Ubisoft PR guy on why Beyond Good & Evil tanked
by Ludwig Kietzmann 
{ Aug 2nd 2006 at 7:25PM }
There's nothing more sickening than seeing an original game march onto shelves amidst deserved critical fanfare, only for it to remain stationary and become intimately acquainted with dust, discount stickers and vacant stares from those looking for something a bit more familiar. Since familiarity often encapsulates large men tossing balls through the air, exploding cars leaping over cliffs or, thanks to next-gen power, large men tossing exploding balls whilst driving over cliffs, Beyond Good & Evil was the creepy stranger you never talked to. Gamers? Meet Michel Ancel's masterpiece.Oh, and meet Owen Hughes, an active member of Ubisoft Australia's PR machine. In an article for Jump Button (a "blogazine"), he shares some of his personal thoughts regarding the game's qualities and some of the reasons it failed to grab the public's attention. "When you go out there with something entirely different and unique-a product that's proving difficult for even the publisher to summarise in a sound bite-you may as well beg retail to take it."
Hughes' unique viewpoint on the matter certainly makes for an interesting read, with many of his observations applying to an industry full of games reaching for a chance but failing because they don't have a strong pair of established shoulders to stand on. He likens the struggle to a retailer asking customers a set of questions in order to establish what sort of games they like. Did you like Devil May Cry? Oh, then you'll love God of War. Do you enjoy shooting aliens in what appears to be their faces? Great, you should definitely buy Prey. Oh, and how about "award-winning adventures featuring a female photojournalist and her talking-pig uncle as they travel around a planet in a hovercraft trying to root out a conspiracy within the highest levels of government?" Umm, would that fall under adventure or simulation?
The article goes on to say that Beyond Good & Evil's need for comparison was somewhat satiated by IGN's frothing summary, "Zelda for grown-ups." This is interesting for several reasons, the first being that Zelda already is a Zelda for grown-ups. Another is that the similarities between the two games (world exploration and combat, specifically) are not why many are so fond of Ancel's adventure. The fantastic characters, engaging storyline and enchanting atmosphere were far more captivating than the elements taken from Nintendo's gargantuan franchise. You have quite a confused industry when new material is demanded with the condition that it has be similar to something else in order to succeed.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Enigma @ Aug 2nd 2006 7:33PM
It tanked because it was not advertised well enough for a new IP!
carguy0625 @ Aug 2nd 2006 7:38PM
I wish there was a sequel to this game. I really enjoyed it. The storyline made you think more than the typical game (which usually isn't saying much). Too bad more people didn't discover it.
jc @ Aug 2nd 2006 7:47PM
I don't know how many times I have gone to the store looking to buy this game, only to see it nowheres. If stores don't carry game titles, customers can't buy them.
For the record, I don't buy games online.
Shogan @ Aug 2nd 2006 7:51PM
I love this game, but it took me forever to find it for Gamecube. The atmosphere, voice acting, story, everything... it is just great. I'm only just NOW playing it, and Jade has to be one of the greatest female lead characters in video game history... not that there are many.
Ubisoft would do well to make a worthy sequel, and give it the press and attention it deserves.
Cowboy_X @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:03PM
This game was for grown-ups? The moment that the talking pig started opening its mouth, I was convinced that the script was done by the same hacks who do Captain Power and countless other Saturday morning cartoons.
I've long been confused by the cult surrounding BG&E. It had some great graphics for its time, but it wasn't a mature game, it wasn't a groundbreaking game, and it wasn't a good game.
fashionfauxpas @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:06PM
i bought this game on a whim last year. i usually dont play adventure games, as i dont have the time, or lose interest half way through. BG&E wasnt like that at all.
when i finished the game i was bummed out, as i wanted more! the game had a great story, fun elements, non-violent (traditional blood and guts), and well-paced. its not the longest, but it had the satisfying ending.
maybe ubisoft can make a special Wii version of the game. keep the current generation graphics, but add new elements. and of course, use the Wii-Stick.
