So how many copies does a game need to sell to be considered a success?

[Badnik Mechanic]

So it's around this time of the year that a lot of companies are releasing their financial results and sales data.

 

This year, it seems that theres a trend.

 

"They fell below expectations"

 

Take a look at this.

 

 

Each one of those games has sold several million units... And everyone of them is considered a failure by Square Enix in terms of units sold. Every one didn't meet sales expectations.

 

EA has said that it's franchises need to sell at least 5 million units in order to justify a sequel. One case? Dead Space 3.

 

In it's first 3 weeks Dead Space 3 sold around 880,000 units worldwide. This is considered a failure and as a result, Dead Space as a franchise is now rumored to be on hold.

 

Crysis 3 is also considered a failure in terms of sales... it only sold 250,000 in it's first 12 days! This is 12 days of sales and it was considered a failure!

 

Capcom has also been laying down the 'failures too'

 

Resident Evil 6 sold 4.9 million copies... despite it being one of the worst games of 2012... It's also considered a failure in terms of sales! know what it's projections where? Over 7 million!

 

Meanwhile, Capcom are claiming that DmC and Dragons Dogma were success' because they sold 1.1 and 1.3 million units!?

 

So how the fuck is resident Evil 6 a failure in terms of sales!?

 

Just now, Namco have announced that several of their games have failed to meet expectations.

 

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a failure because it was expected to shift 1.7 million, however it only shifted 1.5!

 

Tales of Xillia 2 Sold 500,000 copies, it's considered a failure because it needed to sell 650,000!

 

SSMB, what exactly does a game need to do these days in order to be considered a success?

[Tornado]

Have a controlled development budget and less emphasis on 2 or 3 games carrying the publisher's entire financial quarter.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Maybe if they would stop dumping extra cash on their luxury yachts, always needing to do highly expensive marketing, often times with super expensive actors, paying for over 9000 developers whose sole purpose is to do the texture of a car tire or writing one line of dialogue, bothered to get a better idea of how much they actually need to spend vs just dumping cash and hoping it sticks, stop trying to emulate major motion pictures instead of doing their own thing, and stop trying to chase after the giant crowd of people already taken by multimillionaire successes like Call of Duty...

 

I could keep going if you wish.

Edited May 10, 2013 by 743-E.D. Missile

[SuperLink]

My guess is it's some kind of relation between development costs and brand power.

 

RE6 for example; Resi is a wellknown series that is generally very successful, and they probably pumped tons and tons of money into developing RE6, they expected it to do better than RE5, maybe even RE4, but it did the opposite.

 

As for Square, they're just insane, maybe they pumped absolutely absurd amounts of money into Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs but that only says to me that they're terrible with budgets.

Edited May 10, 2013 by SuperLink

[Your Vest Friend]

The gaming industry is increasing becoming like the box office industry, at least to the higher ups. It's quite a lot about the game budget against the returns made. 

[Solkia]

Tales of Xillia 2 Sold 500,000 copies, it's considered a failure because it needed to sell 650,000!

 

SSMB, what exactly does a game need to do these days in order to be considered a success?

Have the people behind the game get their head out of their asses could help tremendously.

 

Hi I'm Solkia and I'm spiteful as shit towards Namco Bandai

Edited May 10, 2013 by Solkia

[SuperLink]

(Maybe it sold badly because Milla's story in Xillia 1 was sexist

I'd love for that to be the reason

 

Hi I'm SuperLink and I'm also spiteful as shit towards Namco Bandai)

[Carbo]

SSMB, what exactly does a game need to do these days in order to be considered a success?

Exhibit A

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2013/05/09/tim-schafer-would-love-to-make-a-psychonauts-sequel-every-game-weve-made-at-double-fine-has-made-a-profit/

Exhibit B

[Tornado]

Should also point out that there's a difference between "Made enough to make a profit despite spending way too much fucking money developing the game" that has traditionally been the problem since the PS360 generation and "Made enough to make the unrealistically high profits we needed it to make to justify the risks in the future because we're spending way too much fucking money developing all games" as has been popping up for the big publishers in a bad way for the past couple years.

[JaidynReiman]

Console games have become increasingly expensive to develop for. That's a huge part of it right there.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Console games have become increasingly expensive to develop for. That's a huge part of it right there.

Poor budget management's a big part of that.

[Jix Hedgehog]

X

Edited August 14, 2015 by Jix Hedgehog

[Gabz Girl]

Most games nowadays just try way too hard to be almost like expensive blockbuster movies a la CoD series. So you could say it's that franchise's fault that most games are the way they are today, including the massive amount of FPS we now have on the market. =I

Edited May 10, 2013 by Gabz Girl

[Remy]

 

Capcom has also been laying down the 'failures too'

 

Resident Evil 6 sold 4.9 million copies... despite it being one of the worst games of 2012... It's also considered a failure in terms of sales! know what it's projections where? Over 7 million!

