Tales of Bombia (sales thread)

[throughhim413]

If you're excluding Nintendo Power, I don't think ToS got that much more advirtising than the others...

Oh, I wasn't trying to exclude Nintendo Power or anything, I was just saying I don't read it.  But you're right, I really don't remember Tales of Symphonia getting any more advertising then any of the others.  Like I said previously, I'm convinced (though not necessarily correctly) that ToS succeeded where others failed because it was a good RPG on the Gamecube and thus was the subject of much support that came via word of mouth.  I mean, there isn't any other reason in particular that Symphonia should have so badly defeated all the other games in terms of sales.

[gyozilla]

Please, the FF4 ad gimmick is shoddy at best.

Exposure is overhyped. Publicity only gets your foot in the door, word of mouth is what draws the crowds, the game itself makes people stay. "Enough" people in RPG circles know about ToA, they just see it as "another" RPG. Ad campaigns mean little if word of mouth doesn't take over.

Timing/saturation/next-gen-itis/bigger-badder-games-to-get. The difference between making a sale and not is going from "another" RPG to "OMFG YES!" A lot of games need some substantial hook now, unless you've build a strong series reputation already. Tales is just not there. Mainstream doesn't care enough. Yes, FFXII and other big games around a Tales release can be blamed, but to most, Tales just doesn't have that wow factor to guarantee must-have anyway. It's a back-burner purchase, 2nd to 5th on the shopping list on a good day.

All that wishy-washy crap leads to a bunch of fans playing wait-and-see for a price drop soon. My friend's one of em. Another admited he just wanted to breeze through it and then play Dragon Buster.

it's hard to judge wether Symphonia did really well due to the GC's lack of alternative RPGs (Which I so totally bet on), or if it was because nothing else really hot came out at the time..

It can be both, eh?~ (And Nintendo tooting its own horn)

[Cless]

Please, the FF4 ad gimmick is shoddy at best.

I thought it was cool when I first saw it, and still think the sentiments were. Package an ad with a title in the most popular RPG series... I sure wasn't expecting it.