How many units sold makes a game considered a 'hit'?

[Terramax]

Yo guys, how many units sold do you think it takes before you'd consider a game to be a hit seller? How many before people in the industry consider it so?

Now, I understand all games have a different profit margin, but is there a standard figure for something to be perceived as having been commercially viable?

I wonder this because I looked up Mirror's Edge sales and I've had it down at over 1 million, yet it's been considered a failure. I'm trying to weigh up the likeliness of there being a sequel any time soon and, if so, how much time and money would be invested in it.

 

[tomvw]

I guess it depends on the size of the developer/publisher. Example, when Torchlight sells 500.000 copies it's a hit, because it's by a small company. When Mirror's Edge sells a million, it's a disappointment because it's developed by Dice and published by EA.

 

[SalamanderJoe]

Not sure. I usually consider any game to enter the platnium/classics range to be hits, but even then it takes a few years for that to happen.

Like tomvw's above post, it depends on how big the company is. Activision wouldn't be pleased with a million sales of game, considering they released Modern Warfare 2, a game that seems to STILL sell somehow despite everyone I know owning a copy.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Yo guys, how many units sold do you think it takes before you'd consider a game to be a hit seller? How many before people in the industry consider it so?

Now, I understand all games have a different profit margin, but is there a standard figure for something to be perceived as having been commercially viable?

I wonder this because I looked up Mirror's Edge sales and I've had it down at over 1 million, yet it's been considered a failure. I'm trying to weigh up the likeliness of there being a sequel any time soon and, if so, how much time and money would be invested in it.

I think Mirror's Edge is generally considered a failure as a game rather than in terms of it's sales. It was an interesting idea badly executed.

On the other hand, it might depend on how high the development costs were. If some indie game designer had a budget of £50 and sold a million copies, that's a success. If some big-shot developers blow a budget of £50 million on a game and only sell a million copies, there isn't much profit to be made there, so I'd call it a failure even if the game is brilliant.

A million does seem to be the magic number, at least according to game journalists. Wasn't there an article on here earlier about how DJ Hero wasn't a flop because it sold a million units? 999,999 copies sold = flop, 1,000,000 copies sold = winner!

 

[More Fun To Compute]

It depends, but five million should be around the right spot for a really high profile game. One million after a year or so and multiple discounts is sort of pathetic. Two million for a huge game like Assasins Creed or GTA5 would be a disaster.

Ten thousand for a one or two man team indie game is probably a hit.

 

[MetalDooley]

Like others have said it really depends on the game in question

Take something like No More Heroes for example.It didn't sell huge amounts but it was developer Suda 51's highest selling game(at that point)so it would probably be considered a success in that respect

 

[cefm]

Units sold isn't the only measure. You'd have to compare to Units Produced to see if it actually made any money. The famous case of E.T. comes to mind. Endlessly pilloried for being a failure, it was a legitimately bad game. But it sold a ton of units due to unrealistic hype and the movie's popularity. The problem it had was that they over-produced a huge amount, thus losing tons of $$ on a game that sold a lot of units.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Well, it has to actually make a profit first, so...

EDIT: I'll explain a little better, with fake money! A game that cost $$ to make, but makes $$$$$, would be a hit, in my books at least. A game that costs $$$$$$$$$$ to make, but only gets $$$$$$, while it does make more money than game one, it doesn't turn a profit. It sells enough units to be a hit, but it was still a failure.

 

[migo]

I think it would depend on the number of systems out there. Given there's roughly 4 times as many enthusiast PCs out there (obviously with varying specs), you'd think there'd need to be at least 2x as many sales for a PC game to be the same type of hit as a Wii game. Similarly the PS3 and Xbox 360 would each need about half the number of sales for a game to be a hit as for the Wii, and a multi-platform game would need considerably more sales than a single player game.

Selling 2.5 million copies of Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast is pretty impressive. 2.5 million copies of some game on the PS2 while still probably noteworthy wouldn't be viewed as nearly as much of a success, as you're talking about less than 2% of console owners buying it instead of 25%.

 

[Jack_Uzi]

Depends on how much the game is hyped in being a hit (who knows the exact numbers?) Since I only need one game that was worth it or not, I depend my judgement on that.

 

[gigastrike]

I'd say it depends on the game's production cost. Anything that turns a large enough profit to pay the developers is a hit in my book.

 

[veloper]

More than 10 million for a AAA title to be a hit and a good portion of that within the first week.

GTA4 had more than 10 million units sold.
MW2 is even more than that.

 

[Terramax]

So basically, when a company toots a game has sold X amount, and they're hyping it up to be a benchmark for them, we only have their word for it huh...

Very well. What most have said is what I'd already guessed (depends on cost of game and whether it makes a profit). I guess there is no way to measure off hand unless you find out the cost of the game and how much it actually made.

Unfortunatly very few sites actually lift these kinds of statistics, unlike like movies where it's become a standard to show its budget and income on placed like IMDB.com and wikipedia.

 

[TobintheGnome]

Revenue > Dev Costs + Marketing Costs + Printing & Reproduction + x% Profit expectation.

 

[cerebus23]

well crysis sold a million units, a games that had steep requirement just to run the thing and most people would have to upgrade their pcs entirely to even run it and the president of crytek called it a flop hence they had to do it for consoles....

most console games if they sell a million units they get into that hit range.