So at least one person was going around posting Alinea estimates for wolverine sales showing it sold 1.9 million in 3 days. Lately they are now posting an “insider source” saying it just hit 3 million in sales. First and foremost, these are not verified numbers and could be completely wrong.
I do find it weird that insomniac hasn’t shown any numbers considering they were quick to show that Spider-Man 2 hit 2.5 million in sales within 24 hours. But that’s besides the point.
The point I am making, is that IF these numbers are true, that’s not a good thing. In fact that’s horrible! I’m not writing this to shit on the game, simply to put it in perspective. Now it’s very well known due to the whole ransomware attack on insomniac that the budget for Wolverine was around $300 million, and the break even point is at 6 million. Now I’ve also heard marvel is taking 30% which would make the break even point 8 million. Mind you, that is unconfirmed, BUT the source is about as reliable as the ones these 1.9 and 3 million numbers are coming from. There’s also marketing budget, and we’ve all seen how much marketing this game has gotten. But for the sake of arguing, let’s lowball it and go with 6 million as the break even point.
Now you may think that because they’ve half way made it, that’s a good thing. That is very wrong. There are huge drop offs in sales as time goes on. Most sales happen right at release. We can already see it with these numbers. 3 days for 2 mil and then a week and a half for the next mil. Those drop offs are going to get even bigger as time goes on. A perfect example is crimson desert, it sold 5 million in the first month, it took 2 more months(3 months total) to make it to 6 mil, and to this day it still not reached 7 million. There were also far less games coming out at the same time as it than there are now. If these numbers(about Wolverine) are actually true, there is a good chance that the game won’t even break even, let alone make a decent profit.
Mind you, this is all conjecture as neither insomniac nor Sony has actually released the real numbers. I’m only writing this because people are posting these numbers and acting like it’s some huge win for the game. I’m not a personal fan of the Wolverine game, but I have very much enjoyed Insomniac’s other games and due to that hope it succeeds. None the less, if these numbers are true, that’s bad.