Gamasutra is reporting that CEO Strauss Zelnick stated that “[d] espite its disappointing reviews, Duke Nukem Forever was profitable for Take-Two.”
Regardless, Take-Two still failed to make an overall profit in the first quarter of 2011, despite having a great year in 2010 with Red Dead Redemption. Take-Two announced that the game has managed to ship a very impressive 11 million units, L.A. Noire is also doing a bit of alright with four million shipped.
Take-Two’s GAAP loss was $8.6 million for the quarter.
Duke Nukem Forever Proved Profitable For Take-Two [Gamasutra]
Luke
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 9:51 AMSorry… i am a bit confused, which game managed 11 million copies? was it RDR or DNF?
Luke
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 9:52 AMPS… or is 1.1 million and you just forgot the decimal?
Aidan
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:06 AM11 million looks huge. Maybe too huge?
NotoriousR
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:19 AMhttp://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36447/TakeTwo_Red_Dead_Redemption_Ships_11M_Units.php
Nope, not a typo!
Aidan
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:31 AMYeah, just found that. Wow.
Pretty amazing numbers.
NotoriousR
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:37 AMYeah, that’s really impressive actually. Suppose the game deserves it, it was quite fantastic.
Richard
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 1:47 PMIt had two disc releases (original and Undead Nightmare), outsold expectations both times and continues to sell well – which I believe is why the PC version doesn’t yet exist (piracy fears).
L.A. Noire on the other hand seems like it’s going for a more desperate financial recovery with the immediate PC port announcement (developed by Rockstar Leeds instead of Team Bondi).
Neil Williams
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 7:15 PMI believe the reason RDR never received a PC release was because it was built upon the RAGE engine (just like GTAIV), which Rockstar has never been able to get working well on PC.
[Razor]
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:07 AMHow are DNF’s reviews disappointing? If I put that game out, to get that average is the best I could hope for.
oggob
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:19 AMbecause it was being made for over 10 years and thus, that obviously directly means that it should’ve been the greatest ever game created.
Chazz
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 12:19 PMWhy do people keep saying this?
It was not one constant development cycle. Not even close.
oggob
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 12:48 PMI thought my comment had enough subtle sarcasm coming from it :p
Simply put, the game was built up by everyone (media, gamers, etc) into something it wasn’t, I agree the project wasn’t a continuous +10 year development, the end project clearly shows that, but at some point this game was started that long ago and no matter how much of that game is actually there (if any), a part of that statement is correct.
Chazz
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 1:16 PMMy apologies, I was doing a million things at once and failed to notice the sarcasm. Carry on, sir.
DENAz
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 1:22 PMIts true though, its the most common complaint that I hear about the game. A lot of people don’t realise how much the game was passed around
pew pew
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:10 AMconsidering the state of 3d realms i wouldn’t be surprised if the bought the ip for a pittance so anything on top would be profit.
Glenn
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:18 AMHas anyone played it post patch? The game is actually much better, especially with a 90 FOV.
weresmurf
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:37 AMPlus the improvement of 4 weapons instead of 2.
clint
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:04 AMbut.. is not Take 2 blaming DNF for their losses.. if DNF made profit, then what made the loses??? DNF apparently sold 3 times as many units as L.A. Noire.
oggob
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:08 AMThe 11M units is RDR
clint
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:10 AMok, but my first question still remains
Lucid
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:23 AMMost likely running costs of the studio, wages etc.
11 millions copies of RDR sold should keep them going until their next big release though.
oggob
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 12:58 PMDNF contributed to that loss, but it’s not saying it is the reason. The statement reads the DNF made a profit, but sales were down on forecasts, probably due to the bad reviews, word of mouth…
I would say that LA Noire made a bigger dent than expected, even with 4M shipped there is a part of me that thinks they haven’t made a profit on that title, not including DLC which would have been a tidy sum.
Aaron
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:17 AMDuke aparently only sold 450, 000 in the first month.
Meanwhile La noire pulled almost double that in the first week.
Aaron
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:18 AMOh, and dukes 450k is over all platforms, meanwhile la noire is just 360 statistics.
Nick
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:26 AMYes, but how much money, in the grand scheme of things, did they spend procuring the IP, and then on extra development costs? Probably not a whole tonne. Given that they had a pretty good number of pre-orders on the back of the brand itself, I would have honestly been more surprised if they hadn’t made any money. Even with all the people who took their copies back…
Nick
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:26 AMYes, but how much money, in the grand scheme of things, did they spend procuring the IP, and then on extra development costs? Probably not a whole tonne.
Given that they had a pretty good number of pre-orders on the back of the brand itself, I would have honestly been more surprised if they hadn’t made any money. Even with all the people who took their copies back…
Lord Crumplebottom
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:51 AMI still don’t know why it got as slammed as it did. I still like it :P
Luke
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 12:57 PMAstronomically high expectations and i suppose another factor that hating Duke Nukem was the flavor of the month.
I read a forum post on the Gearbox forums that stated that all reviews from major sites were not consistent with each other, i think it was gamespot who previewed the PAX demo last year and praised it saying it was fun and although the graphics were a little dated they were tolerable but when it came to the full review they completely changed their tune and said pretty much every negative thing about it.
I am not ashamed to admit it i love Duke Nukem Forever, it was a breath of fresh air from all the overused war plots used in modern shooters.
TailSwallower
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 1:03 PMI’m confused… They had two Rockstar games released, DNF turned a profit and they still lost money?
Do the execs need to cut back on their gold-plated Lamborghini purchasing or is this just some form of eXtreme creative accounting?
BenDTU
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 1:44 PMConsidering they’ve got 12 years worth of preorders, I’d be worried if they somehow DIDN’T make some money off it.
Reoh
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 3:01 PMFrom a gamer’s perspective, priority fail.
chris
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 12:06 AMAnyone else see the grand theft auto v official webpage? I typed in http://gtav.com and a website pops up now for GTA V. They had on there that the game will be released in 2012, and set in Los Angeles. I really hope they don’t do LA for the game, I prefer something overseas so the game has a different feeling. Though if they did do LA it would be cool to have some rappers and cool actors in the game. Slap around a few of those bums!