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Video game industry thread: Trogdor commands you to use the new thread
cloudeagle
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi! Welcome to the sales thread. Here we talk about how games have sold, marketing, PR comments, the nuts and bolts of game making, analysis of analysts and all kinds of other business-related stuff. Occasionally we make poop jokes. Or dick jokes. Or meta-dick jokes. Don't ask.
Here's a summary of what you missed since last time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSHvgaUWc8
And now, February's info. Yes, game sales are combined across systems now. Yes, we aren't getting concrete console sales now. Yes, it sucks.
Software:
1.) Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard: 360, PS3, WII, NDS, PC) [Now the best selling game in the U.S. ever]
2.) Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Capcom: 360, PS3) - 790.2K
3.) Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft: Wii) - 554K
4.) NBA 2K11 (Take-Two: 360, PS3, PSP, WII, PS2, PC)
5.) Dead Space 2 (EA: 360, PS3, PC)
6.) Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Majesco: WII, 360, PS3)
7.) Bulletstorm (EA: 360, PS3, PC) - 285.6K
8.) Killzone 3 (Sony: PS3) - 279.9K
9.) Michael Jackson The Experience (Ubisoft: WII, DS, PSP)
10.) Mario Sports Mix (Nintendo: WII)
Hardware:
Xbox 360: 535,000 (+27%) [Top Console, 360's Best Non-Holiday Month Ever]
Wii: 454,000 (+14%)
PS3: 403,000 (+12%)
Here's a summary of what you missed since last time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSHvgaUWc8
And now, February's info. Yes, game sales are combined across systems now. Yes, we aren't getting concrete console sales now. Yes, it sucks.
Software:
1.) Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard: 360, PS3, WII, NDS, PC) [Now the best selling game in the U.S. ever]
2.) Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Capcom: 360, PS3) - 790.2K
3.) Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft: Wii) - 554K
4.) NBA 2K11 (Take-Two: 360, PS3, PSP, WII, PS2, PC)
5.) Dead Space 2 (EA: 360, PS3, PC)
6.) Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Majesco: WII, 360, PS3)
7.) Bulletstorm (EA: 360, PS3, PC) - 285.6K
8.) Killzone 3 (Sony: PS3) - 279.9K
9.) Michael Jackson The Experience (Ubisoft: WII, DS, PSP)
10.) Mario Sports Mix (Nintendo: WII)
Hardware:
Xbox 360: 535,000 (+27%) [Top Console, 360's Best Non-Holiday Month Ever]
Wii: 454,000 (+14%)
PS3: 403,000 (+12%)
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
cloudeagle on
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http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33146/Blockbuster_To_Sell_Off_Assets_Valued_At_290_Million.php
Looks like the days when you could go to the store and physically rent a game are really coming to an end.
(I'm sorry for ruining the last one with my terribad inability to make a joke without infinite unnecessary words. *hangs head*)
Eh, it was time to make a new one anyway, and thought that would be a funny way to end it. :P
According to wiki, Blockbuster's Aussie, Canadian, UK and Chilean operations are separate and not affected by the bankruptcy. Man, it'll be odd if the company lives on in those countries but croaks entirely in the U.S., home to Hollywood and other movies that have too many explosions.
seriously do not name your child weird things. Jesus I had a completely normal name myself and I had to deal with it happening to rhyme with something easy to sing.
I saw a dude with a MvC3 T-shirt today, I need to get that game...
Edit: Ok, half a year ago I guess?
Edit 2:
Oh god, is this where the Acclaim marketing department ended up?
Yes, but chapter 11 bankruptcy allows them to continue to operate as they reorganize and, hopefully, emerge a stronger company.
Then again, in my metro area it seems like a new Blockbuster store or two unexpectedly shuts down every month. So between that and putting itself up for sale, I'm guessing that's not going well.
They're not affected because market conditions are different. More specifically, it's because in places like Canada (which is where I live) services like Netflix and Hulu are either non-existent or unpopular due to high internet costs. I would think that Blockbuster Canada's days are numbered though as a lot of people seem to be talking about Netflix (anecdotal I know, but it did get a lot of press coverage).
You know I always found it weird how many Gamestops there were when I went to the US. I remember passing by the Freehold Mall (it was somewhere near there) and seeing a Gamestop in one part of the mall then crossing the road and immediately seeing another Gamestop. Is this oversaturation common?
Steam: CavilatRest
See, they're marketing this aggressively because it's the last month for all willing couples to inact the go-ahead of the product (also known as makin' da babies). 9 months later it'll tie in perfectly with the release of ES:V.
And Dovahkiin would generate all kinds of nicknames. 'Dovie", "Commander Kiin", "Dovvie K." Or the kid could have a regular middle name and just go by that, too.
