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Forums - Sales Discussion - Is Epic Mickey a lesson to third parties?

jarrod on 18 January 2011

Lostplanet22 said:

AAA. game...Quality...And it has an 72 on metacritic... They just made a Disney game for the audience who wants it.   They just could made a Mickey Party game and it would also pass 1-2 million sales;.

AAA game is a reflection on the scale of budget, not the inbred industry press critical responses to it.  Lost Planet 2, despite having an even worse metacritic rating of 68-63 (depending on platform), is still most certainly a AAA game in the sense that's being talked about in this thread.

And Mickey Party probably would've done as well as Pca-Man Party (ie: not at all).  Disney has said Epic Mickey is their most successful sales launch in history.  Better than any of the Kingdom Hearts games even, none of which passed 1.3m their first NPDs btw, in fact none even sold half that.  This is hardly a business as usual release or performance, attributing Epic Mickey's sales to the brand/audience alone is basically you sticking your head in the sand...



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MaxwellGT2000 on 18 January 2011
Antabus said:
MaxwellGT2000 said:
Antabus said:

I don't know about you, but I have seen cheap COD games on Wii pretty often. They hit the 20£ mark in 10 weeks and when most of the stock is sold, the price goes up. I think that is because the retailers don't order more shipments of those games on Wii.

http://www.thehut.com/games/platforms/nintendo-wii/disney-s-epic-mickey/10081014.html

http://www.thehut.com/games/platforms/nintendo-wii/just-dance-2/10215560.html

http://www.thehut.com/games/platforms/nintendo-wii/goldeneye/10215558.html

http://www.thehut.com/games/platforms/nintendo-wii/sonic-colours/10196405.html

Less than 40$ in less than 10 weeks. I picked some games which some people do consider to be  recent quality titles from VGC Wii top sellers list.

 


Uh not only is that not an American retailer but it's online who rarely price things at the MSRP anyway.... I go by what retailers you can physically walk into where most games are sold.  If we go by the MSRP in other countries which is £39.99 it's roughly 64 dollars more than HD titles in the US.

Basically I was speaking for the US region and didn't say anything for the UK/Europe at all, if you'd like to bring up Japan into this you're more than welcome, but it'd still not be the region I was clearly discussing and in no way affects my argument.

 

Ok, so EU/UK does not count. Online retailers do not count. I don't get why do you want to count only MSRP, when you talk about price drops. Sounds like cherry picking to me.

I also don't understand your point with that "£39,99 is roughly 64$ more than HD titles in US". What are you trying say, HD titles are free in US?

Basically you did not mention any region, you are just moving goal posts to suit your own argument.

No it means 64 dollars which is more than the 60 dollar MSRP in America... but you knew that.

My argument was based in the US currency and region, I also only brought up Gamestop prices which is the biggest retailer in the US, basically I was bringing up the standard in the US, since I can't speak for the UK or Japan, that's not moving goal posts since it's exactly what I stated.

Now if you did want to knock me you'd bring up something like CoD was moved back up to 60 dollars, which I did not know was not a permanent price drop as it was 50 dollars for the entire month of Dec, and usually they put the limited time/sale sticker on it if it's not a perm price drop.  

But still games like Lords of Shadow, Darksiders, Brutal Legend, etc get permanent standard price drops in the US (just to clarify) shortly after release and those games will never be the big successes like the CoD or AC brands, so there isn't much reason to gamble like they do putting their companies at risk and they don't even get to sell their game at the 60 dollar standard for more than a couple of months at best.  

FYI I know there was supposed to be a Wii version of Brutal Legend and the company went belly up because of Lair and Brash before it was finished but they could have gave them a little help and kept that company from going under.



MaxwellGT2000 - "Does the amount of times you beat it count towards how hardcore you are?"

Wii Friend Code - 5882 9717 7391 0918 (PM me if you add me), PSN - MaxwellGT2000, XBL - BlkKniteCecil, MaxwellGT2000

silicon on 18 January 2011
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

AAA. game...Quality...And it has an 72 on metacritic... They just made a Disney game for the audience who wants it.   They just could made a Mickey Party game and it would also pass 1-2 million sales;.

AAA game is a reflection on the scale of budget, not the inbred industry press critical responses to it.  Lost Planet 2, despite having an even worse metacritic rating of 68-63 (depending on platform), is still most certainly a AAA game in the sense that's being talked about in this thread.

