The Callisto Protocol Sells 2 Million Copies And Fails Expectations

Horror has slowly transcended into a major player in the gaming world due to its popular IPs. Games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil have sent the genre into the stratosphere via their sale and popularity.

With Resident Evil going back to its roots with the latest entry, the genre has been lacking shooter games until The Callisto Protocol. 

Made in the image of Dead Space and by its director, the game brought back shooting elements to horror games. Even though the reaction to the title has been mixed from fans, the graphics have received universal praise. But, it seems like the game underperformed and sold only 2 million copies when initial expectations were of 5 million.

Major Takeaways

• The Callisto Protocol has only sold 2 million copies as of now and has not fulfilled expectations from investors. 
• Initial performance analysis predicted a 4/5 million opening, but the reviews have not helped.
• Krafton plans to recoup the money by releasing post-launch content and DLCs after a $162 million production cost.

Benji-sales first aggregated this interesting report to the fans. South Korean website K-Odyssey is responsible for informing the masses of these sales figures. According to the publication, The Callisto Protocol cost a massive 200 Billion Won to produce.

Won is South Korea’s currency, and when converted to USD, it comes up to roughly $162 million. Krafton’s new game took this much money to produce, and that is without accounting for marketing costs. Hence, it’s not wrong for expectations of The Callisto Protocol to be high. 

It appears The Callisto Protocol underperformed expectations

"Krafton's new "Callisto Protocol" which was released last month at a cost of about 200 billion won over three years, is observed to badly influence its future performance due to sales shortage"https://t.co/ENZenHmpT8 pic.twitter.com/2CZLZ36UXR

— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) January 13, 2023

Odyssey reports this news by aggregating that several companies, like Samsung Securities have lowered stock prices in Karfton.

According to the report, Samsung Securities expected sales of 5 million from The Callisto Protocol. But according to their stock report, even the target of 2 million is looking really tough to achieve this year.

The company expected cumulative sales of 5 million copies, but considering the current sales ranking, cumulative sales of 2 million copies will not be easy until this year.”

Another investor in Krafton, Korea Investment & Securities, has also lowered their expectations. Initially, the company expected sales of 4 million copies from the horror game. However, this has now been taken down to 2.1 million, according to K-Odyssey.

The company also lowered the operating profit estimate from The Callisto Protocol to 629.3 billion Won. It was 813 billion Won for the year before this new estimation. So, it’s safe to say the horror space-shooter game has not performed competently enough.

When we hear about the development costs of The Callisto Protocol, it does make it seem like a failure. According to Odyssey, Krafton paid 196 billion Won to developer Striking Distance Studio to make the horror title. Roughly this comes up to over $160 million, which is an insane figure equal to most Marvel movies. 

K-Odyssey tells us that this payment to Striking Distance was in three different years. In 2020, Krafton gave the studio 5.4 billion Won, and this went up to 77 billion Won in 2021. Striking Distance got the highest sum from January to September of last year, a humongous 113.6 billion Won.

According to Krafton’s business report and quarterly report, the company paid about 196 billion won, including 5.4 billion won in 2020, 77 billion won in 2021, and 113.6 billion won from January to September last year, to the US-based subsidiary ‘Striking Distance Studio’ (SDS), a developer of Callisto Protocol.”

Hence, The Callisto Protocol took 200 billion Won or $162 million to develop without accounting for marketing costs. Such an investment in a new IP is a big risk, and it seems like it has not paid off so far. The reviews for the game from critics and players alike have been average, again failing to meet expectations. 

Odyssey says the production cost will end up being more than the revenue due to marketing. But, Krafton has a plan to recoup the money from The Callisto Protocol. With new game modes coming to the game and a DLC release in the summer, the company is hoping for a turnaround. 

Krafton plans to seek a rebound with follow-up support for the Callisto Protocol. Game producers has announced plans to update new game modes and character costumes in the game on the 7th of next month and release paid DLC, which is a downloadable content, with additional stories this summer.”

Even though it’s uncommon for such a divisive game to recoup money with post-launch content, Krafton is hopeful. Cyberpunk 2077 did do exactly this via its Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime show. Hence, maybe the game will bounce back, and we will hope it does.