47 réponses à ce sujet

[spernus]

I heard report of 1.4 million copies sold on PC and that's a number that seem plausible to me.

The problem is that it's very hard to track PC performance in Europe and it's a strong market for PC/wrpg (eastern europe especially).The Witcher was able to sell 1 million copies while flying under the radar in the US,but it's mostly thanks to eastern europe.

Modifié par spernus, 10 février 2010 - 02:53 .

[Merci357]

Remember the news in early november last year, wenn EA was pleased to announce "Dragon Age DLC generates $1 million"? One million after a single week..
It's not the retail game, that will make the money, it's been a long time in development, inkluding shaping the setting and lore, possible story arcs, as well as creating a new engine. That's BioWares investment in the new franchise.
If the retail edition gets to break even, that is a huge success for a brand new IP.
Then the DLC and AddOns will earn profit, and if that's enough to continue the franchise for a long time (maybe even branch out into different worlds besides ME/DA?), great news for me, indeed.

Modifié par Merci357, 10 février 2010 - 03:22 .

[BohemundI]

Viglin wrote...

Elsewhere it states 2.7 million, but thats stil lgot to be good;

kotaku.com/5467174/left-4-dead-2-sells-29-million-dragon-age-27-million-ea-loses-82-million

Good to know. Now we can rest assured that more games built from the DA mold will be released. DA 2 is already in pre-development, DA 3 should also be a certainty considering these sale numbers.

[BohemundI]

spernus wrote...

I heard report of 1.4 million copies sold on PC and that's a number that seem plausible to me.

The problem is that it's very hard to track PC performance in Europe and it's a strong market for PC/wrpg (eastern europe especially).The Witcher was able to sell 1 million copies while flying under the radar in the US,but it's mostly thanks to eastern europe.

I am guessing that at most 33% of the sales came from the PC platform, which would be around 900 000 copies if we use Kotaku's 2.7 million units sold.

Console games are big sellers these days, which is a good thing. That serves only to introduce Bioware RPGs to a wider fan base.

[Challseus]

Very good news indeed!

[AngryFrozenWater]

Alarna wrote...

I don't think it is such a success. How long was the development process and how much people are working on it?
Afaik they worked 5 years on DAO and thats a long time and they needed much money for that.
If the development costs 30 millions, they only got the cost in (is that correct in english?)

Nothing wrong with your English. It's hard to figure out how much BW/EA gets. There is additional costs, like localization, distribution, packaging, advertizing, etc. Also, these days mercandise is also a part of the profit. But 2.7 or 3.2 is not bad. And the game is still selling, although most money is made in the first 3 months.

Edit: And digital distribution may make the profit a bit higher. The production costs should be a bit less expensive.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 10 février 2010 - 03:48 .

[Abriael_CG]

BohemundI wrote...
I am guessing that at most 33% of the sales came from the PC platform, which would be around 900 000 copies if we use Kotaku's 2.7 million units sold.

Kotaku's numbers are off (and it's not the first time, Kotaku is the true scum of gaming journalism). The only real number we have is from EA's official press release , which is 3.2 millions.
It comes from the earning call conference, and numbers given to investor have, by law, to be 100% accurate.

Also, it's entirely plausible that the PC version sold more than both console versions. It's superior in all aspects, and it's a game genre that normally appeals PC users more than console gamers. Not to mention that DA:O faces much less competition in the PC market.

Also, It's pretty much a given that the PC version will leave behind the console versions more and more as time goes on. Console games sell the most in their first weeks, then preowned sales kick in, strongly damaging new sales. Moreover the pace at which strong console games are relesed is faster, "aging" all games earlier.

On the other hand PC sales have a normally less steep curve, with sales sloping gradually instead of suddenly. Add to it the modding factor that keeps the game fresh (encouraging further sales down the line when a console game is basically dead in the water), and the deal is settled. I would not be surprised, given the number of 1.3 millions PC sell-ins by now, that by the release of awakenings the number will be 1.8 or more.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 10 février 2010 - 04:16 .

[AgenTBC]

Abriel has it: I believe PC games typically sell just over half of their final sales figures in the first 3 months. If Bioware has covered production costs at this point then they are sitting pretty because all the sales over the next 9 months are pure profit, and the margins on DLC expansions are far higher than for the initial retail game.

Which do you think is more profitable, the $50 100+ hour game that took several years to create from the ground up, or the $6 one-hour DLC that was created with the already paid-for toolset for the already paid-for engine and mostly already paid-for graphics and created by content guys instead of the heavy lifting programmers? There's a reason they are pushing DLC so hard. DLC is a license to print money *if you can make the model work*.

In some real sense the $50 boxed game is a 100 hour advertisement for the DLC. That's obviously not precisely true but there's a kernel there, which is that the margin on the box game is low but the margin on the DLC is high.

Modifié par AgenTBC, 10 février 2010 - 04:31 .

[Rixxencaxx]

EA results take into account copies sold not shipped....they know the number of units sold cause they have to account them for revenue. Markets wants the amount of revenues not the number of shipped copies....

