667 réponses à ce sujet

[MerinTB]

SarEnyaDor wrote...

I concede.

I brought it up because I was frankly surprised no one else has brought it up, as I do think it is important to look at the outside factors that might have affected the numbers, not just the numbers themselves.

But like I said, what do I know? I'm just some girl who likes video games who wouldn't have DA2 now had I not pre-ordered it months ago. All of my disposable "play" money has been donated, and figured there are probably lots of others like me out there. Maybe there aren't.

There probably ARE people who are good like you...

but it's not going to solely afffect Dragon Age sales...

and the video game industry, sales wise, is not showing a huge hit...

so it's a point, but I think largely irrelevant.

[Mavkiel]

I doubt it had any real impact. Heck, donations in general to the Japanese have fairly small. Compare it to say donations to Haiti.

Imo, the only significant factor in da2's sale is its own performance. If I knew I'd not be able to play the game for over a month after buying it, I sure as heck would have waited. That's hand waving all the other significant changes to game-play da2 introduced. (Which is a pretty tough sell on its own.)

[erynnar]

ejoslin wrote...

Sabriana wrote...

ejoslin wrote...

Actually, it doesn't matter.  What is actually important about those numbers is the trend.  Initial high sales were based on preorders and people buying the sequal to DAO (IOW, DAO's popularity).  It's the sharp drop off that is telling.  DAO's sales increased over time, this is most likely due to word of mouth and renters buying the game.  DA2's sales are dropping over time to levels far below DAO's.  This generally would be caused by word of mouth and renters NOT buying the game.

Edit: The trend is important because it gives a clear message as to how well a game is being received.  I HOPE that the devs look at these numbers and draw the conclusion to make a game somewhere in between DAO and DA2, and not to further streamline and change DA to try to appeal to yet another audience.

DAO has an audience.  It was expanded to people who normally don't play that type of game because it was just that good.  DAO's success of the game (and with the DLC obviously being designed by a different team, and they had little enough success that they were discontinued a year early) should say enough.  Even if the lead developers weren't crazy about DAO for whatever reason, the game was a huge success, both critically and sales wise.

I agree.  A big chunk of the early sales of DA 2 came curtesy of DA:O. In pre-orders and in people blindly running out and buying DA 2 because of DA:O (like me, idiot that I am sometimes). The drop-off is very noticeable and shows a trend that DA 2 is slipping fast.

I know that I told friends to rent of borrow DA 2 first, because it's not at all like its predecessor. I simply can't in good conscience recommend DA 2, especially not to my RPG gamer friends. I also know through a friend who works in an electronics/games/music store that DA 2 is returned at a high rate, while DA:O still sells after all this time.

And EJ! Congrats. I hope you have a nice celebrations and many more happy years w/hubby.

Thank you!  19 years...  I'm not sure how I managed to find a man who would put up with me for this long, but he's definitley terrific

I also think DA2 should be rented first.  It's not a bad game at all.  It's a decent game.  But it's not going to have as wide an audience because it's just not as good as DAO.  In fact, if there's any message there, it should be that RPGs do not need to be more accessible -- they just need to be really REALLY damn good.  I do wonder how a DA2 would have been received with the same basic story as DA2, but had the devs decided to not tear down so much of DAO and rebuild from scratch, but instead built upon DAO with just minor tweaks.  There most likely would have been just more to the game.

I bet it would have been far better received.  

First, congratulations!!! and my senitments exactly! If they hadn't torn away so much of DAO that made it great, tweaked what needed tweaking, and fixed what was broken DA2 would have rocked.  OH and more time to tighten it up and polish it.

[Reinveil]

Ohiodruid wrote...

Urazz wrote...

I gotta say if you hoped that posting the week 4 sales would change things at bioware, you are horribly mistaken.

First, VGCharts is basically considered a work of fiction.  If I recall is it even able to chart digital sales on things like Steam and the like?

The second thing is that you don't even consider the time period that each game was sold in.  Dragon Age: Origins was sold during the holiday season when alot more people had money to spend on gifts.  Dragon Age 2 was released in the beginning of March.

