RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS THREAD!

[Morgoth]

Gabe Newell sez Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft should unite to give us a better multiplayer experience

 

Sure thing Gabe. All you need is to buy out those three giants. I mean that's just a months revenue you get from Steam alone, right?

[Orogun01]

I was under the impression that it was mostly the sales numbers of the first couple weeks that mattered. And that most titles sell the majority of their copies during that period. Which always seemed to me a bit of a weird way to judge a games success/failure, but if that was how the industry worked so be it.

 

Given the huge amount of hype and pr that went into the DX:HR release, is 2 million in 6 months even good? For WItcher 2, those would be great numbers, but HR has already had so much money spent on it.

 

It's too bad that these military shooters do so well and everything else seems to tank. Mostly because I have less than zero interest in them.

 

But geeks like to play war, I guess.

I always chalked up the success of generic shooters to consumer bubbles, the more people who buy them the more peer pressure that they will be on their friends to buy them just because of the multiplayer.

[Zoraptor]

I was under the impression that it was mostly the sales numbers of the first couple weeks that mattered. And that most titles sell the majority of their copies during that period. Which always seemed to me a bit of a weird way to judge a games success/failure, but if that was how the industry worked so be it.

It is Blockbuster Mentality, but it does generally represent reality for consoles- the first six weeks are absolutely crucial. Difficult to know whether that's inherent in the market or the result of how the publishers/ retailers/ consumers are (deliberately, for the first two) set up to function. The 2nd hand market likely has an effect too where consoles are concerned as more of the initial buyers resell their copies.

 

Given the huge amount of hype and pr that went into the DX:HR release, is 2 million in 6 months even good? For WItcher 2, those would be great numbers, but HR has already had so much money spent on it.

I'd suspect that 2 million is roughly the break even point- big team, longish dev cycle, large PR budget, and that they would have liked a minimum of somewhere around 1 million+ by this time. Still, those reported figures are a bit suspect to make any real conclusions.

 

this game was steamworks right? so probably 30-40% of the pc sales are going to be on steam.

To go back to TW2's figures, only 20% of their sales were download, and that was- supposedly*- for 15 weeks DD vs the retail 80%'s 6 weeks, and with significant sweeteners for the DD option.

 

*I am personally less than convinced that this was the case as mixing reporting times would be a very unusual way to do a financial report and think both were for 6 weeks. But I don't speak Polish.

Edited September 5, 2011 by Zoraptor

[greylord]

Despite a LOT of people's fondness for STEAM, I think it's actually NOT as big a part of the market as people would like. They constantly try to say PC gaming isn't dying even though retail sales are falling through the floor by stating it must all be going to Steam (of course if that were true, someone's statement that an owner of Steam could buy MS, Nintendo, and Sony for one month's pay would actually be pretty close to accurate, though I'm betting he can't).

 

One also has to remember that Steam sales many times ALSO includes those who buy games that install steam to run on the computer...ironically. Not always, but sometimes. Like one game I got, it wasn't actually on the Disk, it still had to download from Steam...which sort of made me upset. All the disk seemed to be was the Steam program with the authentication that I bought the game so it could download it.

 

I think DD are getting to be significant, especially STEAM, but I don't think it's normally going to be the escape route for a game to sell well if it doesn't appear to be doing so in retail.

 

That stated, at this point I don't know how well or badly DX:HR is going to do.

[Zoraptor]

That is largely Internet Determinism at work- most people who post on forums are both more committed gamers on average and have better internet, on average. Thus you tend to end up with lots of people on internet forums saying things like "I've not bought retail in x years and download as much as I like on my 600MB/s connection" with the impression that that is the norm. The reality is that retail is often cheaper and lots of people do not have brilliant internet. Both DXHR and TW2 are very large games which will take time and potentially some bandwidth management for a lot of people.

 

As a comparison, Paradox have said that something like 90% of their revenue came from DD rather than retail, which is almost the diametric opposite of those CDP figures. That may well be a combination of being smaller in size and more 'niche' in appeal, as well as a lot of their expansions being DD only until they get bundled up later.

[Tigranes]

retail is often cheaper

 

I've never found that to be the case, even now that I'm in the US.

 

I think it's fair to say that for many games, half or more of the sales come online, now. Perhaps more for, say, Paradox games than Call of Duty or Madden.

[entrerix]

i would buy retail for games that require disc check. if they have more drm than simple disc check, i will wait for them to cost less than $10 and buy it on steam.

 

if a game is steamworks, then i'll just buy it on steam.

 

i prefer retail, but lately i've been forced to buy more and more games on steam. most of them for less than $10.

[trulez]

retail is often cheaper

 

I've never found that to be the case, even now that I'm in the US.

