How has this game done financially?

[Libertarian]

Despite being an awesome game, the game flopped in most reviews, so expect the majority to be sheep, which isn't unusual.

 

We're being delusional if we expect this to do very well. For a game getting bashed like this, 30k is a fairly solid # so far on consoles.

 

Interesting thing is that it's showing up on IGN's "most viewed" games - all others are major unreleased titles, RDR or in the 9s. Interest seems to exceed the lacklustre US mainstream gaming media reviews. We'll see.

 

It could very well be a nice little surprise in terms of sales. For a game getting bashed so much, I'm shocked it's already reached 30k. While that's hardly anything when we're talking about this generation, it sure is a lot when you weigh in the negative perception out there about this game. I hope more people give it a chance. I think fans of WRPGs could get a lot of enjoyment out of Alpha Protocol. I know I am.

[Nightshape]

30k... If that's world wide... That isn't alot. That's bad, very bad....

[Libertarian]

30k... If that's world wide... That isn't alot. That's bad, very bad....

 

It isn't great, but considering the bashing by both the reviewers of the world, and also your type -- it's not bad, either.

[Baeus]

Despite being an awesome game, the game flopped in most reviews, so expect the majority to be sheep, which isn't unusual.

 

We're being delusional if we expect this to do very well. For a game getting bashed like this, 30k is a fairly solid # so far on consoles.

 

Interesting thing is that it's showing up on IGN's "most viewed" games - all others are major unreleased titles, RDR or in the 9s. Interest seems to exceed the lacklustre US mainstream gaming media reviews. We'll see.

 

Could be some of the bad reviews are causing people to look though. Car crash mentality I've seen it happen with horribly reviewed games before.

 

Hope not though.

[Bos_hybrid]

30k... If that's world wide... That isn't alot. That's bad, very bad....

 

No, it's just for Europe. Still not good. But it has been on Steams best seller list, so perhaps it's doing better on the PC.

[Purkake]

We'll get the NPDs next Thursday, which will probably be the best metric we're going to get for AP's success unless Obsidian or SEGA say something official.

 

Too bad we'll never get the Steam numbers...

Edited June 6, 2010 by Purkake

[Libertarian]

We'll get the NPDs next Thursday, which will probably be the best metric we're going to get for AP's success unless Obsidian or SEGA say something official.

 

Too bad we'll never get the Steam numbers...

 

Well, the NPDs that'll release next week will be for the month of May, so we'll get Red Dead and Alan Wake numbers.

 

We'll have to wait until July for the June NPDs.

[Purkake]

Right, I forgot that AP came out in Europe first.

 

Oh well, at least we'll get the numbers for the whole month, not just three days.

[GreasyDogMeat]

I'm extremely curious about what the devs expected as far as review scores & sales.

[Purkake]

I'm more interested as to what SEGA expected.

 

I still remember Capcom expecting 1.5M+ sales for Bionic Commando and ending up around 700k after lowering the price twice.

Edited June 6, 2010 by Purkake

[Niten_Ryu]

I bet sales of AP are abysmal. 65% in metascore and 6,3 rating on user side. Only some casual games can make profit with such low scores.

 

CRPGs are definately not a niche genre but it's certain that Obsidian (and Sega) don't know how to reach the modern gamers. And since AP is not even a hardcore oldskool CRPG, I think they managed to miss just about everyone.

[Libertarian]

I'm more interested as to what SEGA expected.

 

I still remember Capcom expecting 1.5M+ sales for Bionic Commando and ending up around 700k after lowering the price twice.

 

Capcom is known for setting their goals way too high. They did the same thing with Dark Void, then they lowered that # and were still far too high.

 

In the end, though, Dark Void was an utter failure and Capcom just forgot it ever existed.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

...it's certain that Obsidian (and Sega) don't know how to reach the modern gamers.

 

I'd disagree - I think that the reviewers are more to blame than Obsidian or SEGA. As many people have pointed out, most, if not all, of the "flaws" in Alpha Protocol have been found in other, similar games - games that received much higher scores overall despite these issues. While it might be that some people just didn't care for the game, it seems like a few places rated it artificially low. But maybe that's just me being jaded about the modern game "journalists".

