Jimquisition: Dark Souls and Dark Sales
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This is pretty much what's wrong with the gaming industry now. It's too much about the big budget graphics, new engines, and frame rates and other such shit. They think that if they throw a ton of money at a game, it'll magically create a fortune for them. On top of that, they think that because they spent so much money on that, that I should have to do my part and buy it NEW and get the season fucking pass.
I know that Call of Duty is a huge fad this generation, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel to get me to play your game. Just make something fun. Metal Gear Rising is an incredibly flawed game and many would consider it a 'niche title', but ya know, it as the most fun I've had with a game in ages.
I know that Call of Duty is a huge fad this generation, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel to get me to play your game. Just make something fun. Metal Gear Rising is an incredibly flawed game and many would consider it a 'niche title', but ya know, it as the most fun I've had with a game in ages.
Ugh, all this sun praising is making me feel so grossly incandescent...King of Asgaard said:
Nice vid, though
I view COD and similar titles (also Angry Birds, etc.) as the junk food of gaming. If Joe Schmo is all out of brain at the end of the day and just wants to sit on the couch and shove COD down his throat then good for him. Trying to make all games like that is dumb. Having 30 different kinds of chips available to buy doesn't mean 30 times as many people will buy chips, throw in some granola, ice cream and fancy dessert if you want more people to buy.
Same with games, there's a place for serialized blockbusters but also everything else down to 8-bit retro. Making everything a co-op ultra-graphics multiplayer action shooter is just limiting the market and no amount of dollars spent on fancy packaging is going to address that.
Same with games, there's a place for serialized blockbusters but also everything else down to 8-bit retro. Making everything a co-op ultra-graphics multiplayer action shooter is just limiting the market and no amount of dollars spent on fancy packaging is going to address that.
I think it all really depends on what the budgets actually are with some of these games, maybe I am just not looking in the right places, but the games industry seems a lot less transparent as far as budgets are concerned than say the film industry.
Though it often doesn't include marketing, it is much easier to tell when a movie has generally succeeded or failed. I am curious to know what the budget is on Tomb Raider, it would be a lot easier to tell how reasonable or unreasonable Square is being. I hope they are indeed covering their budget at the very least and even though I have yet to pick it up, I like the direction they seem to be taking and I would like to see where they can take it from here.
I totally agree with Jim in that a lot of it comes down to publishers expecting huge sales numbers rather than hoping for it or planning appropriately. I feel that EA is the absolute worst in this regard. EA's plan in regards to shooters seems to be "alright, THIS is the year we will get COD level of success with Battlefield" and spend ridiculous amounts of money on marketing. I enjoy BF3 a lot and by all accounts enjoyed a huge amount of success.
If BF3's sales were any indication of what the future of the franchise is, it seems to occupy a solid 2nd place in terms of shooters. But that is never enough for EA so it comes as no suprise to me when they end up posting losses and laying-off employees.
Though it often doesn't include marketing, it is much easier to tell when a movie has generally succeeded or failed. I am curious to know what the budget is on Tomb Raider, it would be a lot easier to tell how reasonable or unreasonable Square is being. I hope they are indeed covering their budget at the very least and even though I have yet to pick it up, I like the direction they seem to be taking and I would like to see where they can take it from here.
I totally agree with Jim in that a lot of it comes down to publishers expecting huge sales numbers rather than hoping for it or planning appropriately. I feel that EA is the absolute worst in this regard. EA's plan in regards to shooters seems to be "alright, THIS is the year we will get COD level of success with Battlefield" and spend ridiculous amounts of money on marketing. I enjoy BF3 a lot and by all accounts enjoyed a huge amount of success.
If BF3's sales were any indication of what the future of the franchise is, it seems to occupy a solid 2nd place in terms of shooters. But that is never enough for EA so it comes as no suprise to me when they end up posting losses and laying-off employees.
One of the best things about having children (I have two) is that you get to see all of the worst parts of human nature, such as the delusion you mention, as they develop. Then you wonder why it is that some of these traits that are clearly bad and start when your five still persists into adulthood in some people. The idea though that the chickens coming home to roost and ruining some of these companies for their eagerness to embrace a delusion over reality is coming rather than already here I disagree with. It seems like game companies have been falling like flies and the fact that EA and SquEnix haven't folded yet just mean that they are bigger flies. From is a quirky company though and they don't make things trying to be the next CoD. But they have made some great games several of which will never leave my possession for the used bin at GameStop even after I am cold and in the ground. Dark Souls is a game that prove though that you can create a top quality experience without having to take a mortgage out on your soul.
