Crackdown Only Breaking Even Despite Selling 1.5 Million Copies

Crackdown, one of the best and most popular exclusive games on the Xbox 360, only broke even despite selling 1.5 million copies. Crackdown was released on February 20, 2007 exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game was noted for being developed by several key members of the Grand Theft Auto series, including David Jones. Because of that, Crackdown is heavily influenced by the ultra popular series.

So it is no surprise that the Xbox 360 exclusive title is an open-world game from the third-person perspective. Unlike Grand Theft Auto, however, Crackdown has a more wide-open feel to it. For example, the entire environment in the game is available from the start. Not to mention that you have greater agility in Crackdown as the player can scale building and jump really far.

While the solid review scores and good word of mouth may have been enough to sell the game, Microsoft decided to give Crackdown an extra boost by bundling early copies with the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. For many gamers, Halo 3 was the reason to buy an Xbox 360. Because Crackdown was a new franchise, it would have a tougher time selling to the mass market. Therefore, Microsoft, who publishes both Crackdown and Halo 3, artificially increased exposure for Crackdown by including the Halo 3 multiplayer beta.

Because of its quality and increased exposure, the Xbox 360 exclusive game became the top selling title in the month it debuted with more than 400,000 copies. Crackdown managed to sell well enough to earn the Platinum Hits label, which results in more exposure due to a budgeted price point. In total, the Xbox 360 exclusive game sold 1.5 million copies, which many critics considered a huge success.

Unfortunately, Crackdown only broke even despite selling briskly. The big problem financially for the game is the high development cost. Developer Realtime Worlds started working on the project way back in 2002. While it was planned to be released in 2005 initially for the original Xbox, the project was transferred to the Xbox 360.

The Xbox 360 version of Crackdown also ran into some trouble. The game didn't come out until a year later than planned due to developer Realtime Worlds having some trouble with a new graphics engine. All of this added up the costs of developing Crackdown.

Even though the first game just now broke even, a sequel is in the works. Ironically, Crackdown 2 is being developed by Ruffian Games, which is made up of former members of Realtime Worlds who worked on the troubled first game.