Mentioned in this article about THQ:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/172036/THQ_sold_UFC_license_after_failing_to_break_even_on_it.php

THQ will focus now on breaking even on a title-by-title basis by releasing low-cost triple-A titles, such as Obsidian Entertainment's South Park: The Stick of Truth, which will release next March.

South Park requires a relatively smaller investment than other titles due to its simple animation. That project's break-even point is also 2 million units, though the publisher believes it can sell well above that, THQ told Pachter.

A "smaller investment," they say. Do they want another Kingdoms of Amalur?

It will sell more than that even if the game sucks. Make a good game and it will be even easier.

dude. It's fucking South Park. All they need to do is pitch the game during an episode of South Park on Comedy Central and it'll sell that easily.

@SagaciousJones: Didn't Amalur have to move something like 3.5 million units to break even? They only hit 1.7 iirc, with an unknown I.P. and as an RPG shortly after Skyrim had come out. South Park's much better known, and the biggest problem I see is the poor showing of South Park games in the past.

@SagaciousJones said:

Do they want another Kingdoms of Amalur?

Of course not- don't be silly. :P

There is one key difference that will most likely prevent this from being another Amalur: the fact that Stick of Truth has the weight of an actual well known (VERY well known) IP backing it up- whereas Amalur didn't.

Odds are it'll be just fine- as it's most likely going to sell a lot more than Amalur ever did.

No pressure, guys!

Seriously though, if 2 million is your break-even point, you must be doing something seriously fucking wrong.

I dont see this being too big a deal. Comedy central plugs the game during nee episodes of south park and profits. I don't see how this can potentially fail.

@iAmJohn said:

No pressure, guys!

Seriously though, if 2 million is your break-even point, you must be doing something seriously fucking wrong.

Not if the license holder get a big chunk off the top.

@Demoskinos said:

I dont see this being too big a deal. Comedy central plugs the game during nee episodes of south park and profits. I don't see how this can potentially fail.

What if instead of that they make a whole episode of South Park using the game tech somehow... Like a 24 minute game trailer or something. Crazy, I know. But that would be cool, no?

@Demoskinos said:

I dont see this being too big a deal. Comedy central plugs the game during nee episodes of south park and profits. I don't see how this can potentially fail.

Licensed games have really struggled this gen with a couple exceptions. This is definitely not a sure thing, especially considering the show's ratings nowadays; if they need to sell two million to break even, that would mean selling to nearly everyone who still watch the new episodes when they air (the show's generally been doing 2.5 million viewers on average per week all season).

I think it'll do just fine.

@pyromagnestir said:

@Demoskinos said:

I dont see this being too big a deal. Comedy central plugs the game during nee episodes of south park and profits. I don't see how this can potentially fail.

What if instead of that they make a whole episode of South Park using the game tech somehow... Like a 24 minute game trailer or something. Crazy, I know. But that would be cool, no?

It would be cool, except nobody would be able to tell the difference from the game or the show, considering they've spent a lot of time making sure the game looks 1:1 with the show.

Yeah I'm confident that with the right marketing this game will be fine.

For perspective, Mass Effect 3, with all of its critical acclaim, passionate fanbase, gigantic EA marketing, and IP sequel status, has only sold somewhere between 2 and 3 million copies.

Anyone know how well Tenorman's Revenge sold? I'd like to know if the South Park name has as much weight as people are saying it does.

Don't get me wrong, I honestly hope this goes well. Obsidian and THQ could both really use a victory.

I dont think South Park is popular enough to carry 2 million sold. They can hope the quality be there. I'm interested in the product but I wont buy it blindly.

I'll buy ten!

@Oldirtybearon: Yeah. That's true. Maybe they could do something smaller, like make an episode normally, but include some gameplay features like the combat or whatever in the of the episode somehow. Again, that's not going to happen. It's really a crazy pipe dream that the show turned video game would then take the video game and turn it into an episode of the show (and while they do this they'd most likely be making fun of marketing, somehow.) And if anyone would be crazy enough to try this, it would be these guys. And I'd want to see them try it.

This game will be all over Comedy Central. Does anyone know what kind of combat it has? Is it like Diablo or Final Fantasy

@SagaciousJones said:

Anyone know how well Tenorman's Revenge sold? I'd like to know if the South Park name has as much weight as people are saying it does.

