Codemasters Exec: Ten-Million Sellers Are Now Possible

[Andy Chalk]

Codemasters Exec: Ten-Million Sellers Are Now Possible

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe [http://www.codemasters.com] President Chris Deering says the videogame industry needs to set its sights higher, suggesting that ten million unit sales should be the benchmark for a major hit.

The times, they are a-changin'. It wasn't all that many years ago that a million-selling game was considered a huge hit and and even today it's widely regarded as a watershed of respectability. But industry executive Chris Deering says that's no longer good enough; as the industry has grown and the business landscape has been remade by the recession, game makers need to expect more.

"Unlike many businesses [affected by the recession], gaming is as big as ever," he told the crowd at this years's Edinburgh Interactive Festival [http://www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com/]. "It's bigger than DVD, bigger than the cinema box office, bigger than books and bigger than the music industry. Can you imagine? We used to have our games distributed by the music biz."

"The big winners in this environment will win big," he continued. "Ten million unit sales of software is now possible - Everquest [http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/experience/] was thrilled ten years ago to get 400,000 playing it. Times have changed."

He also noted the ongoing evolution of the gaming industry and sid that new business models would eventually bring about major changes to the way games are made, sold and played. "Just like [the music industry], we're moving from 'albums' to 'singles'," Deering said. "iTunes [http://www.apple.com/itunes/] was disruptive for the music business and they had to adapt. That's happening today in the games industry. [In terms of pricing], we're moving from 'hardback' to 'paperback' with different types of free low-cost trial, pay-as-you-play payment models."

Source: MCV [http://www.mcvuk.com/news/35377/Deering-10m-sales-the-new-milestone]


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[crooked_ferret]

This is very possible, I think what needs to happen next is the real division needs to be made between casual and real gaming.
They keep trying to make games targeted at both and they disappoint both sides of the community.
The Wii is actually the perfect example. I tried playing the conduit and found it extremely lacking and the graphics grotesque. (I mean that in a bad way) yet some people I'm sure will absolutely love it, even though it's obviously a casual fps even though it was marketed as trying to fill that more hardcore gamer niche for the Wii.

Anyhow that was just the most recent example I could dig out of my hat.
If they make that distinction and realize who they are targeting games at I think they will find themselves selling many more games to more targeted audiences. The size of the audience has in fact grown. I think the game developers need to acknowledge that and start properly targeting their games right from the onset of development.

It's being done to a minor extent but so far at least in the form of advertising I still think a lot of things are being misrepresented in a hope of driving sales, when they are in fact often hurting themselves using these older tactics.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

I think if such sales figures are to be a standard, this will be the generation to do it, where the gamer demographic (that they would be aiming at) has a very obvious one track mind. However I'm not sure if this will be a good thing...

 

[hansari]

"Unlike many businesses [affected by the recession], gaming is as big as ever," he told the crowd at this years's Edinburgh Interactive Festival [http://www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com/]. "It's bigger than DVD, bigger than the cinema box office, bigger than books and bigger than the music industry...."

Is he for real? Bigger than the movie industry?

You've got to be kidding me...

 

[Sparrow]

Game prices rising, game sales falling and a reccession in place?

Yeah. All games are going to get 10 millions sales nowadays.

 

[Proteus214]

I thought that most of the market analysis was going to steer them away from great expectations such as this. I think they're going to be pretty disappointed when the next $70-80 title flops because it's too expensive.

 

[KDR_11k]

Applause for captain obvious here, what, did Nintendo expecting 10 million sales for each of their three big titles this year clue you in?

I tried playing the conduit and found it extremely lacking and the graphics grotesque. (I mean that in a bad way) yet some people I'm sure will absolutely love it, even though it's obviously a casual fps even though it was marketed as trying to fill that more hardcore gamer niche for the Wii.

Nonsense, it's not casual or anything (it has a lengthy story with a slow beginning and everything, casuals don't want their games like that), it's just bland and badly executed. The WiiWare FPSes are casual if that term can apply to FPses at all (casual gamers can't handle that perspective) but they work fine for veteran gamers.