 

Meanwhile, Capcom are claiming that DmC and Dragons Dogma were success' because they sold 1.1 and 1.3 million units!?

 

So how the fuck is resident Evil 6 a failure in terms of sales!?

 

The reason RE6 is considered a failure is the same reason everyone seems to call it one of the "worst designed" games ever and this and that- It had a ludicrously large development team with something like 600+ members working on the game. If you look at it like it's some kind of uber ridiculous mega project, which it is, the 7 million sales expectation kind of becomes a little more clear- they were delusional and shooting for COD level numbers they didn't get. 

 

Titles like DmC and Dragon's Dogma were made on smaller teams and smaller budgets- therefore any kind of sales expectations or requirements are going to be way lower because they didn't invest anywhere near as much into development.

[Speederino]

Tim Schafer had some good stuff to say about this in a Reddit AMA.

 

Every game we've made at Double Fine has made a profit. We just haven't had a blockbuster yet. Luckily our business plan isn't dependent on blockbusters. You can make a lot of money off a game that sells less than that if you keep your costs down and plan ahead.

 

 

You mean to tell me games are actually successful if the publisher sets realistic expectations!? No way, I can't believe it!

[MegasonicZX]

I think for a game to be a success in this day and age now is if the developers would put more work into the games besides graphics and stuff cause seeing these sales figures, if they aren't pleased with those than just make something better and stop trying to make a movie sorry if I'm pretty much repeating what's already been said but some gamers are starting to wise up to this stuff these days and most likely won't take generic shooter/RPG/sports game number 100 anymore and these guy's have really gotta realize that.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

This is all the more reason why I began shifting my priorities in regards to joining the industry as a programmer. =/

[Candescence]

Irony: DmC had ridiculous sales expectations as well, it started off at about 5 million, I think. Then Capcom started lowering that estimate multiple times, to 2 million, and then to about 1 million just to avoid admitting that it was selling badly. It's still the worst-selling Devil May Cry game, just to note.

 

But yeah, AAA games are in an absolute quagmire right now, due to the sheer mismanagement and overinflated budgets of dev teams.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Shirou Emiya

[TitanWarlord93]

Think of it this way.

 

Underrated games tend to sold less than expected but better development in terms of design, physics and gameplay. Overrated games have poor development but tend to sold more than expected, probably they focused too much on advertising and wasting more on it .

 

Video games that come in between what really makes it successful. You've got to balance it out and focus more time but not too much time on the development and less on advertising but enough to get the message across to everyone.

 

Also, prepare to be fully committed into deciding who's going to make the game and not changing your mind halfway through development again and again. Always stick to what's originally planned, unless if you want to scrap it and do it all over again from scratch. 

[Stacy]

Capcom has also been laying down the 'failures too'

 

Resident Evil 6 sold 4.9 million copies... despite it being one of the worst games of 2012... It's also considered a failure in terms of sales! know what it's projections where? Over 7 million!

 

Resident Evil while far from being best game it was also far from the Worst game of 2012, most reviews were mixed. If you go by the hardcore fans however....

 

These sales projections are unrealistic, why does any think they can sell that many units. This year has seen loads of releases even more towards the end of the year not to mention the new consoles by Sony and Microsoft which is what everybody is probably waiting for. Probably one of the main reasons why so many new PS3/Xbox 360 titles at the end of the year will be ported to the new Consoles is to ensure they sell.

 

The games that will sell the most this year will GTA V, Call Of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA/NFL 2014 and which ever racing is released this year most likely by EA.

 

Those are the games that sell mega bucks the rest are very lucky to shift a million.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdK3ZImjPsY

Edited May 11, 2013 by BW199148

[DarkRula]

What makes a game a success, in my eyes, is the amount of sales it has versus the amount of people who actually play it for over a month.

Now that telemetry is pretty hard to get, but I reckon it will be soon that it is easier to collect, and the developers will know how popular their games are.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Meanwhile, Capcom are claiming that DmC and Dragons Dogma were success' because they sold 1.1 and 1.3 million units!?

 

Keep in mind, too, that DmC was originally projected to sell some five million units, which was then re-evaluated a bit, (if memory serves) close to release. It wasn't so much the success they dreamed of, moreso a matter of "let's move the goalposts around until it looks like a big success instead of just this realistically moderate one."

[SuperStingray]

Kind of depends on the game and the budget.  A handheld visual novel or puzzle game may only need to sell 10K-50K copies to break even.  A big triple-A shooter or MMO, on the other hand, will need more than a few million.