According to the latest entry in Gamasutra's series on tracking sales data through leaderboard entries, Tenorman's Revenge was at around 40,000 sales by the end of April.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

This game will be all over Comedy Central. Does anyone know what kind of combat it has? Is it like Diablo or Final Fantasy

It's supposed to be like Paper Mario, actually.

@iAmJohn said:

@SagaciousJones said:

Anyone know how well Tenorman's Revenge sold? I'd like to know if the South Park name has as much weight as people are saying it does.

According to the latest entry in Gamasutra's series on tracking sales data through leaderboard entries, Tenorman's Revenge was at around 40,000 sales by the end of April.

That has about zero relevance to this game, fellow South Park game or no.

Tenorman's Revenge was an XBLA game that was barely advertised, even on the internet. The few people I saw talking about it were just warning others to stay well away.

The fact Stick of Truth is a retail game will instantly give it much bigger sales. Decent advertising and/or good reviews will easily help shift it too, I don't think they have anything to worry about.

Depending that I've enjoyed most of Obsidean's games this gen and the fact South Park I feel is a big name. They could also to a episode on it and constant ads on Comedy Central. I feel like this could sell more than 2 million (which I know is tough to do).

If it's as good as it looks, I'm rooting for them to break well past 2 mil.

I think it can do that is due to how popular south park is.

Well I'm buying.

@TentPole said:

@iAmJohn said:

@SagaciousJones said:

Anyone know how well Tenorman's Revenge sold? I'd like to know if the South Park name has as much weight as people are saying it does.

According to the latest entry in Gamasutra's series on tracking sales data through leaderboard entries, Tenorman's Revenge was at around 40,000 sales by the end of April.

That has about zero relevance to this game, fellow South Park game or no.

Well for one, I never said it was relevant. The dude asked, I looked it up because I wanted to know myself. But for two, it may not be super indicative of Stick of Truth's chances, but it does speak to a concern that the show might no longer be strong enough to support two million sales of an RPG, especially considering South Park's ratings as of late (read: a bit north of two million viewers per week) and how well the vast majority of licensed games have done this generation (read: not very well). Let me put it this way:

@WinterSnowblind said:

Tenorman's Revenge was an XBLA game that was barely advertised, even on the internet.

This is simply not true. Comedy Central gave the game a pretty significant push with their own self-produced commercials for a couple weeks around the release during all the shows that matter (read: South Park, Daily Show and whatnot). It wasn't huge, sure, but it's bigger than a lot of downloadable titles get. And yeah, it being a notably shitty game probably has something to do with that, but Let's Go Tower Defense Play did much better than this and is arguably in a genre that is much harder to sell to people. Stick of Truth might be more marketable by virtue of being a retail product, but it also runs into a similar problem of needing to sell a game that is essentially an advertisement for a television show in places other than where you would find said television show.

The game looks fantastic, but I don't think success is guaranteed.

I think it'll do well, I actually think it'll do really well! However, 2 million is a lot and I don't think this is a surefire multimillion success.

That's a lot, I might be underestimating South Park's popularity though.

If ME3 really did sell between 2 and 3 million than I'd bet there's zero chance this is breaking even.

@addictedtopinescent said:

That's a lot, I might be underestimating South Park's popularity though.

If ME3 really did sell between 2 and 3 million than I'd bet there's zero chance this is breaking even.

Mass Effect, despite being (in my opinion) the best game series/trilogy/whatever to come out for this generation of consoles, never sold Skyrim or Rockstar numbers. We could argue day and night as to why, but the fact is Mass Effect was never the populist blockbuster EA hoped it would be. It's a very special series, yes, but it's not a blockbuster.

Same goes for Uncharted. Despite everyone on the Internet loving that series to bits, it never moved that many units. Reasons again, we could argue night and day, but the fact is it never sold the numbers you'd think it did by Sony's endorsement of the brand.

South Park is a cultural phenom. It's almost occupying the same spot in pop culture that The Simpsons does. All they need to do is leverage that popularity and translate it into sales. It won't be that hard if Obsidian makes a good game. Something they've yet to do this gen.

