My biggest fear is that Dishonored will fail commercially and it will be once again proven that good games don't sell. That would likely be the end of Arcane making good games in the future.

This is my fear as well. It happened before with Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah. But also, Bethesda is marketting the game a lot so at least, a lot of people will talk about it when it comes out.

It won't fail commercially. Are you kidding me at least Bethesda are hyping it up. And a loss in sales has not stopped Arkane before. Besides a prefer a good game that fails commercially (Dark Messiah) than a bad game that is successful (I don't have enough room to list them).

At least people are talking about it, they know more or less what it is. If there's no publicity then even people who would be interested end up not getting it.

The best thing about it is that Bethesda is constantly throwing more and more out there. Even if it isn't much at once it's still substantial. There is nothing to fear in that regard.

Not only is Bethesda promoting the game well, it's also received a lot of positive impressions from the press so far.

Since it's a new IP, many potential customers will probably wait on reviews, but even if it doesn't score an 85-90 on metacritic, I still expect that it will prove profitable.

Ugh...I hope Metacritic dies in a fire. People really shouldn't go to that site to give it traffic and let it fade to obscurity. You know it's really unfortunate that people like Yahtzee and TotalBiscuit and few more barely breaking a dozen actually know what to look for into a video game (most of the time). So I suggest people look their opinions first because they tend to be fairly objective. Rock Paper Shotgun and Giant Bomb are nice sites to check out for quality reviews as well.

It probabely won't happen. Arkane seem quite sensible, as a company.

And, anyway, even if it did'nt hit massive figures. All good games make money from sensible buyers buying after release. The true sales come from careful buyers, buying it after it drops or comes out. The preorder numbers are just empty flash, they mean nothing.
If dishonoured is any good, it'll sell fine.

The only way it could fail is if it is not as good as it is made to look.
Or bethesda screw it up. Which they could, given they fail the best games they publish. That is a very real possibility.
They have no QA, do no testing whatsoever, so it'll be a bug riddled, unplayable, mess, possibley. Arkane are going to have to do their own testing. Because bethesda think broken, crashing, lagging, bug riddled, flawed games are acceptable condition and fit for release. No other or few other company/ies think like this, they test and fix their games. Bethesda think beta level is acceptable.
They're good at overhyping things, bad at testing. They don't even try to test games.

And of course there's the too much hype, not enough content thing. They probabely paid those reviewers off.
And the possibility the games not even close to being as good as it is made out to be.
Then it deserves the low sales it gets.
That is likely.

Dishonoured is wayyyyy overhyped. People are reading too much into something no none paid up people have played or seen.

Well people like Yahtzee Croshaw can influence sales quite a lot. Wasn't there a time when he gave Painkiller a positive retrospective and sales on Steam shot up? So if he gives Dishonoured a positive review (which I think is looking quite likely), then it can't possibly fail. I admire him because he seems to be the only game critic who isn't influenced by outside opinions.

Never heard of TotalBiscuit, I'll have to look that up.

I don't think that that will happen. Bethesda doesn't really have say in the actual creation of the game, which does include testing. You have no evidence of the last paragraph or sentence.

If you look at Metacritics, Uncharted scored better than Deus Ex. This website is irelevant

Mind you, I do worry slightly about the game being published by gamesas; who have a bit of a history of booting some games out the door before primetime.

Edit: don't pay attention to Metacritic. As we all know, using numbers to sum up an opinion just turns the whole thing into an irrelevant mess.

I don't because Arkane seem to love the deal with Bethesda and they gave them the room to do as they wish with the game. And like I said that much time of pre-production is why we shouldn't worry that Bethesda is publishing the game. If they approved that then they really do believe in the project.

That's good to hear. I wouldn't actually say gamesas are that bad. They're certainly not like EA (money) or Ubisoft (DRM)

I totally agree on that one.

It'll have the word "Bethesda" right next to it, no way it'll fail.

That is a really biased fanboyish claim. Just to remind you BethesdaSoftworks don't make games they publish them. The games Brink and Rage were published by them and were failures.

Fun read You started out measured, and then just went crazy by the end. You're clearly a religiously devoted Sony guy, so I won't tell you to get a 360, but you should probably get your multiplatform games on PC from now on. Games like Skyrim are a much better experience on PC, and while I expect Dishonored will play fine on all platforms, the PC version will no doubt have an edge.

Also, take off the tinfoil hat. If you think everyone in the press who has said good things about the game was paid off, you're just delusional.

Very well said.

You should only really worry if the game is something completely new that no-one has ever done before. Dishonored however is looking to be a creative mix of the best bits of lots of games. I have no doubts that sales will rocket!

i dont think dishonored will fail

every thief fan i know pre ordered this game ( 8 guys) and there are much more outthere + games nowaday extremly lack good oldscool looking glass level design

i think this game will shoot like a rocket in the sky ... it got gore in the trailers so the kiddy gamers think its a cool game + they cam mess around and kill stuff

every oldscool gamer enjoys sneaking around .. win / win

Unfortunately even in our time word of mouth does not save video games. So no, you're wrong.


I see you know absolutely nothing about the QA and the testing behind Dishonored and your bias and prejudice shows it. Also Bethesda had barely any involvement in the project and let Arkane have some breathing room. Very good choice.


I love when people cling to these ridiculous conspiracies. Do you know how risky that actually is and that almost nobody has done it? We've seen more than enough gameplay, more than most games care to show and we've had constant Q&A from the developers themselves which info turned out to be 100% accurate. And you actually think scores show an objective and complex opinion? They really don't.


I don't even know where you got this idea from. The game knows exactly what it is and it is showing it in the best possible way there is. We have a lot of gameplay footage, a lot of information and a lot of insight from both the developers and people who've tried the game out. People should be fairly aware of what the game is by this point and if you want to look at overhyped games just take a look at the mainstream market.

Recently a new trailer was released about Borderlands 2 that showed many of the features of the game. What it actually showed was the old game with a new skin. While there is a bigger variety in environments, enemies and guns the basic formula is still the same. The problem is that they market that as new. It feels like even a game like Borderlands can suffer from its success and put out a bad sequel that is basically what can be described as an Expansion Pack at best. I will still buy the game and most probably like it but at least I know I am going in for the same experience as the first one and not something revolutionary and groundbreaking.

Moderation in everything and try to adjust your expectations.

^ So the logic is that Bethesda paid every single attendant money in order to say good things about it? Frankly, I don't think I have a word to describe that statement.

Yeah especially people like Rock Paper Shotgun and all my colleagues. They were paid in full...extreme sarcasm. That logic is of a twelve year old and frankly a review should never be the judge of your opinion. People should really be more aware than this, apparently they are not.

I see you often on RPS Strife, one of the last good PC gaming reviews website.
Also. There's always a high number of [censored]posting threads a month before a game is released. You should not pay this much attention.