If Dead Space 2 Makes Lots of Money, You Get More Dead Space

An anecdote: I remember a friend of mine actually paid money to see Jason X. Do you remember Jason X? It was Jason in space, but not even as good as Leprechaun in space. Just an awful movie from beginning to end, but he still paid to see it. In his mind, Jason X had to make money in order for them to finally go through with the Freddy vs Jason movie.

The original Dead Space sold a bit over two million copies, better than Jason X which sold just that one ticket to my friend, and that was enough for EA to throw some cash at making a sequel. That is generally how things work when it comes to making money- if something makes money, you make more of that so you can make more money. If something doesn’t make money, you stop making it. Of course, this doesn’t seem to apply to Hollywood anymore. They continue to remake and “reboot” horror movies or ruin superhero movies like it’s an Olympic sport (“Competitive No Creativity”  seems like a good name for it) seemingly arbitrarily. In our little section of the world though, we all know that money is what generally drives the creation of titles.

So it should come as no surprise at a recent event that a representative from EA said they would like to continue past Dead Space 2.

If all of you buy it, of course.

Executive producer Steve Papoutsis from the EA showcase in London;

“We’ve mapped out plenty of games worth of stuff. But there has to be an interest, right? We don’t want to cheapen what we’re doing. We’re really focused on quality with it. Hopefully if people like this one, we get to make another one.”

I think it is pretty safe to say that Dead Space 2 will do well. The first one lagged in sales at the beginning but, thanks to that magical and illusive word of mouth thing, it ended up doing pretty well. The second game will most likely do better because it is already an established title now. Nobody bought Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii, but that is because 90% of people who own a Wii haven’t bought a game since they bought the system. I made that stat up, but if you think about it I’m sure your grandmother with the Wii or the local bar on your block that has one set up across from the dart board probably didn’t run out to buy MadWorld or anything.

My only worry is that Dead Space 2 does so well that they decide to start churning these out bi-weekly like they do with other popular franchises. With most of the annual series, it eventually reaches a point where nobody cares, and usually rightfully so since the quality drops so far in order to allow them to release a game every time you turn your back. I won’t name any names, but if you are thinking of one that rhymes with ‘Small Love Booty’ you are probably on the same page as me. Through his statements, Papoutsis assures that they want to avoid this happening, but when you publically and directly tie the release of future titles in with their monetary success, as obvious as that connection actually is, it makes it hard to not think we are going to get a Dead Space: Aerosmith someday.

Actually, that would be scarier than any of the creatures in Dead Space anyway.

[Source: That Videogame Blog]