Starbreeze point to GAME problems as a cause for low Syndicate sales

In a chat with GamesIndustry, Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark commented that he believes the problems GAME were having for the past few months had an affect on sales of Syndicate, the latest game from the studio.

“There’s so many reasons why a game succeeds or fails from a commercial point-of-view,” he remarks. “We released the game about a month or more ago, and we’re doing our post-mortem right now: what did we do right, what did we do wrong, and of course we will look at the commercial side as well.”

“The numbers are not as high as we would like, and I think if you asked anyone they would say the same thing about any game they made. But [Syndicate] was released in the midst of GAME going under; the retail space is hurting, and I think that hurt us because we were such a retail product.”

This could definitely be a cause. However, it should be noted that Mass Effect 3 also debuted in the midst of GAME’s problems, and ChartTrack reported that during its debut week it did spectacularly well, “amassing more sales than the previous four No1s [at the time of release] (SSX, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, UFC Undisputed 3 and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning) making it by far the biggest No1 so far this year.”

EA were involved in publishing efforts for both games.