Activision: Too early to call Blur a failure

Several reasons why this is the case says Activision blogger.

31,000 units sold during its first week on sale was not the start publisher Activision and developer Bizarre Creations would have wished for its arcade street racer Blur.

A bona fide failure then? Well, Activision blogger Dam Amrich believes it's too soon to make that judgement. Pointing to Activision's own DJ Hero - labelled a flop at launch, but now with sales of 1.2 million units - as an example, Amrich also listed several reasons why the game should be given more time.

"I think it’s way, way too early to call Blur a failure by any measure," he wrote.

Firstly he pointed to a three-way battle for racing game sales, with Blur going up against Disney's Split/Second and Sony's ModNation Racers. This is turn lead to a cash shortage amongst gamers, which Activision combated in June by offering gamers a $20 coupon to encourage them to pick up Blur.

Amrich's third point added: "Blur shipped May 25 in the US, May 28 in the UK. Since the June data is not yet available (and won't be for a few more weeks), we are looking at one week of sales and no international data. More importantly, while big sales out of the gate are always preferred, a slow first week no longer means a death sentence."

Proof being the long-tail of DJ Hero.

He concluded: "Hundreds to thousands of people playing online every day, stable servers, positive reviews... folks, this game is not a failure, and it's an irresponsible disservice to use that word to describe Blur. All it's really guilty of is coming in third in a three-way race. And that was just the first lap."

We've done our best to encourage you to give Blur a go, awarding the racer a very impressive 9/10 review score.