The Last of Us 2 - Two cowgirls murdering each other's loved ones

[Aurelius Of Phoenix]

Their are a lot of qualifiers in the statement, 'The fastest selling SONY game' not to mention the 80% drop after week 1.

Fastest-selling game of all time.

Read your own article, "The second installment of The Last of Us has also become the fastest selling PS4 exclusive game of all time."

 

[RangerBoo]

It's probably why the game's plot was leaked, to generate buzz.

Then why the fuck did Neil, Naughty Dog and Sony go scorch Earth and DMCA everyone on YouTube and Twitter for talking about the game and making memes? That tells me that they knew that people would be pissed and not want to buy the game after seeing the leaks. Your stupidity is giving me an aneurysm.

 

[CerberusGate]

The problem is that people assume bad publicity deters sales.

This isn't always true though.

Look at Ghostbusters 2016; the bad press wound up hurting it in the long run and prevented it from making bank, turning it into a box-office bomb. I know this example is for a movie but it still applies.

It's probably why the game's plot was leaked, to generate buzz.

As @RangerBoo pointed out, Sony and ND did not want the leaks out. It can adversely affect opinions on the final product (see FF7 Remake).

In fact, iirc, it was a third party that hacked and released the leaks (assuming it wasn't a former disgruntled ND employee as the initial story was). So unless Sony and ND wanted to make up a fake leak, I doubt this was their intent.

 

[CT Phipps]

Look at Ghostbusters 2016; the bad press wound up hurting it in the long run and prevented it from making bank, turning it into a box-office bomb. I know this example is for a movie but it still applies.

I've repeated this message hundreds of times, "Ghostbusters 2016 wasn't a bad idea because it had women in the lead roles. It was bad because it wasn't funny [or exciting or any good]."

It leaned hard on the comedy instead of the adventure element (the original being both like The Goonies) and then the jokes were among the worst I've seen in any film ever. The script writer and direction were godawful and it's a shame because I like all four actresses.

New Their are a lot of qualifiers in the statement, 'The fastest selling SONY game' not to mention the 80% drop after week 1.

Yeah, but that was in the UK only. Also, I seem to recall pointing out that the drop off corrected itself and it's still the highest grossing game there...in the UK.

https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/gaming/the-last-of-us-2-sales-drop-80-percent.html

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/202...mber_one_despite_heroic_debut_for_iron_man_vr

So literally the place it's doing the worst in the world still has it selling more games than any other right now.

I just assumed everyone actually would read the article versus just the clickbait headlines.

Then why the fuck did Neil, Naughty Dog and Sony go scorch Earth and DMCA everyone on YouTube and Twitter for talking about the game and making memes? That tells me that they knew that people would be pissed and not want to buy the game after seeing the leaks. Your stupidity is giving me an aneurysm.

Seriously, that just adds to the controversy and generates more $$$. They've suckered everyone and are laughing their way to the bank.

The more people hate the game, the more people will buy it.

 

[CerberusGate]

"Ghostbusters 2016 wasn't a bad idea because it had women in the lead roles. It was bad because it wasn't funny [or exciting or any good]."

Well, duh. I'm not saying anything about the women actresses being the problem. The idea could have worked if done right.

The movie's poor quality is what ultimately damned the film but what contributed to the film being a bomb was all the bad press as well. One part of the audience alienated (not counting the trolls) by bad press and then the film's poor quality did all the rest in.

 

[CT Phipps]

I'm just suggesting maybe it was the fact the movie was terrible was the reason it was a bomb. I don't think that many people would have gone to see it if it hadn't had all that negative buzz.

But that's just my theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

 

[TheGM]

I'm just suggesting maybe it was the fact the movie was terrible was the reason it was a bomb.

It bombing was the end result of shit idea coming to fruition. people rolled their eyes at the concept and collectively groaned when the 1st trailer dropped. the media campaign of If you don't see this movie you hate women didn't help at all. Sure shit movies have made of tons money(transformers) but every now and then, the planets align and Zeus himself, smiles upon us all and Hollywood is punished for their hubris.

 

[CerberusGate]

But that's just my theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

I disagree and wonder how you would honestly think so.

Then again, I do think of other examples like with BP and their oil spill scandal, Tiger Woods's scandal and whatnot rather than with solely entertainment stuff. All this kind of publicity are stuff that hurts brands and requires plenty of good PR & time to repair.

Even then, people will never live it down (i.e https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NeverLiveItDown/RealLife) on some occasions whether it be positive or negative. Ideally, bad publicity is something that is never used and on some occassions, it backfires enough that people's fascination with bile is not enough to overcome it.

Edit: Too bad that's the exception rather than the norm but infamy's a thing so whatever.

 

[Walpknut]

I calculate I am around 10 hours in.

Well I am at the second flashback with Tommy and Joel in the ski lodge.
I am playing on hard as well.
So far I am enjoying it a lot. Gameplay feels much more fluid and interesting, the gore during fights also makes kills that much more enjoyable. Nothing like Shooting a motherfucker through another mother fucker, taking the first one's arm off and then the second one's leg off with a shotgun round. Ellies animations during stealth kills are also pretty nice, you can see in her face all the strength she is putting on that fucking knife, also good thing daggers are no longer a finite resource, that shit was so dumb in the first game.
The area with the open field was pretty well done.

