Jade Empire Bombed

[Volourn]

R00fles! What a joke! 500k+ copies is pretty darn good. Why do certain people continually say that JE bombed? What a mythical myth! This so called 'price lowering' means nothing espicially since wher eI am it is still $50+. R00fles!

 

And, oh, BIO has never said that their URE game is a first person shooter thingof migjig. Stop trying to say it is when you have no proof. R00fles!

 

BIo has 3 games so far that have semi announced (I bet they have a 4th theya re keeping really under wraps) 2 xbox games (inlcuding JE2 - you know the game that bombed so bad it alreayd has a sequel on the way), and DA for PC.

 

Anyways, source is the following: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/646/646723p1.html

[Baley]

Long Live Bioware!!

 

(.)(.)

 

Yeah...

[Volourn]

"Long Live Bioware!

 

(.)(.)

 

Yeah..."

 

 

 

Long Live Sarcasm!

 

(.)(.)

 

Yeah...

[Baley]

Hah.

To be honest I'm not that fond of their last 2 games released on the PC.

 

I still like the BGs and am actaully thinking about replaying them once school starts(and summer ends).

 

Anyway,for all I know JE could be the best CRPG since Fallout.

Perhaps I'll even get to play it one day,and then praise it or bash it acordingly.

 

Well,looks like the game did good enough and I hope it deserved its succes.

[mkreku]

Where did this seemingly unprovoked disgusting Biofanboi outburst come from..?

[Dhruin]

I've never seen anyone say it "bombed", but it's certainly modest sales at best. BioWare presumably has the resources to take a long term view and grow the brand but this time around probably lost them money, which is hardly a huge success.

[Volourn]

"I've never seen anyone say it "bombed", but it's certainly modest sales at best. BioWare presumably has the resources to take a long term view and grow the brand but this time around probably lost them money, which is hardly a huge success."

 

Lots of people have. You shoudl read around. The IGN article itself says its a 'financial failure', and other sseem toa gree. In fact, on the BIO board people had a thread 'JE a financial failure'. There are other examples to.

 

And, oh, lost money?

 

JE sold 500k+ copies. Let's say the average retail price is $50. That is 25 million dollars. I'd be surprised if the game cost that much to make and to market. And, that's assuming 500k minimum copies were sold.

 

My point is, few games cna even hope to reach 500k copies in about 5-6 months like JE. It didn't bomb. Sure, if you were expecting BG-NWN- KOTOR type of numbers it bombed; but I doubt that's what they were going for. Afterall, JE only had BIO's name to sell it which as much as I like BIO cannot match the selling power of the SW names or the D&D names so of course JE loses out to those other games.

 

Just sayin'. "

[jaguars4ever]

R00fles! What a joke! 500k+ copies is pretty darn good.

Did you honestly expect any less? JE is one of the best cRPG's of recent times. Period.

[Dhruin]

Try remembering to take out the retailer's margin, publisher's margin and console licensing fees and then get back to me. $25M at retail has nothing to do with whether Bio made money or not.

 

The simple reality is that 500k for a console title isn't a whole lot.

[Volourn]

"Did you honestly expect any less? JE is one of the best cRPG's of recent times. Period."

 

Eh? I'm mocking those who tried to say that JE was a financial failure because its price was reduced in some areas of the world (not where I am, really).

 

500k copies is about how much I predicted it would sell pre release. people can search old posts for that. Anyone who thought JE would reach BG-NWN-KOTOR type numbers was dreaming. Period.

 

 

"The simple reality is that 500k for a console title isn't a whole lot."

 

Most console titles do not reach 500k copies. Many don't even reach 100k. 500k copies is the second tier of hits behind the super duper hits that reach 1 mil+.

[Dhruin]

And most titles lose money, so that proves nothing other than JE might not have lost as much as other titles that did even worse (or at best made a very modest profit - we don't know the production costs). 500k is not much of a hit in the modern market and 1M is definitely not a "super duper" hit in the modern market, despite what the "Platinum Hits" sign at thr shop might say to convince you otherwise.

 

You might have predicted 500k but BioWare needs to do much better to survive in the long run. Bottom line, JE did "OK", but no more.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Only Bioware can say whether the game sold as well as they needed it to, and if it's bad news, they'll never admit it in public.

 

Does the fact that Bioware both developed and produced it mean that it doesn't need to make so much money as other games? I mean, surely there are fewer pointless executives to pay.

