@Just_Ben, For PS2, the media may have a benefit on sales. For the Wii, not so much. Most of the buyers of the Wii are still parents buying for children. And while the state of American parenting is atrocious, by and large, I refuse to believe that parents will buy this game for children in the numbers we have here. I can't imagine parents thinking that buying a game that was marginally scaled back from an AO rating is a good present for Jr.
VGC has no sales date of Manhunt at all, neither shipped nor sales. And how much the game will move depends on how heavy the media will report that the game (that had an ao rating) is released.
You people are out of your damn minds if you think this game will sell more than 100k in November. Here's my reasoning: 1) The Wii version is $10 more expensive than the PS2 version. Not a huge deal, but when you consider 2) The people who would buy this on Wii probably already have a PS2 which they played the FIRST Manhunt on. 3) The all-important pre-sales (which I wouldn't imagine are high for this game on Wii anyway) count for OCTOBER's sales.
I can't pull the "data" from VGC right now, as I can't get the site to load, can someone chip in with what Manhunt 1 sold on a much more successful system (PS2)? I think what they have to say is going to be that sales were mediocre LIFETIME, for a game that trades mostly on hype.
This stock will be one to watch after it IPO's. There have been only 3 other titles that garnered this much attention due to the content contained within. The first: Night Trap, which brought the issue to the US congress for a few scenes of girls running around in underwear. The Second: Thrill Kill Kult, which drew so much attention that the development studio was bought by a production company and the title was buried. The Third: Grand Theft Auto, III for the alleged inspiration to kill in two separate court cases, and IV for the infamous Hot Coffee mod that inspired Hilary Clinton to have a congressional team investigate the effect of video games on youth minds. Many believe that this will be the game that breaks the camel’s back with the "Killing Gestures" solidify some psychological disconnect in a young mind, other think that's no more harmful that making a gun out of the fingers in your hand while playing cowboys and Indians. I'm eagerly awaiting the ipo of this stock, and I believe it to be one of the few that can cut through the over commercialized marketing titles, and the tried and true franchises, and give an accurate prediction of sales based on media attention alone.
Agreed, trihunter. As I stated below, should the game get released (and, for this to happen, it must be rerated) I feel 40DKP would be far more realistic, and even then it may be high- that value relies on a legitimate level of morbid curiosity. If they took option A, the game would literally sell zero- Nintendo and Sony won't license it.
a.) release the game as it is b.)reconstruct the game in order to get M ratings or to un-ban in the UK.
Both will require money in a.) loss of sales from all countries that de facto or de jure ban it, or b.)recreating more content on their development teams.
The only option they can really take is Option B. If the company takes Option A, the game will sell nothing in the UK and Europe and practically zero in America. So if they decide to release the game as is, don't expect 750,000 crazed fans to go out and buy this game without zero help from the UK and America.
Actually, it's their respective ratings bodies that are doing the banning. And in neither of those countries (nor America) is the video game ratings body a government organization. (Actually, upon researching, the Ireland one might technically be a government group, it might not. I'm not certain. But I know the UK and American ones are not.)
Really, the only difference between the American scenario and the UK/Ireland one is that the banning is only de facto in America. AO games are rated and not banned, but no console maker will allow them, so for a console game an AO rating is a de facto ban. The UK and Ireland bodies, however, just plain banned it outright.
I think it's stupid that they are even banning this game in the UK and Ireland. I'm glad I don't live there, the idea of government telling me what games I can and can't play doesn't sit well with me at all.
You're right, there is a chance it can be re-rated without altering any content. However, I think that chance is slim to nil, and I expect Rockstar to do some sort of token edit (reducing blood spray across the board, softening force feedback on some kills, or something else along those lines) as a gesture to demonstrate that they "agreed" with the AO rating and toned it down in response. I don't expect any sweeping changes, just enough to get themselves down to an "acceptable" level. For once I agree with Patcher; they might as well drop it down to something M-worthy, because if they don't all this time and development will be wasted. If that means "cleaning" the game, so be it.
1
For PS2, the media may have a benefit on sales. For the Wii, not so much. Most of the buyers of the Wii are still parents buying for children. And while the state of American parenting is atrocious, by and large, I refuse to believe that parents will buy this game for children in the numbers we have here. I can't imagine parents thinking that buying a game that was marginally scaled back from an AO rating is a good present for Jr.