 

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Too bad we'll never get the Steam numbers...

 

Well, seeing as it's still on the top sellers list and was leading it awhile back, they couldn't have been too bad.

[Hassat Hunter]

No, it's just for Europe. Still not good. But it has been on Steams best seller list, so perhaps it's doing better on the PC.

And then only consoles. Consoles aren't quite as popular in Europe as they are in the US.

CRPGs are definately not a niche genre but it's certain that Obsidian (and Sega) don't know how to reach the modern gamers.

I'd rather play AP than a "modern" game as MW2 or Oblivion. Ugh. If that's what gamers want, I ain't one.

And since AP is not even a hardcore oldskool CRPG, I think they managed to miss just about everyone.

The Vampire:Bloodline fans? There are quite some people who like it, so I think this is a little harsh.

[WorstUsernameEver]

PC version is 2nd on Play.com top sellers list and has always been in Steam's list too, though with its position varying wildly (from 1st to second-to-last to 2nd etc.).

 

Overall, my impressions from this charts is that the game is doing much better on PC (which by the way, considering that the consensus seems to be that the console versions run better... well, seems a bit of a misguided move on Obsidian's part).

I've also read quite a lot of positive comments on RPGWatch (of course, not everyone likes it, but that was pretty obvious from the beginning) GameBanshee and Iron Tower, which means that at least a part of the old-school crowd was interested in the game and bough it.

 

I don't think Alpha Protocol will do abysmally but it won't do as well as Obsidian and SEGA were hoping for most probably.

Or at least, that's how I interpret the situation.

[Volourn]

"It's hardly irrelevant when lots of gamers think like that. At least on few finnish gaming sites pretty much every discussion about Obsidian turns into arguments about KOTOR2 vs KOTOR.

 

Salewise it was a success, there's no argument about that. I was talking about the image the game gave Obsidian. Since people still moan about the game being "unfinished"."

 

No. Personal opinion about whether a game is a success or failure IS irreelaqvnt in a thread supposedly dicussing financial success (or failure).

 

 

 

"It isn't great, but considering the bashing by both the reviewers of the world, and also your type -- it's not bad, either."

 

If Ap sells just 30k it would be an unmitigated bomb. 30k sells is great if youa re some namby pamby internet only gamer. 30k for a major release such as AP is a flat out disgusting number. Thankfully, I seriosuly doubt AP will onyl sell 30k. It's been too hyped for such a number, and Obsidian's own customer base numbers more than that let alone the random masses.

 

 

"I'd disagree - I think that the reviewers are more to blame than Obsidian or SEGA."

 

Nope. This is sega, and Obsidian's game. It is THEIR job to convince others to like it not reviewers. Reviewers', barring actual bribery, job is to give their opinion on what they think of the game and either reccommened to play or avoid for their readers. They don't owe Sega/Obsidian nothing. Short of some competitor actually paying reviewers to bash AP, there is two groups responsible for the poor reviewers: Sega, and Obsidian.

 

And, hey, Sega and Obsidian wanted to play with fire by pimping AP as aME wannabe so what did they expect? They would need to deliver a game that completely blows ME out of the water to live up to their pimpage.

Edited June 6, 2010 by Volourn

[Flouride]

"It's hardly irrelevant when lots of gamers think like that. At least on few finnish gaming sites pretty much every discussion about Obsidian turns into arguments about KOTOR2 vs KOTOR.

 

Salewise it was a success, there's no argument about that. I was talking about the image the game gave Obsidian. Since people still moan about the game being "unfinished"."

 

No. Personal opinion about whether a game is a success or failure IS irreelaqvnt in a thread supposedly dicussing financial success (or failure).

 

Those personal opinions people have about Obsidian & KOTOR2 (or their other games) effect sales on every game that Obsidian makes. So, no it's not completely irrelevant.

[Tigranes]

30K in 2 days in Europe in consoles - hardly indicative of total sales figure, it'll be very hard to know until a few weeks later.

 

I mean, can we compare this to any other figure of how other multiplatform releases sold in the first two days in Europe on consoles? I don't think so, unless you pull out something totally different like Final Fantasy (which isn't on PC, anyway).

