1.5 million copies of Crackdown sold is 'breaking even' for Realtime Worlds

by David Hinkle on Jul 16th 2009 3:00PM

During a recent interview with Gamasutra, Realtime Worlds CEO David Jones talked about the success of the first Crackdown. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't a really huge success or anything, even though 1.5 million copies of ~~the Halo 3 beta~~ Crackdown were snatched up by consumers. It turns out that Realtime Worlds only broke even, which it partially blames on GameStop's used game sales.

"With Crackdown we sold about 1.5 million copies, but even at that we pretty much only managed to break even," Jones said. "It was due to the amount of factors that were out of our control as the developer, influences such as GameStop's amazing used-game sales; we know 1.5 million new copies were sold, but it's likely there were 2.5, three million sold when you include used." Hey, that sounds like another game we've heard about recently! Hopefully this whole game downloading thing will help with some of those trade-ins. Not that it's Realtime Worlds' problem to worry about any more.

Source

Tags: Action, crackdown, crackdown-2, david-jones, gamestop, Microsoft, realtime-worlds, Riot-Act, sales, Sandbox, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (97)

One of my favorite games this generation. This is probably what delayed Microsoft from greenlighting a sequel

what are you talking about? a sequel is coming out later this year or early next year. obviously they've been working on it since the end of the first one.

oh yeah, obviously. Thats why we haven't gotten so much as a screenshot yet.

Realtime Worlds has been working on APB since the end of development on Crackdown 1. Microsoft dragged their feet on a sequel and has someone else developing.

I bought Crackdown for $12 at a CompUSA liquidation sale and only recent traded it with Goozex. Yeah it was fun despite the poor driving mechanics and complete lack of story. But what really kept it from leaping up to the top of Agency HQ was the utter lack of on-line play. All it had was on-line co-op and no player population interested in it. Shame shame shame.

@bioadam

I thought the driving was fine (and a blast once you maxed your driving skills) and there were plenty of co-op opportunities to be had when the game launched. You just missed the boat there.

I really infuriates me when people claim the Halo 3 beta was the only useful thing on the Crackdown disk. Anyone who still believes that probably didn't play Crackdown.

I bought two new copies: 1 for $60 and 1 for $10 just a few weeks ago. Though I will admit that the first one was more for the Halo 3 beta....

nice, yo when you get tired of it sell it to me used for $5

Used games are the reason why our seaonal line up includes Call of World of Diablo 5: Modern Skating Hero.

I think you meant Call of World of Diablo 5: Modern Skating Hero SOLID.

Piracy is to the PC what Gamestop is to consoles.

Some games aren't worth $60 ($50 on PC) and so I buy used (Turok) or pirate them (Spore (+ PC controls bug the shit out of me)).

I wont buy anything from them unless I'm trading in something. Their new games are already opened and have thumbprints on em (usually).

2 for 1 deal this weekend, can't wait! ;)

Thats pretty true too. People blame PC pirates for "stealing sales" of PC games, but the bottom line is every time you buy a used game, the person that made that game doesnt see a penny of that profit, so its practically the same deal.

The defense that developers have against that is making games with good replay value. That's where a good online experience can help out. Single player games with short campaigns end up in the used section really quickly.

I don't want multiplayer in every game. I don't need 40 hours of play time to justify my spending 30 - 40 $. You have to stop pretending that everyone that buys games is a teenager with no money who needs to get months of play out of a title.

Your watering down my ultimate single player campaign experience by forcing developers to have multiplay options. I bet most of those you don't even bother to play the multiplayer portions more than a couple times and sell them anyways.

Not every game needs multiplayer. See: Bioshock 2. Spend those resources on a solid single player game.

some games NEED multiplayer (see call of duty). some might have decent multiplayer, if done correctly (uncharted 2). some shouldn't have it at all (bioshock 2).

see, this is bullshit. the developers need to stop finding something to blame.. piracy, used games, rain on black friday, whatever. Point is- the model is BROKEN. If you spend 4 million dollars or however much building a game, it's going to be hard to make a solid profit in the brick and mortar department.

You don't hear steam complaining about used sales OR piracy, do you? I'm sure antique watchmakers are shaking their fists at Timex too, because they're siphoning sales from their clearly more fitting business model!

Honestly? The problem is complaining developers. Other forms of media have been traded and resold many times throughout their existence. When i buy used games, i don't go to game stop, i go to a media exchange outlet that sells movies and music too. I guess i don't know if the music/movie industry is complaining, too, but they shouldn't be.

bottomline: It's gamestop's idea to buy what some people don't want and sell it for profit, they should be able to make money off of their idea.

Sounds like it's time for another "Renting or buying used games is as bad as piracy" debate.
Oh boy!

I just wish General Motors and Chrysler were as half as creative as these videogame developers:

"The used car market is killing us! We would have sold three times as many units if consumers couldn't just trade their old cars into dealers!"

"You're not buying a car from us, you're just buying a license to use the car! Used car sales should be illegal! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Here's an idea developers: make games that are good enough that people will want to keep them and revisit them rather than resell them as soon as they've finished playing them. Also, just because a game was sold used does not mean you've lost a sale - that person was probably unwilling to purchase the game at full price and only wound up playing the game because they could get it cheaper. In doing so, they may have become part of your fan base and may purchase sequels or other games new at retail.

