1033 réponses à ce sujet

[Rebecca Black likes DA2]

Zeevico wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Siradix wrote...
Is Gaider trying to make us compare it to Awakening? They were both released March.

I'm just saying that if one is looking for data to serve as proof of anything other than confirmation bias, you might want to take more factors into account. I recognize that some folks are going to take any statement by a developer that isn't a mea culpa as some kind of "denial of the truth", but I'd say we're well aware of how DA2 is selling and how much of a success or failure that is for our company and Dragon Age's future potential. Whether the lesson we've learned is the one you think it should be will remain to be seen, I guess. Hopefully so.

One question: when you developed this game, were you thinking, yep, GOTY material here? I mean, really?

ME2 supposedly "simplified" ME1; whether or not it did is irrelevant, really; ME2 was a different game but it worked and plays well as a different game to ME1.

DA2 is also a good game. But not GOTY material simply because it does not match up to any of (a) fan expectations or ( marketing. Recycled levels, wave-based combat, and not bothering to write a storyline for the apostate mage Hawke that made any kind of sense: these are not moves one makes to get a GOTY.

All of this is simply to say that I very much doubt that Bioware didn't expect some backlash on this one. Even if the game has some excellent ideas, it fails to implement a few key gameplay elements. Now, I'm happy to play it, but many times when a fresh wave of enemies drops down from the sky I either minimise the game or turn it off and reload again. Not necessarily because its hard, but because it's immersion breaking. Makes one roll one's eyes and so forth.

I simply can't imagine Bioware devs did not see this in advance.

For a Bioware game this is a disappointing effort. For me it's still solid and enjoyable: I just have to lower my expectations.

Oh you should ask some of the forum vets who were here for months before the release.  The Bioware people themselves were posting things on this board that would make you gasp.  One in particular I remember was a .gif of soeone kicking someone else out of a window and the Bioware guy captioned it  "This is what we think of PC gamers and DAO".  No joke.  And that was just one of many.  They were generally pricks before release, seemingly super confident this would be an amazing game.

[YohkoOhno]

I'm not challenging DAO outsold DA2. But DAO was released in November 2009 and thus has over a year and a half lead on DA2, so it would take a lot of time for us to see the end result. If DA2 ends up having 50%-75% of the original during its lifetime that's fine. I just don't see it as the game "failing" since I'm sure EA is adequately satisfied with the sales.

As far as "continues to this day", are you actually comparing units sold today from week to week? I doubt that DAO is currently selling more units per week than DA2 right now.

If you want to talk sales, facts are needed to back things up.

Modifié par YohkoOhno, 10 mai 2011 - 06:21 .

[aries1001]

You can get Origins now for about 20 US dollars retail, there's also an Ultimate Version out with all the DLC + Awakening for the normal price of about 50 or 60 US dollars. That's probably why Origins is outselling DA2. 

Edit:

I'm a Bioware forum vet (going back to 2004, and before that to at least 2001) and I've never seen the .gif with the caption Rebecca Black likes DA2 mentioned. However, if (and I say if) this indeed is true, in the ancient greek world this would have be seen a Hybris, and then Bioware now seems to have experienced their moment(s) of Nemesis. If Bioware indeed thought they made a rather good game, then maybe they have had their wake-up call. However, I also see people saying that given the dev time of 12-18 months, it is amazing that they even managed to get a game cobbled together at all. And yes, I do believe that time as a factor needs to be taken into consideration here. I do also believe that many Bioware devs. know the inner workings of the game and that they could have delivered a more coherent as well as a more bug-free game had the been giving 2-3 months or even 4-6 months more development time.

Modifié par aries1001, 10 mai 2011 - 06:27 .

[xkg]

erynnar wrote...
Thanks xkg! You rock!  *big smoochies to you!*

hehe thx

[GammaRayJim]

YohkoOhno wrote...

Interestingly enough, the trend does show an upwards bump during the holiday season, similar to what we see with this chart. The most sales a game ever sells is in its first week of release. From the games released in november, you see a bump during the December Holiday season, then is slopes back down to the curve.

Regardless of whether DA2 outsells DAO, I still want to see accurate estimates. Statements like this:

Let's face it DA:2 was not what the RPG fan base was looking for and when that word got out there it failed. It also didn't grab the CoD crowd because they like to shoot people and not hack and slash them.

...are somewhat unintelligent and are appeals to emotion. You can only speak for yourself if you liked or hated DA2, you can't speak for others unless you have accurate statistics. That's why I think Stanley is right when he talked about "Confirmation Bias". Few people here are really looking from a neutral point of view--heck, the person who started this thread obviously has a grudge against DA2 ("Rebecca Black likes..."). Doing statistical analysis to prove a POV is usually doomed to confirmation bias and subjective viewpoints.

