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Conduit 2
was released on April 19, 2011 for the Wii with a MSRP of $49.99.Conduit 2 was developed by High Voltage Software, and published by Sega. The game received a "Teen" rating from the ESRB with "Animated Blood, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence" listed as content for gamers/parents to be aware of.
It was officially announced on March 29, 2010 that Conduit 2 was in development. The game is a direct sequel to the original game, The Conduit, but it has several new features such as local multi-player and WM+ control support. Conduit 2 can also be patched(and has been) to hopefully address any issues that may pop-up in the game.
With Conduit 2 being the sequel to one of the Wii's most-hyped FPS games, did Sega's approach of not advertising Conduit 2 with any commercials, and relying only on name-recognition payoff for them? Let's take a look!
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| Click chart to view full size to read/see data easier. The higher the line on the chart, the better the sales rank. |
The chart above shows the sales ranks for Conduit 2 on the Wii, with sales ranks recorded from April 19 though April 30, 2011. The sales ranks were recorded each day from Amazon.com's "Video Game" category, that posts the sales ranks for video games and video game accessories.
Conduit 2's sale price on Amazon.com was also recorded each day, and is shown above each date/time and sale rank point on the chart. The chart has the graph lines reversed so the higher the line on the chart, the better the Amazon.com sales ranks.
Highs & Lows
The highest recorded sale rank for Conduit 2 was #365 on April 19 around 11:30PM.
The lowest recorded sale rank for Conduit 2 was #1,138 on April 30 around 10:05PM.
Sale Rank Average
Conduit 2's overall sale rank overage was #685 for the 11 days of data recorded in April.
Critical Reception
Conduit 2's "professional" review score averages started being published on the internet on April 19, the day it released.
Conduit 2's current "professional" review score average is 67.16%, based on 32 reviews on GameRankings.com.
The game currently has a 4.5 out of 5 Stars rating on Amazon.com, based on 13 customer reviews. Conduit 2's customer review score average is 87.69% when the reviews are converted to a 100% review scale.
Review score averages recorded around 12:30AM on May 17, 2011.
Filtered Thoughts
The Conduit released on June 23, 2009. The game had a lot of hype from High Voltage Software, the game's developer, before it released, and Sega even helped the game along by releasing two commercials for it.
I have followed Amazon.com sales ranks on different games for a while now. The original game, The Conduit, may have been the first game I actively followed on Amazon.com.
You can see through the following dates/links how The Conduit was ranking back in June/July 2009, as well as one post from September 2009:
The Conduit Entered Amazon.com's "Top 100" Video Games - June 20, 2009
The Conduit Entered Amazon.com's "Top 50" Video Games - June 22, 2009
The Conduit Entered Amazon.com's "Top 30" Video Games - June 23, 2009
The Conduit Entered Amazon.com's "Top 20" Video Games - June 24, 2009
The Conduit made the Wii's "Top 5" Game Sales(according to rank) - June 27, 2009
The Conduit Falls from Amazon.com's "Top 100" Video Games - July 25, 2009
The Conduit's 12 Weeks - September 24, 2009
As the links above show, The Conduit did pretty well initially on Amazon.com, especially when compared to Conduit 2.
I never saw Conduit 2 crack Amazon.com's "Top 100" in video games, and as the chart shows, its sales ranks plummeted pretty quickly after it released. I think one big reason for this, was Sega's and/or HVS' lack of advertising for the game. While The Conduit had two commercials put out for it, Conduit 2 has had zero commercials put out for it.
I don't know what happened from the original game to Conduit 2, but for some reason HVS and/or Sega didn't feel the sequel needed as much promotion as the original. Why would a publisher release a game on the console with the largest installation base and not put out one single television advertisement? I have no idea, but I would love to ask the people that made that decision, "Why?".
If Sega was really relying on The Conduit's name-recognition only, I would say that was a major failure on their part; and I think the sales chart above and the lack of Conduit 2 information in April's NPD data verifies that.
If you have not seen any footage from Conduit 2, below is the first trailer released for the game.
Questions
Have any of you been playing Conduit 2 since it released, and if so, what do you think about it? If you played the original game, The Conduit, and you have played Conduit 2, do you think Conduit 2 is better than the original in most areas?
Also, do any of you think it's odd that Sega/HVS did not put out any commercials for Conduit 2?
If any of you are interested in Conduit 2, you can see prices for it on Amazon.com linked below:
