Shadows of the Damned and Child of Eden flop in US (and you wonder why we can't have nice things)

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Critical darlings barely make a dent in June sales

The gaming community spends a lot of time lamenting the lack of originality and creativity in modern titles, so imagine our collective surprise (and smoldering disdain) when we found out US consumers bought more copies of Duke “....loading...” Nukem Forever than the critically praisedlesser-knowns Shadows of the Damned and Child of Eden put together. These are dark, contradictory, days indeed friends.

You'll forgive us for being a little frustrated. This month, GR featured Shadows of the Damned as ourgame of the month. We even pinned it with a shiny 9 review score, and used a lot of words to describe how fun, fresh and solid of an experience it was. Ok, so it was a little heavy on the dick jokes, but that doesn't near explain why NPD reports it only sold 24,000 on the PS3 and Xbox 360 combined.



Child of Eden, another shining light in a sea of sponsored dance games and reboots, fared slightly better. However, with a final tally of only 34,000 copies sold, that's like saying it got handed a slightly softer ass kicking.

The situation in the UK isn't any better. A few weeks ago, our GR brethren overseas had similar reactions upon learning both Shadows of the Damned and Child of Eden didn't make the top 20, while Zumba fitness came number one and Call of Duty: Black Ops became the best-selling UK title in the history of mankind. To be fair, our Duke Nukem beatdown is slightly more concerning, but it still goes to show there's a disconnect between what the public says it wants, and what it actually buys.

So what is it? Do video game consumers really want quality, or they just saying that to keep the snobby elite happy? True, L.A Noire's number one placement does give us some hope, and true Duke Nukem isn't the total travesty some report it to be, but the outright dismissal of some very promising, lower profile games, is a cause for concern. Hell, lets just blame piracy and/or casual games; we're open to any explanations at this point...

Jul 15, 2011


Tightly controlled chaos makes for some of the year's most inspired fun




God this is depressing. Brilliant new games crash and burn in UK gaming charts. Also, Black Ops confirmed as best-selling game in UK EVAR!
It's not all bad news. Zumba Fitness is number one. Oh, hang on...



Yes, we are very excited for Child of Eden. But this new trailer is just a bit... cringeworthy
Love Rez sequels. Not so keen on advertising hipsters

Matt Bradford

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.