I believe DA2 is less fulfilling than DA1, but I have no idea how much the hard-core fanbase will affect sales, nor do I know if COD fans actually came in with this release. Judging from the existing sales, Origins may outsell DA2, but probably not by that much in the long run.

I don't feel that my statement was unintelligent or appeals to emotion. Go look at how well the CoD franchise sells, 6,7, 8, 9+ million copies a game and DA:2 sold right now at 1.3 - 1.5 million, and yes although it is still an assumption on my part I still feel comfortable making it. People who like shooter games may like sword and sorcery too but the didn't for this game. Because if they did don't you think these sales numbers would be higher than they are. I am not trying to pigeon hole people here but based on my experiences my friends at work who like FPS do not like or play RPGs and vice versa. I personally hate FPS mostly because I suck at them, I do however have always loved fantasy. I just don't see people who are into modern warfare, sniper shooting and the likes actually transitioning into this genre...of course making assumptions here. And I think that this is what game developers miss, you can button=awesome things all you want but to get someone who likes shooting people and to hack and slask them instead I just don't see it happening. Sorry that's my opinion of course but I am actually going use the low sales figures to substantiate my my opinion.

[LeBurns]

GammaRayJim wrote...
I don't feel that my statement was unintelligent or appeals to emotion. Go look at how well the CoD franchise sells, 6,7, 8, 9+ million copies a game and DA:2 sold right now at 1.3 - 1.5 million, and yes although it is still an assumption on my part I still feel comfortable making it. People who like shooter games may like sword and sorcery too but the didn't for this game. Because if they did don't you think these sales numbers would be higher than they are. I am not trying to pigeon hole people here but based on my experiences my friends at work who like FPS do not like or play RPGs and vice versa. I personally hate FPS mostly because I suck at them, I do however have always loved fantasy. I just don't see people who are into modern warfare, sniper shooting and the likes actually transitioning into this genre...of course making assumptions here. And I think that this is what game developers miss, you can button=awesome things all you want but to get someone who likes shooting people and to hack and slask them instead I just don't see it happening. Sorry that's my opinion of course but I am actually going use the low sales figures to substantiate my my opinion.

I think that's a good point about where EA/BW thought they were going.  There is big money in CoD, no question.  But are CoD players every going to play a RPG/Action/Trying to be like CoD/ game?  I don't think so since there are too many great CoD games for them to choose.  EA has already given indication that all new games must have mult-player and etc., again trying to go after the CoD crowd, but they will fail.  Why is that so obvious to everyone except those making millions of dollars to make the decisions?

[SirShreK]

xkg wrote...

SirShreK wrote...
YOu could use the following to guess the week 1 Online sales of DA2 and add it to the current prefactor of your fucntion: 663596,8146

http://gamasutra.com...llion_in_Q1.php

THis will give you the OVERALL sales of DA2 across all platforms online and hard-copies.
YOu will have to make two assumptions though: The steam sales are 30% of all online sales (Its supposed to closer to 50%l but lets give DA2 a wide birth) and the same function holds for Online sales as well. 

Ok. it's ready.

So i have assumed the best possible scenario for DA2 online sales:
105 000 = 1/3 of total online sales (in first 3 weeks).

Chart include all online sales (weeks 4...17 folows the same function as retail sales)

Great Job dude, great job!

[xkg]

SirShreK wrote...
Great Job dude, great job!

Thanks

[Sabriana]

Rebecca Black likes DA2 wrote...

Oh you should ask some of the forum vets who were here for months before the release.  The Bioware people themselves were posting things on this board that would make you gasp.  One in particular I remember was a .gif of soeone kicking someone else out of a window and the Bioware guy captioned it  "This is what we think of PC gamers and DAO".  No joke.  And that was just one of many.  They were generally pricks before release, seemingly super confident this would be an amazing game.

Link or didn't happen. I've been on the forums (although mostly lurking early on) since NWN. I've never seen anything like that ever happen. Until you can prove this outrageous statement, I'll treat it as a falsehood, designend to stir up negative emotions. Should it be true (which I doubt) then I want to see the context in which it was delivered. If you link to the incident, and it is proven that the devs (bioware guys) maliciously insulted countless customers and their own prize horse (DA:O) I shall apologize to you.

DA:O is very much still in the sales-race. It is still frequently  on in-store top 10 lists for sales over here. It is a game that has taken a long time and a lot of devotion from the devs. They worked very hard on it, and it shows.

Simply put, until you prove this, I'll say you are making this up. If you didn't and you prove it, as I said above, I'll apologize.

Modifié par Sabriana, 10 mai 2011 - 08:38 .

