With this holiday's game lineup...

[Purkake]

Obviously anyone who's a BG fan but doesn't have a decent computer is a lost cause, for they have abandoned their roots and sold their souls to the console overlords.

Edited September 4, 2009 by Purkake

[Anarchosyn]

Wouldn't most console "kiddies" be more likely to pick this game up than Dragon Age? As soon as they read that Dragon Age isn't like God of War or Devil May Cry, they might completely give the game a pass.

 

Seeing as how Knights of the Old Republic and turn based JRPGs do well on consoles, I highly doubt the Dragon Age will ruffle feathers on those platforms (is DA:O on PS3 as well?).

 

In other news, elitism is unbecoming. Selling one's soul to the "console overlords" is no better or worse than selling one's soul to the "personal computer overlords." Both are impersonal corporate entities that interact with you in a commodity market. Sure, you can upgrade a PC but that's a trap in and of itself. I got out of that rat race because I knew I wouldn't have the self control to "not" keep updating beyond my (then) academic and artist needs. I like the fact that I can assure myself that any product I purchase for my xbox will work just as good as it will for anybody else on the same platform. If some "epic" game doesn't exist for the platform then that's better for me, my wallet and my free time. There will always be enough to keep me entertained for the durations I should be (given my life, interest and schedule).

 

Oh, and my vote is that Dragon Age will bury Alpha Protocol in sales - at least on the consoles. Bioware has made a very big name for themselves on the Xbox with the Star Wars titles and Mass Effect (plus, I guess, Jade Empire amongst its cult like following). Most console people I speak with, and I have over 6k posts on a highly populated Xbox forum, are relatively well educated on Dragon Age and know what to expect.

Edited September 4, 2009 by Anarchosyn

[Niten_Ryu]

Fun fact: According to the numbers BioWare website, its pretty close - BG1 - 2 million copies, BG2 - 2 million copies, NWN + expansions - close to 3 million copies, KotOR - 3 million copies on Xbox and PC.

To clarify: I'm not saying Mass Effect sold poorly in an absolute sense- 2 million is only failure if you're something like GTA- just that it was hardly as much of an OMG blockbuster!!!11! title as is often implied. It is however probably Bioware's second poorest selling RPG (depending a bit on definitions- going by sku ME360 probably beats the separated xbox/pc figures of kotor; if you add in MEPC it probably beats both bg vanillas but not with xps counted, etc) ahead of only Jade Empire.

 

2 million copies sold is great number, even today. But in BG days it's was freaking huge.

 

So far in this year there haven't been many games that have sold even one million copies. I think best selling PS3 game, Killzone 2 have sold 750.000 units.

[Nepenthe]

Obviously anyone who's a BG fan but doesn't have a decent computer is a lost cause, for they have abandoned their roots and sold their souls to the console overlords.

 

Or a broke grad student.

[Purkake]

Obviously anyone who's a BG fan but doesn't have a decent computer is a lost cause, for they have abandoned their roots and sold their souls to the console overlords.

 

Or a broke grad student.

 

They are lost in more way than one

[Hurlshort]

Does anyone know how well NWN2 sold? I know it was an established IP, but I imagine AP can reach similar numbers.

 

I've also seen a fair amount of advertising, and some word of mouth. It's pretty popular in Game Informer magazine.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I'll talk to my friends about it. Will that help?

[Purkake]

Does anyone know how well NWN2 sold? I know it was an established IP, but I imagine AP can reach similar numbers.

 

I've also seen a fair amount of advertising, and some word of mouth. It's pretty popular in Game Informer magazine.

 

I couldn't find anything, but someone said something about 3 million before.

[alanschu]

Dragon Age has EA's marketing and Bioware's("From the makers of Mass Effect") name on it. It's going to sell, but it will probably disappoint a huge number of people expecting a Mass Effect with swords.