I really wish that the reflexive defenders of this game would step back for a minute.  First, the VGCharts data is quite useful for *relative* comparisons - since the data for the first and second game was collected in the same way.  You can think that the absolute total is off and still be willing to acknowledge this point. 

Second, we have an extremely obvious clue about what Bioware thinks: they are giving Mass Effect 2 away to boost DA2 sales.  If the game was selling as strongly as they had hoped they wouldn't be doing this.

Third, the timing of the game release: how does this possibly matter?  Mass Effect 2 was released after Christmas and sold tremendously well.

It's a remarkably weak argument to dismiss all data which tells a story that you don't want to hear.  I'd be prepared to believe that this game was what the people wanted, even though both my son and I found deeply disappointing.  However, when I look at the user reviews, forum feedback, and sales I see a pretty consistent picture - this game was a step back.  It's also, by the way, clear when you read between the lines of the professional reviews.  All AAA games get high rating (even the disastrous Master of Orion 3 got 65% in Metacritic, and it was so awful that it killed that franchise.)  But the reviews themselves were almost uniformly cautious or unenthusiastic, even when assigning a "high" mark.

I think this leads to a pretty simple and compelling argument: make a good game that appeals to your natural audience and you'll sell a lot of copies and get a good reception.  Try to design a game by committee to appeal to some imaginary mass audience that you don't understand and you'll please no one, sell fewer copies, and get a poor reception.

This is, without question, the most intelligent post in the thread.

[kingjezza]

I honestly can't believe people are using natural disasters as a excuse for DA2's poor sales, that's hit new levels of desperation.

[Reinveil]

DKJaigen wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

Reinveil wrote...

DKJaigen wrote...

You keep biching and not providing any decent feedback. If you hate this game so much plz remove it from your pc and ****** of from this forum. im getting very tired of your posts. Also you dont seem to realise that if a game fails  bioware or the francise will be canned by EA. Trust me you do not wish to see DA2 fail because their will not be a DA afterwards ever again.

...makes me wonder if there's some kind of underlying mental illness or potentially dangerous anger issue at work.

This is common to a lot of fanboys and it's fear. Fear that if you don't embrace the game even though it's poor, it will mean the end of the DA franchise and or Bioware. It's not an irrational fear, EA have done this sort of thing before with underperforming studios and "unrealistic" deadlines.

But that is not a good enough reason to give something a pass.Which is something fanboys can't seem to grasp.

The mass market don't care about such things, they go from one shiny thing to the next, this is why DA2's sales are falling and why Bioware is desperately trying to pad the numbers by giving away ME2.

It does not concern me if DA francise gets canned or bioware dissolved  there are always other games i can play. But some idiots on this forum need to realise that behind bioware there are actually people at work .If they get fired then that is a lot human misery. If you wish a game to fail then you basically means that you wish people to be fired. If you wish this on people because they ruined you favorite game then you are a jackass.

Yo can can always say that you dont like the game i dont care because its your opinion. But seriously some people to grow up.

So, just applying your own logic here - every game, regardless of it's quality, should be purchased in droves and supported so the devs aren't out of a job?  What a magical world you live in where people that make shoddy products are allowed to keep doing so without consequence and everyone agrees on everything.

I also like how you begin your response with "it does not concern me if..." and then proceed to rage and sling more insults like you have some personal stake in Bioware's success.

And then you have the audacity to tell people to "grow up"?  Perhaps you should take your own advice.

[Cybermortis]

DA2 was released in the US on 8th March and in Europe on 11th March.

The Earth quake was on the 11th March.

UK sales, according to one of my local Game store, were what they would consider 'reasonable' the first weekend and have been low ever-since. But much of the initial sales were pre-orders (something that created a lot of problems as they had some 20 orders for the limited edition and were helpfully sent a single copy).

I'd note that offering ME2 free for those who bought DA2 should have no effect on DA2 sales at all. It is not advertised in any of my local stores, people who wanted to get ME2 usually have it and of they want ME2 and don't have DA2 it is cheaper to buy ME2 than DA2 since the former is currently half the price than the latter.


