Commercial success

[XxTaLoNxX]

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

 

Well... yes. This is Business 101, my friend.

 

If you cut costs then the profit margins are larger. That's why businesses have looked into cutting operation costs for years. If say a business can cut 100,000$ off the energy bill by changing the light-bulbs they use, they increase profits by reducing costs.

 

This is applicable in the game industry as well. If you spend less on development and advertising (double-edged sword, to be honest) you CAN increase profits... IF a reasonable amount of product is sold. So, while it's possible, admittedly we need details. I'm just trying to interject some logic into the discussion.

 

My points are that as long as the target audience sales are sufficiently permeated in the market then you have reached at least ONE milestone of success. You have sold the product to the target audience which is "supposed" to be your largest market. Anything after that is additional success via sales through a secondary market. Make sense?

[MonkeyLungs]

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?

 

No idea but the production of the engine adds value to the overall project no matter what. even if it cost Obs a bit more initially it can be a crucial investment. Also, it is stable and this has been pretty much universally declared their most bug free release ever, no small point.

 

So we have my hypothesis: DS3 is selling poorly on conosles.

 

Then we have another from talon's post: Efficiency of development leads to greater margin for financial success.

 

And another: Creation of Onyx adds unmeasured but very important value to the overall project. Value as investment in game development infrastructure. Addendum: Tested via release of DS3, title is commonly held to be most bug free release for company yet. Note to self: I think this is actually more important than I considered it before.

 

Overall assessment in light of informative discussion: Even though sales appear to be poor on consoles the unknown true numbers could present a different story than what sales rankings are telling. However they also may not and sales may indeed be poor for DS3 on consoles. Because of development efficiency lower sales have a diminished negative impact due to low production costs, unfortunately at this time we have no idea of the budget of the title however it has been noted that Obsidian is known for ability to produce under tight budgets and time constraints. Creation of the Onyx engine adds further value to the project in three ways: 1. Created Onyx, assest for development. 2. Tested engine during development of DS3. DS3 said to be most bug free Obsidian release yet. 3. Advertising of engine creation and engine capabilities. this comes with ups and downs though based on public and potential investor perception.

[MonkeyLungs]

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

 

Well... yes. This is Business 101, my friend.

 

If you cut costs then the profit margins are larger. That's why businesses have looked into cutting operation costs for years. If say a business can cut 100,000$ off the energy bill by changing the light-bulbs they use, they increase profits by reducing costs.

 

This is applicable in the game industry as well. If you spend less on development and advertising (double-edged sword, to be honest) you CAN increase profits... IF a reasonable amount of product is sold. So, while it's possible, admittedly we need details. I'm just trying to interject some logic into the discussion.

 

My points are that as long as the target audience sales are sufficiently permeated in the market then you have reached at least ONE milestone of success. You have sold the product to the target audience which is "supposed" to be your largest market. Anything after that is additional success via sales through a secondary market. Make sense?

 

You don't actually believe I was able to turn your earlier post into a single succinct sentence and not understand what you were talking about do you? I was agreeing with you but i wanted to make your post shorter so I could condense it for use in my next post. Which is located above this post.

Edited June 28, 2011 by MonkeyLungs

[Volourn]

"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."

 

Don't discuount these 'niche' audiences. DS has millions of fans. Obsidian fans are quite hardcore in their love for Obsidian and this company has made 3 games that have sold 2mil+. RPGs may be a niche audience but 'niche' in this regards is quite large. D&D, btw, is considered a niche non main stream hobby yet it has millions of players and has kept D7D in business in one for or another since the 70s.

 

 

 

 

So with these assumptions...

 

"1) Not much money spent on advertising."

 

Not true. TV commericals are not cheap.

 

"2) Not a high budget project."

 

It needed a budget big enough to pay 100+ of Obsidian's employees for at least a couple of years.

 

 

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

 

define 'large' amount.

 

 

"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. "

 

Doesn't sound like you gave any evidence - not even half baked ones - to back your theory up. It sounds like an Obsidian fanboy crossing fingers and wishing. Thankfully, Obsidian didn't need to rely on such silliness for the successes of NWN2, KOTOR2, and FO3.5:LV.

 

R00fles!

