Days Gone Director Says His Game Also Sold Eight Million Copies, but Sony Still Treated It like a Failure

[Tsing]

Image: Bend Studio



It was reported yesterday that Sucker Punch’s samurai epic, Ghost of Tsushima, managed to reach the incredible sales milestone of 8 million copies sold.



Jeff Ross, the director behind Days Gone, has taken the opportunity to point out that his post-apocalyptic zombie title also exceeded 8 million in sales but was, contrastingly and confusingly, treated by Sony as if it was some sort of failure. Reports from early last year revealed that Bend Studio had pitched PlayStation executives a sequel but was shot down, adding credibility to the idea that Sony really didn’t like the IP all that much and had no interest in supporting it.



At the time I left Sony, Days Gone had been out for a year and a half (and a month), and sold over 8 million copies. It's since gone on to sell more, and then a million+ on Steam. Local studio management always made us...

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[MadMummy76]

Strange, I wonder if Naughty Dog was pulling strings to get rid of internal competition.

 

[SeymourGore]

The article mentions it, but I'm sure Sony dubbed it a failure due to its metacritic score. I remember when the game first came out, reviews described the game as average.

I think Sony wants its games to be viewed as the same quality as Nintendo's (if not higher), so if a game doesn't achieve critical and financial success, it falls below their expectations.

 

[Denpepe]

I think it's the only first party game I got on the PS4 I did not finish, found the controls somewhat lacking, the constant bike refueling got boring fast as was the constant back and forth.

Think I bailed at the first real boss fight as I could never get to position the boss where I needed to be able to hurt him. Too many games and too little time.

 

[Brian_B]

Well... while sales volume is certainly impressive, there's more to the equation than that.

If Sony spent a lot more, if the game sold at lower average price, if part of those are from a promotional give-away. Maybe the terms of the contract sucked for Sony and they aren't eager to repeat that.

It could also just be a relationship thing - maybe Sony didn't like working with Bend Studio.

Just saying, always more than one side to the story.

 

[Denpepe]

Well... while sales volume is certainly impressive, there's more to the equation than that.

If Sony spent a lot more, if the game sold at lower average price, if part of those are from a promotional give-away. Maybe the terms of the contract sucked for Sony and they aren't eager to repeat that.

It could also just be a relationship thing - maybe Sony didn't like working with Bend Studio.

Just saying, always more than one side to the story.

Sales nr's are important but not all saying, if a lot of players (like me) stopped playing early on and never finished the game it could be a sign that while sales were decent, players response was lacking and a sequel would probably do worse unless they revamp a lot of things.

 

[Burticus]

So first of all, this is the same studio that said there wouldn't be a sequel bc people weren't paying the full $60 price for the game. Never mind that the game is average at best, downright boring at times, and is too similar to many other open world games (or zombie games). I gave up at around 15 hours, the repetitive-ness and constant backtracking, and the stupid motorcycle that constantly needs gas and repairs just wore me down. Get a horse?

SeymourGore might be right about the metacritic ratings.

This game went down in price super quick, probably bc of lackluster reviews and sales. It started to pick up steam (no pun intended, lol) when it hit the sub $30 mark. Then, Sony offered this game up for "free" on PS+ a long time ago, which I'm sure contributed a TON to those "sales" numbers.

All that, and this game looks NOWHERE near as good as GoT. And GoT also has an awesome story and characters, not just the same old re-tread open world game that is basically not as good as azz creeds or far cry games.

So this guy can go f*ck himself.

edit - same dev studio, not the same guy. edited post.