Even assuming sales in March were lower than usual, there is still the major point that the same would hold for all other games in the charts. The chart positions since release have followed the sales figures, in that it started fairly strong (not not exceptionally well) and has declined since them. Currently it sits at number 9 in the UK charts - behind two games that have been out for over six months - and is 10 places behind DAO/U and some 13 behind ME2 on Amazon.

[Speakeasy13]

YohkoOhno wrote...

One thing that skews this is the fact that DA:O was released during the Holiday shopping season (early November), so that alone could cause the numbers to be skewed. Regardless of the game's quality, more people are buying this stuff in the Nov-Dec season than the March season.

Well that's one way of looking at it. But there are ppl who don't believe in the holiday season theory either; one may argue that for a niche product such as DA:O, sales should be less elastic, meaning the holiday season doesn't necessarily have the same effect on DA:O sales as titles like, say, CoD or Madden Football; casual users are less likely to buy it; rather then regular users who buy games all year round; DA2 also had less competition than DA:O.

[Dark83]

Holiday season depends on if there's sales or if your friends are all scrooges.

I know that I tend to wait for sales on games I don't particularly have any feelings about (AssBro, for example) and my friends and I toss gifts at each other during Christmas regardless of sales.

[Shatterkiss]

Cybermortis wrote...

I'd note that offering ME2 free for those who bought DA2 should have no effect on DA2 sales at all. It is not advertised in any of my local stores, people who wanted to get ME2 usually have it and of they want ME2 and don't have DA2 it is cheaper to buy ME2 than DA2 since the former is currently half the price than the latter.

The ME2 bundle might help online/digital sales.  There's also the possibility that this is more about boosting ME3 sales than stopping the nosediving DA2 sales.  They may have written off DA2 already and could be trying to make up for it with ME3.

[Cybermortis]

Shatterkiss wrote...

Cybermortis wrote...

I'd note that offering ME2 free for those who bought DA2 should have no effect on DA2 sales at all. It is not advertised in any of my local stores, people who wanted to get ME2 usually have it and of they want ME2 and don't have DA2 it is cheaper to buy ME2 than DA2 since the former is currently half the price than the latter.

The ME2 bundle might help online/digital sales.  There's also the possibility that this is more about boosting ME3 sales than stopping the nosediving DA2 sales.  They may have written off DA2 already and could be trying to make up for it with ME3.

Quite possibly. It will be interesting to see how much DLC gets released for DA2, and for how long. It wouldn't surprise me if any DLC not already in the middle of development gets put on hold until they can test the waters and see how well the DLC sells. Right now, given that DAO's DLC was stopped for low sales, and DA2's own sales are falling at a rate normally only seen by large chunks of lead, I really can't see the DLC sales proving worth the time and money to make DLC in the first place.

ME3 has been under development longer that DA2, and with a different team. (Hopefully a team who threw the 'button-Awesome' idiot out the door before he opened his mouth). I don't think BW will have to do anything with ME3 to 'make up' for DA2 - other than not repeating the same mistakes made during the marketing and release of that game. The most they might do is make an extra free DLC package available - although I doubt that.

[Brockololly]

Shatterkiss wrote...
The ME2 bundle might help online/digital sales.  There's also the possibility that this is more about boosting ME3 sales than stopping the nosediving DA2 sales.  They may have written off DA2 already and could be trying to make up for it with ME3.

Yeah, if anything it would get ME2 in the hands of people who haven't played it yet, so those people will pay up for ME3 in the winter.

The other thing I'd be curious about, but we'll likely never know, would be how much more in terms of revenue EA/BioWare is making off of the PC version this time around. I don't know that total number of copies sold is the best metric, considering DA2 for PC is priced at $60 as opposed to Origins which was $50. Not to mention the liklihood DA2 is selling more digitally on PC than Origins, which would likely net higher revenue as well. Heck, if you believe vgchartz at all, the PC version of DA2 is selling close to PS3- and thats not including digital.

[Count Viceroy]

I'm not going to draw any conclusions without knowing the digital sales as well. For every year that goes by the digital market takes a bigger share...

