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Ubisoft CEO Explains What Went Wrong With Avatar

January 18, 2010 in Interview comments 12

James Cameron's Avatar was a hit at the box office, but it's video game counterpart didn't share that same success. So what went wrong? Ubisoft's CEO, Yves Guillemot, explains...

Despite the box office records of James Cameron's recent CG-heavy film Avatar, Ubisoft Montreal's corresponding video game failed to make much of an impact as either a critical or commercial success -- not placing in the all-formats Top 20 for December 2009.

So what happened? According to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot in a recent company conference call, the game was materially harmed by the film releasing so late in the year.
Miss Razz via gamasutra.com »
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  • 0
    conel3 Jan 18, 10
    christmas is the perfect time for ubisoft to try and scam money out of people with half-assed movie based games. Ubisoft just got unlucky that january and february had actual genuine good games coming out like Bayonetta and Darksiders so people have been saving up for them instead of wasting money on ubisoft.
  • 0
    Bale Fire* Jan 18, 10
    Logic would suggest that Christmas could only help sales, but I guess most people would want to see the movie first before getting overly interested, and it did launch pretty late.

    Not sure about the time constraints mentioned though, didn't Cameron actually start planning the games development much earlier than usual to avoid that problem?
    • 0
      conel3 Jan 18, 10
      whether it launched late or not doesn't really make any dfference though. The film did launch too late for people to want the game for christmas maybe but if the film was released any other point in the year it would have been exactly the same or worse. If the game was actually geniunly good then it would keep selling after christmas.
  • 6
    BANDITO ATTACK Jan 18, 10
    what went wrong? it's a movie game. that's what.
  • 0
    TurMoiL911 Jan 18, 10
    I can explain to you why the Avatar movie video game did poorly and I'm not the head of a multi-million dollar company: video games based off of movies never do well.
  • 0
    Supadupagama Jan 18, 10
    I think it's ironic that in the game you don't follow the movie's plot, because they wanted to tell a new, original story. But I imagine most movie-goes wanted to play through the movie in the game instead. Quality aside, maybe that's what stopped people from picking it up?
  • 1
    Red 9 Jan 18, 10
    It's weird since the game started development before the movie did, so it wasn't just piggy-backing off the movie. So really it doesn't follow the same rule as most movie-based games.

    I suppose it was just a poorly made game in its own right.
  • 0
    tekmosis Jan 19, 10
    haaaaahahahahahahahahaha. Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. At E3 during Ubisoft's press conference James Cameron himself was going on and on and ooon about how awesome this was. Albeit, I think he was bragging more about the movie but he made it seem like the game was just as awesome and that Ubisoft did a bang up job.

    So I say again, haaaaahahahahahahahahaha.
  • 0
    Slumpy monkey Jan 19, 10
    The game was actually ok scoring pretty high on some reviews.

    http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/jamescameronsavatarthegame
  • 0
    Lord_80 Jan 20, 10
    right, but just because a game gets good reviews doesn't mean its good. tool.
    • 0
      Slumpy monkey Jan 20, 10
      Double post
    • 0
      Slumpy monkey Jan 20, 10
      Well yeah, its a pretty good indication. tool.

      "Hey people are saying this game is good, I might check it out"

      "LOL JUS COZ PEOPL SAY IT GOOD DUN MEN IT GOOD IT MEN IT SHIET LOL"

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