T. Holbrook Walker @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:07PM
I wonder what Katamari Damacy was like? It managed to blow up with with basically no advertising.
Maybe it's not so much that the game has to resemble something but rather that it must strongly resemble something or totally resemble nothing.
Wedge @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:07PM
I bought the game for $20 brand new for the GC right after it came out. It had solid gameplay, wonderful art design, and emotionally engaging characters. But honestly I thought the overall plot wasn't what many cracked it up to be. The government was so transparently evil, there was nothing surprising or shocking about uncovering their "secret conspiracy". If the game didn't have such strong main characters to back it up, it wouldn't have even been worthwhile.
renaldo @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:08PM
I could not handle the green lipstick.
Tim Sykes @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:10PM
A few e3 back I talked to one of the people that I know who works for ubisoft, and on this game specifically. and I asked him the same thing. He told me that it just got lost in the shuffle. They had more big title games at that time they released, and beyond good and evil just got burred under them.
In other words Bigger IP get better treatment then, small, new IPs. Even if the small IP is 10 times better game.
AoE @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:14PM
I can't speak for everyone, but I didn't buy it until it had been reduced to $20, and I feel like a bit of a heel for doing so. Let me explain why though.
It wasn't lack of advertising, at the time I was subscribed to a couple of gaming mags, and I remember seeing ads often enough that they got burned into my mind. I even remember reading positive reviews and thinking "pfhhh, who cares?" Why? well, there were a few factors at work. I wasn't a fan of Michael Ancel at the time, I'd tried Rayman 2 & 3, and hated them both. Maybe I was burned out on platformers (I know a lot of people really like Rayman) but my experiences were not positive. Then there was P'Gelle (or however his name is spelled) prominetly featured in all of the print ads; stylistically it looked like a game targeted toward children; there was nothing to suggest a deep thoughtful storyline (though how you properly convey this in advertising I don't know). For all intents and purposes it looked like another bad platformer to me.
Needless to say, when I did finally pick up the game, which was totally on a whim one week when nothing worth mentioning had been released, I found the game to be something special; and I spread the word as much as possible; but this was after it had taken a price cut or two. I imagine many other gamers that passed over the title have similar reasons for doing so. I feel bad about it now, but I have to wonder if the visual style of games like this and psychonauts are what doom them? Visually they look like they're targeted for children, even if they have a lot going for them that makes them friendly to gamers of all ages... I might be wrong, but it seems odd that two of the best critical hit/financial miss games of the last generation have such a similar style.
Robert @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:38PM
It tanked because she was holding a camera on the cover. I basically thought "how fun can this possibly be?" Kind of why I'm not very excited about Dead Rising.
But BG&E was a fantastic game.
fawazr @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:47PM
I bought this game the day it arrived in my local gamestore. The service rep may as well have laughed in my face when I asked for it.
Despite the call for originality, there's definitely a status quo for what is acceptable to play. The hard and fast rule has always been that anything that appeals to a male's testosterone-driven fantasies will sell. Anything other than that usually fails.
Sad to say, but most gamers are idiots and there are very few enthusiasts out there willing to take a chance on anything fringe or remotely fresh. There's also that fear of being the one guy who purchases the "uncool" game.
The few original titles that do manage to have commercial success require a great deal of financial backing and industry clout (ie. Nintendogs, Mario Ware, Katamari). BG&E got none of that. Worst of all, it had a female protagonist that was fully clothed.
Tom @ Aug 2nd 2006 8:52PM
"People don't want serious criticism, they want service journalism: how many stars?; how many thumbs-up?" ~ Christopher Grant
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/11/klosterman-responds-to-critic-critics/
t-diddy @ Aug 2nd 2006 9:03PM
great game, far too short, and a little too easy IMHO.
As for not buying it, I rarely if ever purchase a game at full price, and definitely found it on the discount shelve at around 10 bucks before buying it, despite being bombarded by rave reviews in countless publications. The last time I purchased a game at full price was for Halo 2, and that will probably be the last time ever. When you work two jobs, you have to make every penny count, especially for the frivolous things, like, yes, even video games.
