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HALO 5: WHAT ARE THEY HIDING? by Mr Biffo

4/11/2015

15 Comments

 
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The good news keeps coming for Halo 5: Microsoft is claiming that it's the biggest Halo release to date, the fastest-selling Xbox One title thus far, the biggest Xbox One digital download, and has made $400 million worldwide in sales since its release last week.

Microsoft is understandably chuffed, which is why it announced the above statistics in a self-celebratory press release issued to every media outlet in the known galaxy. All of whom were happy to join Microsoft in slapping the corporation on the back, and giving them a meaty fist-bump.

OVERLOOK
However, there were a few omissions amid Microsoft's figures, which have seemingly been overlooked by most.

Immediately obvious is that the one key statistic Microsoft neglected to announce was the actual number of Halo 5 units shifted. $400 million sounds like a lot of money, but that's sales - not profit - of the allegedly $250 million-budget game (a budget that is unlikely to include the enormous amount of money Microsoft has spent on marketing, and live action trailers and the like). And neither is it the number of copies of Halo 5 which have been sold. 

That small fact was one that virtually every news outlet failed to mention, along with failing to point out that the figure also includes Xbox One/Halo 5 hardware bundles... which cost upwards of £300 in the UK.

The question is: why is nobody flagging this up? Why is nobody finding it as fishy as I do?

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NO BLAME
I don't blame Microsoft for issuing a press release showing off about the success of Halo 5.

Clearly, the game has done alright - it is unlikely to be any sort of flop - but there would've been an almost identical press release sent out regardless of how well the game did.

​Microsoft has invested a rumoured $250 million in Halo 5, and it isn't going to pass up on any opportunity to spin some positive headlines - but that's all it is: spin. If I'd spent that much money on making something, I wouldn't waste any opportunity to promote it, and twist the figures in my favour.


However, there are whispers on the grapevine - being fuelled in part by Microsoft's lack of actual concrete sales figures - that Halo 5 might not have sold as well at launch as Halo 4.

It also whiffs vaguely of conspiracy that Microsoft would include hardware bundle sales in its figures, mentioning that fact almost under its breath. Counting hardware bundles as well as individual unit sales is an extremely unconventional thing to do - and it almost seems as if Microsoft might have something to hide, that it wants to dazzle news editors with big numbers and dollar signs, so they miss the obvious.

GET ME WRONG
​Don't get me wrong: I don't want Halo 5 to fail. I mean, I didn't love the game - I felt it lacked ambition, ultimately, and have never loved any of the Halo games. But I get that it has its fans - blindly rabid as many of them are - and I don't wish ill of it. If I didn't feel a duty to review it, I'd have just ignored it.

Nevertheless, I find it troubling, and more than a little suspect, that every news source, almost without fail, is publishing Microsoft's spin verbatim, without reading between the lines.

That sort of blinkered reporting by supposedly trusted news outlets is precisely why we're slaves to  a society ruled by corporations and billionaires. It allows "them" to pull the wool over our eyes, and gives us a skewed perception of the world we live in. It doesn't matter whether Halo 5 is a flop or not  - because they want us to think Halo 5 is a smash no matter what. 

That's just marketing, and every single news story you've read about Halo 5 breaking records is nothing more than free advertising, part of a conspiracy that's complicit in helping a massive company succeed in its agenda. Which is fine: it happens all the time.

But it's not news. 

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
HALO 5: A HOLLOW VICTORY by Mr Biffo
REVIEW: HALO 5 GUARDIANS (Xbox One)
MR BIFFO PLAYS... Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer
15 Comments
Kelvin Green link
4/11/2015 09:18:21 pm

Once again, well said Biffo; when people bang on about "ethics in game journalism" this is the sort of thing they should be talking about. Most computer game journalism is reviews or interviews at best, and rehashed press releases at worst; there's not enough investigation and analysis, and when we do see it -- like RPS' interrogation of Molyneux -- it can come across as a bit clumsy.

Still, it was a step in the right direction, and as long as we have people like you asking the right questions, we'll get there.

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FEoD link
5/11/2015 06:31:57 am

I'm pretty sure I could count the number of games journalists in existence on two hands. There are legions of games writers, yes, but rewriting press releases/reviewing/developer puff interviewing would be about the weakest definition of journalism that was ever made...

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Kelvin Green link
5/11/2015 09:20:28 am

Exactly.

gaijintendo
4/11/2015 09:39:21 pm

I often stand in the middle of the office and say loudly "Look at me, I'm relevant!".

