Seems like Silent Hill 2 flopped. Did DEI/ugly characters kill it?

[Doctor Gitgud]

The SH2 remake peaked at 23,000 simultaneous players. The most relevant recent point of comparison for how a remake of a well-liked survival horror game from several console generations ago should perform is Resident Evil 4, which peaked at 168,000 players.

Even the much-maligned Resident Evil 3 remake, which sparked outrage due to the cut content and wasn't that well-liked to begin with (given that most agree that it is the worst of the classic RE games), peaked at over 60,000. That puts the SH2 remake at a bit over 1/3 the performance of a game universally recognized as lackluster and a disappointment. The only objective assessment is that it is a flop.

Rational people can certainly debate the reasons behind this failure. Some might say that the Silent Hill franchise has little cachet in 2024. But I don't think that's the case. Everyone was extremely excited when the remake was rumored. Then, when the first footage was shown and it was revealed that Bloober team would be behind the game, excitement turned to horror (the bad kind), and a very loyal fanbase rebelled when it saw how terrible the game looked. Each new revelation sparked more outrage, reaching a fever pitch when the other characters were shown: Maria desexualized, Angela uglified, Laura desecrated.

In my opinion, we have to apply Occam's Razor here and conclude that extremely widespread and vocal protest to particular artistic liberties, in the leadup to SH2's release date, directly caused the poor sales. Some might contend that the positive reception in critic and audience reviews negates this, but I am not convinced. Yes, there is an echo chamber of "modern audience" members praising the game, but it is extremely prone to selection bias. The many who were turned off by SH2 voted with their wallets, so they never got an opportunity to vote with their reviews. The poor sales numbers show that the size of this modern audience fanbase is a small fraction of the true fanbase of well-made horror remakes. In summary: Go Woke, Go Broke.

[Deatheye]

Fascinating how people don't get tired of writing this nonsense.

[女無さん]

If you want to apply Occam's razor, how about this: It's 70$ for a remake.

[Doctor Gitgud]

Originally posted by Deatheye:

Fascinating how people don't get tired of writing this nonsense.

Personal attacks aren't necessary. I'm providing my own unique theories and spin, all backed up by verifiable data with hard numbers. Let's keep this discussion constructive.

[Deatheye]

Originally posted by JCD3nton:

Originally posted by Deatheye:

Fascinating how people don't get tired of writing this nonsense.

Personal attacks aren't necessary. I'm providing my own unique theories and spin, all backed up by verifiable data with hard numbers. Let's keep this discussion constructive.

Can you point out where I personally attacked you?

[drogoz]

No and they are not ugly

[vese91]

Originally posted by JCD3nton:

I'm providing my own unique theories and spin, all backed up by verifiable data with hard numbers. Let's keep this discussion constructive.

Well sir, either it seems you have been fooled by some toxic youtuber/streamer or you are just really bad at math; because actually Silent Hill 2 Remake PS5 physical copies are sold out and on PC it entered the Top 10 sells of the week.

According to Steam, from 1st October to 8th we have:

1. DRAGON BALL: Sparking ZERO;
2. EA Sports FC 25;
3. Silent Hill 2;
4. Steam Deck;
5. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2;
6. Diablo IV;
7. Black Myth: Wukong;
8. Throne and Liberty — Celebration Pack: Gold;
9. TCG Card Shop Simulator;
10. Rust.

[Doctor Gitgud]

Originally posted by 女無さん:

If you want to apply Occam's razor, how about this: It's 70$ for a remake.

Let's test that thesis. Resident Evil 4 launched at $60 two years ago. Even using the dubious CPI numbers, which drastically understate inflation, that's ~$64 today after Biden-flation (and that also doesn't take into account the time value of money at a reasonable invested rate of return). The games are less than $5 apart in real dollars using the most realistic economic assumptions, which I don't think is material and certainly not enough of a disparity for one game to perform 7.3 TIMES as well as the other.

[BIG D' williamson from mBHS]

Originally posted by Deatheye:

Fascinating how people don't get tired of writing this nonsense.

What's really strange is how similar all of these posts are written and how all of the YouTube videos regurgitate the same talking points.

It's almost as if it's coming from somewhere and then being spread by a bot net, human hybrid.

[niilisma]

not like it s the 50 th time someone wrote that. Can you be at least a little bit creative ?

[PMA Riddler]

Resident evil 7 peak at 20,4k concurrent players and ended up selling 13,7 million copies.

[alt]

All that text just to say you’re a weirdo for obsessing over how female characters in a video game look.

Weirdo 💀

[vese91]

Originally posted by roscosimmons:

What's really strange is how similar all of these posts are written and how all of the YouTube videos regurgitate the same talking points.

It's almost as if it's coming from somewhere and then being spread by a bot net, human hybrid.

I think they use AI to generate this absolute non-sense and then just copy-paste them everywhere. There surely is some entity pushing these false points.

[女無さん]

Originally posted by JCD3nton:

Originally posted by 女無さん:

If you want to apply Occam's razor, how about this: It's 70$ for a remake.

Let's test that thesis. Resident Evil 4 launched at $60 two years ago. Even using the dubious CPI numbers, which drastically understate inflation, that's ~$64 today after Biden-flation (and that also doesn't take into account the time value of money at a reasonable invested rate of return). The games are less than $5 apart in real dollars using the most realistic economic assumptions, which I don't think is material and certainly not enough of a disparity for one game to perform 7.3 TIMES as well as the other.

Granted, however Silent Hill doesn't even have near the amount of clout Resident Evil boasts. Comparing it to RE4RE seems unfair to judge whether it's a flop or not.
Of course it matters ♥♥♥♥ all what us consumers think is a success or isn't. It's all in the hands of the overlords at KONAMI, if they'll pull the guillotine on Blooper team or not.
Who knows what cocaine induced fantasy number they're expecting.

[u53]

With all my heart I wish this game to flop in sales! This remake clearly showed that some things are better staying dead.

[Doctor Gitgud]

Originally posted by vese91:

Originally posted by JCD3nton:

I'm providing my own unique theories and spin, all backed up by verifiable data with hard numbers. Let's keep this discussion constructive.

Well sir, either it seems you have been fooled by some toxic youtuber/streamer or you are just really bad at math; because actually Silent Hill 2 Remake PS5 physical copies are sold out and on PC it entered the Top 10 sells of the week.

According to Steam, from 1st October to 8th we have:

1. DRAGON BALL: Sparking ZERO;
2. EA Sports FC 25;
3. Silent Hill 2;
4. Steam Deck;
5. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2;
6. Diablo IV;
7. Black Myth: Wukong;
8. Throne and Liberty — Celebration Pack: Gold;
9. TCG Card Shop Simulator;
10. Rust.

Thank you for helping to prove my point. Most of those games (Sparking Zero the obvious exception) were not released this week so it is absolutely brutal that SH2 is not posting blowout sales numbers with so little competition and instead is trading blows with older games (even including old games like Diablo IV where steam is not even the primary storefront). Sparking Zero put up 91,000 peak players so it is complete devastation here. SH2 getting 4x-ed by a Dragonball Z game. And for reference, Wukong posted 2,415,000 simultaneous players which is representative of the kind of performance that can be achieved in late 2024 when a game rejects DEI and caters to the fans.