At my school today, there was a presentation held by the Marketing Manager of Ubisoft Netherlands. He talked about the company itself, and their positition in the market, then told us about the cross-media campaign they set up for Assassin's Creed. Then the presentation closed with a few words about Far Cry 2.

Being the big BGE nerd that I am, I grabbed my chance to ask him about BGE and its sequel.

I first asked him why and if he thought BGE had flopped. He told me that he did not think it had flopped, even if you look at the numbers. According to him, more copies were sold after it dramatically got thrown in the bargain bin. So commercially, it wasn't a total failure, it just didn't sell as much as was intended.

The reasons BGE underperformed were the following:
-Putting Evil in the title
-The boxshot wasn't good enough
-Consumers did not know what kind of game it was, BGE wasn't positioned as a particular genre game.

I then asked about BGE2.

His first response was that officially there was not BGE2 announced, the only thing that was mentioned was that it was going to be Michel Ancel's next project. I argued that it was clear it was the next BGE (because it is!) and expressed my feelings hoping this new project would not be parallel to Raving Rabbids is to Rayman.
I got nothing else out of him.

He did tell me though, that he doesn't know anything more than we do at the moment, he only saw the same teaser. So I don't think he knows more about the project, so he doesn't have an underlying reason to tell me it's not BGE2. He's just careful.

Still interesting to have a word with a Ubi Marketing Manager!

The Dutch know nothing!

Thanks for the info, Duke. Awesome school too!

Sounds reallly cool:)
Thanks for the info =)

Cool infos :D. BG&E 1, sold around 1 million copies.

That's odd: I was attracted by the title in the first place and the boxshot (both European and American) looked great, IMO.

:blink: Your school brought in the Marketing Manager of Ubisoft Netherlands :blink: How coincidental is that!? :ahh: Putting Evil in the title was part of the reason it sold poorly? :/ He may be a Marketing Manager but i'm finding that hard to believe; that's really a silly excuse if you ask me :P . The box shot I can kinda see, and of course the 3rd reason is the best known reason.

The new title is gonna be Beyond Cute & Cuddly, then?

Well, he couldn't say "You know, it was all our fault, since we put BGE premiere close to Prince of Persia, we're really sorry, mea culpa etc., we promise not to do that again this time" now, could he? :P

beyond good and better! (epic?)
beyond good and bad
"2" (all great sequels need only a number)
"beyond" (cutting the whole good and evil)
"beyond 2" (denying the first game was ever called beyond good and evil)
Jade's raving pigs
Jade's raving fanboys :P

Resident Evil anyone? I'd expect a marketing manager to come up with something better than blaming bad sales on the title. The boxshot wasn't the problem either, although I fully agree that the audience didn't know what game it was. The reason for that is simply a lack of marketing. And BG&E did flop, sales were absolutely horrible until they dropped the price. Sure it sold after that (Gamespot mentioned around 250.000 copies, which is still bad) but that wouldn't have been enough to break even on the total development cost. I guess we shouldn't be surprised if the sequel gets a totally different title then...

Oh yes, I forgot to mention another reason, he said that it was because non-English people had trouble with the title.

Why the hell would they?

because we plan to take over the world!

MUHAHAHAHA!!!! :quack:

I guess I shouldn't say that's hard to believe, since I only speak English.

I guess there's some truth behind that non-english people have trouble with a title like that. The game sounds more complicated than it really is.

The first two reasons seem a bit...off to me. And admittedly, I...believe I remember going to get the game when it first came out. The only way that I knew about it was because I was subscribed to Nintendo Power and the first time they mentioned it was a small bit with an old screenshot with Jade in her old outfit and it appeared that she was riding the Pterolimax...they only mentioned taking shots of the wildlife, none of this "vast government conspiracy"...they did a few updates about it here and there before its release and they did a strategy guide up to the part in the Nutripils factory where Pey'j gets kidnapped. If it was NOT for those bones being thrown, I would not have known about the game. (A nice print ad for the game was in...the issue with the first BG&E walkthrough. I don't know if ANY other game magazines had ads or a walkthrough.)