[Cyn!c]

I have to say that while I like the game a lot and I think Onyx is a good engine, I also think it is not a great engine. Sure it looks great on the PC at max, but the camera limitations which were imposed would have been directly linked to maintaining performance. Even with the way the current engine is, frame rates on the consoles lag during big fights. For the engine to be useful outside of the DS3 context, I think they're going to have to give the camera way more freedom. This will definitely create further performance issues. I really think that Obsidian needs a way to do shadows in a less performance heavy way. Other devs seem to do it. For both this and NWN2, the shadows were the most performance killing aspect of the engine. Maybe that's just due to the nature of dynamic lighting/shadows though, I don't know.

[XxTaLoNxX]

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

 

Well... yes. This is Business 101, my friend.

 

If you cut costs then the profit margins are larger. That's why businesses have looked into cutting operation costs for years. If say a business can cut 100,000$ off the energy bill by changing the light-bulbs they use, they increase profits by reducing costs.

 

This is applicable in the game industry as well. If you spend less on development and advertising (double-edged sword, to be honest) you CAN increase profits... IF a reasonable amount of product is sold. So, while it's possible, admittedly we need details. I'm just trying to interject some logic into the discussion.

 

My points are that as long as the target audience sales are sufficiently permeated in the market then you have reached at least ONE milestone of success. You have sold the product to the target audience which is "supposed" to be your largest market. Anything after that is additional success via sales through a secondary market. Make sense?

 

You don't actually believe I was able to turn your earlier post into a single succinct sentence and not understand what you were talking about do you? I was agreeing with you but i wanted to make your post shorter so I could condense it for use in my next post. Which is located above this post.

 

Ah, I meant no disrespect. And apologize if you took offense. I indeed got the impression that you understood my fist post and posted a very well written summery. I was also taken by it being presented in a sentence form and thus was a queue for me to explain myself in a bit more detail. Anyways, I believe I have presented a valid point on the discussion, and will admit that we still need more details to form a genuine prediction of the "true success".

[greylord]

Just reading these things, most people who don't like VGchartz are disgruntled gamers who don't want to admit a certain game of theirs (varies from person to person) sold badly...and so go into denial and try to deride VGchartz. AT that point they use anyway they can to try to discredit it. It probably has a bigger size sample in some cases (sales numbers from stores...not number of stores) in persons categorized then that of the Nelson ratings at any time but ratings month. (Nelson ratings do the same thing, gather a few groups of people and extrapolate)

 

VGchartz uses an okay method of measurement for a ballpark figure...similar methods that are actually used in science for polls and studies. Of course if you are a ID believer, you probably say the same thing about biological studies (closest to the way VGchartz does, though VGchartz probably has a bigger amount of info than the bio studies) in regards to evolution, medicine (before it goes public usage), and conservation.

 

Not to derail the thread...but it's always interesting how much people jump on a bandwagon to say it's off, when in the long run it doesn't seem that off actually. In truth it's more reliable than what sometimes the industry reports who give the numbers shipped as the numbers sold, instead of the actual numbers sold through at the store. Of course that sometimes backfires in irony, like the producer that stated a huge number of sold...and then promptly went bankrupt due to the costs of the game.

 

On that note, it does sound pretty low numbers for DS3. I have noticed that there are an unusually high number of PC gamer commentators on it in relation to console gamers though...I'm wondering if there are many d/l ing it, and how many are buying hardcopy for the PC?

 

Not meanign to derail the thread, just wanted to comment after everyone started jumping on the bandwagon of tearing down perhaps one of the actual more reliable data sources that isn't normally purely hype from a game company (NPD being another good source if you have access), or at least probably as reliable as Nelson ratings (so gives you an good idea of how well something did and is probably pretty good in ballpark figures after all said and done weeks/months down the road).

[MakeMOTB2pls]

Well, if Witcher 2 is any indication, VGChartz is nowhere close to being correct. That game sold 400k in its first week according to CDPR, while VGC reported half as much. But even if we double VGC's number for DS3 it still comes out to only 40k units, which isn't a lot. However, since the game probably was dirt cheap to develop (judging by length and quality) it probably doesn't have to sell a lot to turn a profit. 50-100k I'd estimate, which should be doable in a few weeks.

[Tigranes]

VGchartz' methodologies, and their failings, are quite publicly known - use some judicious google searching if you must, but I think it's unfortunate to encourage the "me vs. you" polarisation. VGchartz does the best it can, and most of its problems are due to the industry being unwilling to provide good numbers, but at the end of the day they have been known to have a general error margin of 20-30%, and then a few titles where they're just completely off (by, like, 5-6 digits). That's not conjecture, that's proof of how their estimates have stood up to real figures in the past.

