President of Epic Games, Mike Capps has openly acknowledged that over-the-top first person shooter Bulletstorm “didn’t make money.”  Despite wowing critics with its combination of bullet surgery and points-whoring, TSA giving Bulletstorm a very respectable 8 out of 10, it was reported that the game had barely managed to scrape past 300,000 units sold within a month of release.
This hasn’t phased Epic Games however as Capps explains; it was a much more beneficial decision to assign Polish-based developer, People Can Fly, on creating a new IP instead of forcing the studio to support Gears of War 3 with additional content. “The studio has shipped AAA content,” he said, “the next thing we do with People Can Fly will be great.”
As we all know, Bullestorm isn’t the only title which failed to draw in consumers despite critical success, as we explained at length earlier this week.
Source: Kotaku
Jones81
Bulletstorm was good so this news is crazy, there literally is no hope for anything unless it’s a sequel, casual shite, fifa or cod. These are dark days we’re heading into my friends
DJ Judas
Indeed, I can think of new IP such as Dead Space that have done well, but they have excellent advertising money behind them rather than just industry coverage.
quinkill
I agree. I really enjoyed Bulletstorm and saw it as a breath of fresh air compared with other FPS’s. Here’s hoping they keep their next IP just as innovative.
david24
Wow 300,000 is a lot less then I’d expected. Killzone 3 must of really killed the sales.
Erroneus
It did get past 1 million in total, but that’s still pretty disappointing for a game getting that much attention and being bundled with a GoW3 beta invite on the 360 version.
Personally I’m not surprised, it felt like a game which should have been on XBL or PSN. While it was unique, it just didn’t had enough content to justify full retail price imo.
colossalblue
Good stuff from Epic, there. Stick with them, the game was really good, but for some clumsy writing. The sequel will sell better ;)
Rocket_345
Great game. Just finished it myself Wednesday. Big mistake releasing the same time as KZ3 imo.
Sympozium
Well its Multi-Platform, it likely would’ve sold more on the 360. Who knows, heh I’d though it’ll challenge Killzone 3.
Rocket_345
I thought the same if i’m honest. I thought that it would be able to give Killzone a run for it’s money especially on the 360 with the included Gears beta. If it was released a bit later though i think it would of done better.
tonycawley
Ps3 magazine said its the best Fps on ps3. Sounds a bit ott to me but I haven’t played it.
Sympozium
Eh hopefully this leads to a new unreal game, Bulletstorm never really appealed to me nor Killzone.
Darksidesystems
I was put off by the skill kills thing. Once I’d done the shot once I honestly couldn’t be bothered with it again. I found myself just shooting enemies in the head to move the story along. As for the echos mode, dint get me started… I did, however, like the song about the dinosaur
gazzagb
Played the demo, thought it was ruined by the cheesy ‘skill kills’ thingy. Could of been great, they just needed to make it so people could at least take it seriously.
Mike
That’s really the whole point of the game though. It doesn’t take itself seriously and takes the piss out of its own genre. It’s something a bit different and the skill kills added to the game imo
TSBonyman
I’m surprised at the low sales figures as i played the demo once and thought it was pretty good fun, but the idea of playing a full game like that just didn’t appeal to me.
Smallville2106
Maybe lots of people thought the same. Personally I didn’t like the game.
BIGAL-1992
That’s a shame it didn’t sell well. Bulletstorm was the first FPS in a long time that I had fun playing, and the skillshots were quite inventive as well.
KeRaSh
I’m with you on that one. It felt fresh and People Can Fly is a studio that knows what it’s doing so the fact that they stay in business with Epic is good news.