The multi-platform typhoon Jurassic World Evolution, released in June, has already been bought more than a million times. Should this be surprising?
What kind of game is this?
Jurassic World Evolution is another creation of Frontier Developments, the authors of the legendary series of economic strategies RollerCoaster Tycoon.
The game’s setting is tied to the Jurassic Park franchise. The player controls his zoo with dinosaurs of different species, makes sure that they grow healthy and do not break out of their cages to eat visitors.
In addition to the classic micromanagement for Taikuns, Jurassic World Evolution has an arcade element – the player can switch to driving a car and helicopter to complete certain tasks. There is nothing innovative in this – there were similar modes in previous typhoons from Frontier Developments, for example in Zoo Tycoon.
How did you manage to sell so many copies of the game?
There are two key factors here. The first is, of course, a franchise. Jurassic World Evolution is not just a game under a popular license, it was released under the theatrical release of a new film in the series. This made it possible to attract an extensive fan audience to the game, not necessarily fond of games of this genre.
Actually, the genre and the name of the developer are the second success factor. The genre of economic strategies has many fans. There are few high-quality taikuns produced, attention is naturally riveted to the novelties. And Frontier Developments have already made a name for themselves on such games. Players are interested in their new game, plus also with an unusual theme and modern graphics.
“We are very pleased with Jurassic World Evolution and are thrilled that we have crossed the million sales bar so quickly,” says David Braben, CEO of the company. – There is no doubt that the initial sales were stimulated by the release of the film. But the most important thing is the quality of the game, and we believe that we have managed to create a game that will be interesting to a wide range of players around the world.”
Is this really a cool result?
On the one hand, this is undoubtedly a high indicator. The golden age of the Taikuns is over, and even before they were not super-popular. With the exception of the RollerCoaster Tycoon series, the third part of which was sold in 10 million copies, the sales of Jurassic World Evolution are at the level of the best titles of the genre. Only simulators with urban planning themes more accessible to a wide audience are better sold: the SimCity series and Cities: Skylines.
For Frontier Developments themselves, 1 million copies sold is a good result, comparable to the success of their recent projects Planet Coaster (one million copies) and Elite: Dangerous (2.75 million copies).
Especially the result of RollerCoaster Tycoon is impressive because there were no discounts on the game – even during the summer sale on Steam, it was sold for $ 55.
On the other hand, in addition to the fact of sales, there is also the reaction of players and critics – and Jurassic World Evolution has problems with this. The game’s rating on Metacritic is only 71. On Steam, 28% of player reviews on it are negative. But the developers have not yet shown that they care about this criticism – the game has received only one update since its release.
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