Actually it sold great initially. It had the best week 1 sales in the franchise history of what was already a pretty big franchise.

Tomb Raider (2013) sold over 3 million units retail. And that's without even counting the Definitive edition that was just released or digital sales. The game did really well, it was just that they had really lofty expectations right out of the gate.

Microsoft is doing something like this. Gold subscribers have been getting 2 free games a month for over half a year now.