[DKJaigen]

Reinveil wrote...

DKJaigen wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

Reinveil wrote...

DKJaigen wrote...

You keep biching and not providing any decent feedback. If you hate this game so much plz remove it from your pc and ****** of from this forum. im getting very tired of your posts. Also you dont seem to realise that if a game fails  bioware or the francise will be canned by EA. Trust me you do not wish to see DA2 fail because their will not be a DA afterwards ever again.

...makes me wonder if there's some kind of underlying mental illness or potentially dangerous anger issue at work.

This is common to a lot of fanboys and it's fear. Fear that if you don't embrace the game even though it's poor, it will mean the end of the DA franchise and or Bioware. It's not an irrational fear, EA have done this sort of thing before with underperforming studios and "unrealistic" deadlines.

But that is not a good enough reason to give something a pass.Which is something fanboys can't seem to grasp.

The mass market don't care about such things, they go from one shiny thing to the next, this is why DA2's sales are falling and why Bioware is desperately trying to pad the numbers by giving away ME2.

It does not concern me if DA francise gets canned or bioware dissolved  there are always other games i can play. But some idiots on this forum need to realise that behind bioware there are actually people at work .If they get fired then that is a lot human misery. If you wish a game to fail then you basically means that you wish people to be fired. If you wish this on people because they ruined you favorite game then you are a jackass.

Yo can can always say that you dont like the game i dont care because its your opinion. But seriously some people to grow up.

So, just applying your own logic here - every game, regardless of it's quality, should be purchased in droves and supported so the devs aren't out of a job?  What a magical world you live in where people that make shoddy products are allowed to keep doing so without consequence and everyone agrees on everything.

I also like how you begin your response with "it does not concern me if..." and then proceed to rage and sling more insults like you have some personal stake in Bioware's success.

And then you have the audacity to tell people to "grow up"?  Perhaps you should take your own advice.

Obviously you dont understand what im trying to say. Raging over GAME is in my opinion already immature. if you read some posts in thi forum you do think that bioware has broken their frail little hearts. But if raging over a game isn't bad enough. Wishing that bioware falls into shambles because of one poor (their words not mine) game makes me beleive that some people are a bit unstable. 

Anyway some people in this forum beleive that the free me2 is a sign of desperation. But it could also be an appetizer for ME3.

[DrGulag]

Obviously you dont understand what im trying to say. Raging over GAME is in my opinion already immature. if you read some posts in thi forum you do think that bioware has broken their frail little hearts. But if raging over a game isn't bad enough. Wishing that bioware falls into shambles because of one poor (their words not mine) game makes me beleive that some people are a bit unstable.

This isn't a free product. People paid money to purchase Dragon Age 2 and many customers received false promises from Bioware prior to release.

I never would have given them my cash had I known that auto-attack would not be in the console version (they said it would be). This whole game, with all the recycled environments and what-not, smells like a money grab (read : scam) to me and that is unacceptable.

Frankly. I would expect people to receive a lot of heat over something like this, be it electronic entertainment or something else in the business world.  I learned my lesson anyway. No more pre-orders from this company and I will certainly spread the message. 

Modifié par DrGulag, 12 avril 2011 - 10:17 .

[DKJaigen]

DrGulag wrote...

Obviously you dont understand what im trying to say. Raging over GAME is in my opinion already immature. if you read some posts in thi forum you do think that bioware has broken their frail little hearts. But if raging over a game isn't bad enough. Wishing that bioware falls into shambles because of one poor (their words not mine) game makes me beleive that some people are a bit unstable.

This isn't a free product. People paid money to purchase Dragon Age 2 and many customers received false promises from Bioware prior to release.

I never would have given them my cash had I known that auto-attack would not be in the console version (they said it would be). This whole game, with all the recycled environments and what-not, smells like a money grab (read : scam) to me and that is unacceptable.

Frankly. I would expect people to receive a lot of heat over something like this, be it electronic entertainment or something else in the business world.  I learned my lesson anyway. No more pre-orders from this company and I will certainly spread the message. 

