Watch Dogs: One Week On, 4 Million Sales

[Erttheking]

[Snip

snip

Considering that both of you just took that one post at face value and are now using it as justification to hate the game, I feel like a little perspective is in order.

after a visit to the Internet, i found this http://www.gamespot.com/articles/watch-dogs-includes-cameo-easter-egg-from-assassin-s-creed-4/1100-6420043/

It was one mission and it was an easter egg, Assassin's Creed lead writer Darby McDevitt said they are not connected.

It's simply a small crossover, nothing more.

I know sometimes we rush to conclusions, but it really is for the best if you double check your facts. After all, as Abraham Lincoln said, you can't trust everything you read on the internet.

 

[Callate]

I've enjoyed it so far. I have a feeling it's becoming the game that hype has made it cool to dismiss. It's not a perfect game by a long shot, and I don't think it's going to fulfill anyone's dreams of photorealistic nex-gen chrome, but it does some things with the hacking mechanics that I've genuinely not seen before (going through the cameras and picking off half the opposition by blowing up transformers and setting off their grenades is a power trip that has yet to get old).

If they did another one, I'd appreciate cars that don't try to fishtail when you turn at low speeds and a parkour system that isn't terrifying to use above a second story- maybe a character who intuitively jumps over short gaps rather than taking every opportunity to fling himself over railings to his death.

As for WD2- sure, thus far I'm game. Hopefully re-using the engine- and maybe some or all of the map- might allow for more time to polish physical mechanics.

 

[Krantos]

I've enjoyed it so far. I have a feeling it's becoming the game that hype has made it cool to dismiss. It's not a perfect game by a long shot, and I don't think it's going to fulfill anyone's dreams of photorealistic nex-gen chrome, but it does some things with the hacking mechanics that I've genuinely not seen before (going through the cameras and picking off half the opposition by blowing up transformers and setting off their grenades is a power trip that has yet to get old).

If they did another one, I'd appreciate cars that don't try to fishtail when you turn at low speeds and a parkour system that isn't terrifying to use above a second story- maybe a character who intuitively jumps over short gaps rather than taking every opportunity to fling himself over railings to his death.

As for WD2- sure, thus far I'm game. Hopefully re-using the engine- and maybe some or all of the map- might allow for more time to polish physical mechanics.

^Pretty much this.

I also really enjoy the fact that you can complete objectives without ever setting foot in the area.

As for WD2 - I'd like the campaign to include fewer cases of forced action. When I spend 15 minutes planning and executing an infiltration, it pisses me off to no end to have the game suddenly decide that every enemy knows exactly where I am. This also goes for Convoy missions when I blow the target up from parked car on the other side of several buildings 2 blocks away. :|

 

[Stabby Joe]

I'm hoping the sequel will be the great leap we really wanted, like Assassin's Creed 2 eventually was. So far though I'm not all that impressed, more so given the relentless marketing and hype. Yes, I know that shouldn't tarnish the actual quality of the game itself but it's hard not to roll one's eyes at times, more so at the past coverage now that it's out.

 

[Nimzabaat]

this mediocre, soulless thing has sold 4 MILLION units? wtf is wrong with people?

Most people don't care about graphics, super tight game play, generic characters and simple game mechanics. Is the game great? Probably not, but so far I've pretty much enjoyed what I've gotten through regardless of a few minor hiccups here and there. Honestly if this shows anything it is that full on gamers don't realise that they're not the majority of gamers. A majority of people who play games do it as a couple of hours a week and Watch Dogs is a game that is perfect for that.

I imagine this is gonna go the same way as Mass Effect 3. Hardcore gamers crying about a decent game for a long, long time, the rest just having a bit of fun and moving on.

Spoiler

To anyone who cares, Watch Dogs is a part of the AC universe

Yeah it's interesting to note that the majority of escapists don't have full time jobs/families/commitments etc (about 95% as of the last pole that I saw) so they don't understand that there are literally millions (at least 4 millions) of gamers out there who have a completely different persepective and don't have time to post their opinions online because of said commitments. It means that, sadly, there is a very skewed perspective here, hence the general inaccuracies about anything business related.

On Topic: I'm still curious about Watch Dogs. It's good to see a new IP doing well especially since I don't think Titanfall did as well as they expected (could be wrong). I've got other games to play at the moment though

 

[Akisa]

I'm hoping the sequel will be the great leap we really wanted, like Assassin's Creed 2 eventually was. So far though I'm not all that impressed, more so given the relentless marketing and hype. Yes, I know that shouldn't tarnish the actual quality of the game itself but it's hard not to roll one's eyes at times, more so at the past coverage now that it's out.