[jaguars4ever]

"Did you honestly expect any less? JE is one of the best cRPG's of recent times. Period."

 

Eh? I'm mocking those who tried to say that JE was a financial failure because its price was reduced in some areas of the world (not where I am, really).

Then by all means feel free to mock. :D

[Volourn]

"And most titles lose money, so that proves nothing other than JE might not have lost as much as other titles that did even worse (or at best made a very modest profit - we don't know the production costs). 500k is not much of a hit in the modern market and 1M is definitely not a "super duper" hit in the modern market, despite what the "Platinum Hits" sign at thr shop might say to convince you otherwise.

 

You might have predicted 500k but BioWare needs to do much better to survive in the long run. Bottom line, JE did "OK", but no more."

 

It's funny you chastize me and others for saying if JE did this or did that fianncelly yet you go on to say it did 'ok' when you don't have the inner sources either nor do you know what its production costs are.

 

Also, no where do I say that Bioware made millions of dollars off of JE. All I said was that JE wa sno 'financial failure' and the 500k+ copies sold proves this.

 

 

"500k is not much of a hit in the modern market and 1M is definitely not a "super duper" hit in the modern market, despite what the "Platinum Hits" sign at thr shop might say to convince you otherwise."

 

Really? Can you name the x-box titles that have sold 1 mil copies this year? How 'bout those who have reached 500k? I guarantee you that it's just a handful for 1 mil, and not many more for 500k plus. And, that's out of hundreds of games released.

[Dhruin]

I'm not "chastising" anyone other than pointing out the maximum retail sales value has little value - and I haven't responded to anyone else, so I don't know who the "others" are, Volourn.

 

You said the sales hadn't bombed -- to which I agree -- but I pointed out the sales are modest. None of us know the production costs but we can make some reasonable guesses based on market averages.

 

I'll get back to you on the rest when I have time, after work.

[Meshugger]

When 500 000 copies is considered "bad", then the industry is in a terrible shape.

[Judge Hades]

I don't really care if the game did bomb, did modestly, or super. All that is irrelevant to me. Only thing that matters to me, as a gamer, is if the game was fun or not. Jade Empire was fun.

 

Everything else is irrelevant.

[Calax]

I think it would do better if they decided to release it on the PC (begins to pray for that to happen)

[alanschu]

500,000 is probably being considered "bad" because it's a high profile Bioware game.

 

I have no idea if the game did or did not make a profit [yet], but going 500,000 x $50 = $25,000,000 doesn't work either, given that the stores that sell the game make profits as well. I wonder how much of the $50 goes to Bioware and covers development costs.

 

I have heard of game development costs getting as high as $20,000,000 but I don't know if Jade Empire was one of those games.

 

 

In any case, 500,000 is probably a "failure" like Jim Carrey's Cable Guy was a failure, in that it didn't bring in as much money as the previous work done, and was probably expected to do so.

 

I wonder if it would have done better if it was released for the PC as well....given that there's a lot of PC users that get almost any Bioware game (probably including myself).

[Judge Hades]

Well, expecting the same numbers on a single platform game as a multiplatform game or PC is just plain stupid.

[Calax]

Quick! sombody find the Dev Net there's one lurking!

[Guest Fishboot]

Was JE financed internally?

 

If so, how much better is the developer cut when they aren't having to rely on being fronted royalty money by a slavering demon/publisher?

[Hurlshort]

This thread is wierd...why don't we all write letters to Bioware asking if they feel JE succeeded or not. It's an RPG in the Top Ten this year, so I don't know how that's not a success.

 

And someone said most games take a loss of profit. That's insane. This is a growth industry. The problem is it only takes one or two clunkers to sink a developer. Eventually small time developers will all be forced to work with huge companies like EA...just like the movie studios.

[jaguars4ever]

I think it would do better if they decided to release it on the PC (begins to pray for that to happen)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As Hades & Vol would testify, porting JE over to a keyboard & mouse would be ineffectual. The controls are quite simply subliminal on the XBOX controller where all 10+ buttons are utilized flawlessly.

[Calax]

I think it would do better if they decided to release it on the PC (begins to pray for that to happen)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As Hades & Vol would testify, porting JE over to a keyboard & mouse would be ineffectual. The controls are quite simply subliminal on the XBOX controller where all 10+ buttons are utilized flawlessly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Some would say the same about Knights too. But it still worked didn't it? and if they had to they could use a similar control scheme as FF7