I really don't have anything to say here anymore. Well, maybe. I would like to apologise to zexen_lowe, who may...or may not, have been upset by what happened after my warning. However, let's not dwell on the past, so...
Not every game can be a Mario or a COD...
What makes a game successful? Well, that's a very difficult question to answer, but maybe Eric Nosfinger, key developer at High Voltage Software (the company who made The Conduit, and...you really don't want to know) can answer his question. When talking about the original game and how it spawned a sequel, he mentioned the following:
“People look at it and they say, if it’s not a million unit seller it’s a flop. That’s preposterous,” said CEO Eric Nofsinger. “If that really were the minimum bar for a success, the game industry would be gone in under a year. There are thousands of games released that don’t sell a million units. There are like ten games a year that sell over a million units. But if you can sell a few hundred thousand copies -- 300, 400 thousand copies, which is in the range that we did -- we made money off that. We did well.
Personally, I believe he's right on the money. How does it matter if a game has sold 70,000, or 70 million, if the company thinks it's a success? It's the companies and the investors who predict sales for games, so if the new Zelda game had predicted sales of 10million and reached 8, it would be considered a failure.
However, if a game like The Conduit had expected sales of around 250k and reach nearly 500k, then it's clearly a success. Not every game can be a Mario or COD, you know.
Of course, it can be difficult to judge the sales of a game, because two key pieces of information are missing:
- Cost of production and advertising
- Expected sales/revenue from the game
If you'd like to read more of my series, then look no further! Links are below;
1. http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=120673&page=1 (statistical anomolies with Wii games)
2. http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=120880&page=1&str=175262275# (What Nintendo SHOULD have done with the Wii)
3.
13. http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=124137&page=1&str=782214510# (Why does Microsoft find little success in the east?)