If it turns out to be as good as it looks, I can see it getting at least that. It seems to be the first South Park game that actually looks like the show.

I know it isnt just me, but I hate all South Park everything.

@Oldirtybearon said:

It won't be that hard if Obsidian makes a good game. Something they've yet to do this gen.

Uhh. New Vegas?

@CL60 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

It won't be that hard if Obsidian makes a good game. Something they've yet to do this gen.

Uhh. New Vegas?

It was certainly kinda fucked, but I'd also throw Alpha Protocol in there too.

If they allow Obsidian to make a brilliant old-school RPG and Matt and Trey to write a brilliant script, this game should sell enough - because this is really the first South Park "thing" since the movie, that isn't the show, that seems to be on that level of production and excitement and creator involvement and so long as they've given Obsidian the creativity in the RPG systems and a decent QA budget, this game will be brilliant.

I'd say it's my most anticipated. I hope it's good, and if it is, there's no reason it won't sell.

@Dagbiker said:

I know it isnt just me, but I hate all South Park everything.

You either judge things by their cover or have shitty taste. Because if you don't like something I like, then there must be something wrong with you.

@iAmJohn said:

@CL60 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

It won't be that hard if Obsidian makes a good game. Something they've yet to do this gen.

Uhh. New Vegas?

It was certainly kinda fucked, but I'd also throw Alpha Protocol in there too.

Both games were buggy, barely functional, and despite that decent time sinks. I say decent, because despite the flaws, a decent time can still be had with either of those games.

Obsidian's strength lies in their writing team. They're consistently some of the best writers around, but the gameplay for their games is almost always an utter chore to sit through. New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege 3... all of those games were practically broken from a gameplay standpoint and, in DS3 and AP's case, remain so to this day.

@iAmJohn said:

@Demoskinos said:

I dont see this being too big a deal. Comedy central plugs the game during nee episodes of south park and profits. I don't see how this can potentially fail.

Licensed games have really struggled this gen with a couple exceptions. This is definitely not a sure thing, especially considering the show's ratings nowadays; if they need to sell two million to break even, that would mean selling to nearly everyone who still watch the new episodes when they air (the show's generally been doing 2.5 million viewers on average per week all season).

But do those numbers include online views and such? I dont know anyone who actually tunes into comedy central when the new episodes air because they always post them online the next day, and rerun the same episode a week later. South Park has always had a really large internet following, so I'm not sure that 2.5 million encompasses their entire viewership.

I just want this game to be turn base old school RPG ... but that doesn't sell gangbusters.

@Hunter5024 said:

@iAmJohn said:

@Demoskinos said:

I dont see this being too big a deal. Comedy central plugs the game during nee episodes of south park and profits. I don't see how this can potentially fail.

Licensed games have really struggled this gen with a couple exceptions. This is definitely not a sure thing, especially considering the show's ratings nowadays; if they need to sell two million to break even, that would mean selling to nearly everyone who still watch the new episodes when they air (the show's generally been doing 2.5 million viewers on average per week all season).

But do those numbers include online views and such? I dont know anyone who actually tunes into comedy central when the new episodes air because they always post them online the next day, and rerun the same episode a week later. South Park has always had a really large internet following, so I'm not sure that 2.5 million encompasses their entire viewership.

That's a good point, I completely forgot about South Park Studios.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@iAmJohn said:

@CL60 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

It won't be that hard if Obsidian makes a good game. Something they've yet to do this gen.

Uhh. New Vegas?

It was certainly kinda fucked, but I'd also throw Alpha Protocol in there too.

Both games were buggy, barely functional, and despite that decent time sinks. I say decent, because despite the flaws, a decent time can still be had with either of those games.

Obsidian's strength lies in their writing team. They're consistently some of the best writers around, but the gameplay for their games is almost always an utter chore to sit through. New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege 3... all of those games were practically broken from a gameplay standpoint and, in DS3 and AP's case, remain so to this day.

I'm a little bit into both NV and Alpha Protocol, and it does not have broken gameplay. AP has odd gameplay, but not broken. The odd gameplay actually forces me to use stealth in ways I hadn't considered - it's very gamey, and it's very dice-rolly but, it's not broken. I'm really enjoying it so far.

