I think it comes down to review scores, it may have been the hype foiled by it’s critical response, the RTS complaints may have scared people away maybe.

I love the game personally, I love the world, but there are certainly things I wish were changed, there are things that do need to be polished, and most of all the gameplay doesn’t really reinforce the feeling of being awesome or doing something incredible all the time, I wished they made it more over the top with more variety and simpler RTS elements.

This is a niche game so how could it be expected to do huge numbers. When you make a game that only appeals to a particular demographic, you cannot expect to capitalize on mainstream revenue tracks. The vast majority of the gaming population would have no clue who most of the musical artists in the game are. It is a work that pays homage to heavy metal and its roots. This game was never going to be a blockbuster for that reason alone.

I think unique ideas are not purchased as often for a couple of fairly basic reasons:

First, I think people like sticking with genres they know they like, and many of these “unique” games eschew the classic genres. This is a problem for a number of reasons and Brutal Legend is a great example of it… What is the genre? It’s impossible to explain the game in any simple way. It’s part adventure, part platformer, part open world, part RTS, part action/beat-em-up. It doesn’t know what it is and it’s no wonder nobody else does (same goes for Portal, Mirror’s Edge, and a myriad of other games). The easier it is to pigeon-hole a game into a particular genre, the easier it is to describe it and sell it. Therein lies the problem, unique games are almost *always* hard to describe, that’s what makes them unique.

Secondly, I think price is a major factor. People are far less likely to take risks on franchises that are unproven to them, and for many people $60 is a fairly big risk. Why spend $60 on something that you *might* like when you can spend $60 on something that you *know* you’ll like? This is one of the reasons we have such a ridiculous number of sequels year over year.

I’ve always felt that unique games would do a lot better if they were priced lower. I’ve felt the de facto $60 price point of games is kind of ridiculous some times. There are varying price points for DVDs, CDs, books, etc… but games pretty much all come in at $60. I get that for big-budget titles or popular franchises, but I think it would do the more unique, art-house type games a favor to have a lower introductory price point that might entice people to take a risk now and then.

Fact is, most people that buy games *aren’t* core gamers. They’re looking for something that’s familiar to them and easy to understand.

Try an experiment some time:

Try to sell Modern Warfare to a friend of yours that is a casual sort of gamer. One of the first questions you’ll be asked is “What’s it like?” – you’ll say “It’s an FPS, like Halo” or something to that effect – you state a genre and give an example they may be familiar with. That describes the game simply, succinctly, and well enough for the average Joe-Casual gamer to make a decision as to whether or not they’ll be interested in purchasing this game.

Now try to sell Brutal Legend. “What’s it like?” – how do you respond? It’s next to impossible to give any examples your friend would be familiar with, so you have to be more descriptive of the game itself and if you say more than 5-10 words, you’re just going to lose the person’s interest.