Rob @ Aug 2nd 2006 9:16PM
I didn't get this at first because of the demo. The demo was mainly sneaking, and I'm not a big fan of sneakers, and it crashed on me as well.
I picked it up cheap at a clearance sale, and absolutely loved it. The sneaker parts weren't as big a deal because I was used to the controls by the time I got to the area that was in the demo.
Klay @ Aug 2nd 2006 9:33PM
Owen Hughes is FULL OF IT. It is not hard to sell this game to people. I followed this game since it was Project BG&E and brought it when it first came out (then cringed when the price dropped 2 weeks later). I have only had one person not buy this game after telling them about it, the rest purchased it, and I even had some people come back to thank me. All I did was tell them about how fun and unique the game was, as well as describe what the game was like and what I liked about it. Ubi Soft majorly DROPPED THE BALL with this title, and now we, and the BG&E sequels are paying for it.
Ubi Soft made some BAD decisions:
1) Release the game around the holiday season with a bunch of other, bigger "buzz word" games. This game just got slaughtered. But more importantly...
2) Drop the price on the game to 25$ two weeks after it came out (at least everywhere I saw...). That didn't spur sales, it told people the game wasn't any good and they avoided it that much more.
rockintom99 @ Aug 2nd 2006 9:36PM
I first saw this game in a few magazines, and saw some good reviews, but nothing to really spur my interest. A couple weeks later, i was at a lan with a few friends, and they all had hl2 (which i didn't have at the time), and were playing that, so i looked throught their CD wallets, and tried this out. Didn't play a multiplayer game for the rest of the lan, or a week after it.
The game is amazing. The graphics do their job perfectly (while not pushing any redicilious next-gen hype-style polygons), the story was great, and the gameplay was so much fun :D
I just hope they continue it, sometime.
Richard @ Aug 2nd 2006 9:43PM
I won this game in a competiton held on the playstation.com forums when it was first released. I absolutely love the game and to this day I still hold it as one of my favourites ever. I'd love to see a (well made) sequel!
JD @ Aug 2nd 2006 9:45PM
I've got to agree this one got lost in the shuffle.
I tried playing the PC demo when it first came out and I gotta say it sucked. There was little to no documentation and the controls were definitely not PC friendly. I think it froze up on me too. Not a good start.
Later I started reading the reviews and couldn't believe it was the same game I played.
Even the reviews couldn't motivate me to go out and buy the thing though. Yet another platformer in a sea of a million other games. I liked Rayman, but couldn't get excited about once again jumping and collecting coins. I felt the same about Psychonauts.
Both are great games and would have been good summer releases, but I can't image they could ever compete against the big budgets of Ratchet & Clank, or Mario, or Zelda, etc.
epobirs @ Aug 2nd 2006 11:06PM
The big thing Katamari had going for it was building a cult following well before it hit US retail. The publisher also hedged its bets by going for a low SRP and and a small initial production run.
BG&E was justifiably expected to hold its own at full price but the marketing department was asleep at the wheel. If you cannot sum it up in a one sentence pitch it means you have to be more creative, not just ignore it while it dies in undeserved obscurity.
Shagi @ Aug 2nd 2006 11:54PM
I never got to the gameplay I looked at the back of the box and went annoying art style and insipid looking characters. Not for me. To a lesser degree I think I'm agreeing with the guy who said , 'The green lipstick was too much for me'.
Too Short B+G @ Sep 28th 2006 9:32AM
Totally agree with #15--the game was good, but way, way too short... 10 hours for an adventure game without a lot of replay value?
deathneo @ Aug 3rd 2006 12:11AM
The girl looked ugly 'nuff said.
Most likely the main reason why a lot of people didn't pick it up.
Joonas @ Aug 3rd 2006 12:24AM
It was the weird name, I'm telling you. It feels awkward to this day, no matter how often I've said it, read it and heard it.
