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hanspampel
Banned
Sho_Nuff82
Member
They sell you stuff at a 50% discount to get you in the store to buy other shit at a 1000% markup.
Sorry for the title mistake.
I feel it was actually a really weird decision for publishers to back out of having multiplayer in their games heading into this generation.
Like, I get that the logic was "Well, having this bad deathmatch mode or this bad horde mode isn't getting us any sales, so let's just dump all we have into trying to make the singleplayer better.", but it felt like it was ignoring the actual trend that was going on, which was a polarization around the biggest and best games, some of which happened to only have singleplayer. If you just project this same scenario a few years down the road to the point where everyone is delivering a pretty high quality singleplayer experience, suddenly multiplayer becomes a major differentiating factor again.
Then, late last generation, and especially with this generation, we had a variety of really ambitious online games that heavily incentivized you to play with friends. Even beyond the service model that sees these titles constantly updated, I feel publishers missed a really important impact that these would have: If you're frequently playing games with your friends online, you're more and more likely to keep doing that. Suddenly, someone that might have played two or three singleplayer games a month now finds it very hard to find gaming time in which to play them, because they want to be playing games with their friends instead. You basically have to offer an incredibly good and unique looking game to get them to part with $60 and sit there for 20-80+ hours ignoring their friends during their gaming time to play your singleplayer title instead.
I think we saw Dying Light take advantage of this scenario very well. It offers a cinematic, singleplayer-style, Ubisoft-esque open world game, but you can basically play the entire game in four player co-op. It also made sure to make the core gameplay feel very good so that it worked well in co-op, it didn't eschew any of the story, set pieces, or production values you'd expect out of a singleplayer campaign game, and gave you a wide variety of options in terms of what to do when playing. The game ended up with over 8 million players according to Techland, and to have an incredibly good reception from both multiplayer and singleplayer gamers.
I feel there are a ton of games missing out on the opportunity of making a similar product, where it's a lot like and maintains the quality of the singleplayer games people enjoy, but can be played co-operatively to attract multiplayer gamers. I'm actually very bullish on Ghost Recon, assuming it delivers on quality, since it delivers the Ubisoft and/or GTA-esque game experience, but with full campaign co-op. Watch Dogs 2 and Assassin's Creed Unity offer co-op, but only in special content, which is a much less compelling proposition.
That said, the amount of job postings I see at major studios that were making singleplayer only games that now list requests for multiplayer experience, suggests to me that publishers are realizing the issue facing them.
On the note of Doom, I think the other thing Bethesda really nailed is the pricing promotion structure. The game went on sale for $30 very early in its lifecycle (I believe month 2?) and, at least on Steam, saw an astronomical uptick in sales. I think it made way more sense to do that early when people were still excited than when people weren't excited anymore and only selling to them for $15 instead.
I think they recognized that they had a high quality product that targeted its audience really well, but that it was also somewhat of a hard pitch at $60, and aggressively chased their market at a price point they would be more comfortable with to great success.
Given that Titanfall 2 seems to have had some good recovery this month, I suspect EA's similarly aggressive pricing strategy ended up helping that title out a lot as well.
There's probably a lesson to be learned here, and some questions around business model to be raised. Though, one difference between Doom and Titanfall 2 is that Titanfall 2 has a notable multiplayer mode, so the service model around selling extra content to make more money on the back end is a lot easier than for Doom, which certainly has made a valiant effort to be a service game, but is a harder pitch due to the multiplayer mode being relatively unattractive. I did notice they added the ability to make co-op campaigns in the map editor though, so I'm curious if they're also considering co-operative content in the future to play more to their strengths in future multiplayer components.
I feel it was actually a really weird decision for publishers to back out of having multiplayer in their games heading into this generation.
Like, I get that the logic was "Well, having this bad deathmatch mode or this bad horde mode isn't getting us any sales, so let's just dump all we have into trying to make the singleplayer better.", but it felt like it was ignoring the actual trend that was going on, which was a polarization around the biggest and best games, some of which happened to only have singleplayer. If you just project this same scenario a few years down the road to the point where everyone is delivering a pretty high quality singleplayer experience, suddenly multiplayer becomes a major differentiating factor again.
Then, late last generation, and especially with this generation, we had a variety of really ambitious online games that heavily incentivized you to play with friends. Even beyond the service model that sees these titles constantly updated, I feel publishers missed a really important impact that these would have: If you're frequently playing games with your friends online, you're more and more likely to keep doing that. Suddenly, someone that might have played two or three singleplayer games a month now finds it very hard to find gaming time in which to play them, because they want to be playing games with their friends instead. You basically have to offer an incredibly good and unique looking game to get them to part with $60 and sit there for 20-80+ hours ignoring their friends during their gaming time to play your singleplayer title instead.
