Ars Technica Puts Gearbox Software on Deathwatch

Ars Technica posted an article recently that listed several companies they project are on their way out, which they call their "Deathwatch".

Gearbox Software was one of them.

IMHO, I believe that accomplishing another great Borderlands installment will be enough to recover from the low points suffered this year, whether said points were due to GBX, 2K or just plain bad luck!

What do you guys think? ~Danie

Here's the bit about GBX:

We had some spirited debate over which gaming company deserved to be placed on Deathwatch for 2017. Rovio was a major contender, considering the lack of major Angry Birds action on recent iOS and Android sales charts. (But I can’t help but think they have a big game cooking, and the company is still floating on the high box-office performance of the first Angry Birds movie earlier this year.) Hello Games might seem like a good knee-jerk choice, considering how badly that studio’s No Man’s Sky was received, but, hey, the game keeps selling.

But Gearbox Software—hoo, boy.

This privately held game studio has been part of the 2K Games publishing family since 2009, with the launch of the incredibly successful Borderlands franchise. 2K put a lot of weight behind the launch of Gearbox’s big 2016 game, Battleborn, but the publisher will probably best remember Battleborn as a giant tax write-off. 2K needed a successful shooter after its major 2015 shooter, Turtle Rock’s Evolve, tanked hugely. But Battleborn may have actually done worse than Evolve, especially since it launched in the giant shadow of a similar and far superior team shooting game.

Given the flat-lined response to Battleborn, Gearbox needed a good product to follow it up. Instead, the company pushed out two lackluster remasters. The first, a 20th anniversary edition of Duke Nukem 3D, may not have cracked the 50,000 unit-sales mark since launching in October on consoles and PC (this conservative estimate relies on a SteamSpy estimate of 10,000 sales on PC, so its total sales could be even lower). That will be followed in January with a remaster of the 2011 shooter Bulletstorm—to be sold at a crazy-high price point of $60 with very little in the way of new content.

Unless Gearbox knows something that I don’t about this pricing strategy, I expect anemic Bulletstorm sales to force some tough decisions at Gearbox HQ. These will rattle the company through the rest of 2017, especially if 2K Games decides to cut its losses in terms of its Gearbox publishing arrangement.

— Sam Machkovech

Submitted December 31, 2016 at 05:49PM by thirdshiftme http://ift.tt/2itHBNu