Pokemon White Friend Code: 0046-2121-0723/White 2 Friend Code: 0519-5126-2990
"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
Do not engage the Watermelons.
I'm sitting at a Starbucks that is literally across the street from another and down the block from a third.
So, no.
Considering the prize is free games, I have some trouble taking this very seriously. I don't imagine they really expect to pay out.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
So to expand on my [now-ancient] post some, I wanted to explain some of the more subtle but still important parts of what I was trying to say.
First, to get this out of the way, I was in no way trying to restart the old "3d parties should have bet on Wii" discussion. While I do think the current market would be very different had the Wii gotten a few more Epic Mickeys and a few less rail shooters early on, that ship sailed years ago. There's probably still some salvage work that can be done, but looking forward most outside of a few areas 3rd parties will not likely find broad success on the Wii. In fact, even if they had bet harder on the Wii, some games still are just a better fit for the HD systems. Big budget, multiplayer heavy, eye candy feasts like Call of Duty play into all of the Wii's weak spots and against virtually all its strengths, even if there was nothing that was theoretically not doable (as seen by the ports of Modern Warfare and BlOps). Assassin's Creed probably wouldn't have been possible at all. Nobody would argue that those franchises have struggled despite either being comparatively much smaller on the Wii (CoD) or nonexistent (AC). And that's just two examples, there are plenty more, but I think the point has been made.
So where was I going with using the DS and then the Wii as warning signs? My point wasn't that everything would be peachy if they'd just properly supported the Wii, but rather that the rise of the DS and the Wii showed that there was a seismic shift in the industry that got completely overlooked. Going back to the NES/SNES days, although numbers are hard to come by it does appear that Nintendo titles were the biggest games on the system by a fair margin. 1st party titles like Donkey Kong Country are widely credited as striking the decisive blow that pushed the SNES above the Genesis in the US (and therefore worldwide, as the Genesis was never particularly popular in Japan and the SNES was basically a nonstarter in Europe, so the US was the deciding territory). 3rd party titles were certainly important, but Nintendo ruled the roost with an iron fist.
The PS1 changed that because it was not only a shift in the dominant platform but also the dominant software. The rise of the PlayStation basically rode on the rise of the 3rd party. While the N64 had a number of decisions that made the hardware wonderful for Nintendo games, it considerably cramped 3rd parties, and led to such famous defections as Square with Final Fantasy VII. Those were what made the PS1. Yes Sony had huge success with games like Gran Turismo, but overall the biggest titles were all from 3rd parties. Sony has never had the kind of 1st party output that NIntendo has; able to at least partially sustain a console based solely on their internal output. Even then, however, the dominant publishers of the PS1 era were mostly Japanese. The PS2 again rode a wave of exclusive 3rd party titles to utter market dominance, but Western developers became considerably more important. The biggest franchise of the PS2 era was Grand Theft Auto, and others such as Madden consistently became among the year's best-selling titles, even worldwide. Lost story short, into this generation conventional wisdom was whoever won the 3rd party battle would win the generation, which was a position totally justified by the current market realities. Sony had won two successive generations in increasingly decisive fashion based on 3rd patty games, while NIntendo had ridden Mario and Link into ever-diminishing hardware sales.
So where's the problem? Again, the DS is the first sign of a shift in focus. The PSP launched with tremendous 3rd party support from Western and Eastern develops (yes it dropped off later, but we're talking early on). The DS launched with virtually none of any significance. Yet despite that, the DS crushed the PSP, initially solely on the strength of Nintendo's own software. Japanese developers caught on relatively quickly and have had outstanding support for the system, but it remains largely ignored in the West outside the same cast-offs and side projects that they gave the GBA. That the DS could be the greatest success the industry had yet seen despite a near total lack of Western 3rd party support should have been a warning that their importance was not what they thought, but it was ignored because handhelds are different.
But if the DS was a subtle hint, the Wii should have been a huge alarm. But while the DS at least had strong Japanese support, the Wii has had incredibly limited mainstream, traditional support from Western AND Japanese 3rd parties. If Nintendo was the cornerstone for the DS, it was the entire foundation for the Wii, and yet the Wii has been shattering every Western sales record in the books (success in Japan has been present, but not on anything approaching the level in the West). Even while demand has been slackening in the US it remains the dominant market force (the January NPD numbers that were just released showed that total Wii software outsold total 360 software in revenue, despite Wii software retailing for $10 less per game on average. After two successive generations where 3rd parties dictated the direction the market took, Nintendo blew everybody away without a fraction of the support the PS1 or PS2 enjoyed.
