16 réponses à ce sujet

[Angrywolves]

Ok. What can they do. They have to have a toolkit so the pc poayers can mod their games. It's a must have. They need a big blowout announcement. Maybe they can have Will Wheaton, Jessica Chobot, Felicia Day and other prominent fans playing the game and giving their oh golly gee reactions. What suggestions would you have to promote the game right before its release?

[Allan Schumacher]

This is exactly what they shouldn't do first. They need to come out strong and confident in their own game, not get a bunch of minor celebrities to try and pimp out the game for them.

Yup. Best way to enhance our sales is to make an exceptionally high quality game. This will get the Felicia's, Jessica's, and Wil's talking about the game of their own volition.

[Allan Schumacher]

Deleted some comments since I really don't want to deal with that sort of crap at this moment.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sanunes wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I honestly think if they pushed back Day One DLC to Week 3 DLC, it would both sell better as well as be less negatively received.

I don't think they would see any additional profit for there are enough people that beat a game put it away and never touch it again after beating it might not buy any DLC after that time so if they are done with the game in under three weeks they won't buy it.

I can't see it being less negatively received, for how would be seen any better for the DLC would have been done or mostly done when the game is released and people love to say that since it was developed before release they deserve for free.

I wouldn't be surprised if its reception was a more positive.

I'm not sure if it'd be more profitable, however (I'd be more inclined to think it would not be, at least in the short term - one can debate the long term effects of day one DLC but we don't really know what those are at this moment).

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I wouldn't be surprised if its reception was a more positive.

I'm not sure if it'd be more profitable, however (I'd be more inclined to think it would not be, at least in the short term - one can debate the long term effects of day one DLC but we don't really know what those are at this moment).

I say "more sales" for a specific reason. If less people are selling back their games because they knew they would getting a piece of DLC free (because, say, they pre-ordered the game or something similar), then more copies of the game sold would be actual new copies, instead of the Used copies for five or ten dollars less, which go like hotcakes on newer games.

This is a post that may be correct as a hypothesis.  Your presmise logically makes sense.

By the same token though, many logical assessments get shown to not reflect reality.  It's easy to say that the situation you describe will play out the way that you describe, but people may just as well drop it and move on regardless.  I don't actually know how it would play out.  You could be right.  You might not be.


Although one thing I found crazy interesting is that Stone Prisoner was a ridiculously successful DLC in terms of sales.  We weren't expecting that at all (I know I certainly wasn't).  I wonder how much of Javik's sales were off of used purchases as well.

If the situation that you describe does reflect reality, it'd definitely be better to wait, even in the short term.  If it's not though, the profitability implications are much less clear.  I'd suspect short-term loss by delaying the release, but I can't forsee the long term implications.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 15 avril 2013 - 04:47 .

[Allan Schumacher]

It's a hypothesis

/smug


I'm not against the idea though.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 15 avril 2013 - 05:08 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I wouldn't be surprised if real life's Medieval politics was all rather boring as well.

[Allan Schumacher]

Political controversies get all sorts of attention.

But yes, I'm sure there are many that have an idealized (at least in terms of interest) perspective of politics of any era.

[Allan Schumacher]

the reason skyrim got so many sales was because of the modding community.

It may have helped the PC sales, but I'm not sure how much of an impact it had on the 360 or PS3 sales....

[Allan Schumacher]

goose2989 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

the reason skyrim got so many sales was because of the modding community.

It may have helped the PC sales, but I'm not sure how much of an impact it had on the 360 or PS3 sales....

This seems like a subtle way to say "Don't get excited about having a toolset." 

Well, if it helps, I believe there's been some not so subtle posts (and tweets, and you can include this message as well) that state "Don't get excited about having a toolset" as well.

[Allan Schumacher]

Urazz wrote...

Yeah, but don't you guys get more sales for the PC than the console with your games?

No.  I don't remember the exact numbers, but XBox 360 was definitely the biggest platform for DAO, and I believe PC and PS3 were roughly the same.

And DAO was, in my opinion, a superior game on the PC than it was on the consoles.

[Allan Schumacher]

The circumstances surrounding Steam is exceptionally complicated. It's easy to say that we stubbornly aren't on Steam because we want to push Origin, or even that Valve doesn't want us on Steam because we're so integrated with Origin, but that's not really the case.

Both sides have drawn the line in the sand regarding some issues, and at this point it's "irreconcilable differences" until someone decides to budge (I'm skeptical of this happening in the short term, unfortunately).

[Allan Schumacher]

Well, since there seems to be confusion.

The difference being EA refusing to sell through Steam, and requiring eveyrone to use Origin for their games digitally. That's the problem.

People can buy EA games digital through other services (Amazon sold SimCity as a digital download, for example). The game will require Origin to run, which is just like games with Steamworks and especially Valve's games.

Origin only sells EA games, and almost always at full price.

Origin does not sell only EA games. In fact, EA and Ubisoft agreed to make each other's games available on their respective services (Origin and UPlay), never mind the fact that a quick glance on Origin's home page shows that you can buy games like Tomb Raider, Walking Dead, and Batman: Arkham City. None of these are EA games.

I can agree with sales, although they do seem to be coming around a bit more frequently now.

And they try to cajole you into using the service via requiring you to install it anyway for their games

Valve does this with their own games too (Counterstrike and Half-Life 2 were the big ones that really helped with exposure). Because of services like Steamworks, they have additional avenues to "cajole" people into ensuring Steam gets market penetration.