I completely agree with Jim and I just wanted to point out that CoD is far from the biggest game sales vise. If you're looking for a game that sells ridiculously well, a game that can say that 6 million is nothing, look at the NSMB series.
NSMB DS sold almost 30 million, Wii version sold ~26 million, NSMB2 sold ~6 million (which can be attributed to the low 3DS sales and the number is sure to increase with time unlike each entry in CoD that sells almost everything in the release month).
NSMB DS sold almost 30 million, Wii version sold ~26 million, NSMB2 sold ~6 million (which can be attributed to the low 3DS sales and the number is sure to increase with time unlike each entry in CoD that sells almost everything in the release month).
Before watching video: because publishers are goddamn stupid these days, spending countless millions of dollars trying to get as many sales as Call of Duty (which will NEVER happen) and also wasting even more money on garbage like Tomb Raider's crappy multiplayer mode that nobody liked and nobody asked for in the first place or Lara's fucking hair that's only impressive if you have a high end PC anyway. Stop spending so much money and 3 million sales will be the astounding success it should be, not a failure.
And now to watch.
Yep. Once again, the only ones who don't fucking get it are the publishers themselves. New game industry crash, here we come. And yeah, good point bringing up fucking Crytek, bloody idiots.
Also, get well soon.
And now to watch.
Yep. Once again, the only ones who don't fucking get it are the publishers themselves. New game industry crash, here we come. And yeah, good point bringing up fucking Crytek, bloody idiots.
Also, get well soon.
Call of Duty is the biggest game sales wise when looking at launches, which is the only thing most publishers do. Nintendo is one of the intelligent exceptions who knows that their games sell well over time and don't get disappointed when, for example, New Super Mario Bros DS sold "only" about 480,000 copies on launch day in Japan.BiH-Kira said:
Escapist, you failed, the platforms section in the description, Dark Souls is out on the PC. Please fix.
On the video: Makes sense, economic smarts means you make a profit, economic derp means you lose money. Believe that's just logic, also.
PRAAISSEEE THE SSSUUUUNNNNN
Edit: Also
On the video: Makes sense, economic smarts means you make a profit, economic derp means you lose money. Believe that's just logic, also.
PRAAISSEEE THE SSSUUUUNNNNN
Edit: Also
Why is this reminding me of the 1983 crash where Atari supposedly made more copies of ET than there were consoles in existence in the insane hope that it would sell more than was physically possible?
You know, when I read the Dark Souls sales thing the other day I was actually happy for the game and was all like "Good for them, that game was awesome". I didn't even think about the Dead Space 3 thing and Tomb Raider thing at all, but as soon as I read the description of the video, I was like "Oh yeah, those things happened".
Anyway, Good video and Praise the Sun.
Anyway, Good video and Praise the Sun.
This reminds me, I need to play more Dark Souls, and by play more I mean start a new game as I had a power cut last time I played just as it was saving and yeah... (Was about 10 hours in.)
OT: I think he introduced Mrs hammer to Mr nail on this one, some of the sales targets these publishers expect are ludicrous, and they will learn the hard way, when their companies start collapsing that they should focus on a better budget for their games.
OT: I think he introduced Mrs hammer to Mr nail on this one, some of the sales targets these publishers expect are ludicrous, and they will learn the hard way, when their companies start collapsing that they should focus on a better budget for their games.
I'm also not afraid to say that Dark Souls is a much better game than Tomb Raider. Yeah, it didn't have all the heart wrenching wimpering and crying or whatever, it just had way way way way way better gameplay and design. And it is a pretty great looking game in my opinion.
