Nobody Needs To Know What An Analyst Thinks About A Singleplayer Video Game's Sales. Nobody!

Just as it's deeply annoying to see people caring about a singleplayer video game's player count, it's maybe even more annoying to see people caring about a singleplayer video game's sales when it’s only been out for two weeks.

An example--I'm not picking on just this report, this is a common subject in games media--is a Eurogamer story from this morning titled "Saros is off to a slower start than Returnal, with some analysts concerned Housemarque 'will struggle to break even'". Eurogamer isn't a trade publication; it's a mainstream website, whose audience is primarily made up of fans and consumers.

And it's like...OK? I don't know why any normal person should care, or think they should care, about any of this. You, the reader, are someone who plays and maybe sometimes buys video games. Saros is a singleplayer video game which is played without the need of a community, online support or active playerbase. Your only concerns here, then, should be whether you enjoy the game you played or not.

You're not an investor! You don't work at developers Housemarque or PlayStation; why should you possibly care what the game's long-term financial future should be when you, a normal person, have zero knowledge of the company's budget or the leash it's on with Sony?

And why should you care about any of this when the bad vibes being spoken about are coming from an analyst, someone whose job involves talking to publishers and investors, not the general game-playing public.

I wish games websites would stop running stories like this, and I wish normal people would stop thinking they matter. This news isn't for you. Normal people walking around carrying this knowledge with them are being burdened with information that can only do them harm, because reading stuff like this can affect your perceptions of the game, the studio responsible for it and the platform it's played on that actually have no bearing on your singleplayer experience whatsoever.

If you like Housemarque and want to play Saros, play it! And if you like it, great!