 

The only question is, are current VGChartz figures of DS3 one of those that are in the right ballpark, or one of those that are quite significantly wrong? No way to tell, for now. Both are possible.

[Pidesco]

VGC's numbers are for the week ending on the 18th of June. The game came out on the 17th but only in Europe. What numbers would be good numbers? 40,000 in one day doesn't seem so bad to me.

[Labadal]

VGChartz is not to be trusted even if the game is succesful. It's just not accurate enough.

[ShadowScythe]

@ Pidesco, well that makes a lot more sense...that number was really surprising when I first heard but considering the game had barely launched (and only in Europe for that matter) it makes more sense.

 

I think, as Volourn says, Obsidian has a fairly dedicated- if niche audience that should bring up sales. Alpha Protocol still managed around 700k even with mediocre reviews and as a new IP, I think DS3 should be able to beat that and hopefully get the million mark.

[MonkeyLungs]

AP didn't sell well enough to get any post game support or a sequel. So you guys thinks that's good? Sounds rubbish to me and especially sad because it was a great new IP. It didn't grab enough cross over fans because the shooting 'was too weirdo rpg hybrid' or whatever peoples complaints are. I liked how the shooting was heavily influenced by your stats reminded me of Deus Ex.

 

Alpha Protocol is also a much better game than DS3, the story reactivity is extremely fun.

 

Regardless of whether or not its better it needs to sell better to have a chance for post game support or a sequel. Slim chances I reckon but I may eat my words later.

[Volourn]

VGChartz isn trash. Please don't defend it.

 

 

 

"think, as Volourn says, Obsidian has a fairly dedicated- if niche audience that should bring up sales. Alpha Protocol still managed around 700k even with mediocre reviews and as a new IP, I think DS3 should be able to beat that and hopefully get the million mark.":

 

You completely missed my point.

[AddziX]

AP didn't sell well enough to get any post game support or a sequel. So you guys thinks that's good? Sounds rubbish to me and especially sad because it was a great new IP. It didn't grab enough cross over fans because the shooting 'was too weirdo rpg hybrid' or whatever peoples complaints are. I liked how the shooting was heavily influenced by your stats reminded me of Deus Ex.

 

Alpha Protocol is also a much better game than DS3, the story reactivity is extremely fun.

 

Regardless of whether or not its better it needs to sell better to have a chance for post game support or a sequel. Slim chances I reckon but I may eat my words later.

Alpha Protocol didn't have a sequel because Sega didn't allow it, they have the rights for it as far as I know.

 

Another publisher could have seen that there was something fresh in the design and the cult following would have at least got some DLC.

 

There's an Obsidian interview knocking around somewhere that says Sega didn't want AP2 or further support for AP, but that's not to say that the mechanics that made it such a hidden gem wouldn't find their way into another IP of a different name...

[AddziX]

AP didn't sell well enough to get any post game support or a sequel. So you guys thinks that's good? Sounds rubbish to me and especially sad because it was a great new IP. It didn't grab enough cross over fans because the shooting 'was too weirdo rpg hybrid' or whatever peoples complaints are. I liked how the shooting was heavily influenced by your stats reminded me of Deus Ex.

 

Alpha Protocol is also a much better game than DS3, the story reactivity is extremely fun.

 

Regardless of whether or not its better it needs to sell better to have a chance for post game support or a sequel. Slim chances I reckon but I may eat my words later.

Alpha Protocol didn't have a sequel because Sega didn't allow it, they have the rights for it as far as I know.

 

Another publisher could have seen that there was something fresh in the design and the cult following would have at least got some DLC.

 

There's an Obsidian interview knocking around somewhere that says Sega didn't want AP2 or further support for AP, but that's not to say that the mechanics that made it such a hidden gem wouldn't find their way into another IP of a different name...

[Volourn]

"Alpha Protocol didn't have a sequel because Sega didn't allow it, they have the rights for it as far as I know.

 

Another publisher could have seen that there was something fresh in the design and the cult following would have at least got some DLC.

