Commercial success

[Bendu]

Codex hates everything, though I'm fairly certain I saw bunch of people from Codex that liked the game.

Flipflop! Flipflop!

[C2B]

The last two weeks doesn't seem to be so great for any new releases. DSIII may be in quite a dangerous situation (can't really say till we have seen actual numbers) but Alice, Child of Eden, Shadows of the Damned are even below that from what we know so far.

Edited June 28, 2011 by C2B

[MonkeyLungs]

The sales ranking for Amazon.com Xbox 360 titles dropped from #50 yestdary to #78 today. Yestrday the title was ranked #54 on PS3 sales ... I did not check PS3 today. The game is tanking on consoles, and tanking hard.

[C2B]

The sales ranking for Amazon.com Xbox 360 titles dropped from #50 yestdary to #78 today. Yestrday the title was ranked #54 on PS3 sales ... I did not check PS3 today. The game is tanking on consoles, and tanking hard.

 

Uhm, taking this from "one" source isn't really an accurate statement to define if somethings "tanking". Sales drop on amazon, yes. But the final effect on the sales is yet to be seen.

[MonkeyLungs]

You can tell yourself that all you want. I don't mind. Amazon.com is the primary online retailer for North America for video games, you can watch trends in videogames sales from their website.

 

Yes more sources would be good, that sounds like more work though. I'm confident in my hypothesis that DS3 is selling very badly on consoles though.

 

Do you have a counter hypothesis to present or do you just not like me?

[Oner]

You can tell yourself that all you want. I don't mind. Amazon.com is the primary online retailer for North America for video games, you can watch trends in videogames sales from their website.

 

Yes more sources would be good, that sounds like more work though. I'm confident in my hypothesis that DS3 is selling very badly on consoles though.

 

Do you have a counter hypothesis to present or do you just not like me?

Here's one: Earth is big and NA is just a "small" part of it. Crazy theory I know. You may have heard of it.

[C2B]

Do you have a counter hypothesis to present or do you just not like me?

 

Well, for example where do you have the statement from that Amazon is the primary online retailer/retailer at all for video games? Even in North America?

 

 

Also the game was quite high in preorder sales on Amazon reaching the 19th place in overall video games at times (To compare Alice never really went under 100). Which also suggests it could be just a rather strong backslash since a majority who wanted it, preordered it. We'll see if sales stabilize.

Edited June 28, 2011 by C2B

[MonkeyLungs]

You can tell yourself that all you want. I don't mind. Amazon.com is the primary online retailer for North America for video games, you can watch trends in videogames sales from their website.

 

Yes more sources would be good, that sounds like more work though. I'm confident in my hypothesis that DS3 is selling very badly on consoles though.

 

Do you have a counter hypothesis to present or do you just not like me?

Here's one: Earth is big and NA is just a "small" part of it. Crazy theory I know. You may have heard of it.

 

North America is the primary market for video games sales. If you want to judeg trends in sales its a perfectly viable market to focus on.

 

You did NOT present a hypothesis on sales of Dungeon Siege 3. Try again.

 

Once again here's mine(hypothesis BTW, this is my educated guess): Dungeon Siege 3 is selling poorly on consoles.

 

I could be totally wrong but at least I'm willing to put my opinion into a clear and succinct format that is easy for people to read, understand, and to investigate. Your statement is just a snarky rebuttal to my post that has no value.

[Volourn]

"I'm predicting that Volo gives the game 2 hours and after that goes on rampage and claims DS3 is the worst game ever made comes up with some "funny" nickname for it and bashes the game as much he can. Naturally he reads all the story elements from some wiki and based on that he is the expert on the game (in his own mind...) much like with Alpha Protocol "

 

Did you read my posts about MOTB? I'm not anti Obsidian.

 

 

"Or he might actually like it."

 

Maybe.

 

 

Anyways, I've played the demo - not much positive to say about it - but haven't palyed the full game yet. I plan to eventually but haven't been motivated to go to the store and purchase it. Too busy playing other games to get a game I'm now iffy about after looking forward HUGE to DS3. I even defended it on various boards.

[MonkeyLungs]

Do you have a counter hypothesis to present or do you just not like me?

 

Well, for example where do you have the statement from that Amazon is the primary online retailer/retailer at all for video games? Even in North America?