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dan de la peche
4/11/2015 10:39:39 pm

It's like Destiny. Activision say it's popular; it no doubt is. But they won't say how many it's sold. At all. They'll tell you how long the average gamer plays daily, but not how many they've shifted. There's definitely something going on here, Biffo.

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Euphemia
4/11/2015 10:43:17 pm

If journaliam ethics shows up again in a topic, will that bring back those Gamergate cunts? I hope so, they were The Lovely.

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Mr Biffo
4/11/2015 10:45:56 pm

They're good entertainment, if nothing else.

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Euphemia
5/11/2015 01:35:53 am

Anguished male rage with only shooty-shooty games for a release tends to be an endless pool of good fun. Did I say fun? I meant disproportionate internet threats.

Superbeast 37
5/11/2015 08:10:28 am

http://deepfreeze.it/

Entertainment maybe and no doubt many morons in their midst - God knows I've seen a few and been attacked by some for liking certain games.

But they did dig up plenty of evidence about what the press were up to.

I'd describe myself as neutral but as a Civil Servant I've seen the outrageous lies and pure fabricated fantasy the press have written about me to push a political narrative and drum up public hate against us. So I'm not remotely inclined to believe all what I see written about the GG people.

Anyway I'm not surprised that games "journalists" just publish without questioning Microsofts gushing press releases on the worst Halo ever made.

Some of the reviews have boggled my mind too but not surprised me.

Just as I wasnt surprised when they accepted those Nexus 7 tablets from Ubi at the Watch Dogs event, colluded to keep it quiet and then couldn't give them to charity fast enough when someone blew the whistle.

It's a trade press at the end of the day. Not a consumer press. They represent the industry. The consumer press are the sites like this.

The biggest surprise though is what you said about Halo 5's budget. I hadn't heard that before and I'm stunned....

Because when you play the desperately mediocre campaign, it doesn't look like it cost a quarter of that amount to produce! They really did blow it all on marketing!

Steve McChief
5/11/2015 09:01:42 am

That tablet story is sadly not surprising. Rab Florence was pilloried a few years ago for suggesting that maybe it wasn't right that PR people tried to buy the games press' opinions. Of course, even if they weren't actively giving them gifts, being the main contributor to these magazines and sites' advertising income was always bound to lead to the odd Kane and Lynch debacle.

There is and always has been a genuine debate to be had about "ethics in videogame journalism", but that's been put back a few years now.

John
5/11/2015 09:58:12 am

Oh lor, let's hope not. Myopic and tragic- not because there isn't anything for them to go on, but because you only need a tiny step back to see that it would be better expressed as a problem with 'ethics in journalism'. Look at the Telegraph and HSBC, exactly the problem of vested interests (advertising dept saying 'don't criticise!' when editorial should hold sway) affecting content. The problems of accepting freebies (travel journalism, anyone?) regurgitating press releases and uncritical commentary (reporting on science?) are widespread, and the growth of the PR industry is something that needs meeting with old-fashioned journalistic digging.

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Mr Biffo
5/11/2015 07:51:18 pm

Yeah, I've no idea why games journalism gets all the flack. The tabloids hacked people's phones, for pity's sake! And that Halo story was reported by all the major news sites as well as the games ones. Everyone regurgitated the Xbox line.

Steve McChief
5/11/2015 08:36:54 pm

I think people have very, very low expectations of our news press. So low that we're just not surprised by anything any more.

But a lot of people grew up with games magazines from an age when they didn't read newspapers. The writers wrote in a style that positioned themselves as your mates, and you did have a certain trust in them (I still choose to believe that the crew of N64 magazine are paragons of integrity). For a lot of people, this realisation that actually the people whose words they read and believed for years were probably tainted by PR junkets is a bit like learning that Santa isn't real.

That said, it sounds like I'm judging a lot. I don't think for a minute that it's easy to turn down nice free items, fun trips, and free food, especially in an industry where pay isn't huge unless you're a big name. The need to pay rent and eat has motivated people to do a lot worse.

Hilary Wonk
5/11/2015 07:40:10 am

I guess this is a sign of the future, unless the triple-A model sinks. I mean 250 million sods, and I thought it was Halo 3 until you said otherwise on your video. Halo is a franchise for xbox, so of course MS will make everything look like a positive. The ship's too big to stop and swerve around that iceberg.

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Suspect
5/11/2015 10:23:04 am

LTRFTW. The comment "we're slaves to a society ruled by corporations and billionaires" sums it up so well. I know the chance to start with a fresh, fairer political system was the reason myself and many others voted for Scottish independence last year. Sadly, the media decided to focus on anti-English sentiment, presumably because of lazy journalism that serves their interests better. It isn't just games in my opinion.

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