So Homefront launched today, I forgot all about it actually. =]

It will be a couple days before THQ releases sales figures information (if it's not doing so well, though, they won't release many details or even make an announcement at all.) The revelation of the Single Player mission being only 5 hours long couldn't have helped matters.

I'm always interested in future predictions made by industry experts, but that sort of information is very difficult to come by. No one wants to make educated guesses any more (for fear of being incorrect), and most analysts wait until the last minute (eg 24 hours after launch to make a "prediction of first week's sales") or wait until they can see Pre-Order numbers before making any predictions.

Here are the most prominent sales predictions for Homefront, for example:

1. Lazard Capital analyst Colin Sebastian predicts 1.5 million sales by the end of this month.

2. Michael Pachter doesn't expect Homefront sales to do very well, but he never provided any figures and kept his comments as vague as possible (he's been doing this more often unfortunately).

3. And then there's "HULIQ", they forecasted that sales figures for Homefront will hit 1.25 million in the first 6 months and 2 million by 12 months. Provided, of course, that they release one high-quality DLC, and offer a stable multiplayer experience, etc. I've never heard of HULIQ before, but the webpage looks a little sketchy and needs some major updates.

Most recent reviews of Homefront have made one thing very certain: the multiplayer experience isn't anything like Black Ops. In BO, an inexperienced camper can just stand in one place and get a 20-kill streak. Homefront is different, leaving brainless gamers very frustrated with the game since they won't survive as long as they could in BO (or earn achievements as quickly). Experienced players are finding the multiplayer experience quite refreshing and fun however. It's like Cataclysm Heroics for FPS players.

So, although initial sales won't be as high during the first week - I think the game can have some real staying power thanks to it's multiplayer experience (the "perk" system looks very cool too).

I wish that there were more industry experts out there predicting this kind of stuff though, even if they're wrong at least they can give a reason as to WHY they made their prediction. The best articles I've read are the ones with figures, past comparisons, trends, and logical reasoning as to why they picked that number.

For example, consider LA Noire.

I make a lot of decisions based on what people are saying about the game, and the general consensus is that LA Noire is going to be an awesome game. But, I'm getting a very bad feeling about what people are really saying about it.

Most are saying it awesome, but they're not saying the gameplay or story is awesome, they're praising the setting and new facial capture technology. It's not, "You gotta play this game, it's brilliant and so fun!", instead it's "OMG. Check out that facial capture technology! Look at their faces, they're so real! The faces! The faces!".

For those fortunate enough to have played the LA Noire demo, they played the best parts: the clue gathering and interrogation mini-games. However, 20 minutes isn't enough time to make a decision about the game.. did they consider that they would be playing the same mini-games over and over and over throughout the entire length of the game?

The game has been described as Rockstar's most adult oriented or "serious game". It's a slower paced game than their other lineups, and a lot of time has been spent on facial capture and voice acting. So, you can anticipate a LOT of cut scenes and player conversations.

From what I've seen, it appears to be a very linear (and slow paced) interactive detective novel, with conversational mini-games, and a lot of cut scenes that could potentially interfere with gameplay. Once the novelty of their faces and voice acting wear off, that's what you're left with.

Word is that it's impossible to fail a case too (all of the cases are pre-determined too, it's not like Clue where there are random killings, random scenarios, and random evidence.)

I know that I'm going to enjoy the game myself, but I'm getting a bad feeling that many players are going to be disappointed after playing the game "for real". Re-playability is also a big concern in it's present state, but it can be solved through DLC.

Bethesda's games for example (Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc.) I absolutely loved, but I _hated_ the same old NPC interactions and vendor menus (which they replicated across all of their games). It's the one thing I never really like about the game, but fortunately they weren't a significant part of the game. In LA Noire, player interactions ARE a big part of the game. When questioning suspects, I suspect that players will start seeing the exact same facial cues and "looks" over-and-over, which kills a lot of the fun in try to determine guilt, innocence, or deception (of course, they need to dumb it down though so as not to frustrate inexperience players.)

Pachter said that he would never underestimate Rockstar again, so whimsically predicted that LA Noire would sell as many games as Red Dead Redemption had. Problem is, Rockstar is publishing the game this time around.. Team Bondi is developer. The reason he underestimated RDR the first time is because he thought the genre/setting was too limited. I think this is true for LA Noire though, a western shooter has a tremendous market size compared to a detective game.

Is it mostly an interactive detective novel though? Do most people realize that it's not like GTA/RDR in terms of gameplay? I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm getting the same old SPORE-like vibe from this upcoming game release. Screenshots and demos are showing off the best parts (to control perception of the game), there's a huge amount of hype, gameplay videos are limited, players are expecting one thing (but they're going to get something different), and gamers are forgetting about re-playability and repetition (e.g. mini-games) within the game.

Anyways.. I think there's going to be a big explosion of sales during the first month, as people will be expecting the currently promoted game (the perception is RDR in the 1940's), but they'll be getting something completely different out of the box. Once the initial novelty wears off though, sales will decline and I don't think they'll reach the same heights as RDR. Either way, though, first day sales are definitely going to be highly successful for Rockstar.