And Mickey Party probably would've done as well as Pca-Man Party (ie: not at all).  Disney has said Epic Mickey is their most successful sales launch in history.  Better than any of the Kingdom Hearts games even, none of which passed 1.3m their first NPDs btw, in fact none even sold half that.  This is hardly a business as usual release or performance, attributing Epic Mickey's sales to the brand/audience alone is basically you sticking your head in the sand...

I think NOT attributing a lot of sales to brand / audience is sticking your head in the sand. Most game sales trends point to that. Also, Kindom Hearts may have grown the Disney brand within a certain audience thus generating more sales for the next Disney games.

Quality of a game is something noone will experience until they actually buy the game... but at that point the game is already sold.

Budget also helps to in the sense that there's good marketing and that the game is polished to make pretty gameplay videos.



jarrod on 18 January 2011
silicon said:
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

AAA. game...Quality...And it has an 72 on metacritic... They just made a Disney game for the audience who wants it.   They just could made a Mickey Party game and it would also pass 1-2 million sales;.

AAA game is a reflection on the scale of budget, not the inbred industry press critical responses to it.  Lost Planet 2, despite having an even worse metacritic rating of 68-63 (depending on platform), is still most certainly a AAA game in the sense that's being talked about in this thread.

And Mickey Party probably would've done as well as Pca-Man Party (ie: not at all).  Disney has said Epic Mickey is their most successful sales launch in history.  Better than any of the Kingdom Hearts games even, none of which passed 1.3m their first NPDs btw, in fact none even sold half that.  This is hardly a business as usual release or performance, attributing Epic Mickey's sales to the brand/audience alone is basically you sticking your head in the sand...

I think NOT attributing a lot of sales to brand / audience is sticking your head in the sand. Most game sales trends point to that. Also, Kindom Hearts may have grown the Disney brand within a certain audience thus generating more sales for the next Disney games.

Quality of a game is something noone will experience until they actually buy the game... but at that point the game is already sold.

Budget also helps to in the sense that there's good marketing and that the game is polished to make pretty gameplay videos.

Well, good thing I'm NOT NOT attributing a significant amount of sales to brand / audience. ;)

Spector absolutely made the right decision in focusing on Wii, the core Nintendo audience and expanded casual audience fits his game like a glove.  I don't think the game could've asked for better sales, and I doubt even combined across 360 and PS3 it'd have hit the same first month benchmark.

But one the other hand... how well do you think "Mickey Party" would've sold?  And how exactly would Kingdom Hearts have grown the base for Epic Mickey specifically?  Are you saying most KH fans are also Wii owners (hmm...)?  There's pretty clearly more at play here than "lol Wii casuals buy anything" and "lol people know that Mickey is"...



MaxwellGT2000 on 18 January 2011
silicon said:
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

AAA. game...Quality...And it has an 72 on metacritic... They just made a Disney game for the audience who wants it.   They just could made a Mickey Party game and it would also pass 1-2 million sales;.

AAA game is a reflection on the scale of budget, not the inbred industry press critical responses to it.  Lost Planet 2, despite having an even worse metacritic rating of 68-63 (depending on platform), is still most certainly a AAA game in the sense that's being talked about in this thread.

And Mickey Party probably would've done as well as Pca-Man Party (ie: not at all).  Disney has said Epic Mickey is their most successful sales launch in history.  Better than any of the Kingdom Hearts games even, none of which passed 1.3m their first NPDs btw, in fact none even sold half that.  This is hardly a business as usual release or performance, attributing Epic Mickey's sales to the brand/audience alone is basically you sticking your head in the sand...

I think NOT attributing a lot of sales to brand / audience is sticking your head in the sand. Most game sales trends point to that. Also, Kindom Hearts may have grown the Disney brand within a certain audience thus generating more sales for the next Disney games.

Quality of a game is something noone will experience until they actually buy the game... but at that point the game is already sold.

Budget also helps to in the sense that there's good marketing and that the game is polished to make pretty gameplay videos.


Well you also got to factor in game quality, cause think about it, Wii was built off the backs of social gamers talking about games like Wii Sports, having friends over to play, and the like.  It's the very reason games like Just Dance with no marketing at all became a craze in of itself, quality game, with a nice soundtrack, and it's fun to make a fool of yourself with friends.