 

Mostly, it seems like the replies here have been dominated by what people think the game have sold depending on their own opinion and what they see in the forums.

 

we'll see, I really wish the industry had a transparent, accurate, respected and public sales figures aggregator, but obviously that's not in the best interests of everyone.

[WorstUsernameEver]

30K in 2 days in Europe in consoles - hardly indicative of total sales figure, it'll be very hard to know until a few weeks later.

 

I mean, can we compare this to any other figure of how other multiplatform releases sold in the first two days in Europe on consoles? I don't think so, unless you pull out something totally different like Final Fantasy (which isn't on PC, anyway).

 

Mostly, it seems like the replies here have been dominated by what people think the game have sold depending on their own opinion and what they see in the forums.

 

we'll see, I really wish the industry had a transparent, accurate, respected and public sales figures aggregator, but obviously that's not in the best interests of everyone.

 

One thing is sure though.. it's selling better than Vampire : Bloodlines, and probably Torment too

[Kasabian]

I bet sales of AP are abysmal. 65% in metascore and 6,3 rating on user side. Only some casual games can make profit with such low scores.

 

Where did you get those figures? Sites are giving the average user rating between 7 and 7.5. Only review sites are giving AP a low 6 to 6.5 score

[edgarcuk]

I think we should wait for an official statement, usually they do it 3 months after the launch of the game or when the sales are higher than expected.

[Rostere]

The game had like, IIRC, ~100k of preorders for 360 and PS3 in the US a month before release and perhaps 20k preorders on consoles in Europe. But then we must remember: 1. Europe is much more PC-centric 2. European gamers are not as likely to preorder as American gamers, nor are they as likely to buy games on release date (based on earlier research into this... I think there was anpther thread on this subject)

[Orchomene]

Since I think this game diserves more than what some reviwers stated, I've made a small intervention in a game forum to explain this :

 

"About reviews, I've bought Alpha Protocol yesterday and played about a quarter of the game. Honestly, I've not seen a single bug or glitch (on PC). It runs pretty smoothly and its only "disadvantage" is to be a action ROG instead of being just a shooter. That is, skills of the PC matters. Interactions during discussions are very original and the story seems interesting. I think the game is very close to ME1 with less issues with mods/equipments (you are not submerged by the number) and there are a lot of strategic ways to do missions since the places are not only corridors. I find the game a bit speed to my taste (I'm an old scholl rpg gamer, sorry). The mini games, not being that original are more difficult than the ME2 one but you can bypass most of it with EMP grenades (at some cost, yet). Difficulty seems to be balanced but it's difficult to judge this aspect. The AI is not that great but not worse than in ME2, issue being that with stealth usage, the issues of AIs are more visible. By well chosing your path and developing the stealth skill, you can do many missions stealthy without killing anybody. Choices you do in the game do matter a lot since you can spare even spare your ennemies and keep contact with them to gain information and change your goals (I won't go into details). During missions you are alone but keep radio contact with your "team" and can thus discuss, gain reputation (that gives you some small bonuses) depending on your actions and strategies (like bluffing a guard to enter a place can be appreciated, sparing someone or not and so on).

All in all, I"m enjoying a lot playing the game and its story and I can say that it doesn't deserve having a so low rating by us reviews (around 60%) since I find this game largely better than ME2 and close to ME1.

So, reviews, even in number, don't mean anything. More than that, reviwers are blatant lyers of accusing a game to have many flaws when you don't see most of the flaws announced.

Of course, people expecting a shooter won't find this game is a good shooter, people expecting a stealth game won't find it's a good one. But people expecting a good action RPG with choices that are not railroaded and some moral ambiguities should find a very promising and interesting game."

[Nightshape]

30k... If that's world wide... That isn't alot. That's bad, very bad....

 

It isn't great, but considering the bashing by both the reviewers of the world, and also your type -- it's not bad, either.

 

Seriously... That's a bad number regardless of the bashing.

 

Heck, Blur has sold badly in the UK, something like 10k units if I remember correctly, and that was well recieved.

 

30K world wide isn't even worth talking about.

 

Actual sales figures cost a fortune, and then they're not exact.