[Alarna]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Nothing wrong with your English. It's hard to figure out how much BW/EA gets. There is additional costs, like localization, distribution, packaging, advertizing, etc. Also, these days mercandise is also a part of the profit. But 2.7 or 3.2 is not bad. And the game is still selling, although most money is made in the first 3 months.

Edit: And digital distribution may make the profit a bit higher. The production costs should be a bit less expensive.

I hope so, I want to play more in this universe

[Althernai]

Abriael_CG wrote...

Nope, it says sold-in, which means shipped. Sold-through means sold to customers (and in any case, 99% of the times you see investor-related announcements, even unspecified "sold" means "shipped", sell-through figures are of zero consequence to investors).

Hold on a second. Are you saying that these 3.2 million copies don't include digital downloads? If so, that is a pretty substantial underestimate -- I remember when it was released, it took up multiple leading spots on both Steam and Direct2Drive (one for the Digital Deluxe edition and one for the regular game).

[TheKnave69]

AlmondBrown wrote...

And since some are nit-picking as usual. The Dev gets about between $8-$15 dollars of the $50 retail dollars. Depends on the deal with the Publisher.

Bioware is a unit of the publisher EA, with its own branding, depending on the corporate structure--  Is it a bottom line reporting structure, where the developer generates the revenue and pays a fee to the parent company, or is it a top down structure, where EA receives the revenue and determines budgets for future projects-- the revenye models may differ.  If the latter, then generally any revenue generated by the game will be used to cover overhead, offset losses by other divisions, etc.  If the former, then Bioware makes the revenue, and is obligated to pay the parent company either a fixed fee (either per unit, or per title), or a percentage of revenue.

Again, I don't know how the company is structured, so I can't say for certain which way they are doing business.

[BrunoB1971]

For a game that has been so hyped up, i would say that it is disapointing numbers...assassins creed has been reported x amount to have sold


"In January, Ubisoft said it expected Assassin's Creed II to sell some 9 million units by the end of its current fiscal year in March"

And i would say that a lot more people were interested in Dragon age than Creed....But also word of mouth may have been a factor...if people keep telling people that the game is buggy people might actually be holding off on buying it...also the game did not receive any major discounts on it's price during the holidays which i am sure would have sold more copies. I was watching for any special pricing from many digital retailers for a friend of mine and all i saw at the most was 10$ off...he said it was not enough of a discount yet so he is still holding off...I am sure that when awakening comes out the original will go down and price and it will help sales a bit...

But to be honest the numbers are a bit disappointing...

Modifié par BrunoB1971, 10 février 2010 - 04:46 .

[spernus]

BrunoB1971 wrote...

For a game that has been so hyped up, i would say that it is disapointing numbers...assassins creed has been reported x amount to have sold


"In January, Ubisoft said it expected Assassin's Creed II to sell some 9 million units by the end of its current fiscal year in March"

And i would say that a lot more people were interested in Dragon age than Creed....But also word of mouth may have been a factor...if people keep telling people that the game is buggy people might actually be holding off on buying it...also the game did not receive any major discounts on it's price during the holidays which i am sure would have sold more copies. I was watching for any special pricing from many digital retailers for a friend of mine and all i saw at the most was 10$ off...he said it was not enough of a discount yet so he is still holding off...I am sure that when awakening comes out the original will go down and price and it will help sales a bit...

But to be honest the numbers are a bit disappointing...

You are not realistic there.
The only known rpg to sell 9 million is FF VII,but Assassin creed 2 will soon be at 9 and that's without the japanese market while VII sold well in every market.AC 2 is much stronger in the US and Europe than VII ever was.

Can you imagine how well some western game could sell if they could penetrate the strange japanese market? Nintendo wouldn't have most of the best selling game of all time.

It's far from everyone who enjoy storyline based game,even if it's an rpg.Diablo has a barebone story and there's a lot of people who enjoy the game just for the monster bashing and the loot.

If anything,I expected even less because of how dialogue heavy Dragon age is.This game will easily go on to 4 million+ thanks to good support from Bioware and possibly a game of the year edition.

[Drasill]

Shipped = sold to retailers.Which means they got the money for it. Who cares if the retailers make money or not. As long as Dragon Age is selling well we know we are going to get more.

[Abriael_CG]

BrunoB1971 wrote...

For a game that has been so hyped up, i would say that it is disapointing numbers...assassins creed has been reported x amount to have sold.

Assassin's creed 2 belongs to a genre that's quite more popular than traditional crpgs, not to mention the fact that it's the second game in a franchise.

If you make the comparison with AC1, you can't look at lifetime sales.
If you look at the first three months of sales (DA:O has been out for less than 3 months) you'll see that it actually sold LESS than Dragon Age Origins in that timeframe (and in a period in which the economy was much better).

So I'm afraid that your comparison doesn't hold any water. Every single software house out in the industry would drool at the idea of over 3 millions sales for a new IP in 3 months. It happens very, very rarely.

Rixxencaxx wrote...

EA results take into account copies
sold not shipped....they know the number of units sold cause they have
to account them for revenue. Markets wants the amount of revenues not
the number of shipped copies....