Cry me a river mate. the game, despite not being on par with DAO, is still of high quality. They went into a new direction and it didnt turn out as well for some players. Saying things that you are scammed makes me ignore your opinion even more. You didnt get scammed and yeah money grabbing is a neccesary act as the bioware corp is created to make money no matter how unacceptable it is to you.

[TJSolo]

DKJaigen wrote...

DrGulag wrote...

Obviously you dont understand what im trying to say. Raging over GAME is in my opinion already immature. if you read some posts in thi forum you do think that bioware has broken their frail little hearts. But if raging over a game isn't bad enough. Wishing that bioware falls into shambles because of one poor (their words not mine) game makes me beleive that some people are a bit unstable.

This isn't a free product. People paid money to purchase Dragon Age 2 and many customers received false promises from Bioware prior to release.

I never would have given them my cash had I known that auto-attack would not be in the console version (they said it would be). This whole game, with all the recycled environments and what-not, smells like a money grab (read : scam) to me and that is unacceptable.

Frankly. I would expect people to receive a lot of heat over something like this, be it electronic entertainment or something else in the business world.  I learned my lesson anyway. No more pre-orders from this company and I will certainly spread the message. 

Cry me a river mate. the game, despite not being on par with DAO, is still of high quality. They went into a new direction and it didnt turn out as well for some players. Saying things that you are scammed makes me ignore your opinion even more. You didnt get scammed and yeah money grabbing is a neccesary act as the bioware corp is created to make money no matter how unacceptable it is to you.

Bioware corp never scammed their games or used underhanded money grab tactics.

[blueruin]

DrGulag wrote...

Obviously you dont understand what im trying to say. Raging over GAME is in my opinion already immature. if you read some posts in thi forum you do think that bioware has broken their frail little hearts. But if raging over a game isn't bad enough. Wishing that bioware falls into shambles because of one poor (their words not mine) game makes me beleive that some people are a bit unstable.

This isn't a free product. People paid money to purchase Dragon Age 2 and many customers received false promises from Bioware prior to release.

I never would have given them my cash had I known that auto-attack would not be in the console version (they said it would be). This whole game, with all the recycled environments and what-not, smells like a money grab (read : scam) to me and that is unacceptable.

Frankly. I would expect people to receive a lot of heat over something like this, be it electronic entertainment or something else in the business world.  I learned my lesson anyway. No more pre-orders from this company and I will certainly spread the message. 

Buy your games from Amazon.com from now on.  I got a full refund for my copy of DA2 with no trouble, 20 days after I received it in the mail.  It was the first time I ever returned anything to Amazon, and you're only supposed to return games still in the plastic wrap... but I think a lot of people had asked for refunds on this one, and they knew it was rubbish. 

[ZombiePowered]

People keep posting charts from this site, but the fact that they don't even have the Origins PC sales kind of detracts from their credibility.

[Aesieru]

When Mass Effect re-released on PC or steam started doing it, they got a lot more, same with for ME 2... possibly when DA2 makes an ultimate edition they can boost those sales.

[david46]

Melca36 wrote...
I will never get people's paranoid delusions about Steam.  <_<

I've NEVER had a problem with Steam. I can play mods and I can **OFFLINE** when my internet is out.

People need to accept the realiztion that digital downloads are eventually going to be the ONLY way you get PC games.  

I have already accepted that Digital Downloads are the future and have not purchased a retal box in several years. However Steam is not the only game in town but it is the most intrusive. You can play a Steam game offline, BUT unless you use the task manager, the Steam Client must be running on your system to play the game. You  can not start the game without Steam running. Close Steam and the game closes. If you make an Icon for the game's exe, Steam still starts. I do not find such DRM actions acceptable to play a game without internet access.

Impulse, Direct2Drive and EA all provide a service very similar to Steam without requiring it to be running to start the game. I do not think that not wanting useless background tasks running on a computer is paranoia, only good sense.  Since I came to computers when memory management was necessary, I don't see any reason to use Steam when non-intrusive aternatives exist. And yes, I do know that other clients are set up to start by default, but they all have menu options to disable them because they do not provide constant DRM.

Modifié par david46, 14 avril 2011 - 04:15 .