Graphics are beautiful, there are lots of little animations for everything,

Storywise I am enjoying it more, first game was kinda just a random set of events Ellie and Joel just happened to walk in, with increasing contrievance that sometimes made the last hour of gameplay feel like a shaggy dog story. In this one is more like a western, you get the feeling like you walked into someone else's story on your quest for revenge and now you have to try and survive. There is more of a sense of an actual world existing outside your little shootouts and stealthing around zombies.

One thing I have found kinda pointless are the Shamblers, they are basically the same as the fatties from the 1st game but less dangerous, they haven't really spiced up infected encounters, the clickers are still the more threatening enemy.

I'll see how this pans out.

 

[CerberusGate]

also good thing daggers are no longer a finite resource, that shit was so dumb in the first game.

Irrc, this is quite consistent with the first game as Ellie's knife was unbreakable compared to Joel's crafted ones. I can't recall if there were memes about this but most likely there were.

 

[RangerBoo]

But that's just my theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

A few months ago Id and Bethesda tried to sneak in DRM into Doom Eternal in a patch. Bethesda even told people who didn't like it to fuck off too. The reaction to this was negative. People flooding the forums with angry complaints, people mass down voting the game on Steam and Metacritic and people returning the game on console. It got so bad that Id ended up taking the DRM out of the game. I could only imagine that Bethesda was kicking and screaming over that.
Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker ended up making the least amount of money out of any of the sequel Star Wars films and Solo ended up being the first Star Wars film to bomb due to the negative reaction that people had with The Last Jedi and how utterly toxic and outright malicious Disney and Lucasfilm had become to the fanbase.
Terminator Dark Fate ended up bombing and killing the Terminator franchise (thank God). It had a lot of negative publicly surrounding it and the creators even outright attacked the fans who criticized it and thought negatively about it. It's bad publicity didn't help them.

Another example I have is if you were thinking of going to a restaurant and decided to see the reviews for it online only to see a few that are negative talking about how bad the food at the restaurant is. You will of course think twice about going there. A restaurant owner will tell you that the last thing they want is bad publicity.

This mindset of "There is no such thing as bad publicity" is one I see a lot from the kids at my local liberal arts college who are studying art and entertainment. They believe that it doesn't matter if a reaction to something is negative so long as it got the word out about their "art", only for them to then be disappointed when no one buys their art or hires them due to the negativity surrounding them. Everyone wants to be the next Salvador Dali but all seem to fail at realizing that there was a method to his madness and more to him than his eccentric behavior and negative press.

 

[SquidWard]

I think the idea of no bad publicity is more that bad publicity is almost always better than none in some senses. If no one knew about your product then it won't sell. But if a million people are pissed that could mean even a measly 10,000 people will go buy it now as opposed to the 500 with no mention of your work. Of course bad publicity is bad. If bad publicity wasn't bad then we wouldn't see companies have warranties, public apologies, change their method or products to suit us, etc.

 

[RangerBoo]

If bad publicity is good than why does cancel culture exist? It is almost like bad publicity is damaging.

 

[CT Phipps]

If bad publicity is good than why does cancel culture exist? It is almost like bad publicity is damaging.

My argument is cancel culture greatly benefits products by keeping them in the public eye and thus is completely counter-productive to the people who are a part of it.

See Captain Marvel.

 

[Walpknut]

Outrage marketing is a very clearly winning strategy in the era of internet bandwagons. It's like gettin 24/7 publicity from obessesed nerds for free.

 

[CerberusGate]

I think the idea of no bad publicity is more that bad publicity is almost always better than none in some senses.

That's not wrong. Sometimes, people bank on infamy drawing attention and it does draw in people even if it is for all the wrong reasons. It would lead to downsides in the long run for some cases but the short term benefits may be enough to make bank.

cancel culture greatly benefits products by keeping them in the public eye

I doubt that's the main intent though. No one wants a PR problem but unfortunately, people are stupid enough to be drawn in like moths to a flame. Bad publicity's still bad in any case.

 

[TheGM]

See Captain Marvel.

I don't think anybody saw Captain Marvel.

 

[Walpknut]

I mean....

 

[Atomic Postman]

Yeah I thought Captain Marvel was one of the most boring Marvel films they've made but the whole thing about trying to pretend it was some kind of massive flop is such pathetic cope

 

[Walpknut]

I doubt that's the main intent though. No one wants a PR problem but unfortunately, people are stupid enough to be drawn in like moths to a flame. Bad publicity's still bad in any case.

Gonna put another game as an example.
Pokemon Sword and Shield.

When they announced the game would not have all 900 pokemon on release, lots of people have a lot of very understandable issues with the announcement. Yet, when it turned into a bandwagon with a hashtag and videos being made about it 24/7 for 6 months, do you know what happened? Pokemon Sword and Shield became the highest selling game in the franchise.

Then they announced they would patch in the missing Pokemon for free.

Outrage marketing works wonders.