So word of mouth/socializing has a lot to do with the success or failure of certain titles.  Marketing actually helps this since they are social gamers they'll talk about the ads or get the game cause of the ad when they wouldn't have otherwise and then tell their friends...  but if its a bad game word of mouth doesn't work.  Many PS2 and PS1 games sold under these same premises.



MaxwellGT2000 - "Does the amount of times you beat it count towards how hardcore you are?"

Wii Friend Code - 5882 9717 7391 0918 (PM me if you add me), PSN - MaxwellGT2000, XBL - BlkKniteCecil, MaxwellGT2000

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silicon on 18 January 2011
jarrod said:
silicon said:
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

AAA. game...Quality...And it has an 72 on metacritic... They just made a Disney game for the audience who wants it.   They just could made a Mickey Party game and it would also pass 1-2 million sales;.

AAA game is a reflection on the scale of budget, not the inbred industry press critical responses to it.  Lost Planet 2, despite having an even worse metacritic rating of 68-63 (depending on platform), is still most certainly a AAA game in the sense that's being talked about in this thread.

And Mickey Party probably would've done as well as Pca-Man Party (ie: not at all).  Disney has said Epic Mickey is their most successful sales launch in history.  Better than any of the Kingdom Hearts games even, none of which passed 1.3m their first NPDs btw, in fact none even sold half that.  This is hardly a business as usual release or performance, attributing Epic Mickey's sales to the brand/audience alone is basically you sticking your head in the sand...

I think NOT attributing a lot of sales to brand / audience is sticking your head in the sand. Most game sales trends point to that. Also, Kindom Hearts may have grown the Disney brand within a certain audience thus generating more sales for the next Disney games.

Quality of a game is something noone will experience until they actually buy the game... but at that point the game is already sold.

Budget also helps to in the sense that there's good marketing and that the game is polished to make pretty gameplay videos.

Well, good thing I'm NOT NOT attributing a significant amount of sales to brand / audience. ;)

Spector absolutely made the right decision in focusing on Wii, the core Nintendo audience and expanded casual audience fits his game like a glove.  I don't think the game could've asked for better sales, and I doubt even combined across 360 and PS3 it'd have hit the same first month benchmark.

But one the other hand... how well do you think "Mickey Party" would've sold?  And how exactly would Kingdom Hearts have grown the base for Epic Mickey specifically?  Are you saying most KH fans are also Wii owners (hmm...)?  There's pretty clearly more at play here than "lol Wii casuals buy anything" and "lol people know that Mickey is"...

I agree that Wii is a good fit for Epic Mickey. But I also think Mickey Party would have sold well. 1 million. Maybe if they did a Mickey Sports or something similar. Or Disney World Sports. 1 Million isn't unreasonable. There is an audience for those games, which may not completely overlap with Epic Mickeys audience.

One thing Epic Mickey showed was that Mickey's brand isn't as strong as they thought. Which was why there was the immediate press release blaming the camera controls, which I don't think have anything to do with sales.

With resepct to KH, I said a certain audience. I.E. Many young gamers did not grow up watching Mickey mouse, they didn't have mickey mouse club or anything like that. Most shows on the Disney channel are not even cartoons. KH hearts leveraged the FF brands to encourage younger gamers or gamers who were more familiar with the FF fantasy world, and introduced them to the disney world.



jarrod on 18 January 2011
silicon said:

I agree that Wii is a good fit for Epic Mickey. But I also think Mickey Party would have sold well. 1 million. Maybe if they did a Mickey Sports or something similar. Or Disney World Sports. 1 Million isn't unreasonable. There is an audience for those games, which may not completely overlap with Epic Mickeys audience.

One thing Epic Mickey showed was that Mickey's brand isn't as strong as they thought. Which was why there was the immediate press release blaming the camera controls, which I don't think have anything to do with sales.

With resepct to KH, I said a certain audience. I.E. Many young gamers did not grow up watching Mickey mouse, they didn't have mickey mouse club or anything like that. Most shows on the Disney channel are not even cartoons. KH hearts leveraged the FF brands to encourage younger gamers or gamers who were more familiar with the FF fantasy world, and introduced them to the disney world.

I think you're vastly overestimating the potential for a "Mickey Party" title.  To keep the Kingdom Hearts comparison going, it was the previous sales high watermark for a Disney IP sales wise, and the best initial NPD record that series has was only 646k from Kingdom Hearts II.  That's just barely less than half what Epic Mickey sold it's first NPD (1.3m).