Let's consider this as an example. Let's say that for a $60 game, only $45 (i.e. 75% of the purchase price) actually goes to the publisher (the rest to retail, distribution, and printing). In order to break even, the publisher is required to sell approximately 4.4-4.5 million new copies. If the publisher only retains $30 of the sale price (i.e. 50%), then they would have to sell a whopping 6.7 million new copies, JUST TO BREAK EVEN! Even in the most optimistic scenario where the publisher retails all $60 of the retail price, he would still need to sell 3.3-3.4 million new copies, AGAIN JUST TO BREAK EVEN!. So, yes, there is good reason to believe that the reason these high sell numbers are disappointing is because the budgets for these games has spiraled out-of-control to a completely unsustainable level. Please note that this little calculation has the implication that unless Bioshock Infinite successfully sells 5-6+ million copies, there is a good chance the publisher will consider the game a complete failure, by current thinking.Azhrarn-101 said:
Basically, the budgets that are being put into these games are not market-sustainable. There simply can never be expected to be sufficient market penetration of any game, simply because of the sheer number of titles and the cost of each title to purchase, to cover these massive budgets. People just don't have enough time and money to be able to afford so many big-budget triple-A titles. Game publishers need to obtain better analysis and understanding of their target markets such to allow them to make better projections of likely sells numbers and then budget accordingly, rather than casting a budget and than having to expect some necessary number of sales to cover that budget. If you already know from the beginning that a given game is likely to sell only 1-2 million copies, then you will know to better budget the game around $20-40 million to allow a better chance for profit or, at the very least, breaking even. That market understanding would also include knowing what appeals to the game's target audience so the game can be designed accordingly, ensuring a greater likelihood to maintain sells in accordance with analysis expectations and protecting investment. Right now, game publishers are seemingly running their business by throwing darts, rather than having any real understanding of their market. Maybe they are doing some of this, but there is a disconnect going on somewhere because these budgets are just stupid.
ADDENDUM: Oh, another thing about that market analysis, it has to consider also the games that have been recently released and the games that are going to be released in the near future (in other words, understand the playing field and where your competition sit in it). People only have just so much money; so, one needs to consider the viability of selling one's game at a particular time versus any other time. This is another basic problem of the triple-A industry; it's become so over-crowded with releases that the density of titles at the current typical price makes impossible for every game to do well. The typical game buyer can only buy a certain number of titles in a given period of time. Once the density of titles exceeds this, then sells of particular games will see a decrease because the total cost exceeds the ability of a large majority of the population. Think of it as a graph where the horizontal axis is the total cost in games that can be afforded and the vertical axis in the number people that can maximally afford that exact total cost. This may look like a Bell curve or a Lorentzian with the tail at the low end (I admit, I'm just guess here on the shape). Now if we integrate from highest total cost to lowest total cost to obtain a population of the total number of people that can afford a particular total cost, we would likely get a graph that looks like an asymptotic exponential with an inflection. As we lower the total cost, the number of people able to afford the games increases till it reaches an asymptote, at which point further cost reduction does not yield significant increases in the number of people able to afford all games on the market. So, there is a best total cost that sits at the upper knee of the curve that would allow for reasonable budgets while ensuring that every title produced has a good chance of obtaining sufficient sales to be profitable. In my opinion, this is where the industry wants to sit, right at that knee, and there are two ways of getting there: 1) lower the average purchase price of titles or 2) reduce the number of titles released over a given time period. Doing this, I think, would improve the overall viability of the triple-A industry.
EDIT: Apologies for the wall-of-text.
THANK YOU!
I am constantly talking about industry bloat here and many people try to shoot me down, saying games costs what games costs; not understanding what it is I am saying. I am glad someone with more credibility then me finally said this! I know more people will listen to you, and they better soon. This may be a catalyst in the next gaming crash!
I am constantly talking about industry bloat here and many people try to shoot me down, saying games costs what games costs; not understanding what it is I am saying. I am glad someone with more credibility then me finally said this! I know more people will listen to you, and they better soon. This may be a catalyst in the next gaming crash!
Because this is exactly what happened. Sad thing is we can see it coming a mile away now and yet no one is doing anything.Arcane Azmadi said:
And yet there's this one guy who makes games for fuck all and yet it spawns graphic novels, light novels, an absolute mountain of fan works, two conventions devoted to it per year, and probably has the largest representation out of any series at the biannual comic fair. There is almost certainly not a single internet-geek in the world who has not at least heard of it. And he got a Guinness World Record for it too, very official.