I think we saw Dying Light take advantage of this scenario very well. It offers a cinematic, singleplayer-style, Ubisoft-esque open world game, but you can basically play the entire game in four player co-op. It also made sure to make the core gameplay feel very good so that it worked well in co-op, it didn't eschew any of the story, set pieces, or production values you'd expect out of a singleplayer campaign game, and gave you a wide variety of options in terms of what to do when playing. The game ended up with over 8 million players according to Techland, and to have an incredibly good reception from both multiplayer and singleplayer gamers.
I feel there are a ton of games missing out on the opportunity of making a similar product, where it's a lot like and maintains the quality of the singleplayer games people enjoy, but can be played co-operatively to attract multiplayer gamers. I'm actually very bullish on Ghost Recon, assuming it delivers on quality, since it delivers the Ubisoft and/or GTA-esque game experience, but with full campaign co-op. Watch Dogs 2 and Assassin's Creed Unity offer co-op, but only in special content, which is a much less compelling proposition.
That said, the amount of job postings I see at major studios that were making singleplayer only games that now list requests for multiplayer experience, suggests to me that publishers are realizing the issue facing them.
On the note of Doom, I think the other thing Bethesda really nailed is the pricing promotion structure. The game went on sale for $30 very early in its lifecycle (I believe month 2?) and, at least on Steam, saw an astronomical uptick in sales. I think it made way more sense to do that early when people were still excited than when people weren't excited anymore and only selling to them for $15 instead.
I think they recognized that they had a high quality product that targeted its audience really well, but that it was also somewhat of a hard pitch at $60, and aggressively chased their market at a price point they would be more comfortable with to great success.
Given that Titanfall 2 seems to have had some good recovery this month, I suspect EA's similarly aggressive pricing strategy ended up helping that title out a lot as well.
There's probably a lesson to be learned here, and some questions around business model to be raised. Though, one difference between Doom and Titanfall 2 is that Titanfall 2 has a notable multiplayer mode, so the service model around selling extra content to make more money on the back end is a lot easier than for Doom, which certainly has made a valiant effort to be a service game, but is a harder pitch due to the multiplayer mode being relatively unattractive. I did notice they added the ability to make co-op campaigns in the map editor though, so I'm curious if they're also considering co-operative content in the future to play more to their strengths in future multiplayer components.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Good article. This tidbit:
Helps to contextualize the Pro/Scorpio. MS and Sony had to address the growing number of consumers investing in new HD televisions (which was a large part of their target demographic in 2006 with the PS360), or allow those consumers the chance to spend their money on other set top boxes, PCs, and dedicated BD players for the next 3+ years before the next full hardware iteration.
The Scorpio and Pro are no-brainers in that reality. The fact that they may also make some vanilla games run better is just an added bonus, and VR is a total wildcard.
CrichtonKicks
Member
I'm not sure I understand- Both D2 and WD2 released before Black Friday (except for the PC version in the latter's case).
Or is the argument that they released too close to Black Friday so people weren't willing to buy at full price under the assumption it would be heavily discounted within weeks?
Obliterator
Member
Given it only had a couple days on sale in November this should bode well for FFXV December NPD
Yeah, I think they were released too close to bf for not having the GTA or Elder Scrolls degree of guaranteed success. And I do not think anyone really expected WD2 to have substantial price drops so soon after release. I think they just decided to put their money elsewhere. If you do not have the time to keep up with new releases all year, BF becomes a great opportunity to catch up on what you have missed. I got Farcry Primal and Dark Souls III for $15 each. Unless it is a game that people are compelled to experience early or want to play with their friends, that is very hard to compete with.
I doubt. FF is very front load.
Obliterator
Member
I mean it's going to be over 700k more than likely. 1 million is not impossible either. I would be pretty damn shocked to see it come in under Witcher 3
At the end of the day, Deus Ex isn't going to meet its sales expectations, RotTR didn't, Dishonored 2 won't, Mafia 3 probably won't, Watch Dogs 2 won't, Titanfall 2 won't - most to all had a successful entry last gen or early this gen. It's not like they are spending any less money making these games..
And your #1 game is 50% down YOY and your #2 is probably meeting the publisher's safer estimations but probably won't be topping the last numbered entry.
And your #1 game is 50% down YOY and your #2 is probably meeting the publisher's safer estimations but probably won't be topping the last numbered entry.
Mister Megative
Banned
I think FFXV sales are gonna be big, personally. I'm not sure how much this means, but it became the 3rd highest selling game on Amazon for the entire year less than a week after it released.
Anecdotally, there were over 2500 people streaming it on PS4 when it came out (WAAAAAY more than CoD), and I've seen a TON of FFXV mentions all over twitter.
They play at least as well as the first games.
Going non-lethal is much more viable in D2 thanks to being able to knock out guards in fights.
Why? Witcher 3 is much more interesting for the west audience than FF XV.
