14 DAY TRIAL // Dan Amrich, social media manager at Activision, has recently stated in a blog post that his company did not consider Blur or DJ Hero commercial failure, despite what had been reported by the press. He insisted on the fact that both titles would make up for their investment over a longer time, mainly because of the context of their release.
In the case of Blur, NPD recently reported that it sold only 31,000 copies in its first five days. “The audience was split three ways. Blur came out a week after Split/Second and the same day as ModNation Racers. I'm not sure what your budget looks like, but I can rarely afford to buy three games in eight days - nor do I have the time to play all of them at once anyway,” the Activision exec explained.
Amrich continued to comment on the fact that DJ Hero's situation is very similar. While the game was deemed a flop at its release, it turns out that all it needed was time to make a name for itself on the market. “DJ Hero was dubbed a flop on its release too, but what it needed was time for its audience to find it, a price break, and positive word from both friends and reviews to circulate. October and November were soft, but after the holiday, DJ Hero had hit about 800,000 units; today it's 1.2 million units and counting.”
In addition, he also wrote that he had played quite a lot of Blur recently and that he found that at least several hundred players were online all the time. The game was in great shape, according to Amrich, as it had stable servers that were not empty and it had been well received by the press. It was “an irresponsible disservice” to use the word failure to describe Activision's latest racing release, in his opinion.