Fun fact: Mass Effect didn't actually sell all that well. ~2 million sales on 360, less than either Baldur's Gate, less than KOTOR, a lot less than NWN. A lot better than JE. Take as accepted that for various reasons the sales numbers aren't directly comparable as a measure of profitability.

 

I'd imagine Obsidian would be disappointed if AP performed to RF: Guerrilla levels, frankly. K2 sold near to 2 million copies, and NWN2 (from memory) a fair bit more.

 

 

Where can you find the sales numbers for each game?

[Purkake]

That is an excellent question. When stating facts, it's nice to provide the source.

Edited September 4, 2009 by Purkake

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Usually Kotaku posts them.

[Zoraptor]

Sources

The Bioware site has some sales figures, used for the PC versions as they were never accurately collated by 3rd parties. ME360 figures comes from vgchartz (ultimately from NPD (US)/ ESA(? not sure of the acronym; Euro)). I won't give the link for K2's sales (~1.75M) as I'm not sure if its disclosure was strictly authorised- the US sales figures however were in the initial publicity for SW: TOR- and the same source (iirc) gave sales of 5 million total for Ob's titles. Let's just say that if you find it difficult to play Anachronox because you expect Boots to be a font of, er, banal negativity you probably know where the info is. Figures for NWN2 aren't publically available otherwise so far as I am aware- except for some German language stuff from the investment group that actually bankrolled the project (IIRC two relevant documents (1) they expected to sell ~2million copies, (2) it performed significantly better than expected) which meshes pretty well with the 5 million total sales.

 

A final (hopefully) note on ME:

The thing to bare in mind is that while it sold its copies quickly, it won't have much of a tail (ie won't sell many more copies) and most significantly it cost many times more than either BG to make. A current AAA title costs $20 million+ to produce- why the break even mark has moved from roughly 100k copies back when BG1 came out, to around 1 million now. Which was more profitable in absolute terms we'll never know for all sorts of reasons (licensing costs, publisher cuts, 360 exclusivity payments etc) but the point stands, despite its much heralded sales ME is almost certainly Bioware's second worst selling RPG.

[alanschu]

it won't have much of a tail

 

Why not? I won't disagree, but that's because I don't know how anyone could definitively state one or another.

 

 

The link you provided from BioWare's site lists both Baldur's Gate games as selling over two million copies. The same "over two million" that Mass Effect has sold. This with Baldur's Gate series having quite a tail.

 

NWN and it's expansions is listed as selling over 3 million units. It's probably not that conservative of an estimate that the two expansions probably account for between 500k and 1000k units.

 

 

The only game that I could say definitively sold better than it is KOTOR at 3 million+ (I was always under the impression that KOTOR was their best selling game, though you seem to indicate that NWN is).

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: One thing seems for certain, and that is that BioWare is a pretty successful company. If a 2 million seller is your second worst selling RPG, then things aren't doing so bad haha.

Edited September 5, 2009 by alanschu

[Bos_hybrid]

A final (hopefully) note on ME:

The thing to bare in mind is that while it sold its copies quickly, it won't have much of a tail (ie won't sell many more copies) and most significantly it cost many times more than either BG to make. A current AAA title costs $20 million+ to produce- why the break even mark has moved from roughly 100k copies back when BG1 came out, to around 1 million now. Which was more profitable in absolute terms we'll never know for all sorts of reasons (licensing costs, publisher cuts, 360 exclusivity payments etc)

 

 

Selling copies quickly is far better then over ten years(for a dev). Companies want there game to sell at full price rather then at bargin bin prices. As for having more tail, I would suspect a spike in ME sales after ME2 and again after ME3. Then there is also the chance of it being released on the PS3.

 

but the point stands, despite its much heralded sales ME is almost certainly Bioware's second worst selling RPG.