[GammaRayJim]

Thanks LeBurns this is my point, I was just looking at one CoD games sales figures I think it was Modern Warfare 2 and it has sold over 12 million copies. Now I can see why a developer may want to go after that revenue but you don't do it with a fantasy RPG with button=awesome. These kind of players are not going to transition into other genres when like you said so many FPS games come out some much more frequently than RPGs do. I mean how many true RPGs come out in a given year 5-10 and FPS are all over the place same with action adventure. It is a niche fan base and unfortunately at this rate it will probably go extinct with everyone trying to capture more market share by making RPGs more like everything else. And as for multi-player if that happens I will unfortunaletly be done with this franchise.

Modifié par GammaRayJim, 10 mai 2011 - 08:57 .

[Mecher3k]

YohkoOhno wrote...

I'm not challenging DAO outsold DA2. But DAO was released in November 2009 and thus has over a year and a half lead on DA2, so it would take a lot of time for us to see the end result. If DA2 ends up having 50%-75% of the original during its lifetime that's fine. I just don't see it as the game "failing" since I'm sure EA is adequately satisfied with the sales.

As far as "continues to this day", are you actually comparing units sold today from week to week? I doubt that DAO is currently selling more units per week than DA2 right now.

If you want to talk sales, facts are needed to back things up.

How dense are you?

The sale numbers shown are per week for each game. Fact is DA2 is failing badly at sales, not a single Bioware employee as denied these numbers, not a one. In fact all they have done is attempt to defend the numbers shown!

[astrallite]

At this rate if DA2 can break 50% of the sales of DA2 I'd call that a success.

[billy the squid]

Mecher3k wrote...

YohkoOhno wrote...

I'm not challenging DAO outsold DA2. But DAO was released in November 2009 and thus has over a year and a half lead on DA2, so it would take a lot of time for us to see the end result. If DA2 ends up having 50%-75% of the original during its lifetime that's fine. I just don't see it as the game "failing" since I'm sure EA is adequately satisfied with the sales.

As far as "continues to this day", are you actually comparing units sold today from week to week? I doubt that DAO is currently selling more units per week than DA2 right now.

If you want to talk sales, facts are needed to back things up.

How dense are you?

The sale numbers shown are per week for each game. Fact is DA2 is failing badly at sales, not a single Bioware employee as denied these numbers, not a one. In fact all they have done is attempt to defend the numbers shown!

I think a certain amount of denial about what has happened is present. Bioware tried to shift consumer group by creating this, thing and only succeeded in alienating a large portion of the core fanbase without drawing significant numbers of the so called CoD/ casual crowd. And it shows in the player response and the sales picture as well as reviews, even professional ones which were to a certain extent lower than DAO


This espresses it better than I can.
"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is."

[YohkoOhno]

Mecher3k wrote...
How dense are you?

The sale numbers shown are per week for each game. Fact is DA2 is failing badly at sales, not a single Bioware employee as denied these numbers, not a one. In fact all they have done is attempt to defend the numbers shown!

I specifically asked if the person was saying that Dragon Age Origins in the Last Week of April outsold Dragon Age 2 in the Last Week of April, because that's what the person sounded like.

As far as my criticisms go, I'm just trying to point out that these sales figures need to be analyzed from an objective manner, not based on your own personal opinions of the game.  I pointed out the bump in DA:O as being more indicative of the holidays sales--since other games that were released close to the Holiday Season (look on VGChartz) had a Holiday Bump bubble, and most that don't fall into the logarithmic curve, it's more or less based on sales and not on "word of mouth".

As far as calling it a failure, only Bioware can determine that based on profit and loss.  Most people who call it a failure are more or less using Mike Laidlaw's words against him with his wanting CoD's audience.   But you don't know if he thought this could be achievable with Dragon Age 2, and most of the complaints seem to be taking severe offense to him expressing this opinion and trying to change DA2 to move in this direction.

But just because he said that does not mean Bioware or EA consider this a "failure", maybe it just proves that an RPG is not going to sell that much.  But that also doesn't mean they consider this a failure.  And I'm not judging the actual game positively or negatively here, just the fact that calling it a "failure" is not a real statement of truth.

• You can say it failed to meet your expectations.
• You can say it failed to meet Mike Laidlaw's opinion on sales.
• But you can't say it was a failure for Bioware or EA, since only they can make that determination.

Modifié par YohkoOhno, 10 mai 2011 - 10:12 .

[Aaleel]

Well it could be considered a failure based on their own goals.

Their goal was 4.5-5 million in sales, and metacritic scores of 90. So in that sense it failed to meet their expectations, not just those of some of their customers/.

From a dollar and cents perspective, only they'll know how the sales weigh against the shorter development time.

Modifié par Aaleel, 10 mai 2011 - 10:15 .