[Dagiz]

Count Viceroy wrote...

I'm not going to draw any conclusions without knowing the digital sales as well. For every year that goes by the digital market takes a bigger share...

Yeah, this is very very true. 

With regards to trends...a few things that do impact sales (regardless of products) are timing and economy.  With Origins, the timing was before the holidays...and that will impact the larger sales.  What would be interesting to note (not sure if it's possible) but would be to compare the sales figure dates with the dates that the games were activated...or whatever.  If it's a straight 1 to 1 correlation than we know for sure that the holidays had no effect.  If after the holidays there was a large number of activations/authorizations than we know that the holidays did have an effect.  I just have no clue it that's even possible to look at.

As for the economy...well worldwide the economy was doing a hell of a lot better a year and half ago than it is today.  That may or may not be an influencing factor.   I  know from my own personal experience that while I was unemployed..I quit playing a couple MMO's and I  also did not buy a new game the entire time I  was not working.  so that does have an impact - at least I  think it does.   I could be wrong.  


But unless digital sales figures are released...we won't know for sure what's going on. 

[San Diego Thief]

I think sales figures are almost useless in comparison since so many people (like myself) pre-ordered this game expecting it to be like the original

I think Dragon Age 3 preorders and sales will be the telling truth for whether or not this experiment worked as people will be more cautious now and wait for user reviews before making that purchase decision

[Melca36]

david46 wrote...

Melca36 wrote...
I will never get people's paranoid delusions about Steam.  <_<

I've NEVER had a problem with Steam. I can play mods and I can **OFFLINE** when my internet is out.

People need to accept the realiztion that digital downloads are eventually going to be the ONLY way you get PC games.  

I have already accepted that Digital Downloads are the future and have not purchased a retal box in several years. However Steam is not the only game in town but it is the most intrusive. You can play a Steam game offline, BUT unless you use the task manager, the Steam Client must be running on your system to play the game. You  can not start the game without Steam running. Close Steam and the game closes. If you make an Icon for the game's exe, Steam still starts. I do not find such DRM actions acceptable to play a game without internet access.

Impulse, Direct2Drive and EA all provide a service very similar to Steam without requiring it to be running to start the game. I do not think that not wanting useless background tasks running on a computer is paranoia, only good sense.  Since I came to computers when memory management was necessary, I don't see any reason to use Steam when non-intrusive aternatives exist. And yes, I do know that other clients are set up to start by default, but they all have menu options to disable them because they do not provide constant DRM.

Steam is safe and secure and if my internet goes out....I am able to play my games OFFLINE.    I am not scared of Steam. There is a reason its the most popular you know.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

[astrallite]

david46 wrote...

Melca36 wrote...
I will never get people's paranoid delusions about Steam.  <_<

I've NEVER had a problem with Steam. I can play mods and I can **OFFLINE** when my internet is out.

People need to accept the realiztion that digital downloads are eventually going to be the ONLY way you get PC games.  

I have already accepted that Digital Downloads are the future and have not purchased a retal box in several years. However Steam is not the only game in town but it is the most intrusive. You can play a Steam game offline, BUT unless you use the task manager, the Steam Client must be running on your system to play the game. You  can not start the game without Steam running. Close Steam and the game closes. If you make an Icon for the game's exe, Steam still starts. I do not find such DRM actions acceptable to play a game without internet access.

Impulse, Direct2Drive and EA all provide a service very similar to Steam without requiring it to be running to start the game. I do not think that not wanting useless background tasks running on a computer is paranoia, only good sense.  Since I came to computers when memory management was necessary, I don't see any reason to use Steam when non-intrusive aternatives exist. And yes, I do know that other clients are set up to start by default, but they all have menu options to disable them because they do not provide constant DRM.

Everything has it's pros and cons. The cons of steam you have listed. But you are missing the fact that you can redownload the game at any time. This is quite useful as I have quite a large steam collection and not a whole lot of HD space, plus I reformat occasionally for performance.

The other distributors do not allow you to download the game beyond the first year, which means it's a digital rental unless you make your own physical backups.