 

Baldur's Gate, released in 1998, has sold over 2 million units for PC after 11 years

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, was released in Sept. 2000 and continued the award winning story line of the Baldur's Gate series, selling over 2 million units after 9 years

Neverwinter Nights and its two expansions have sold close to 3 million copies worldwide so far. after six years

 

So we have BG at 2mil, BG2 at 2mil and NWN and it's expansions at 3 mil.

 

As it stands we have ME at 2mil for just 360, with no numbers on pc sales. I'm not seeing second worst selling RPG.

[alanschu]

Though I wouldn't count too much on the PC Sales. I'm pretty sure that they were not that high (though an easy enough cash in for EA since the game was done already).

[Nepenthe]

Though I wouldn't count too much on the PC Sales. I'm pretty sure that they were not that high (though an easy enough cash in for EA since the game was done already).

 

The fact that it was ported by Demiurge, so no valuable Bioware resources were wasted on it, makes me think that they didn't exactly throw cash at that port.

[Bos_hybrid]

Though I wouldn't count too much on the PC Sales. I'm pretty sure that they were not that high (though an easy enough cash in for EA since the game was done already).

 

I don't think it sold that well either, my point was, it was already at BG sales numbers.

Edited September 5, 2009 by Bos_hybrid

[Zoraptor]

Selling copies quickly is far better then over ten years(for a dev). Companies want there game to sell at full price rather then at bargin bin prices. As for having more tail, I would suspect a spike in ME sales after ME2 and again after ME3. Then there is also the chance of it being released on the PS3.

It will very likely not be released on PS3- MS published/ funded ME360 and I think we can fairly safely assume one of the conditions of that was no PS3 version...

 

To the main point, theoretically yes. However, as previously stated, ME would have cost multiple times more to produce. So a profit would have been made on BG once it passed [figure in low 100ks] rather than once it reached ~1 million sales. Significant, yes? PC sales also generate more revenue per equivalent price point (due to console licencing fees) and that money would be heavily weighted to ten years ago, so add ~20% due to ten years of inflation and I can go on all day.

 

You're also assuming that Bioware's figures for their older games are up to date. The vgchartz ones are theoretically accurate to the week. Bioware has been using the same rounded figure for BG series sales since at least 2005 and the 3 million figures for NWN since at least pre May 2006 (and to answer alanschu, several 3rd party sources cite 3 million baseline sales for NWN, rather than baseline + expansions which is why I though NWN sold better than it apparently did).

As it stands we have ME at 2mil for just 360, with no numbers on pc sales. I'm not seeing second worst selling RPG.

The vgchartz figures may already include MEPC sales, vgchartz is specifically unreliable (that's why you cannot go to Wikipedia and update/ add game sales based on their figures). As an example, the figure there for Bioshock360 was revised down last year because some of the figures supplied had PC numbers included and hence contradicted figures from 2k and other sources. All evidence (eg EA's SecuROM defence article) is that MEPC sold poorly in any case.

 

On the issue of 'tail' and longevity of sales (1) Going by vgchartz' figures and the MS press release trumpeting ME (and Halo 3) sales ME360 either shipped 80% of total sales in its first six weeks (MS figure, theoretically the only really solid figure available) or sold 75% in its first ten weeks (vgchartz) and (2) console titles have built in obsolescence. You can just about guarantee that ME won't be still selling, as Baldur's Gate is, a decade post release if for no other reason than all the 360s in the world will have rrod by then.

 

[edit: This issue is very much Your Mileage May Vary as there's no way to independently evaluate the evidence until such time as Bioware updates their figures. I'd still be confident that ME is Bioware's second worst selling RPG at present, I'll happily concede that it may overtake other titles in the future. The initial (and intended as throwaway) point I was initially making was that it didn't sell quite as well as is often implied, especially considering the amount the game market has grown over the past decade]

Edited September 6, 2009 by Zoraptor

[alanschu]

The vgchartz figures may already include MEPC sales

 

They don't. They have individual sales for each platform, and they don't seem to post sales of PC versions of games.

