10 réponses à ce sujet

[Rahelron]

Bioware:

Before deciding to delay the release by 6 weeks did you evaluate numbers about the loss of sales that having a buggy / unpolished game would provoke? Did you have the chance to compare that figure against the added costs caused by the increased development time?

 

My real question is:

Do you you have ways to measure loss of sales caused by bugs and lack of polish? I mean: they shurely cause bad word of mouth and bad press... but do you have ways to translate that into a revenue loss assessment? If you do, how does it work?

[Sylvius the Mad]

They did mention how much more valuable pre-release time is compared to post-release time. Given that any patches released after the game need to be certified by the console makers, and pre-release they can just fix bugs as fast as they find them, we're talking about having a significant buggier game not just at release, but for months afterward.

[AppealToReason]

To Sylvius' point, a buggy game on release that gets fixed later is a bad game. A delayed game is just a delayed game.

 

Its a big thing in PR and public perception. Fix it after it ships gets you Battlefield 4. No company wants that.

[Realmzmaster]

As Sylvius the Mad and AppealToReason have stated it is far better to delay the game and crush any game breaking bugs than to release a really buggy product.

 

The game is still going to have bugs, but it best that those bugs are minor and do not significantly detract from the overall experience.

If the extra time is used to polish the game that should provide a better experience.

 

Now, if that extra time is being used to add new features that would be a mistake, because that means less time may be given to polishing the game.

[schall_und_rauch]

I think it's extremely difficult to really evaluate based on data how much money a company will lose if they release prematurely.

 

However, think about it this way: Diablo II was one year delayed and was one of the best selling games at the time. Blizzard is company which built their reputation and commercial success based on taking their time to produce quality products.

 

A good game will still sell a year after release, regardless of whether it was released on time or a couple of months later. A buggy game at release will receive bad initial reviews, which give an impression that cannot be fixed by updating later. Not to mention that the reputation of the studio will suffer. I get the feeling that, after receiving so much criticism for DAII and ME3, Bioware wants to do things right this time.

[Magdalena11]

I'm sure there is data somewhere deals with sales forecasts but I'm also convinced they'll sell just as many games in November that they would have in October.  I'm sure the folks working 6 weeks longer than they thought they would be are almost as eager for the game to be released as we are.

[AppealToReason]

I'm sure there is data somewhere deals with sales forecasts but I'm also convinced they'll sell just as many games in November that they would have in October.  I'm sure the folks working 6 weeks longer than they thought they would be are almost as eager for the game to be released as we are.

 

It probably has a bigger effect on long term sales, casual user sales and DLC. If 5 weeks is needed to increase those while having minimal or maybe even increased effect on day 1/early purchase sales then I bet it was a pretty easy argument for the businessy people.

 

A lot of those workers are probably on contracts so a number of them are probably happy that they've just secured employment for another 5 weeks.

[Sylvius the Mad]

It probably has a bigger effect on long term sales, casual user sales and DLC. If 5 weeks is needed to increase those while having minimal or maybe even increased effect on day 1/early purchase sales then I bet it was a pretty easy argument for the businessy people.

A lot of those workers are probably on contracts so a number of them are probably happy that they've just secured employment for another 5 weeks.

EA does typically downsize teams on release. Especially QA. The other option would be to transfer devs from crunch period to crunch period, and that's a great way to burn people out

[Rahelron]

Let's say that a game doesn't lose sales for for the simple fact that it gets delayed. I can believe that.

But why does a game developer delay a release? Not because they want their game to be perfect, but for economic reasons. The game would loose sales if it got released in a crappy and unpolished state.

 

But what about costs? If it got released at the time T the game would cost Y, but if it got released at the time T + 1 Month, it would cost Y + 1 Month of developing costs. Now the game company would need to sell X + something copies to achieve the same margin.

 

 

If I worked at Bioware's marketing department my reasoning would be something like this:

 

If we release the game when we initially thought we would, we would loose X sales due to bad word of mouth generated by bugs and general lack of polish.

(BUDGETED SALES - SALES LOSS)* SELLING PRICE - COSTS = MARGIN 1 (Crappy game margin)

 

Now let's build another scenario: to fix bugs and polish the game we need to add Y weeks of development time that mean Z $ of ADDED COSTS.

(BUDGETED SALES) * SELLING PRICE - (COSTS + ADDED COSTS) = MARGIN 2 (Good Game Margin)

 

IF (MARGIN 2 > MARGIN 1) THEN it is good to delay the release ELSE it is not good to delay the release.

 

 

 

 

Now to the questions:

1. Does Bioware reason like this when it comes to decide if a game has to be delayed or not?
2. If it doesn't: is it because Bioware doesn't believe in such methods or because it is not possible to perform the calculations I described?
3. Is it possible to calculate how much Brand Image deterioration caused by crappy releases impact sales in the long term (next installments in the same franchise, other titles by the same company etc.)?

[Schreckstoff]

The game was most likely delayed due to competition not to be further polished.

[aTigerslunch]

It was delayed for polishing, not competition.

 

It's always better to release a game with less bugs than one full of bugs no matter costs, cause sales drop with tons of bugs on a game.

 

Anything more is just overthinking.