Media Molecule’s LBP would easily be ”a clear number one” if it was released at any other time during the year, but this holiday is one ”volatile time”.
Sony UK’s David Wilson says its ”excellent on day one but even better as time goes by.” A lot is pinned on the creative charge of community; December will see a Sackboy TV ad blitz.
”We’re really pleased with the initial reaction to LittleBigPlanet - it has been our highest scoring game ever I believe with a Metacritic score of 95 and a huge list of 10/10s or 100 per cent scores,” explained Wilson, speaking with GamesIndustry.biz.
LittleBigPlanet has entered in at 4th place in the UK’s All Format chart.
”We are also pleased with its commercial performance. In other times of the year it would be a clear number one - so you have to put the chart in context,” says Wilson, adding, ”This is an incredibly volatile time of year and the chart reflects that - November 7 saw 47 titles released on that one day alone including many big hitters with Christmas number one aspirations. Look at the chart this week - the top four are all brand new entries.”
For Sony the game is more than just delivering an original title, it’s a flagship IP that they hope will shift even more PS3 hardware for them.
”LittleBigPlanet has also sold well given that this is a brand new IP,” he said. It’s trailing behind Gears of War 2, FIFA 09 and Fallout 3 - all sequel big boys in the industry.
”LittleBigPlanet is excellent on day one but even better as time goes by,” Wilson adds.
”If you bought this game on day one, you’d play your 50 plus levels on the Blu-ray and dip into the 12,000 levels created by the beta testers. If you bought the game one week later you’ve got over 84,000 user created levels to play with. This game gets better and better as an experience and as a value proposition.”
Already there’s been some grumbling from the community rank and file over the moderation tactics, specifically their ‘overzealous’ nature in purging user content without little feedback.
”It is also a game that will benefit enormously from word of mouth and from people trying it out with friends or in store - it drips fun and charm in equal measure. Also the bulk of our marketing including our six figure TV advertising campaign doesn’t roll out until December, so we genuinely believe that Sackboy hasn’t even hit his stride yet.”