@Hunter5024 said:

@iAmJohn said:

@Demoskinos said:

I dont see this being too big a deal. Comedy central plugs the game during nee episodes of south park and profits. I don't see how this can potentially fail.

Licensed games have really struggled this gen with a couple exceptions. This is definitely not a sure thing, especially considering the show's ratings nowadays; if they need to sell two million to break even, that would mean selling to nearly everyone who still watch the new episodes when they air (the show's generally been doing 2.5 million viewers on average per week all season).

But do those numbers include online views and such? I dont know anyone who actually tunes into comedy central when the new episodes air because they always post them online the next day, and rerun the same episode a week later. South Park has always had a really large internet following, so I'm not sure that 2.5 million encompasses their entire viewership.

Bingo. Hell, most TV shows have bigger followings than Nielsen ratings can account for. Whether that's through legal streaming, illegal streaming, torrents, weird people who wait for DVD/BR collections of a season, whatever.

Until they can factor in those methods of viewing, we're not going to see an accurate take of just who is watching what, ever.

That is quite a lot, but not in the realm of impossible ...

I will support them if it turn out decent i still love south park.

@Tylea002 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@iAmJohn said:

@CL60 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

It won't be that hard if Obsidian makes a good game. Something they've yet to do this gen.

Uhh. New Vegas?

It was certainly kinda fucked, but I'd also throw Alpha Protocol in there too.

Both games were buggy, barely functional, and despite that decent time sinks. I say decent, because despite the flaws, a decent time can still be had with either of those games.

Obsidian's strength lies in their writing team. They're consistently some of the best writers around, but the gameplay for their games is almost always an utter chore to sit through. New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege 3... all of those games were practically broken from a gameplay standpoint and, in DS3 and AP's case, remain so to this day.

I'm a little bit into both NV and Alpha Protocol, and it does not have broken gameplay. AP has odd gameplay, but not broken. The odd gameplay actually forces me to use stealth in ways I hadn't considered - it's very gamey, and it's very dice-rolly but, it's not broken. I'm really enjoying it so far.

when an RPG offers many, many paths and methods of play and only one is actually viable to complete the game, I'll go ahead and call that pretty damn broken.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Tylea002 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@iAmJohn said:

@CL60 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

It won't be that hard if Obsidian makes a good game. Something they've yet to do this gen.

Uhh. New Vegas?

It was certainly kinda fucked, but I'd also throw Alpha Protocol in there too.

Both games were buggy, barely functional, and despite that decent time sinks. I say decent, because despite the flaws, a decent time can still be had with either of those games.

Obsidian's strength lies in their writing team. They're consistently some of the best writers around, but the gameplay for their games is almost always an utter chore to sit through. New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege 3... all of those games were practically broken from a gameplay standpoint and, in DS3 and AP's case, remain so to this day.

I'm a little bit into both NV and Alpha Protocol, and it does not have broken gameplay. AP has odd gameplay, but not broken. The odd gameplay actually forces me to use stealth in ways I hadn't considered - it's very gamey, and it's very dice-rolly but, it's not broken. I'm really enjoying it so far.

when an RPG offers many, many paths and methods of play and only one is actually viable to complete the game, I'll go ahead and call that pretty damn broken.

I haven't at all run into that yet - Alpha Protocol so far has been a challenging RPG with a great story and the best dialogue system I've seen in a game. Flawed, obviously. But broken it is clearly not.

I would be really surprised if the don't hit the 2 million mark even though south park is shit these days.

What were they thinking?

I hope they make a profit, and I think South Park is big enough that they will.

About the viewers of the show, 2.5 is only Comedy Central, you have to count things like South Park Studios, overseas viewers and people who torrent the show.

They'll be getting a sale from me. I've loved those boys for years, the trailer looked so funny and promising!

I'll buy one.

Just to throw my two cents in Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning didn't fail. 1.7 million is pretty good for an unknown franchise. Like was said on the Bombcast EA was ready to sign for Reckoning 2. What failed was 38 Studios finances. They were spending millions a month on an MMO they never showed to anyone.

As for the South Park RPG if it's good I'll definately get it. I don't watch the show much these days but I have enough fond memories that I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. The only real concern is THQs finances failing before its release.