Mister Megative
Banned
Ehhhhhh........Witcher 3 didn't have ten years of hype built up. And I personally saw a lot more hype for FFXV than Witcher 3.
That game did a lot of its sales on legs, and for the console audience, was largely an unknown property.
Final Fantasy XV on the other hand is like the 100th entry in a series that's astonishingly frontloaded.
Like, FF15 isn't going to be even remotely competitive to The Witcher 3 in terms of LTD sales, but it has a reasonable shot at a first month victory, especially when Month 1 for FF15 is five whole weeks of holiday sales.
Obliterator
Member
If you are referring to Battlefield 1 here it's significantly outpacing Battlefield 4
Obliterator
Member
While Witcher 3 had a nice launch, what really made it have incredible sales is great legs.
FFXV is not going to open under Witcher 3. If it does that would be stunning
Dishonored 2 participated quite heavily in Black Friday though. It was $35 at most stores and with GCU at Best Buy was down to $28. Over 50% off on a game that was barely 2 weeks old at that point.
Let's see. FF XIII sold 1.3m first month. Now we have digital sales diminishing retail and a franchise hurt after the terrible trilogy.
Plus the game will bomb on XB1.
BUT there is a chance that a lot of 360 players that bought XIII actually moved to PS4 and buy XV there!
ArkhamFantasy
Member
Will be fun to see XV win NPD after all those doom and gloom sales threads that were dedicated to the game.
it can win NPD and still have disappointing sales for a FF game
You are right, I forgot about that. Kinda hard to guage how much that did for them with it being out of the top ten. Either way, still does not look like great timing on the release.
Obliterator
Member
For XV to have a worse launch than Witcher 3 it will have to decline by nearly 50%. That didn't happen in the UK and it won't happen here
800k - 900k sounds spot on imo
800k - 900k sounds spot on imo
Exactly how much are you expecting it to debut with, 2 million copies?
It takes a big number to win December.
Good to know. I was going by the UK numbers which had One doing less IIRC.
Obliterator
Member
Nope BF1 is way up over BF4 in the UK as well.
It's trailing BF3 though which is the highest selling game in the franchise
OrbitalBeard
Member
Last-gen Black Ops III was missing a mode.
Smash 3DS and Wii U have different modes. Not to mention quite a few other differences beyond that.
To say Sun and Moon are different games but Smash 3DS and Wii U are the same.....is nonsense.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
I want XV to win but i dont see how it will beat Pokemon or COD. XV was scheduled for September for a reason, so it wouldnt have to go up against juggernauts like that.
The PSN november sales are a good sign though, so im cautiously optimistic that it will do well even if its behind the bigger games.
Yeah the other factor in this the lack of pre-release review scores for Dishonored 2. Watch Dogs 2 did have pre-release reviews and at the very least was able to get on the Top 10 NPD. I'm not saying that was the differerence maker, especially since Dishonored 2 had plenty of reviews by the time Black Friday hit, but hard to gauge the true impact.
The Antitype
Banned
Much like movies, the initial sales of a game are more of a referendum of the first game than a reflection of the current game's quality.
Plus, AC remains better than Watch Dogs simply for fact that it takes place in a setting other than modern urban America.
Mister Megative
Banned
What number would you consider to be a successful launch?
Obliterator
Member
Hmmm bit of a tough question really. We know its going to be down from XIII, and pretty hefty drop as well, as we've seen in Japan and the UK. I don't think the drop will be near as severe as Japan's was, but still pretty big.
I would have to think that SE would take that 800k-900k opening pretty ok. Its not a fantastic number for the series but its still a large launch and not catastrophic. If they could somehow hit 1 million which I don't expect them to I think that would be a huge win.
If they come in the 700k or less range that would be a pretty much disaster imo, as the game isn't going to have legs anything like The Witcher Wild Hunt. They need to get through that 5 million shipment for the game to be seen as anywhere near a success.
DOOM is another game that did not have pre-release reviews and by all accounts sold well.
perfectsil
Member
Supply issues is the only reason NES classic didn't win
Greninja96
Banned
no leaked numbers this time
?
?Mister Megative
Banned
Interesting analysis. What are your personal predictions? Zhuge says it appears to be selling WW, so that's something, I suppose. Can it hit a million?
slavesnyder
Member
They didn't push it.
They made it cheaper. And it worked. Good for them nevertheless, but it was no magic of marketing or something.
Maybe games in general just passed by the cournot point.
Mister Megative
Banned
Selling well, I mean.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
no leaked numbers this time
Apparently 1.1 for ps4 and 1.0 for xbox
Greninja96
Banned
Wow, I expected bigger gap between ps4 and XB1. apparently PS4 lost the momentum and XB1 took over.
thanks for info.
MatPiscatella
Member
Is there a prize?
slavesnyder
Member
We here are always highly prize sensitive
Welfare
Member
The Nintendo doom clock gets set back 1 minute.
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