My old employer, Midway, has recently announced they’re doing five new games based on Cartoon Network properties. I’m saddened to hear it. I mean, it’s bad enough that this industry is already flush with license-based games (that quite often make you gag for their lack of ideas).
But Aqua Team Hunger Force?
I’m sorry - that seems destined to be a flop. Yes, it does have a loyal following - but it’s a rather small group. Don’t believe me, ask Google. About 63,000 hits. (And I’ve been generous and haven’t quoted the search term!)
A property like GTA gets about 1.3 million hits. But lets look at slightly more obscure things. Midways own “Shadow Hearts”, by no means a hugely successful title, garners 234,000 hits. Heck, Dr. Muto, quite possibly one of the worst-selling titles Midway ever had, gets 78,000 hits. If you prefer looking at TV shows, take the rather forgettable “Just Shoot Me!” and get 240,000 hits. Hardly looks like a successful property to me….
I’m surprised - when I left, the new CEO seemed to be lining things up nicely, and the stock performance certainly reflected that over the last couple of months. I hope I’m wrong - I certainly don’t want my friends to be out of work.
[Edit] Graham West points out that my search query contained a typo - it’s Aqua “Teen”, not Aqua “Team”. That moves it up to about 200K hits. It’s still below Shadow Hearts, which got about 70,000 sales - my point still stands. The number of hits compares to shows such as “Just Shoot Me!”
It’s niche. Yes, it targets male adults in the magic age range. (18-24). It definitely has a chance.
But the only TV-show based games I know of that sold well is “The Simpsons”. “Road Rage” as well as “Hit&Run” - but that show is wildly more popular than ATHF. (About 3 million hits - 15 times as many)
My prediction stands - this is not going to be a smash hit.