BG&E had the best characters in a videogame since Grim Fandango. I wasn't enamored on the actual gameplay, though it was fine, but the setting, the characters and the design did it for me.
I didn't like the still shots at all to begin with, but seeing it all move was quite magical.
Feep @ Aug 3rd 2006 1:00AM
The green lipstick DID do it for me.
I'd marry Jade, like, THAT.
dvnt @ Aug 3rd 2006 1:09AM
It's sad that so many good games go by the wayside. BG&E was to adventure as Psi-Ops was to action this last generation. Both great games that brought something fresh and original to their genres but nobody played them.
For the most part people tend to judge books by their covers. It a problem with society not the games.
Geist @ Aug 3rd 2006 1:19AM
I can't remember for the life of me how or when I got the game, but I got it one day and really enjoyed me. What really suprised me was that my older sister, who doesn't really play video games, got hooked on it immediately because of its simple controls and well-made story.
I think that Katamari Damacy became popular because a few key figures (the Penny Arcade guys come to mind) mentioned how much fun it was to play, before the game became labeled 'unprofitable' and production was stopped. I think. That's my hypothesis.
Kronos @ Aug 3rd 2006 1:28AM
I still havent picked this game up for one reason.....
My dissapointment with Psychonauts.
Psychonauts was extremely overhyped by journalists and im a fan of Tim Schafers work and couldnt get passed the ANNOYING character and gameplay. I dont care how high the production values are or how great the story is if the game just isnt fun to play. I did not enjoy the childish over cartoony voicework (and i dont mean Pixar or Disney cartoony but Spongebob squarepants; nickelodeon cartoony).
The gameplay sucked. Collecting....SUCKS....couldnt get more then an hour into it.....put it back in its gamefly envelope and sent it back for jade empire.
Im afraid imma get the same thing when i play Beyond good and evil....and I REALLY enjoy adventure games
??? @ Aug 3rd 2006 1:53AM
It was an adult oriented game wanting to be taken seriously;the one big drawback was the fact it was done in anime'style which I think turns a lot of people off [apologies to those who like anime']It reminds one of the old Sat. morning pulp comics.However the pig and the green lipstick had enough goof factor about them that it might have had a comic appeal to the younger set if it had have been less serious and more laid back and platformy.
justin @ Aug 3rd 2006 2:00AM
@ 28
Play your games for more than an hour plz?? kk thx.
Rare Hare @ Aug 3rd 2006 2:01AM
I regularly regret selling this game after playing about 45 minutes to an hour of it. I'm really not sure why I sold it, actually. It just wasn't high on my to-play list at the time, and I wanted the cash for other games. I believe Beyond Good & Evil ended up being one of my GameStop casualties the time I gathered about 12 or more games up and turned them all in for about 80 bucks store credit. I bought God of War, Katamari Damacy, and some baseball game for Xbox with that store credit.
Anyway, though, I was just thinking the other day that I wish I hadn't thrown it in the 'sell' stack when I was cleaning out my current-gen collection. I really would have liked to continue Jade's adventures. Sigh.. perhaps I'll pick this game up again in the bargain bin at wal-mart with Killer7. They're both at about 15 bucks or so right now.
*remembers that he has also not yet played Ninja Gaiden or MGS 3*
This generation is running out of tim too quickly :(.
WaffleTron @ Aug 3rd 2006 2:10AM
What an amazing game. Sadly, I think Ubisoft themselves are to blame for its poor sales. They released it at the exact same time as Prince of Perisa, and only advertized for PoP- the game that didn't NEED advertizing.
I honestly don't understand what all the hubub was about PoP, I played it and BG&E and liked BG&E a hundred times more. It's a shame...
Kronos @ Aug 3rd 2006 2:20AM
#30
sorry.....45 minutes into that training session with the "war" theme was enough.......sorry but if a game cant capture you within half an hour..it sucks
the game actually had me at the damn intro screen..i smiled when i saw the little character running around the 3d brain......from that moment forward it was all downhill
Cynders @ Aug 3rd 2006 2:27AM
I bought this game recently, owing to the glowing reviews I've heard from other players. When it initially came out, I passed it over simply because I had not ever heard anything about it. If there had been more pre-release coverage from gaming sites, I would have tried it sooner.