But again, instead of realizing that first the DS and then the Wii demonstrated that the importance of 3rd parties was diminishing, they doubled down on the HD consoles. Rather than adapt to the fact that the Wii represented a new market force, they battled each other on the HD systems while taking the boom-bust cycle to ever more ridiculous heights. It used to be that selling a million copies was a huge hit; now plenty of games don't so much as break even at that point. The financial reports from the publishers and the continued studio closures have been an absolute bloodbath. But again 3rd parties aren't asking what they're doing wrong. They keep calling for double or nothing, and in the current environment "nothing" can all-too-often bankrupt the studio.
Meanwhile, from the other end, the iPhone is providing for cheap, disposable games. There's not a ton of revenue in any one game (even Angry Birds has "only" made a few million dollars, which would practically be a rounding error for most big-budget hits, but combined it does add up. In addition, the one commodity that is completely equal across all economic boundaries is time: everyone has only 24 hours in a day, and every hour spent on the latest iPhone game is time NOT spent playing other titles. And if you're not playing console games as much, you probably won't buy as many either, which further reduces publisher revenue and leads to greater losses. But in a world of $0.99 games, how can a traditional gaming company make money? It's impossible; the platform simply doesn't generate the kind of revenue necessary to support that kind of budget, so the games shrink accordingly. EA is taking the biggest stab at it, but their games are still at the expensive end of the spectrum and seem primary intended to draw attention to the "real" games in the franchises they represent.
Finally, you have the Facebook games. Most of them make even the simplest iPhone titles look like high art by comparison. Quite a few aren't even "games" in the sense that you learn mechanics and overcome increasingly difficult challenges. They're pure time wasters: click and move on. Cow Clicker, like all good satire, contains enough truth in it to resonate. But they're getting more sophisticated, and most importantly they're making shit-loads of money.
The people that control the money control the industry, and right now that money is increasingly shifting out of the hands of traditional 3rd parties. It's not that they didn't adapt when they should have so much as I'm not convinced they CAN adapt. Their business model is dependent on one boom canceling out several busts, but in this generation the balance is far closer, and sometimes one bust wipes out several booms. Their model is fundamentally broken, and none of them have shown an ability to shift to something more sustainable. If you DON'T think this will have a huge impact on the industry you're delusional. The money doesn't lie, and lately it's been abandoning the traditional 3rd parties at an astonishing rate.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
Pokemon White Friend Code: 0046-2121-0723/White 2 Friend Code: 0519-5126-2990
"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
And didn't someone actually name their kid Turok last time? Maybe another one will actually do it.
Steam: CavilatRest
Also, when an AFROTC student graduates and becomes an officer, there could be a maximum of six months before you actually start working before they are required to start paying you. My friends say it's not impossible for me to find work and that the campus will help me.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/21/buy-bulletstorm-get-gears-of-war-triple-pack-for-5-at-best-buy/
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
Do not engage the Watermelons.
People not equating sense of humor to intelligence and maturity.
Especially considering that the greater a persons intelligence, the more likely they are to have a wider sense of humor.
That would be great. I'd really like it if people did that.
Perhaps they're trying to counteract the it's a FPS with no versus herp-derpery.
You don't know the average 13 year old. They will not play a game with color in it.
There's a Lewis Black joke in here somewhere I think.
Boobies.
As I mentioned in the Bulletstorm thread, the entire way they've presented the game actively repels me. And I suspect if I got past that I might actually like it. But I can't. Their presentation and advertising are just awful to me. It really does seem like they want the 13 year old crowd, and I'm getting OLD.
Not for me I guess.
Yeah, at least pre-gfc the requirements to get funding and site development approval set up a retail development in America did not require the same level of proof that there are actually customers who will go to said mall in comparison to the retail developements in other countries.
This results in the interesting situation of retail developements in the middle of nowhere and the overstauration of chain stores in various area's. There is more to it but I can't be assed going on ag
You'll be fine, as long as you can show that you are prepared to work it can be surprising the the world will work in such a way that you won't starve.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I plan on getting in touch with my inner 13 year old when playin it. Same with Duke. Explosion's and studpid one-liners are what expect and want.
This is known as a "Brodown" in the human behavioral science community.
pleasepaypreacher.net
This does not refute his point.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
Is anyone else reminded of when G&T approached EBGames about Precipice?
They demanded 90% of the proceeds.
From all sales.
I bet you like the movies written by Friedberg and Seltzer don't you? :?
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
Say what? They really tried to pull something like that?
My conversation with my girlfriend upon seeing this and showing it to her:
Girlfriend: Radical. Obviously this means we should start trying, right now.
Me: *looks at date* Well, um...
Girlfriend: Oh. Well, we could have it prematurely!
Me: Ah, yes. "No, damnit doctor, we need it delivered today or we won't get free games!"
Girlfriend: Exactly. Now get in bed, stud.
Okay so maybe that very last line didn't happen.