Forced always online requirement where if your connection has even the slightest hicup your play time is over no matter what you're doing?

 

[tehroc]

this mediocre, soulless thing has sold 4 MILLION units? wtf is wrong with people?

I'm going to suggest something a little crazy. Maybe they liked it?

Buying something and liking something are two different things. I bought it and frankly I'm not impressed in the slightest. It's just another open world game that uses all the same mechanics as any other open world game. I definitely have buyer's remorse and would have been better off just renting this game from Gamefly (I would have already sent it back).

The driving sucks, cars are too floaty. The only vehicles worth driving are the motorcycles.

 

[Erttheking]

this mediocre, soulless thing has sold 4 MILLION units? wtf is wrong with people?

I'm going to suggest something a little crazy. Maybe they liked it?

Buying something and liking something are two different things. I bought it and frankly I'm not impressed in the slightest. It's just another open world game that uses all the same mechanics as any other open world game. I definitely have buyer's remorse and would have been better off just renting this game from Gamefly (I would have already sent it back).

The driving sucks, cars are too floaty. The only vehicles worth driving are the motorcycles.

If you assume that everyone dislikes it, then why did you ask what was wrong with people?

 

[teebeeohh]

this mediocre, soulless thing has sold 4 MILLION units? wtf is wrong with people?

I'm going to suggest something a little crazy. Maybe they liked it?

how would they know if they liked it before buying it?
maybe they liked the promise of a game given to them by advertising and waited for reviews that confirm their assumption/told them it was basically AC with an extra use button and guns. lots of guns.

 

[Frezzato]

snip

Gaaaah, the framerate in my brain drops significantly when I'm sleep deprived. I forgot to add a punchline. I said a full price purchase and was going to tie in the fact that the last game I bought cost me $3.39 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.851654-Poll-Whats-the-most-expensive-game-youve-bought-in-the-last-month#21056513]. Of course in my case the last game I paid full price for was
[sub][sub][sub][sub]Mass Effect 3[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[major_chaos]

Some people ITT:

Spoiler

Anyhoo, I'm happy to see this got good numbers. GTA V was a huge disappointment to me personally so its nice to see another entry into that style of game. Hopefully most of this money goes to a sequel that builds on the solid foundation they have like AC2 did and not just marketing.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Good for Ubisoft. Hopefully this means that they will see promise in continued development of new IPs as it can clearly pay off just as well as repeat sequels can.

I also have to say that I find sales numbers discussions to be delightful.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

The was fun, and the story, though not the best, was entertaining. I can easily pick it up and just play it and enjoy it. The last open world game I could do that with was... GTA IV. (RDR was close to that. GTA V spectacularly failed at it removing the fun of awesome police chases and online shenanigans to persistent-FFA matches in free roam.)

So, well, I'm glad it did well. Hopefully it'll get more content/series pieces, and more IP's with fun concepts will be given green-lights by success. (Looking at you, The Division.)

 

[bug_of_war]

Spoiler

To anyone who cares, Watch Dogs is a part of the AC universe

Great, now I have no interest in playing it at all.

Ubisoft and their damn conspiracy boners.

Sweet, now I guess you've got no reason to post on a Watch Dogs thread then.

 

[bug_of_war]

Spoiler

To anyone who cares, Watch Dogs is a part of the AC universe

Wha...WHAT?! Since when!?

EDIT: And after a visit to the Internet, i found this http://www.gamespot.com/articles/watch-dogs-includes-cameo-easter-egg-from-assassin-s-creed-4/1100-6420043/

It was one mission and it was an easter egg, Assassin's Creed lead writer Darby McDevitt said they are not connected.

It's simply a small crossover, nothing more.

Spoiler

A somewhat main character from AC4 is found dead in Watch Dogs after he is announced missing in Black Flag, they may not jump too far into each others plot, but that's pretty damning evidence that they're in the same universe. Plus the random citizens that have "Abstergo employee" in their profile...and that one hacking mission that talks about the brotherhood.

 

[bug_of_war]

Yeah it's interesting to note that the majority of escapists don't have full time jobs/families/commitments etc (about 95% as of the last pole that I saw) so they don't understand that there are literally millions (at least 4 millions) of gamers out there who have a completely different persepective and don't have time to post their opinions online because of said commitments. It means that, sadly, there is a very skewed perspective here, hence the general inaccuracies about anything business related.