 

 

Also the game was quite high in preorder sales on Amazon reaching the 19th place in overall video games at times (To compare Alice never really went under 100). Which also suggests it could be just a rather strong backslash since a majority who wanted it, preordered it. We'll see if sales stabilize.

 

That's a good questiuon actually. Gamefly probably rents more titles than Amazon sells but I don't think we should factor in rentals. I also haven't found any real data yet just different comnay speaks. Might have to check public investor report or soemthing. I don't even care enough to do all that work to be honest with you, I actually need to get back outside to do some important work. There might be an online store that sells more copies of video games than Amazon.com but I'm not finding any evidence of that currently ... so I will rephrase my statement:

 

Amazon.com is one of the primary, if not the top, sellers of video games online in the North American marketplace. Based on the observing DS3 sales and trends on Amazon.com website and by reading reviews from customers on said website I am making the hypothesis that sales for DS3 are pretty poor.

Edited June 28, 2011 by MonkeyLungs

[Oner]

my post that has no value.

Hey, we finally agree on something!

 

I don't give you any hypotheses because there's no reason. We'll see numbers when they're announced. Until then all we can do is guess (or maybe act like you, trying to convince people that the game is bombing by "examples" that have no context).

[MonkeyLungs]

my post that has no value.

Hey, we finally agree on something!

 

I don't give you any hypotheses because there's no reason. We'll see numbers when they're announced. Until then all we can do is guess (or maybe act like you, trying to convince people that the game is bombing by "examples" that have no context).

 

I ahve given plenty of context for my data. I'm not claiming to be the holder of all truth. I made a simple statement. Herer are some numbers:

 

Amazon.com Sales rankings for Dungeon Siege 3 game:

 

Xbox 360 = #78

PS3 = # 82

PC RETAIL DISC = #35

PC DOWNLOADS = #21

 

I also have these numbers from yesterday and the numbers are DOWN today. Down by big margins on the consoles and down by smaller margins on the PC.

[Oner]

And you know the reason why they're down? No? Thought so.

[Labadal]

Dungeon Siege III in The United Kingdoms. (Second biggest market in the world.)

 

Xbox 360

Week24. Week25.

5. 7.

Edited June 28, 2011 by Labadal

[MonkeyLungs]

And you know the reason why they're down? No? Thought so.

 

What does this have to do with anything?

 

I have a subjective opinion on why I think the sales are bad but that is outside of the current conversation. In the last few posts we have been talking specific ally about my very simple hypothesis.

 

Dungeon Siege 3 is sell poorly on consoles. <--- Simple statement, this is just my hypothesis.

 

I then listed the Amazon.com sales rankings for North America. I picked them because they have sales rankings and they are very popular, the top ot one of the top online retailers in North America. We established that I am just using NA as my frame of reference because it is the largest video game market. I am in full admittance that these are not the kind of methods that will get me publised in an economic journal for university. This is a very cursory glance at one retailer. However I feel confident that Amazon is a popular enough site to help me to establish a trend of sales for this game in relation to other games being sold by the same retailer. Each platform gets it's own set of rankings.

[MonkeyLungs]

Dungeon Siege III in The United Kingdoms. (Second biggest market in the world.)

 

Xbox 360

Week24. Week25.

5. 7.

[Volourn]

You'd think a sequel to a popualr series wouldn't even have to worry about this. Espicially since all of Obsidian's previous work on established series like NWN, KOTOR, and FO have all been mega sellers. The fact that DS3 sales are even debateable signifies some sort of failure in this regard. That can be bad news for Obsidian which isn't cool since we need to find out their next project.

[Pidesco]

DS3's success is debatable because we have no actual idea what this all means. Without information for most of the markets, including digital sales, and considering we don't have any actual revenue or units sold numbers for anything at all we really have no clue.

[Volourn]

that's silly. It was pretty common knowledge that NWN2, KOTOR2, and FO3.5:LV were massive sellers from the start. One could have an opinion on their respectvie quality but uit was undisputable that they sold butthloads of copies.

 

here we are getting numbers that are low ()though vghchartz is still crap), and low rankings for a new mainstream release to a popualr series ( I hate DS1 and DS2 but they were big hits) and by alla ccounts its selling rather poorly.

