IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Ubisoft's Marketing Mistake: Releasing Avatar Too Soon

Posted January 12, 2010 by James Brightman

Movie tie-ins, if handled properly, can be very lucrative for video game publishers. A game's quality doesn't even have to be stellar (Avatar: The Game earned a 60 on Metacritic), and if movie goers are excited enough about the film, they just might buy the game too. The problem for Ubisoft and Avatar, according to Stern Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, is that the publisher shipped the game more than two weeks in advance of the blockbuster film. 

The game released on December 1, which was a full 17 days before Avatar hits theaters. This was before fans and critics started to really fuel the positive buzz around the movie, which has gone on to surpass a billion dollars at the box office. Ubisoft couldn't capitalize on the growing excitement for the property. 

"We feel that the company may have made a strategic mistake in releasing the game more than two weeks ahead of the movie. The title received low initial ratings and could not benefit from the stellar box office performance that followed later," commented Bhatia. "We have lowered our estimate for this title from 3.5M units to 2.2M units (36% reduction) for FY10."

2.2 million units sold certainly is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a game not rated very well, but a better marketing approach may have led to higher returns.

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.