On Topic: I'm still curious about Watch Dogs. It's good to see a new IP doing well especially since I don't think Titanfall did as well as they expected (could be wrong). I've got other games to play at the moment though

If anyone has a skewed vision on what it means to be a full on/hard core gamer it's you. I never said they didn't have jobs or families or other commitments. And while this might shock you, there are tons of gamers who don't visit sites like this, and as far as they go in discussing video games they only do so with friends they know who play said video games. The Escapist users are probably 1/5 of all gamers, hardly the majority.

 

[Neeckin]

The problem I had wasn't that the game was bad per say, it was just bland. The story felt like a reskin of a path we've tread plenty of times and it lacks that true open worldness that GTA or Saints row have. Really it felt like a game that was suppose to come out early last gen

 

[Nimzabaat]

Yeah it's interesting to note that the majority of escapists don't have full time jobs/families/commitments etc (about 95% as of the last pole that I saw) so they don't understand that there are literally millions (at least 4 millions) of gamers out there who have a completely different persepective and don't have time to post their opinions online because of said commitments. It means that, sadly, there is a very skewed perspective here, hence the general inaccuracies about anything business related.

On Topic: I'm still curious about Watch Dogs. It's good to see a new IP doing well especially since I don't think Titanfall did as well as they expected (could be wrong). I've got other games to play at the moment though

If anyone has a skewed vision on what it means to be a full on/hard core gamer it's you. I never said they didn't have jobs or families or other commitments. And while this might shock you, there are tons of gamers who don't visit sites like this, and as far as they go in discussing video games they only do so with friends they know who play said video games. The Escapist users are probably 1/5 of all gamers, hardly the majority.

No need to get so defensive. I didn't say they didn't have jobs or families either, the ones responding to the survey did (there's a "don't shoot the messenger" bit somewhere in there). I also didn't say they would never have such things, I kind of assume that most of us are still in school and avidly working towards their/our dreams. There's nothing wrong with that at all. It's just that when you are not employed and your time has no value, it gives you a very different perspective than someone whose time has value. So when I see my fellow escapists ranting about "how can anyone buy this?" or "why would a company think they can get away with this?", I have to take into account that they are looking at things from one perspective and are quite unable to see why the situation would look different from another perspective. I also didn't say anything about the escapists representing a majority of gamers, that's clearly untrue.

 

[Strazdas]

we can always safely ignore first 24 hours nowadays. thats because those are preorders and not actually sold in 1 day. the remaining 3 millions are nice, but not as large as i expected. your are right thought, it is cirminal, considering the poor state the game is in.

How about this, Ubisoft. Re-invest the profits into some R&D into new franchises / ideas and form new teams to develop them. Split push new IP's instead of immediately saying "So, Watch Dogs 2 anyone?"

wasnt Ubisoft that said watchdogs 2 though. also, Watch Dogs was a new IP, so they kinda are doing it. Actually out of the big companies id say Ubisoft does the most new IP stuff anyway.
Which makes it all the harder to boycott them.

Also for Watch Dogs they built a hybrid engine out of two other engines they had. They claim and so far there is no point to disagree that they are going to use this newly crafted game engine to make new games, making the technical part of game design cheaper for future games. They kinda did plenty of inventing with WD.

It's amazing what hype and marketing can do. The game is mediocre in every conceivable way.

which means its perfect. instead of doing one thing well and going for niche market they did everything average and went for everyone but niche, thus having plenty of sales. the "wide appeal" strategy works in terms of sales.

Must be console sales, because Steam stats have shown Watchdogs at <40k peak players every day since launch.

Hell, Football Manager 2014 has consistently had more Steam players online than Watchdogs.

steam stats are unreliable for this game, because since it forces you to use Uplay and Uplay actually conflicts with Steam In-Game overlay plenty of people bought it straight from Uplay and skipped 1 of 2 DRMs. No doubt many sales were done in console market of course, but steam isnt the only place to buy PC games yet.

Clearly, Steam doesn't even account for 1% of total Watchdog players across all platforms. Because those 40,000 peak Steam players is just 1% of those 4,000,000 units sold. So there's no way Steam could have sold more than 1% of total Watchdog sales.

peak plays is not total players. if lets say average person plays the game 3 hours per day, a day has 24 hours, which means that you need at least 8 times the players to keep the peek constant. its not constant of course, but its quite safe to assume that there are more than 40.000 players who own WD on steam. many times more. Not to mention the amount of people who dont play every day, have work, had problems with Uplay launching at all, ect. Its entirely possible that steam sold something like 10% of WD sales, Uplay sold another 20%, and other 70% were sold on 4 consoles (17.5% each?).

 

[Rozalia1]

As Geese Howard would say, predictabo.

Its marketing has really gotten people's attention and has resulting in significant sales which coupled with all that juicy DLC money is really going to fatten them up nicely. Always good to see a new hit.