I suppose in EA's case they are handicapped in this example by releasing a lot more games than Valve does.

The weirdness expands when you can see that EA DOES sell some games on Steam and on other digital services like Gamefly.

So evidently Steam doesn't require "eveyrone to use Origin for their games digitally" as you said earlier in your post....

But, for my main point, the problem is that EA is an EA only store, and that EA "doesn't" sell it's products digitally through the most popular digital store.

Do you think that EA doesn't use Steam (the most popular digital store) just to spite customers? Remember, EA is run by corporate suits that want nothing more than more money and more sales.

[Allan Schumacher]

jkflipflopDAO wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...


Do you think that EA doesn't use Steam (the most popular digital store) just to spite customers? Remember, EA is run by corporate suits that want nothing more than more money and more sales.

That's exactly what I think. I'm the customer. I don't give two craps about your profit margins. I want Dragon Age 3 on Steam. 

So regardless of Valve's demands, EA should accommodate them?  Even if it means we lose money in the end?  (Note, I'm just clarifying on what it is that you wrote.  You seem to be saying literally "I don't care if you lose money.  I want the game on Steam.")

You may not give two craps out our profit margins, but if you enjoy DA3 and want to see more of it, it's a bit nearsighted of you to feel they're irrelevant to your interests as a consumer.

And do you think that EA can maximize their shareholders' value by continuously disappointing, angering, and annoying their customers?

Same to you.  Even if it meant literally losing money, is it still more important to you that the game be available on Steam?

(Yes, I recognize that this is a false dichotomy.  My point is to illustrate "At what point should we no longer be concerned about our economic viability, simply because some people would rather play the game through Steam?")

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 18 avril 2013 - 01:51 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Just for clarity, EA/BioWare delivered their DLC in the same manner with DAO as they did with DA2.

[Allan Schumacher]

Not defending Steam's doing of that, here. I don't play those games. Because Steam does something wrong doesn't mean that it's okay for EA to do it. Please don't think I'm some Steam fanboy attacking EA. I'd rather not HAVE TO use Steam, either, giving my druthers... but, again, as above, I've come to accept that the good of Steam outweighs the bad IMO wherease Origin does not.

Steam achieved its market penetration in large part by mandating that games come with Steam.  If a company wants to do something like this, EA or otherwise, I have little issue with it.  It's not like the Origin requirement is hidden and easy for someone to install if they are actively against using it.

Does it mean that you may not get some games that you otherwise would?  Probably.  It's like when I skip on a game because it has some DRM restriction that I don't care for.  Fortunately, plenty of games to go around IMO.

To spite customers? No. Corporate suits, as you call them, don't give one darn about their customers, only their customers' money. And something that is counter-intuitive but so true about so many executives, so many "smart business people", is that they would rather NOT make a sale than make a sale and share the profit with another.

Perhaps there's more to it than you are aware of. And that I even feel comfortable discussing. For a company that has been trying to recover , the idea of refusing to "[make] a sale and sharing the profit with another" is patently absurd, since as you say EA has little issue sharing their profits with other distributors (they even still sell Sims 3 stuff on Steam to this day).

Share money with Steam and help Steam grow to have a larger market share, even if that just helps sell more EA games? EA'd rather not. They'd rather keep more of the proceeds and have less sales, in a bad attempt at having their own digital storefront.

This is just a conspiracy theory. Both sides drew their lines in the sand. Steam had reservations with us doing the same thing we did in DAO that we continued to do with DA2, for which they pulled DA2 down. When I found out the reason our games were removed, I wasn't particularly thrilled. But as a Steam gamer, I hold both companies "responsible" for not coming to terms. I personally don't think it's good for either company to not have access to each other's goods, but evidently neither were all that keen to budge very far.

Maybe that will change with a new CEO, although ironically I think it helped to create an impetus to push Origin as something not to just sell EA games, but to provide some competition for Steam.

I ran through a bunch of titles in the search on Origin and found most weren't there, of games I know are on Steam and/or GOG and/or Impulse. A bunch (I type in over two dozen titles and stopped counting after a bit) and I think maybe like 10-15% of them were on Origin (though I wasn't tracking how many of those were EA, I tried to choose game titles I was fairly certain weren't - Dawn of War was there, for example, but Faster Than Light, Back to the Future, Space Marine, Political Machine weren't, to name a handful.)

I'll just leave you with a page on RPG Codex forums about the Expeditions: Conquistador game, and some of the challenges it seems bitComposer has had since agreeing to publish the game for Logic Artists.

In any case, a game developer/publisher are well within their right to sell whatever games they want on whatever digital platforms that they want. You are right, Steam's library is larger.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 18 avril 2013 - 02:35 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Except your whole basis for an arguement is based on the fact that you'll "lose money", when in fact Steam has the best publisher/developer split around. Steam charges 1/3rd of the price for the game. That's far and away better than EA's 70/30 split they rape developers with.

You didn't answer the question. You avoided it. I was seeking to establish a baseline for where we shouldn't try to be financially successful. If it came down to "lose money" is it acceptable?  If that's okay, is there a line of profit where we should seek to minimize it?  Or is it just "I want the game on Steam, so you should give it to me?"

Nevermind the fact that the "publisher/developer split" for BioWare using Origin is 0% (so no, Steam is not the best publisher/developer split for our games)

Further, are you suggesting that EA takes a 70% of each sale through Origin?  Because it'd sure be silly if they only took 30% (which is less than 1/3), which is the only other way I can interpret your ratio.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 18 avril 2013 - 05:26 .