However, thus far I am finding it to be a better-than-mediocre game at best. The decision to use talking animals is a poor one when the title is intended for teens and adults. I found Pey'j to be silly rather than endearing.
Furthermore, the controls (on the PS2 version, I haven't tried it out on the Cube) are a bit clunky--I have trouble driving the hovercraft, and in combat I end up in camera mode far too often. In addition, I would have greatly appreciated the ability to use the gyrodiscs in 3rd-person mode, especially in boss battles. Zelda gave you the ability to lock-on to far-away targets to allow you to manover and fire at the same time.
While this game compares in many ways to Zelda, without Zelda's finessed controls, the 'amazing' story pratfalls on animal gimmicks and ultimately leaves much to be desired. I feel this is a bit of a shame, because Jade is the best female lead since Joanna Dark in the original Perfect Dark for the N64.
hector @ Aug 3rd 2006 3:47AM
I played it several days running … I just didn't think it was that good. I got bored, and went on to something else. I hated the talking pig, too. I was mystified by all the hype. But, "different strokes for different folks," I guess.
djpuddle @ Aug 3rd 2006 4:06AM
If a game can't capture you within half an hour? With the trends on most games these days half an hour usually consists of like two cutscenes and 5-10 min of playtime.
But then again, I mainly Play Tactical RPGs, so...
loz @ Aug 3rd 2006 4:56AM
Most. Overrated. Game. Ever.
Well, apart from Psychonauts.
Merus @ Aug 3rd 2006 6:58AM
Old news.
No, for serious.
The movie industry won't even greenlight a project if it can't be encapsulated in a sentence. The game industry should do the same - the PR people can all get on the same page, and it makes it easier to spread the word about what the game is about.
Nearly every successful movie can be summed up in a sentence, and so can most commerically successful games (Katamari's is: "Roll everything up into a big snowball".)
It's not so much that people hate originality, it's that games people are terrible storytellers. Even Schaefer.
coalhalo @ Aug 3rd 2006 7:25AM
This is one of those games that when I first saw it in the store I quickly passed it over. I didn't know anything about, and from the box art on the front I was turned off. Looking at the back of the box I still was very underwhelmed, except that I saw that is was a Ubisoft release. That made me pause for a second, but I quickly moved on.
Then I kept reading about the game, and all the reviews that said it was something different and should be given a try. I kept on seeing it at my local store and kept on passing it up. I guess about two years ago I was in my local game store looking to buy a game. It was the summer and there had been no good new releases in awhile, so I decided to catch up on some games that I had missed when they first got released. And there was BG&E. A used copy, on sale for like 10 bucks. What the hell, it's only ten bucks. Bought it, went home, put in the xbox, and gave it my attention for the rest of the day. At first I was not too impressed. It was okay, but nothing spectacular. Soon some new games came out and I bought them and had my attention diverted for awhile. One weekend last summer I was really bored and I was going thru my games to find something to play. There was BG&E. I had never finished it. I spent the rest of the weekend knocking the game out, and by the time I finished I was glad I gave the game another chance. I would not place it in the pantheon of all time greats, but for gamers it something a little different and deserves some attention.
32_footsteps @ Aug 3rd 2006 7:52AM
Wait, they couldn't find a sentence to sum up BG&E that made sense? "A futuristic Zelda where you fight a conspiracy." Pretty easy to wrap your brain around it, and it fits (though is naturally a bit simplistic).
Personally, I blame the public. I know I tried hard to pimp BG&E. I gave it a glowing review, and I bought it the day it came out. Only one person ever took my advice and picked it up, and it was nearly a half year later.
Maybe marketing had something to do with it, but I don't totally buy it. When practically every video game critic under the sun falls in love with a game, it either has to be very good or the company is trying to butter up the media. And the latter was... highly unlikely for BG&E, to say the least (it would have been accompanied by a huge media blitz if it had been).