 

Do we have all facts?No. But, to claim we have NO CLUE wahtsoever is intellectually dishonest.

 

There are plenty of clues. Why were people willing to accept the fact that LV was a multi selling hit without actual numbers but won't accept the fact that DS3 just isn't as successful as expected?

 

L0LZ

[Pidesco]

Was it common knowledge that all those titles sold loads within the first 10 days of release? I wasn't aware.

 

I thought no one knew until someone official said something pertaining the games' commercial success.

 

I don't know about what people accepted or didn't accept regarding the sales of New Vegas. I also don't know what sort of success is expected for DS3. I don't know what the budget was for DS3 nor what Square's revenue goals are for the game.

[MonkeyLungs]

I believe we know enough to formulate a general idea for how well Dungeon Siege 3 is doing. Go and check out online retailers that have sales rankings and see what games are selling best and where Dungeon Siege ranks against them.

 

Game companies don't like to tell you when their product is selling badly so they never say anything unless it is selling really well. You don't need the corporations to tell you how their products are selling, that is what sales rankings are for. Sure, we may not have absolute concrete numbers but we do have the general idea.

 

My hypothesis stands: Dungeon Siege 3 is selling poorly on consoles.

 

How does it rank on games played? Where is it on most played games on PS3? How about Xbox 360?

[XxTaLoNxX]

I believe we know enough to formulate a general idea for how well Dungeon Siege 3 is doing. Go and check out online retailers that have sales rankings and see what games are selling best and where Dungeon Siege ranks against them.

 

Game companies don't like to tell you when their product is selling badly so they never say anything unless it is selling really well. You don't need the corporations to tell you how their products are selling, that is what sales rankings are for. Sure, we may not have absolute concrete numbers but we do have the general idea.

 

My hypothesis stands: Dungeon Siege 3 is selling poorly on consoles.

 

How does it rank on games played? Where is it on most played games on PS3? How about Xbox 360?

 

Honestly... it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things if it is being highly played. Only that it was highly sold. People beat games and then never play them again. It's a hard-hitting truth about the gaming industry. It takes something like a NEW GAME+ or Arena mode to keep players interested if only for a nominal amount of time.

 

BUT you have to understand, being played and being sold ARE NOT THE SAME.

 

Also, who was ever the market for DS3? Hardcore DS fans? Obsidian fans? RPG fans? To be honest each of those projected catagories are only SMALL PARTS of the gaming industry and player demographics. So let's say that every DS fan bought DS3, and every Obsidian fan bought DS3. As far as anyone should be concerned that means the game has already been successfully permeated in the target audience and the rest of the sales are residual income from sales that have been formed outside the target audience.

 

But nothing is ever so concrete and even if they were the agencies that we use to postulate such hypothesis don't give us the full story. I'm pretty sure that every DS fan and Obsidian fan hasn't yet bought the game, since nothing is 100% so let's again use a hypothetical yet realistic number 80% and the other 20% of sales are probably from outside the target audience. Regardless it seems like a success under such circumstances. It's not like Obsidian/SquareEnix used millions of dollars on advertising, and the game seemed like it was turned over rather quickly from the time of us learning about it's development and Obsidian is expert at creating games under strict timelimits and funding. So I would assume it wasn't a high budget project.

 

So with these assumptions...

 

1) Not much money spent on advertising.

2) Not a high budget project.

3) A large amount of target audience sales were sold to said audience.

 

It sounds like they at least made their money back plus some. Sounds like a success to me. And the game is still being sold.

[MonkeyLungs]

So the efficiency of the development process allows for a larger margin of success?

 

Then we need some idea of the budget of title. I did read that SquareEnix was projecting that 1,000,000 units sold would be enough for a successful project but that is purely heresay and I have no evidence to back it up. Just mentioning it as something that I have read on this forum somewhere. Would link it if I remembered and wasn't too lazy to look it up.

[Cyn!c]

Does anyone know if the Onyx engine was developed specifically for DS3 or whether this was already something they were creating when Square Enix came along?

[C2B]

Does anyone know if the Onyx engine was developed specifically for DS3 or whether this was already something they were creating when Square Enix came along?

 

Onyx Engine has been developed since long ago. Aliens: Crucible would have been an Onyx Game.