Nope, you're 100% wrong. EA sells the game to retailers. They sell directly to customers only from the EA store. Once the game has been sold to a retailer it's out of their hands and their revenue is already accounted for.
What brick and mortar retailers sell to the customers is entirely inconsequential to EA and their revenue. EA gets their money whether a game is sold to someone or stays on the shelf.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 10 février 2010 - 07:17 .

[Drasill]

Also, I wonder if that is counting PC DD sales or just retail. Which version sold what? According to VGChartz, the 360 version sold 1.31 million whereas the PS3 version sold 0.62 million which puts the PC version at roughly 1.27 million assuming the initial 3.2 million includes DD sales.

[Abriael_CG]

Althernai wrote...
Hold on a second. Are you saying that these 3.2 million copies don't include digital downloads? If so, that is a pretty substantial underestimate -- I remember when it was released, it took up multiple leading spots on both Steam and Direct2Drive (one for the Digital Deluxe edition and one for the regular game).

As for earning is concerned Digital Distribution is normally included in the "shipped" count. The only difference is that, since there's no real "shipping" the shipped count equals to the sold count for DD.

So, given how DD works, the "shipped" count for earning calls normally is made by the number of copies shipped to brick and mortar retailers plus the number of copies sold by Digital Distribution retailers.

There might be a discrepancy because data (and payment) from DD retailers to EA is periodic (and we don't know how long that period is), so it's very possible that the "shipped" count doesn't include the DD numbers from the last few days/weeks
That's not really important for revenue calls, since it's not counted as a revenue for that given period, but for the period in which the DD retailer actually pays EA.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 10 février 2010 - 07:24 .

[RangerSG]

Drasill wrote...

Also, I wonder if that is counting PC DD sales or just retail. Which version sold what? According to VGChartz, the 360 version sold 1.31 million whereas the PS3 version sold 0.62 million which puts the PC version at roughly 1.27 million assuming the initial 3.2 million includes DD sales.

I'm pretty sure that the number is just retail. DD sales are harder to track and almost always kept quite secret. I'd be surprised if DD was ever included in an "open release" figure.

And given that DA:O is an M-rated title that was released during a serious economic downturn where most people have minimal discretionary spending, is a new IP, and is a PC-slanted game in an era where the suits are convinced console-gaming is the "only" profitable form? 3.2 through retail after 3 months would be a boon. Remember the statements from last year, where the EA suits were trying to talk down DA's expectations (more accurately...had no expectations)? I'm sure numbers like these would leave them shocked with surprise.

And put it this way, if they weren't happy, would they have green-lighted an expansion within 2 months?

[Abriael_CG]

RangerSG wrote...

I'm pretty sure that the number is just retail. DD sales are harder to track and almost always kept quite secret. I'd be surprised if DD was ever included in an "open release" figure.

Ahem. That press release is the follow-up of the investor earning call. You keep nothing secret from investors, revenues-wise. It's against the law.

The only way that number excludes revenues from part of the DD retail, might be that they still didn't receive such data.
DD is not hard to track at all. Actually it's much easier to track than the sell-through figures of brick and mortar stores given that there's no difference between the number of shipped products and the number of sold  products. They get paid by the DD retailer a certain percentage for every sale of the game, hence, they know exactly how many sales have gone through.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 10 février 2010 - 08:16 .

[BrunoB1971]

Just to go against the grain, i would ask

"does the genre of the game really matter at this point"

Dragon age has been sold, and plastered in our face for quite some time before it's release , just like modern warfare 2 and GTA IV and wow and it's expansions so it is not like no one knew about the game.

I think that the fact that stuff is coming in fast and furious is the fact that EA might have expected more out of DA and are not seeing enough profit thus pushing Bioware into making more stuff to make the game grow.

I think in the overall scheme of things that the game is in fact a big project divided in chunks. EA and Bioware decided to release the first finished part to test the waters and see. Usually when a piece of entertainment underperform it sees another type of reformating soon after it's original release.

case in point: movies that do not perform well at the box office show up at the video store sooner than the ones that do make money.

same kind of situation as above with dragon age....not enough profit on initial release?, not enough hype, well we will release an expansion to make profit on the original game plus the expansion.

DA may have looked like it performed to many people, but to EA they might have not gotten their return on investment and have now decided to accelerate the project and dish out the chunks as soon as the think it is ready to go.

EA works this way now, they dish out their big products in chunks to try to cash in and at least make money before pirating takes the profit away.

I do not think this is wrong of EA to do this and it is a perfectly good way of doing strategic business. but you have to pay your people and Bioware seems to be a really big studio and i am sure they did not make any profit yet out of DA..if the game has been in development for 5 years as they say...it is a long 5 years without any money coming in to pay for the project...

The good side of this is that we are goign to be swarmed with DA stuff...the downside is that the support for the game has been horrible so far. EA and Bioware need to get their act together if they want to milk this cash cow for all that it is worth.

Modifié par BrunoB1971, 11 février 2010 - 03:50 .

[Guiomar]

Actually Bioware and EA said that they were going to support Dragon Age 2 years with dlc and expansions..

[geoffrotism]

@ bruno, are you suggesting most people paid $50-$60 on a prototype game?