[YohkoOhno]

Keep in mind I'm not arguing about's people's opinions, rather, I'm arguing against taking numbers and considering them facts.

Also, to keep in mind sales, DA didn't reach 5 million until at least a year passed I think, so they've got 44 weeks to go for that. If the game averages, say, 10,000 units per week, you have 440,000 units in that time. And since they said they have a sell-in of 2 million already, we'll just have to see. I think this will make 3 million in a year.

[Rebecca Black likes DA2]

YohkoOhno wrote...

Keep in mind I'm not arguing about's people's opinions, rather, I'm arguing against taking numbers and considering them facts.

Also, to keep in mind sales, DA didn't reach 5 million until at least a year passed I think, so they've got 44 weeks to go for that. If the game averages, say, 10,000 units per week, you have 440,000 units in that time. And since they said they have a sell-in of 2 million already, we'll just have to see. I think this will make 3 million in a year.

Are you Volourn?

[neppakyo]

YohkoOhno wrote...

Keep in mind I'm not arguing about's people's opinions, rather, I'm arguing against taking numbers and considering them facts.

Also, to keep in mind sales, DA didn't reach 5 million until at least a year passed I think, so they've got 44 weeks to go for that. If the game averages, say, 10,000 units per week, you have 440,000 units in that time. And since they said they have a sell-in of 2 million already, we'll just have to see. I think this will make 3 million in a year.

I disagree. It'll probably be more like a little of 2 million if they're lucky. User scores for the game are still coming in pretty low, and word of mouth is getting around. Even a lot of stores like gamestop don't reccomend people to buy the game.

Too bad there aren't any numbers for the DA:O PC version. While back bioware stated that on the PC sales were more than each console, but not more than the 2 consoles combined. So a guess is they sold at least 2 million on the PC ver.

[YohkoOhno]

No, but I'm not somebody who tries to insult people who have an opinion. (Even your name insults the fans who like it). I'm basing my statement based on that chart projection and how the games tend to level off over time.

If people want to discuss sales, it should be done like analyzing accounting, stocks, or web analytics. Without falling into confirmation bias traps or trying to prove a conclusion instead of being curious.

My own opinion of DA2 was a B- instead of the A- I gave DA:O and I think they rushed it and made miscalculations. But I don't use my own opinions to influence my understanding of the sales chart.

User scores for the game are still coming in pretty low, and word of mouth is getting around

How powerful is "word of mouth". I'm not sure it's as powerful as some people think. In the end, will it affect sales as much as you believe?

Modifié par YohkoOhno, 10 mai 2011 - 10:29 .

[Night Prowler76]

YohkoOhno wrote...

Keep in mind I'm not arguing about's people's opinions, rather, I'm arguing against taking numbers and considering them facts.

Also, to keep in mind sales, DA didn't reach 5 million until at least a year passed I think, so they've got 44 weeks to go for that. If the game averages, say, 10,000 units per week, you have 440,000 units in that time. And since they said they have a sell-in of 2 million already, we'll just have to see. I think this will make 3 million in a year.

Ummm, I think your Math is a bit wonky, no offense, they have 2 million sold in, and vgcharts has it at about 1.4 million sold to consumers, so lets be generous and give them 1.6 million sold to consumers, so if they they sold 10k a week like you suggested, they would barely break 2 million copies sold, compared to the numbers of Origins, I would call it somewhat of a failure.

[Mecher3k]

YohkoOhno, if I said what you actually are I would be banned from the forums.

[neppakyo]

Not to mention that BW/EA set themelves a goal to reach 5+ million sales and +90 metacritic score, so while it'll make a small profit, its a failure compared to the original goals set.

[GammaRayJim]

I agree I don't see this game selling in it's lifetime any more than 2 to 2.5 million tops. This thing dropped like a rock as soon as it was released. They were lucky to get all the pre-orders that they did because once people started the word of mouth thing it was all over but the crying. The weekly sales figures keep dropping at a rate that will see it bottom out in the next couple of months.

[YohkoOhno]

YohkoOhno, if I said what you actually are I would be banned from the forums.

So much for Bioware games being for mature people.  Why even make that kind of statement.  I think I've been polite to you.

Not to mention that BW/EA set themelves a goal to reach 5+ million sales and +90 metacritic score, so while it'll make a small profit, its a failure compared to the original goals set.

Of course, people are assuming Laidlaw's or Melo's statements in interviews was a realistic goal planned and taken into account by management (including marketing, finance, or accounting), or just a hopeful goal or wishful statement said in a press interview.   

Modifié par YohkoOhno, 10 mai 2011 - 11:43 .

[xkg]

[deleted]

Modifié par xkg, 11 mai 2011 - 11:54 .