 

There's an Obsidian interview knocking around somewhere that says Sega didn't want AP2 or further support for AP, but that's not to say that the mechanics that made it such a hidden gem wouldn't find their way into another IP of a different name... "

 

AP didn't have a sequel because it was determined it did not do well enough to earn one by the people paying for AP's production. Seriously douybt another publisher would have green lighted it. If Sega felt DLC/sequel were worthwhile despite AP doing poorly they would have done it.

 

AP, btw, is not a 'hidden gem'. It's a horrible game that sold more than it deserved to, and was Obsidian's worst game to date from the ones I played.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Volourn

[AddziX]

"Alpha Protocol didn't have a sequel because Sega didn't allow it, they have the rights for it as far as I know.

 

Another publisher could have seen that there was something fresh in the design and the cult following would have at least got some DLC.

 

There's an Obsidian interview knocking around somewhere that says Sega didn't want AP2 or further support for AP, but that's not to say that the mechanics that made it such a hidden gem wouldn't find their way into another IP of a different name... "

 

AP didn't have a sequel because it was determined it did not do well enough to earn one by the people paying for AP's production. Seriously douybt another publisher would have green lighted it. If Sega felt DLC/sequel were worthwhile despite AP doing poorly they would have done it.

 

AP, btw, is not a 'hidden gem'. It's a horrible game that sold more than it deserved to, and was Obsidian's worst game to date from the ones I played.

That's a matter of opinion, though. Obviously some people liked it due to the 700K sales. Personally, I really enjoyed AP. It had it's faults but it also had some nice ideas too. Well written dialogue and a very good story imo.

[Volourn]

Just because someone buys a game doesn't mean they neccessarily like it. I wa sone of those make believe suckers 700k sales... I certainly don't like it.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Volourn

[AddziX]

Just because someone buys a game doesn't mean they neccessarily like it. I wa sone of those make believe suckers 700k sales... I certainly don't like it.

Fair enough. I like it. That might have something to do with picking it up for

[GhostofAnakin]

AP, btw, is not a 'hidden gem'. It's a horrible game that sold more than it deserved to, and was Obsidian's worst game to date from the ones I played.

 

Did you ever get around to playing it for longer than the first mission outside the tutorial yet? Unless my memory is foggy, you gave up on it at or just after Saudi, without actually getting to the meat and potatoes of the game (ie. the main bulk of the game, and where the choices actually show).

[AddziX]

AP, btw, is not a 'hidden gem'. It's a horrible game that sold more than it deserved to, and was Obsidian's worst game to date from the ones I played.

 

Did you ever get around to playing it for longer than the first mission outside the tutorial yet? Unless my memory is foggy, you gave up on it at or just after Saudi, without actually getting to the meat and potatoes of the game (ie. the main bulk of the game, and where the choices actually show).

To be fair, if AP hasn't got your attention by the end of Saudi, you can be pretty sure it's not your kind of game.

[GhostofAnakin]

To be fair, if AP hasn't got your attention by the end of Saudi, you can be pretty sure it's not your kind of game.

 

I wasn't too thrilled with it at Saudi, but I became a fan after it opened up after that and you could travel to the other countries in whatever order you wanted.

[XxTaLoNxX]

I liked Alpha Protocol. It was a very fun game with impacting decisions. I liked it much more than Dragon Age and DA2 from BioWare.

[MonkeyLungs]

AP didn't sell well enough to get any post game support or a sequel. So you guys thinks that's good? Sounds rubbish to me and especially sad because it was a great new IP. It didn't grab enough cross over fans because the shooting 'was too weirdo rpg hybrid' or whatever peoples complaints are. I liked how the shooting was heavily influenced by your stats reminded me of Deus Ex.

 

Alpha Protocol is also a much better game than DS3, the story reactivity is extremely fun.

 

Regardless of whether or not its better it needs to sell better to have a chance for post game support or a sequel. Slim chances I reckon but I may eat my words later.

Alpha Protocol didn't have a sequel because Sega didn't allow it, they have the rights for it as far as I know.

 

Another publisher could have seen that there was something fresh in the design and the cult following would have at least got some DLC.

 

There's an Obsidian interview knocking around somewhere that says Sega didn't want AP2 or further support for AP, but that's not to say that the mechanics that made it such a hidden gem wouldn't find their way into another IP of a different name...

 

Think maybe Sega would have allowed a sequel if the sales for AP were satisfactory? I do.