If you want a company that makes games for everybody look at Nintendo and their massive wads of cash. They keep reiterating that they aren't aiming their games at specific audiences and instead go for everybody and it works, games like Mario Kart or New Super Mario Bros (both near the 20 million mark AFAIK and STILL selling well today despite being years old) wouldn't sell that well if only the core market cared about them. Super Mario Galaxy is an example of a game that failed to work for both markets, only the core bought it and its sales are significantly lower than those of the everybody games and AFAIK SMG stopped selling fairly quickly (best indicator of core-only appeal, game sales go up very fast and then disappear almost to zero within a few months).

Or, hell, if you want a casual FPS, how about Halo? I recall PC gamers being annoyed by how popular that was despite being inferior to PC games in every respect. I also recall it selling for a loooooong time, like casual games tend to.

 

[Asehujiko]

So Codemasters, if the standard is now 10mil, how come that you have never gotten close to that number, or whatever the standard was at the time of release? Need i remind you of a fact you said about Damnation a few months ago? "Damnation will revolutionize the way shooters are played" Well, look at how that turned out.

There are a few places where statements can be expected to include pure non-information and Codemasters' PR office is right up there with Cevat Yerli and George Bush Jr.

 

[crooked_ferret]

Applause for captain obvious here, what, did Nintendo expecting 10 million sales for each of their three big titles this year clue you in?

I tried playing the conduit and found it extremely lacking and the graphics grotesque. (I mean that in a bad way) yet some people I'm sure will absolutely love it, even though it's obviously a casual fps even though it was marketed as trying to fill that more hardcore gamer niche for the Wii.

Nonsense, it's not casual or anything (it has a lengthy story with a slow beginning and everything, casuals don't want their games like that), it's just bland and badly executed. The WiiWare FPSes are casual if that term can apply to FPses at all (casual gamers can't handle that perspective) but they work fine for veteran gamers.

If you want a company that makes games for everybody look at Nintendo and their massive wads of cash. They keep reiterating that they aren't aiming their games at specific audiences and instead go for everybody and it works, games like Mario Kart or New Super Mario Bros (both near the 20 million mark AFAIK and STILL selling well today despite being years old) wouldn't sell that well if only the core market cared about them. Super Mario Galaxy is an example of a game that failed to work for both markets, only the core bought it and its sales are significantly lower than those of the everybody games and AFAIK SMG stopped selling fairly quickly (best indicator of core-only appeal, game sales go up very fast and then disappear almost to zero within a few months).

Or, hell, if you want a casual FPS, how about Halo? I recall PC gamers being annoyed by how popular that was despite being inferior to PC games in every respect. I also recall it selling for a loooooong time, like casual games tend to.

We'll have to agree to disagree then , you'll have to consider this, I consider WoW to be a casual gamers game. Most people can't wrap their heads around that statement or just flat out tell me I'm wrong. I don't feel like explaining it all again so I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

 

[Dogstile]

we're moving from 'hardback' to 'paperback' with different types of free low-cost trial, pay-as-you-play payment models."

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oh god, pay as you play is something i do not want to see...ever

paying to play for an mmo for a certain amount of time is fine, but if i had to pay for every hour off fallout, i would be paying an absurd amount

 

[KDR_11k]

We'll have to agree to disagree then , you'll have to consider this, I consider WoW to be a casual gamers game. Most people can't wrap their heads around that statement or just flat out tell me I'm wrong. I don't feel like explaining it all again so I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

Oh WoW is definitely for casual gamers too, that was the big change that brought Blitzzard the success previous MMO devs never reached after all. I've heard schoolgirls talk about their new gear and levels and stuff. The Conduit is not for casual gamers, if you want to test that throw one of them in front of the game and watch them despair. You need to tweak tons of variables only a dedicated gamer can understand to even get useful controls out of it and it's not designed to be played in short bursts. There's no local multiplayer and no real social aspect to it (unlike Halo which got played at parties and WoW which is played with friends online).