Forecast bleak for Zack and Wiki sequel
Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 2:03am by Derek
New Level Gaming has unearthed a thread at the Capcom forums in which Capcom’s Christian Svensson provides a grim forecast for a sequel to the critically acclaimed Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure.
Discussing fan suggestions for a potential sequel, Svensson posted:
“Let me preface this answer with a statement to set expectations that we’ve not announced another (Zack and Wiki game) and I’m not so sure there will be one on any reasonable timeline.”
The specific thread and Svensson’s disappointing reality check can be viewed in their entirety at the Capcom-Unity forums, linked here.
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure released to rave reviews in North America on Oct. 23, 2007. According to VGChartz.com, the game has sold approximately 380,000 copies to date worldwide.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:53 am
In all honesty, Zack and Wiki wasn’t as cracked up as everyone said it was.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:42 am
And yet despite that, Capcom said it’s beat their own sales expectations. I think this game was designed to fail. I don’t know why, I’m not smart enough to imagine the purpose of this particular conspiracy. All I know is it’s happened.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:49 am
I’m not sure why it would be a “conspiracy”. That pretty much makes no sense. Personally I think Capcom just knows that 3rd party games not named Resident Evil haven’t sold well on the Wii or the GameCube, for whatever reason. Which tells me they set the bar pretty low on sales expectations. So apparently beating it wasn’t nearly enough.
Anyway, if this is a conspiriacy then I guess Nintendo had one going with Metroid Prime 3.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
I disagree with Damien - Zack & Wiki was a superb game and one of my personal favorites on the Wii so far. It just wasn’t the “right kind” of game for everyone.
Selling between 3 and 4 hundred thousand copies doesn’t seem like terrible numbers for a new point-and-click adventure IP, from my mostly ignorant viewpoint. If Beyond Good and Evil can see a sequel then I’ll remain hopeful that Zack & Wiki can also have a second adventure at some point down the road as well.
Does anyone know what type of Capcom employee Sven actually is? He mentions not expecting a sequel in the near future… but I have no idea how involved he is with Zack & Wiki or with decisions about what games will get made.
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:29 am
I dunno, I really wanted to like this game. There were so many reviews that it was the sleeper hit Wii game of [whatever season it was], and that buying this game would help 3rd party developers and all that jazz. So I bought the game…and just didn’t like it. It was fun for the first 2 worlds or so, but then it just got too difficult and tedious. In the end, I felt like this game was shoved down my throat.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this game, but I just didn’t. I used to always play point and click games when I was little on the PC. Anyone else play Gobliiins I through III? King’s Quest? Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist? The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble? Even the Dagger of Amon-Ra? Those all rocked. I even played Syberia, a little of the 7th Guest and 11th hour (when I was really little and wasn’t “allowed” to) and never quite got to Myst Or Riven… but my point is, this game SHOULD have been my “type” of game, but I just found it very tedious, not very entertaining, and way too short. I tried to finish everything, but I got sick of sending out that rabbit to find collectible stuff, because I only had about a tenth of the map finished by the time I was done with all the levels, some of which took me a ridiculous amount of tries to finish. And that’s fine, I prefer the trial and error style, a great number of the games I mentioned previously give you the ability to die and have to start over, but certain save points along the levels would have been a welcome addition. If I figure out how to get half way through a lengthy level, I don’t REALLY want to do the same thing over again twenty or so times. Actually, not at all. The stupid flying ship level was WAY too long having to do everything over again every time. That level comes to mind for some reason.
I mean, other than that… I love the idea of making a point and click adventure game on the Wii, absolutely, and the characters were fine to me and the storyline and everything, but the overall gameplay was a turn off to me. That’s it.
Sierra should just release a compilation of all their old games for release on the Wii… now THAT, I would buy and keep for sure.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 am
@ejamer
Sven is VP of north America distribution-decision-making or something along that line. Some of his posts have been a bit gloom, but listening to him on a podcast, he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. On his gloom posts though, his perspective of Nintendo can be somewhat shallow. He seems to view the Wii as only a family console, but not a diverse family. So of course no one will like RE4 on the Wii. Sadly this seems to be all of Capcom at the moment.
