It’s been out since March 2013 and there’s a spruced up “Definitive Edition” launching on 31 January, but Tomb Raider’s fantastic 2013 reboot has only just broken even.
Developer Crystal Dynamics delivered a game fans were proud of, and publisher Square-Enix had high hopes of 5-6 million units sold within launch month. It fell short, however, notching up 3.4 million units sold – a good launch run by most measures.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Tomb Raider producer Scot Amos said that the game only broke even by the end of 2013. “We’ve crossed the line of profitability for the last-gen and PC versions,” said Amos.
As cited by GamesIndustry, a game like Tomb Raider, with a US$100 million (±R1.08 billion) budget, needs to sell at least 5 million copies to break even.
Amos said that the game’s sequel was pretty much a given, regardless of the sales performance.
“As a franchise, Square Enix is clearly invested in us. They already let us get kickstarted on a sequel and they backed us with this [the game’s upcoming Definitive Edition]. They’ve always been behind us, regardless of maybe what was said or how it was said in the press, and certainly at the end of the year, we’ve actually gone over expectations because we’ve managed to get profitability back,” said Amos.
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition will be released for Xbox One and PS4 on 31 January 2014, priced at $60.
Source: Eurogamer, GamesIndustry
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“As cited by GamesIndustry, a game like Tomb Raider, with a US$100 million (±R1.08 billion) budget, needs to sell at least 5 million copies to break even.”
Averaging at $20 a copy?
I’ll wait for reviews on the sequel. I loved the main game but SE doesn’t deserve a cent for that buggy piece of crap paid DLC that as tomb of the lost adventurer. I played it several months after it came out and it was still so bugged.