WizarDru @ Aug 3rd 2006 8:53AM
Kronos said: "Im afraid imma get the same thing when i play Beyond good and evil....and I REALLY enjoy adventure games"
I would hazard that no, you really don't. Of course, Psychonauts isn't an adventure game, so that may have been part of your problem. I played the game the whole way through, just like I did BG&E and loved every minute of it. Did I think both were flawless? Of course not. There were several things that could have used improvement in both games. But they were both still breaths of fresh air in a stale 'been there, done that' world.
I'm curious, what adventure games have you liked, for purposes of comparison?
Dan Coyle @ Aug 3rd 2006 10:13AM
Beyond Good and Evil is a great game. A wonderful game with a wonderful story.
But I bought it on a Sunday and had beaten it by that Friday.
Plaid Ninja @ Aug 3rd 2006 10:45AM
Regarding Zelda being already for adults, I suppose this doesn't take Wind Walker into account. I have tried to get past the children's cartoon look of the game and I just can't. The game screams Disney. Actually, no. It makes Disney look adult by comparison.
SuicideNinja @ Aug 3rd 2006 12:11PM
It's horrible to say this, but I bet part of the reason it didn't do very well is because Jade was probably wearing too many clothes. I think Japanese games have many jaded (no pun intended) to non-physically-over-proportionate-hang-out-clothes-wearing female characters.
Beyond that, imagine being a gamer in a store and seeing this game with a girl in a shirt and jeans holding a camera. The cover art alone just didn't do much for the mental image of the game. But I wonder if any single picture could have conveyed how much this game covered (action, racing, stealth, etc).
As for the naysayers, the reason this game is great is because it combined many genres, and did it quite well. I bought it merely because it was on a 10-list of "Gems you haven't played before". You know, the one with Psychonauts and ICO on it.
Proper advertisement would have probably helped this game tremendously. After I started playing it...I played it every hour I could until I completed it. A sequel is definitely welcome.
haegen @ Aug 3rd 2006 1:16PM
It's a great game for sure, though i think 'masterpiece' might be taking it a bit far. As for comparing it to Zelda, it definitely comes close though i don't feel like it achieved the same level of depth that the better Zelda games have.
Kronos @ Aug 3rd 2006 6:12PM
#40.....
Pretty much all of the classics....and i would consider psychonauts part of the action/adventure fusion of the genre......
Games I really really really LOVE but are more classic adventure style:
Full throttle, sam and max, maniac mansion, maniac mansion DOTT, indiana jones and the fate of atlantis, Monkey island series, the quest for glory series, the longest journey series, Grimm fandango, indigo prophecy, syberia (the first one), shenmue series
action adventure titles that i love:
tomb raider, flashback, blood omen/legacy of kain series, max payne series, prince of persia series, ninja gaiden black, fatal frame, mafia for pc, survival horror (which is adventure) like the RE series and silent hill...
so yea....i DO enjoy adventure games.....they are my fav genre along with FPS games.....
Brad Lee @ Aug 6th 2006 4:13PM
I think BG&E tanked because it was ahead of its time. It was a successful blend of many different genres while at the same time having an intelligent storyline and compelling (and amusing) characters. Try telling a gamer he should buy a game because of the intelligent storyline, compelling characters, and successful blend of different genres and he'll look at you like you're braindead. Its because very few games out there have good storylines or good characters. And very, very few games successfully blend genres.
It was also excessively short. Paying $50 upfront for a game that lasted about 10-15 hours with little replay value is not really a good deal. I got it for $20 though, that was definitely a bargain!
Merlin @ Aug 10th 2006 3:01PM
I bought this game because I knew about it when the original sketches were released. The French artwork gave it a unique look that I always liked.
A lot of people on the BG&E forums preferred the original look of Jade, as she was just a normal civilian and not rambo-esque.
But marketing is marketing and not doing their jobs properly, as I hardly saw any advertisments for this game around London.