THQ promises better marketing support for Red Faction: Guerrilla

THQ CEO Brian Farrell said in the company's financial call to investors yesterday that if THQ were to be graded on Red Faction: Guerrilla's release - it would have received a "B".

"Frankly, I think on the next generation of Red Faction: Guerrilla we need to do a better job of creating day one demand," he admitted. "That being said, we do like the sales curve that its been exhibiting which shows that quality and word of mouth and downloadable content matters.

"I'd give us a B on the launch of Red Faction Guerilla. I think we did a good job, but I think we can do a better job with the next generation creating day one demand. As you know we moved the title a couple of times. That's doesn't help. I'm very pleased with a lot of the strides we've made recently, but that doesn't mean we can't do some things better.

"The amount it's been dropping off, week after week, has been something that would indicate good word of mouth on the game based on the high Metacritic ratings.

"We are pleased to have established Red Faction Guerilla as a franchise on current gen consoles. Red Action Gorilla achieved an average metacritic rating of 85 and we have shipped more than one million units of this title to date. The game was a top ten best seller in the U.S. and the U.K. in June.

"We plan to drive future sales of Red Faction with continued advertising support and new downloadable content. We plan to continue to build this franchise by leverage Red Faction Guerilla's outstanding technology platform in the future.

"We look at it as a revenue opportunity, but more importantly what we've learned with DLC is customer retention and customer engagement, primarily to prevent trade in and used games and to keep that brand active with the consumer.

"So when we look at DLC, the revenue, it's not that great. It's good, but we also like the fact that it keeps the customers engaged with our games for a long period of time.

You read the full thing through here.