StooB wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 9:55 am
If you look at Exolon and Zynaps' chart performance over the summer of 1987 and compare it with the licensed releases out at the same time, Hewson's games were actually far more successful, outperforming Slap Fight, Tank, Athena, The Living Daylights and MetroCross. The same is true in March 1988 with Cybernoid up against Rolling Thunder, Rastan and Arkanoid Revenge of Doh.
Licensed games certainly didn't automatically translate into hits. They were actually only really successful in the run-up to Christmas, a market Hewson never really tried to compete in, and even then it wasn't guaranteed.
Hewson's eventual failure has very little to do with licensing - they simply didn't release enough games to compete in a market where a typical games shelf-life is a couple of weeks. In 1988, Ocean published 16 full price Spectrum titles and US Gold published 24. Hewson published four, and the harsh reality is that after losing Graftgold most of the games they released just weren't at the same level.
I love your post
@StooB. Really great.
Firstly, I don't believe too much in charts, really. I remember some articles from back in the day, where several representatives from all kind of companies (full price and budget) complained about the way the actual sales were audited by Gallup and especially the places where the samples were taken. In Spain, for instance, we didn't have a proper polling and analysis company and the "unofficial" charts were those from Micromanía (a popularity chart selected by the magazine team) and the slightly more reliable Microhobby chart based on sales in El Corte Inglés, the main department stores chain here. Despite being popular games in Spain, Impossaball, Ranarama, Gunrunner, Exolon and Zynaps charted for a short period of time and even a "supposed success" like Nebulus didn't chart in the Top 20, if I remember correctly. ERBE Software, the main software distributor, had 5.000 selling points all over Spain, but the only chart we had was a sample from a department store with around 20 stores located on the main Spanish cities. So, more than 4950 selling points were left out of the sample. Anyway, I think in the UK the sample was wider and probably more reliable.
For me, charts are interesting to analyze trends, but we can't blindly trust them, especially when is not only important the highest chart position achieved, but the weeks in the charts for any game are very important too. Some games chart really high, even at number 1, but they fall down, and after a few weeks disappear completely from the charts. Andrew Hewson talked about Uridium on C64 on his book Hints & Tips for Videogame Pioneers, and he bitterly commented the success of Uridium the first month, becoming a blockbuster for Hewson (their best-selling 8-bit game ever), but the second month after its release it sold half as much as the first and so on. One of the things that are a bit difficult to understand about Hewson in 1986-87 is if the company had great games, the press loved them, and they supposedly were selling games like hot cakes, why they were having a hard time financially? And you probably
@StooB have the answer. The market changed very quickly. Hewson had the infrastructure of a small, family-owned company, probably adequate to stay well in the market until 1986, but not much beyond.
I agree with you
@StooB that they couldn't release 15 or 20 games a year, like Ocean or U.S. Gold did. If they released six or seven was a very good year for them from a production point of view. That's absolutely true. Hewson was tiny and humble and always arrived late to trends in the industry, and that's because the company couldn't grow from an independent software house to a medium company at least. They also couldn't establish a stable in-house development team, they always had issues on releasing all the 8-bit versions at the same time (which the big names did easily), For example, all Uridium versions were released over a 2-year period!!!
Obviously, Graftgold's departure was a big loss for them and Raf Cecco was the only one holding the Hewson flag on the 8-bit market for three years. Other games like Marauder, Netherworld or Eliminator were good, but probably not up to the usual Hewson high standards. The reason why Hewson published only four games in '88: Cybernoid, Marauder, Cybernoid II and Netherworld on 8-bit is because the company started a second production line with the Rack-It budget label (that it was a way of having games spread all over the year), but above all, the main reason was that they were putting their efforts into the 16-bit market, for instance, in 1988 they released a lot of average ports of their 8-bit hits and Hewson released their first 16-bit original, Eliminator, that was converted to 8-bit in early 1989. That year they released only three 'full price' games for 8-bit: Eliminator, Stormlord and Maze Mania, but on the other hand, they released Custodian, Astaroth and Onslaught (three 'full price' releases but on the 16-bit market), and several Rack-It games for C64 converted to Amiga and Atari ST at 'full price' too: Battle Valley, Slayer, Steel, 5th Gear. So, it was a lot of pressure for a company of Hewson's size IMHO. They didn't understand the 16-bit market and they didn't have the money to enter this market with any chance of success, so the sales were generally disappointing. The only way they had had any success on the 16-bit would have been retaining Graftgold and the very talented and tiny in-house team (Dominic Robinson and John Cumming), but that was one of the secondary reasons why they left: Steve Turner wanted to enter the 16-bit market, but Andrew Hewson thought it was too early and wanted them to stay making 8-bit games (oddly enough with Telecomsoft Graftgold spent almost two more years programming for 8-bit machines).
Your comment about licensed games and their level of sales is also true. Normally, companies like Ocean or U.S. Gold when they negotiated with Konami, Sega, Capcom or other Japanese companies they bought packs for several arcades, including two or three big hits, three or four second tier games or minor hits and probably three or four average games. This way, they could dominate the market all over the year, not only on Christmas but in the Summer and other periods with less software sales. Obviously they focused their greatest hits on the Christmas campaign. The only way Hewson could stand out was releasing their Christmas hits in October/November or January/February, and they also tried the Summer season, especially with some compilations, but it was very difficult for them anyway.
Best regards