If you read posts from other moderators their, he’s one of the better ones. What’s sad, is that some of their mods are not employes, but 360 die-hards with very biased views against Nintendo. Moderators like game store employees, should be diverse in their tastes.
Anyways, I like Capcom, but they also really piss me off, because the left-overs their seem to be clueless on some levels. When I say left-overs, everything that was good about Cacpom has left. Their recent decision not to include the Wii for SF4 has me so annoyed, that I’m not going to bother buying it for my PC, but this is just another excuse since Okamoto didn’t work on it. They obviously don’t do their market research, because most of us SF fans that grew up playint it, bought Wiis. At least SNK gets the Wii.
——
Z&W is a good game overall and in some areas great, but not what I had hoped it would be. But on the other hand, playing this game with my cousin and his daughter was really enjoyable. She’s only 3, but was supper keen to everything that was going on and was really determined on solving the puzzles.
I was honestly hoping for an old school graphic adventure, but instead was given a puzzle adventure with no story worth mentioning.
Anyways, I would buy a sequel to this game, but I think that Capcom should consider licensing the engine out. The painterly approach they took on this game is superb. My only gripe, is that the pointer needed a bit more refinement. I would love to see a game like Monkey Island using this engine.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 am
@ ResidentialEvil
If Capcom know as a ‘fact’ in their minds that non-resident evil games don’t sell then why make it in the first place? Why make any non-resident evil games at all? For that matter shouldn’t they then put main series resident-evil games on Wii rather than spin off remakes?
Moreover as ejamer pointed out, for an original IP game with obviously broken marketing and minimal investment at best, this game clearly did well for itself. What does it mean concerning their internal logic if the game then breaks this ‘fact’ by beating their expectations?
They say don’t mistake conspiracy for incompetence, but when this kind of decision making seems so universal in the industry, I just can’t help but think there’s something more sinister afoot.
How about this: incompetent execs put all their monies in the 360 basket (Dead Rising, Lost planet etc. - which while successful in sales were I’m almost certain, loss leaders). Clearly ignoring Nintendo completely was a bad move, so they allow a small enthusiastic internal team to rush a ‘quirky younger skewing title’. When it becomes clear the game is good and there’s potential, some of those older execs who said ‘”Screw Nintendo” start to get scared at the prospect of their earlier incompetence being made obvious to the shareholders. They panic and use their influence (limited at this point in the development cycle to late decisions such as marketing) to keep the game down and make it look like there was absolutely NO CHOICE WHATSOEVER besides put everything they can on 360, particularly since they’ve just committed >$20 million on a Bionic Commando revival. Sadly this happens in business more than you might expect.
Fortunately their incompetence was revealed in any case as they basically had to admit their limited Wii outings are the only thing that kept them in the black for the last year. This has forced them to at least produce a public veneer of Wii support in the shape of Spyborgs.
Alternatively Microsoft just paid them off. I know, I know - it’s illegal. That doesn’t mean Microsoft wouldn’t do it. Or hasn’t done it. Every time they entered any market anywhere.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
So, for a game to be successful now, it has to have GTAIV sales numbers AND it has to be guaranteed to have one or more sequels? With that logic, there are a LOT of failures out there today.
As noted, Z&W was also a point and click adventure game. Don’t know if anyone noticed, but that genre was pretty much killed off on consoles a long time ago. Kudos to Capcom for taking a risk, and making a modest reward with this game in spite of that fact. 300k is a lot of copies sold, and probably made the developer some dough for very little effort, if I could use the Blair Witch analogy again.
Now they’re moving on to new things, without aspiring to create a sequel. That’s pretty normal, and is in no indicative of Z&W’s success or failure. It’s not even in the same debate ballpark.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:57 am
@Rabbitduck,
My favorite Sierra games were the Space Quest series, Leisure Suite series –early days, and Freddy Pharkas. SQ1 was the first PC game I bought. I played it on a XT Turbo.
I would definitely buy a Wii release of their games.
I’ve always been a Lucas Art’s GA fan. I own everyone they’ve made, even the bleh later titles. The only one I have yet to finish, is Grim Fandango, but it’s here waiting for me to play it — If it had mouse control, I would have beat it already. I was still pissed off at Monkeys Island 4, because of its asinine controls when GF was first released.
My favorite GA of all time is The Dig. My second favorite is Zak McKraken. My favorite Series is Monkey Island.