 

Every new big brand title on Steam costs 49,99 EUR, while I can get the boxed version from play.com or verkkokauppa.com for ~35 EUR. This is the case with EVERY game ever released on Steam & retail.

 

 

Example: Deus Ex: HR

 

Steam = 49,99 EUR

http://store.steampowered.com/app/28050/

 

Play.com = 34,99 EUR

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/9976061/De...;searchsource=0

 

 

EDIT: wrong quote >.<

Edited September 6, 2011 by trulez

[Pidesco]

Aside from special deals, retail is almost always cheaper than digital in Europe.

[Morgoth]

Or you just go to a key seller website and get it for like 1/3 of the price at launch.

[Nepenthe]

Or you just go to a key seller website and get it for like 1/3 of the price at launch.

Or you knock out some old lady in the mall, and buy it with money from her purse.

[Tigranes]

Steam is nearly always the most expensive DD option, so I don't know why you would ever buy from Steam if you care about price.

[Purkake]

You wait until the mind blowing steam sale, duh.

[Morgoth]

Or you just go to a key seller website and get it for like 1/3 of the price at launch.

Or you knock out some old lady in the mall, and buy it with money from her purse.

Now now that would be illegal, don't you think?

[Morgoth]

Halo 4 Creative Director leaves 343 Industries

 

Ryan Payton, one of the creative directors on 343 Industries' upcoming Halo 4, has left the company after finding that he wasn't "creatively excited" about the title anymore.

 

No ****. There's only so much Halo you can take before realising there's better stuff out there. I wonder if Microsoft will ever realise this before rendering the Halo franchise completely irrelevant.

[Oner]

Corpse Party

[Tale]

Halo 4 Creative Director leaves 343 Industries

 

Ryan Payton, one of the creative directors on 343 Industries' upcoming Halo 4, has left the company after finding that he wasn't "creatively excited" about the title anymore.

 

No ****. There's only so much Halo you can take before realising there's better stuff out there. I wonder if Microsoft will ever realise this before rendering the Halo franchise completely irrelevant.

It took me a minute to figure out why I remembered that name.

 

Metal Gear Solid 4.

[Hurlshort]

Or you just go to a key seller website and get it for like 1/3 of the price at launch.

Or you knock out some old lady in the mall, and buy it with money from her purse.

Now now that would be illegal, don't you think?

 

No, it's ok because she wasn't going to spend that money anyway, so it's not a lost sale or something.

[Malcador]

No, it's ok because she wasn't going to spend that money anyway, so it's not a lost sale or something.

 

Well, that would be why the company shouldn't use it as evidence of damage to sales. Rather than it being legally ok to mug an old lady. Hmm.

In any event, trying too hard, heh. Is it actually illegal to sell the keys ?

Edited September 6, 2011 by Malcador

[pmp10]

Is it actually illegal to sell the keys ?

Depend on how they were obtained.

Many sites offer region specific versions (from Russia/Ukraine/Asia) which are much cheaper.

The problem is selling them outside determined regions breaks terms of agreement so you never know if your cd-key won't get revoked.

[Gfted1]

I must be missing some key point regarding keys. Arent keys those long codes you have to enter when installing a piece of software? If so, how does buying a key do anything? Dont you still need the software or is that included with the purchase of the key?

[pmp10]

I must be missing some key point regarding keys. Arent keys those long codes you have to enter when installing a piece of software? If so, how does buying a key do anything? Dont you still need the software or is that included with the purchase of the key?

On digital distribution platforms (like Steam) keys are proof of ownership.

So buying a steam cd-key amounts to buying a game.

You just register it on your account and then can download the game from provided servers.

[Malcador]

Space Marine Review

 

Ehh.

[Morgoth]

Is it actually illegal to sell the keys ?

Depend on how they were obtained.

Many sites offer region specific versions (from Russia/Ukraine/Asia) which are much cheaper.

The problem is selling them outside determined regions breaks terms of agreement so you never know if your cd-key won't get revoked.

Once it's activated you can download it from anywhere. Valve doesn't stalk 30 million people on who got their keys from where.

 

Still, a non-region locked copy of DX:HR for $24,99? Customer, meet competitve price, competitive price, meet Morg.

[Gfted1]

I must be missing some key point regarding keys. Arent keys those long codes you have to enter when installing a piece of software? If so, how does buying a key do anything? Dont you still need the software or is that included with the purchase of the key?

On digital distribution platforms (like Steam) keys are proof of ownership.

So buying a steam cd-key amounts to buying a game.

You just register it on your account and then can download the game from provided servers.

 

Huh. Im honestly shocked that Steam doesnt have a master list of keys or some way of knowing that fraudulent keys are being used.