goes on telling them that a game called Bully, a much less serious but still serious crime, is evil and must be banned.
So, while someone might not have picked it up at the retail price of $59.99, they'll be infinitely more willing to shell out $29.99 for the game. Presumably Sony lowers their own take on Greatest Hits versions of games so that the publishers have a reason to buy into the lowered price, which means that while the developer's take per game might be reduced, they're still recieving cash they might not normally make.
My guess is that Bully is going to be the sort of game which eventually pulls in a profit.
Of gross, the platform holder (Sony in this case) take their large licensing chunk, the retailers and distributors take their markup, and the publisher (Take 2) get their fees. So it's quite reasonable to assume that Rockstar at the bottom of the dev chain will have just broken even with that analysis.
What isn't reasonable is to assume that breaking even is a bad case for a sequel. Profit isn't widespread in gaming (that is, profit at the developer level). Margins are very thin when you get on the ground, and frankly staying alive at that level is a good enough excuse to sign a project. It keeps everyone involved working.
Bear in mind that part of that dev expenditure was also in asset gain, involving tools, skills and hardware that they get to use next time.
Whether Bully is judged strong enough to warrant a sequel is likely more down to how strong they reckon the property is, plus the historical fact that sequels very rarely outsell their predecessors.
Not surprising, since he knows next to nothing about gaming, gamers and developing games (he's a number cruncher).
I don't, of course, know how much, if at all, of the 3 years spent on Bully development were spent on developing re-usable assets (e.g. refining 3D engines, etc.), so Pachter may still be correct about his assessment, purely by accident though.
That's what I like about Bully. You're not the only one there.
In fact, I've gotten a hobby of disrupting bullies ingame in the middle of their bullying, to then have the precincts jump on them like hungry lions. >:)
Note best-sellers list on the right. GAME being the biggest games retail store in the UK.
While Bully was a slight departure from the established GTA franchise that Take Two Interactive are known for, it was received very well. By critics, by consumers, even by analyst Michael Pachter. He will be the topic for this post. See, initially, he was quoted as saying that sales of Bully won't merit a sequel. How would you like those words cooked, Pachter, before we force them back into your mouth? Nah, we won't do that, because you apologized like a human being.
"Please make sure you print my apology to Take Two - I have been consistently wrong about this title. I thought it would be stupid, and it was fun; I thought it would get poor reviews, and it got solid 90s; and I thought it would bomb, while it now appears to be a million unit seller. As a result, I did not expect a sequel, while now I have to acknowledge that a sequel is a possibility."
Pachter makes mention of the GTA4 engine as a base for Bully 2 (should there be one), so we have to wonder if that would be a good engine to use for a more, er, localized non-linear game (a school as opposed to a city). What do you guys think? Sequel or no? Would you like to see more Bully action on the PS3?
read it at http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/01/16/analyst-apologizes-to-take-two-wants...