The Last of Us Part 2
Credit: Naughty DogIt’s been clear from the start that the various controversies surrounding The Last of Us Part 2 have been mostly in bad faith, likely swirling around after Naughty Dog’s first reveal of its lesbian relationship, and its transition away from a classic “Sad Dad” protagonist toward the younger, female Ellie. But it’s certainly made the discourse surrounding the whole thing pretty toxic, even as we’re now after release and able to move into more substantive discussion of the full game. Even so, one thing is clear: the various controversies have done nothing to dampen sales.
Lena the plug pron for the year, something that bodes well for its international prospects as well. It’s likely to keep putting up big numbers as we get more data: sky-high reviews combined with the largest footprint I’ve seen in mainstream media since Animal Crossing: New Horizons, combined with the popularity of the original and the overall sterling reputation of Naughty Dog have predictably given us one of the biggest exclusive launches of the generation.
And so that’s likely the sum of all this controversy, the early spoilers, the supposed “backlash” and all of that: a massively successful game from a massively successful studio, set to define the latter days of the PS4 in much the same way the original defined the latter days of the PS3.
I’m not convinced that controversy in and of itself boosts sales all that much: maybe in some cases, particularly with smaller games that wouldn’t have gotten so much attention without some sort of news peg. I tend to think that controversy is more of a reflection of the attention that a game is receiving, and that it just sort of follows games bound for big numbers.
We saw a similar thing with Pokemon Sword and Shield, which garnered its share of controversy after the developer’s decision to restrict the Pokedex for the first time in series history. As with this game, the controversy had no noticeable negative effect on sales, and it’s entirely possible the controversy had a small positive effect.
The video game industry is much, much wider than the relatively small circles that pass around these controversies. It’s impossible to imagine a boycott on the scale that we see talked about surrounding games like these actually impact things. If anything, they’re just a reflection of how much attention is being paid to a certain game. The Last of Us Part 2 likely sold well because it’s a massive sequel to a beloved game that’s getting excellent reviews. It’s not a ton more complicated than that.