1m lifetime US probably wouldn't be an unreasonable figure for a Mickey branded Mario Party or Mario & Sonic clone, but there's pretty much no way in hell it would do 1.3m 1st NPD like Epic Mickey has, no matter who Disney got to make it or how much advertising they threw at it.  Hell, Nintendo's own older console Disney games (Mickey's Speedway USA, Magical Mirror starring Mickey Mouse) combined have even come close to that figure... again there's more at work than the brand, more than the built in audience.

And in the US at least, I think you can probably credit KH more with introducing young Disney fans to Square games than you can the reverse.  It might be different in Japan and Europe, but then the American KH market is larger than both of them combined.



Lostplanet22 on 18 January 2011
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

AAA. game...Quality...And it has an 72 on metacritic... They just made a Disney game for the audience who wants it.   They just could made a Mickey Party game and it would also pass 1-2 million sales;.

AAA game is a reflection on the scale of budget, not the inbred industry press critical responses to it.  Lost Planet 2, despite having an even worse metacritic rating of 68-63 (depending on platform), is still most certainly a AAA game in the sense that's being talked about in this thread.

And Mickey Party probably would've done as well as Pca-Man Party (ie: not at all).  Disney has said Epic Mickey is their most successful sales launch in history.  Better than any of the Kingdom Hearts games even, none of which passed 1.3m their first NPDs btw, in fact none even sold half that.  This is hardly a business as usual release or performance, attributing Epic Mickey's sales to the brand/audience alone is basically you sticking your head in the sand...

That is not the idea I am getting especially not on Vgchartz..

Mickey compared to Pac Man....I think the best years of Pac Man's popularity has passed...

Sure an Mickey Party game would probably not sell 1.3M  first month but that would again be one of those games with long legs;.especially if it gets advertised like Wii party 2-3 million sales would be achievable..

No its sales are not only because it uses Mickey, it is an combination of Advertising, being hyped like the game to get for Wii owners this winter  the use of Mickey etc;.











 

jarrod on 18 January 2011
Lostplanet22 said:

That is not the idea I am getting especially not on Vgchartz..

Mickey compared to Pac Man....I think the best years of Pac Man's popularity has passed...

Sure an Mickey Party game would probably not sell 1.3M  first month but that would again be one of those games with long legs;.especially if it gets advertised like Wii party 2-3 million sales would be achievable..

No its sales are not only because it uses Mickey, it is an combination of Advertising, being hyped like the game to get for Wii owners this winter  the use of Mickey etc;.


That was pretty clear, which is why I decided to educate you. :P

I'd say Mickey's best years are behind him also.  And your theoretical "Mickey Party" would sell a fraction what Epic Mickey has and will continue to, that's partly the point.  How well did Disney Golf sell?  Konami's Disney Sports line?  Magical Mirror?  If selling 2-3 million is so easy with these IPs... why is it no games besides Kingdom Hearts (and soon Epic Mickey) ever managed it before?  Have you actually looked at the sales of Disney games?



Lostplanet22 on 18 January 2011
jarrod said:
Lostplanet22 said:

That is not the idea I am getting especially not on Vgchartz..

Mickey compared to Pac Man....I think the best years of Pac Man's popularity has passed...

Sure an Mickey Party game would probably not sell 1.3M  first month but that would again be one of those games with long legs;.especially if it gets advertised like Wii party 2-3 million sales would be achievable..

No its sales are not only because it uses Mickey, it is an combination of Advertising, being hyped like the game to get for Wii owners this winter  the use of Mickey etc;.


That was pretty clear, which is why I decided to educate you. :P

I'd say Mickey's best years are behind him also.  And your theoretical "Mickey Party" would sell a fraction what Epic Mickey has and will continue to, that's partly the point.  How well did Disney Golf sell?  Konami's Disney Sports line?  Magical Mirror?  If selling 2-3 million is so easy with these IPs... why is it no games besides Kingdom Hearts (and soon Epic Mickey) ever managed it before?  Have you actually looked at the sales of Disney games?

Have you looked at the sales of the Disney games?

You: Epic Mickey first month in the USA 1.3 million
VGchartz:  EM after more than one month sold 1.05 in North America..

I have no numbers for older Disney games I only remember that Disney games made it pretty easy to the Platinum status On PS One and I am sure they can it today aswell on Wii.. Sadly we only have VG numbers and yes I think they are not correct ...and so do you otherwise you would not use NPD numbers.