Lack of marketing would've made more sense, but at LEAST they noticed the appeal it had despite it being corraled into the bargain bin. :)

Jesus! This title is great and most of the people know "Beyond Good & Evil" from Nietzsche! So it shouldn't be a problem to read / understand it. Unless you don't know Nietzsche, but "Beyond Good & Evil - Jenseits von gut und böse" Is a popular catch phrase. So...Ubi has no Idea... :D

Somehow I don't think a lot of Nietzsche readers play games.

OMG, my records are wrong! According to this guy, Resident Evil was also a flop!

I'll give him that. Compared to other games... this boxshot isn't exactly much to look at. Perhaps it needed a bit more... excitement. (and also, IF Ubi is reading this: Make sure you don't put in a screenshot that clearly shows the buttons of another console in mistake (like the infamous Gamecube screenshot on the back of the BG&E box).

Believe me, I didn't know what kind of genre it was when I bought it, but I was still intrigued enough to get it. All it takes is marketing to get people to buy. Or haven't you read on the Final Fantasy 7 phenomenon? People didn't know what the hell an "RPG" was, but thanks to the clever marketing, that game sold MILLIONS!

Well, of course. You don't see me saying "Mas Allá Del Bien y el Mal" around, now do I. Although "Jenseits von gut und böse" has a nice ring to it... Too bad it's already used as the subtitle for Xenosaga 2.

Well, those three reasons seem reasonable enough (Yeah, maybe that "Evil" in the title bit maybe a little off) but on the sequel...

Maybe he does not know about it as "Beyond Good and Evil 2", maybe it'll be re-named?

Cause honestly, I'm finding it hard to correlate the title with the game.

For now, yeah, it'll always be "Beyond Good and Evil" in my mind, but maybe, just maybe... it'll be a spiritual successor to BG&E, just not BG&E with a number to its name.

You get me?

Thanks Duke for the info!

Well, clever marketing and an established series contributed to its success ;)

RPG was still considered niche before the release of FF7. Established or not, I'm sure a great deal of gamers came to know what RPGs were with that title.

Beyond Good & Evil is a good title, though it does go a little too deep if you ask me.
My idea about it is that the Alpha's look like the good guys, but are actually evil(OMG SPOILER). But moreover, Jade is, we think, part DomZ, yet she fights for a good cause. She is Beyond Good & Evil, which is also shown in her way of fighting. Instead of making herself known and saving a few, she waits in the shadows, collects evidence and saves the mass, at a relatively small cost. She is a reporter... it's her job, let's not forget that.

Reporters/photographers in areas of war do stand on the sideline while terrible things happen, Jade does the same.

So yeah, it's a good title, though you have think like me :B

Plus, "Evil" in your name makes you successful, just look were I'm at! :superior:

Excuuuse me, but you're forgetting about Fallout and Baldur's Gate here.

or quest for glory, or any of a million early text based MUD's and SUD's

That's another reason why BG&E is awesome, you have to analyze the title to find a deep meaning! ^_^

Or we just got to fan-boyish/girlish that we see a deeper meaning behind everything. I mean, look at our analysis of the teaser! That's called paranoia in most countries... :P

the most beyond good and evil related thing in the game, to me was "sorry -name of the shark-, but hillys needs this more than you do"

To me the title "Beyond Good & Evil" always seemed like a direct reference to the ending sequence of the game (after the credits), which revealed that Shauni's power was still inherently "evil". Keep in mind that the original title was "between good & evil" until it was changed for marketing reasons.

Believe me, every game fan forum analyzes like we do :D

Between Good & Evil (like Ancel intended) was a better name IMO.

You don't have to be a Nietzsche Reader to know this Phrase.
And yeah, Fallout is the best of the best of the cRPG's :P.

And no, "Beyond" fits perfectly!