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Baldur’s Gate 3 Exec Michael Douse has posted online how Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s perceived failure isn’t the fault of its developers. Earlier this week Ubisoft announced that it had disbanded the team behind Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown for failing to fulfill targeted sales goals. While such a move could seem somewhat normal given the variety of titles whose budgets often far outweigh initial sales or just miss their intended demographic audience, there may very well be more to think about, or a minimum of in line with BG3 Director Michael Douse.
Something that those that haven’t played Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown may not currently know is that it actually received praise from not only gaming review media outlets but in addition players alike when it launched in January 2024. That is price noting as a consequence of the very fact the players can sometimes disagree with paid reviews which ultimately shows when a game doesn’t sell well. IGN gave it 4.4 out of 5 stars, it received an analogous rating on PC Gamer, multiple threads from players on Reddit gave it praise, and it still has a rating of 85+ on Metacritic which Douse’s comments primarily reference. Criticism for the sport’s lack of sales goes to not its developers but to Ubisoft management who made the choice for it to be an Epic Games Store exclusive.
If the statement “gamers should get used to not owning their games” is true due to a particular release strategy (sub above sales), then the statement “developers must get used to not having jobs in the event that they make a critically acclaimed game” (platform strategy above title sales) is…
— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) October 23, 2024
Not the primary time
This isn’t the primary time that storefront exclusivity has been the basis of controversy regarding a title launch and particularly, Epic exclusives however it is somewhat rare for a publishing company’s higher-ups to be called out for failed sales targets with such a choice. The Baldur’s Gate 3 exec clearly makes the purpose that if this game had also been released on Steam it could not have failed and while there’s a minimum of one one who tried countering that time within the post’s thread, there’s one other recent release that experienced an analogous circumstance, namely Alan Wake 2.
That sequel, while being Treatment’s fastest-selling title to this point, had, over six months after release, yet to show a profit for its developer who signed an exclusive publishing cope with Epic. It too has received critical praise from each media and players but fortunately, its publisher stays confident enough to support the team behind it. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was recently asked concerning the two-sided approach used for gaining EGS users where it was admitted that although the free games are a giant success, the exclusive titles will not be all the time a winning strategy.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney (via PC Gamer):
- “We spent loads of money on exclusives,” said Sweeney. “Just a few of them worked extremely well. Loads of them weren’t good investments, however the free games program has been just magical.”