I have ScummVM on my DS with several games — some retard at Lucas Arts said this was impossible, because 256 megs wasn’t enought space for a game that shipped on a floppy. I guess they don’t want more money.
ScummVM is available for the Wii now. So you CAN play your Sierra games on it. :] I have the files, I just need to put them on.
http://hbc.hackmii.com/
Anyways, I’m rambling, so must get some sleep. I was up all night working.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Something else about Capcom, they also had no confidence in the DS market. Phoenix Wright was prematurely pulled right when it hit big. Then they rushed to get it back on the shelves. They LIED about why it had been pulled, citing a shortage from what I recall, but this was BS. I know this, because my friend managed at one of the game store chains for several years.
I still don’t know what their deal is with the DS. Castlevania is hugely successful on the DS, but yet Capcom won’t give us a new Ghouls ‘n Ghosts game, but I wouldn’t want G’nG DS, if its controls sucked as bad as the PSP versions.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
ejamer: Sven’s full title at Capcom is Senior Director of Strategic Planning & Research.
Jack: No, a game doesn’t have to put up GTA IV numbers to be considered successful, but it certainly needs to fare better than Z&W has commercially.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Thanks for the clarification about who Sven is - that helps give a lot of context to his comments.
While a lot of people are giving Capcom a hard time for their lack of Wii support, I have enjoyed several of their games immensely. Okami, RE:4, RE:Umbrella Chronicles, and Zack & Wiki are all keepers if you ask me… and even though two of those games are ports, they are well done ports with meaningful Wii controls instead of just tacked on waggle.
It’s a shame that Wii doesn’t see more dev support from major studios like Capcom - but I think that Wii’s “family oriented” reputation has caused a lot of developers (who also consider themselves to be hardcore gamers) to look towards the 360 or PS3 exclusively instead of taking advantage of the #1 selling system of this generation. Too bad. They lose out financially, and Wii owners get fewer top-notch games.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Zack & Wiki was and is still an amazing game!
It just had a really bad marketing approach - like zilch.
Had it been advertised a lot more, then it would have sold more copies.
The game was not created to fail - how could you even think that a real business would ever do that in the first place?
This game was designed with real creativity - and here in North America, it just seems like creativity isn’t something most people in the intended audience like.
But the major reason behind the low numbers is advertisements. That’s why it didn’t sell that much. Game development was fine.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
It’s weird but I think part of the problem is it was forced on to people. The game mags should simply say it great and challenging. This is not my type of game play yet I’ve yet to best it things could be different but I really couldn’t get into it enough to beat it. I loved the art style though and could only hope the art teams make the new mega man designs using the mega art book! That game would be sweet!
Another thing is it’s starting to take more to sell a franchise even metal gear had to put an online mode in with lots of other stuff to get more people to play it. I’m not talking mini game I’m talking different play types that add to the character personalty. Like say mine carts indy jones type moments and maybe even a dark contrast of game environments.
If you look back thats what made the old games so cool.
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
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June 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
i enjoyed this game and really hoped for a sequel. some levels were long and tedious and cost me a controller (damn swinging of the anchor), but i enjoyed the game from start to finish. it fit in nicely to what i was expecting, since i too liked point and click games (myst & journeyman project to name a couple) and hopefully they decide to make one. i did my part on telling numerous friends to buy it and they have all enjoyed it thus far.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:36 pm
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June 24th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
This was a great game. But, unfortunately, not worth more than $30 in my opinion.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Zack & Wiki is my favorite game on the Wii (and my four-year-old’s favorite too). They should make a sequel. But not just because I loved it… Most importantly, it sold really really well. 380,000 copies is not a flop. That’s a hit! Most games sell less than 100,000, many sell way way less.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
James: Just to further clarify, that 380K figure is worldwide. In North America, it has sold 230K approximately…far from a hit, actually. But I am with everyone who have praised Zack & Wiki. It is easily, easily one of the best games on the platform. Probably in the top five.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:25 am
230k in the USA? That’s still a hit. Not a major hit, but certainly a minor hit. Most games sell far far less.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Well, at least from my understanding, the vast majority of titles on the shelf don’t even break 100,000 but in fact hover in the lower tens of thousands. Is that not true?