 

 

 

To the main point, theoretically yes. However, as previously stated, ME would have cost multiple times more to produce. So a profit would have been made on BG once it passed [figure in low 100ks] rather than once it reached ~1 million sales. Significant, yes? PC sales also generate more revenue per equivalent price point (due to console licencing fees) and that money would be heavily weighted to ten years ago, so add ~20% due to ten years of inflation and I can go on all day.

 

I'm not really sure how this is really all that relevant though. So Mass Effect didn't make as much profit as Baldur's Gate? As you say, that's likely the case for almost every game now-a-days, given the escalating cost of making games. This isn't a very convincing argument for much of anything, unless you're trying to imply that BioWare isn't financially secure or something to that effect.

 

 

The vgchartz ones are theoretically accurate to the week. Bioware has been using the same rounded figure for BG series sales since at least 2005 and the 3 million figures for NWN since at least pre May 2006

 

Are you saying that BioWare is under estimating their numbers for shipped copies of those games simply due to a lack of desire to update them?

 

I think it'd be a lot easier to assume that Baldur's Gate probably hasn't sold many copies since 2005, then to assume that they have decided to neglect keeping those numbers up to date. I'd be willing to concede that the numbers are only accurate up to shortly after Mass Effect, given that page doesn't make reference to SWTOR. But if they're updating the page to then, I'd be very surprised if they would actively decide to not bother updating the sales figures if there was any significant change in them.

Edited September 6, 2009 by alanschu

[Zoraptor]

vgchartz is not infallible when it comes to numbers, they do down revisions on occasion and in at least one case (Bioshock) the logical conclusion is that at least one of their sources is/was supplying combined 360/PC sales instead of separated 360 ones. (potted history/evidence: 2k- the publisher- claimed, officially, Bioshock had shipped 2.2 million copies in its quarterly report, at that stage vgchartz had it as selling ~1.8 million on 360 alone, almost at the same time nVidia said BSPC had sold 1 million copies and there were sources for BSPC selling more in Europe than the 360 version).

 

As for Bioware, they haven't bothered to update ME's figures at all in the best part of two years, nor as you point out, to add SWTOR to that page. Keeping them up to date is clearly not very important to them.

[Nepenthe]

As for Bioware, they haven't bothered to update ME's figures at all in the best part of two years, nor as you point out, to add SWTOR to that page. Keeping them up to date is clearly not very important to them.

 

Probably more related to the EA acquisition than not bothering.

[alanschu]

vgchartz is not infallible when it comes to numbers, they do down revisions on occasion and in at least one case (Bioshock) the logical conclusion is that at least one of their sources is/was supplying combined 360/PC sales instead of separated 360 ones. (potted history/evidence: 2k- the publisher- claimed, officially, Bioshock had shipped 2.2 million copies in its quarterly report, at that stage vgchartz had it as selling ~1.8 million on 360 alone, almost at the same time nVidia said BSPC had sold 1 million copies and there were sources for BSPC selling more in Europe than the 360 version).

 

As for Bioware, they haven't bothered to update ME's figures at all in the best part of two years, nor as you point out, to add SWTOR to that page. Keeping them up to date is clearly not very important to them.

 

 

 

Your grasping at straws if you think it makes more sense for them to ignore their sales numbers WHILE updating the game, than to think that games that range between 7 and 12 years old probably don't ship many units anymore. While the PAGE itself hasn't been updated in some, declaring that the other values that are a part of the page must not have been updated since even before reeks of bending the data to fit the conclusion that you want it to do.

 

Even if vgcharts includes the sales numbers of the PC version, it's contribution is minimal. I know for a fact that the PC version wasn't a big seller. It did make an easy profit for EA after purchasing BioWare though, so I doubt they really cared.

 

 

 

Not that it matters. Selling 2 million units of a game IS an achievement, no matter how much you want to downplay it. There's not many games that do so, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in or near the top 20 all-time sellers for the XBOX 360.