Also, there really ought to be some sort of rule about all this crap where finished content is taken out of the game and then included on a one-time use download code bundled with the game. This is totally unfair to people who buy used games. Not as unfair as Steam's total blocking of used game sales altogether (which ought to be downright illegal), but unfair nonetheless. Companies keep finding things to whine about an consumers keep getting screwed.

tl;dr - Devs need to quit whining about used game sales.

Your analogy is beyond weak. GM prices its cars so that the sale price is greater than the sum of the materials, production cost, shipping and so on. Each car that gets sold earns the company money. Game companies, on the other hand, earn a fraction of the $50 or $60 per game and need to sell a large volume in order to make up the multi-million dollar development costs. If they don't, they lose money (generally causing smaller studios to go out of business and larger studios to no longer make that sort of game).

Now, if GM tore down its fabrication facilities and rebuilt them every year, you would have a valid point.

Also, used cars have significant drawbacks - increased cost of ownership, lacking warranties, etc. Used games play exactly the same as new games. Thus game companies' attempts to provide added value to new game purchases through DLC tokens and the sort.

Keep on making fun of it, but when the only thing you have to play is DJ Hero 27 and Guitar Hero 32: Will it Ever End, don't cry to us on joystiq about how much you hate used games.

Crackdown 2 will fair better then Crackdown in large part due to the fact it is now a recognized IP, New IPs always have trouble getting off the ground without some major advertising behind them.

Agreed, there's already some hype and excitement for the sequel that wasn't there for the original.

It seems like, even though everyone knows about this game, it wasn't really appreciated until later. I only bought this game just a couple of months ago, finally giving in after hearing about how amazing is it from everyone all the time. I think word-of-mouth really helped this game get a sequel.

Call me a snob, but I buy all of my games brand new.
There's just something about that new game smell.

it's actually the toxic ink in the newly printed manual....you have 2 weeks to live.

Yeah there is.

It's toxic and carcinogenic.

Have a nice day! =D

Agreed.

Dammit, I got beat to the joke. But HOW? I'm so unique and gifted!

I REGRET NOTHING!

i like new action figure smell more, but new game case is nice too

haha uncle jesse you'll regret it when you are inhaling the fumes from the 100 page manual that comes with your new fishing rod controller! ;)

I'll see you in hell, Paul.

I like that new game smell too! :)

"Call me a snob, but I buy all of my games brand new.
There's just something about that new game smell."

Lmao...welcome to the club! I also love opening up the [Amazon] box that it was shipped in and tearing open the plastic. It makes me feel like a kid again; gotta love nostalgia....

what i never understood was if all these developers are bitching about Gamestop, why do we continue to see more and more of these "pre-order bonuses"? I understand the incentive as they're trying to get more people to buy the games new, but if you hate gamestop so much, why entice people to come into the store to pick up a new copy and leave with the new copy and some used games? If you don't want to contribute to the whole heap of money that gamestop sits ontop of, find another outlet to sell your pre-sales with bonuses through.

because the pre order bonuses are only available with preorders, so you cant get the extra stuff if you get it used.

how is that incentive to leave with a new game and a few used ones?

Because, where the games are sold and pre-order deals are typically set up by the publisher, not the developer.

@ Dark Wayne

I think waggle's point was why are developers giving GameStop pre-order goodies. There are plenty of other retailers you could pre-order games from, but if I can extra crap exclusively from GameStop, why would I go anywhere else?

Coming Soon - Crackdown 2, with three bonus multiplayer levels if pre-ordered at GameStop.

I understand that the preorder bonuses are just with pre orders and not used games. What I was trying to say that apparently didnt come out as clear as i thought it would is, Gamestop makes money on these pre-orders. Game producers have proclaimed that they hate gamestop. period. So why, if they hate them so, would they chose to package preorder bonuses as "Gamestop Exclusives" resultihg in more sales through Gamestop, giving gamestop more money on new disks, AND used disks? Shif the focus to Amazon or TRU or some other seller and give them the sales, taking the money away from gamestop. It won't break gamestop, but maybe it would send them a message that isnt, "We hate your policy on used games but we'll give you a better chance of selling a ton more new games" that doesnt make any sense.

I understand that Vinny, but wouldnt you think that the publishers would be just as concerned with used game sales as the developers are?

But it's not like the publishers are making these deals with gamestop out of good faith. They're getting paid. And they do their math. If gamestop wants their deals to be exclusive the publishers are gonna make sure they get enough money to make it worth their while.

i suppose it's just because of the proliferation of gamestop, there are like 4 in my town versus 1 wal mart and 1 target and a really far away best buy, i guess it's just a vicious cycle

You know what man? Crackdown was a lot more fun for me than Halo ever was. Stop putting the snarky strike-through on 'Halo 3 Beta' and show some RESPECT! I mean, it's... Wait...

...Did I just hear an orb?

I gotta go.

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1.5 million copies of Crackdown sold is 'breaking even' for Realtime Worlds

Reader Comments (97)

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