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

Declan on 18 January 2011
MaxwellGT2000 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 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.

Perhaps, but not this one - one month isn't enough time for word of mouth to generate 1.3 million sales.



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jarrod on 18 January 2011

Lostplanet22 said:

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.

lolololrol!  Have you?

NPD: 1.3m first month in USA

 

Outside KH1-2, no games featuring Mickey Mouse have sold over 2m worldwide on a home or handheld console afaik.  Epic Mickey is going to cruise past that benchmark...



Pavolink on 18 January 2011

Yes, is a lesson. Third-Parties don't have to make success software on Wii because people get angered.



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Lostplanet22 on 18 January 2011
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

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.

lolololrol!  Have you?

NPD: 1.3m first month in USA

 

Outside KH1-2, no games featuring Mickey Mouse have sold over 2m worldwide on a home or handheld console afaik.  Epic Mickey is going to cruise past that benchmark...


Exactly my point ....  You look to VG numbers to say no game sold so great as Epic Mickey...And then you use NPD to say how well Epic Mickey sold and not VG numbers because their is a huge difference between them..



 

jarrod on 18 January 2011
Lostplanet22 said:
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

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.

lolololrol!  Have you?

NPD: 1.3m first month in USA

 

Outside KH1-2, no games featuring Mickey Mouse have sold over 2m worldwide on a home or handheld console afaik.  Epic Mickey is going to cruise past that benchmark...


Exactly my point ....  You look to VG numbers to say no game sold so great as Epic Mickey...And then you use NPD to say how well Epic Mickey sold and not VG numbers because their is a huge difference between them..

Read the NYT article I linked... Disney themselves said Epic Mickey was their best selling debut ever.  I went back and looked at NPD data for KH too, it's best debut was KH2 @ 646k.

If you can find something better, find any evidence anywhere that a Mickey Mouse game sold over 2m, go on right ahead.



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Lostplanet22 on 18 January 2011
jarrod said:
Lostplanet22 said:
jarrod said:

Lostplanet22 said:

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.

lolololrol!  Have you?

NPD: 1.3m first month in USA

 

Outside KH1-2, no games featuring Mickey Mouse have sold over 2m worldwide on a home or handheld console afaik.  Epic Mickey is going to cruise past that benchmark...


Exactly my point ....  You look to VG numbers to say no game sold so great as Epic Mickey...And then you use NPD to say how well Epic Mickey sold and not VG numbers because their is a huge difference between them..

Read the NYT article I linked... Disney themselves said Epic Mickey was their best selling debut ever.  I went back and looked at NPD data for KH too, it's best debut was KH2 @ 646k.

If you can find something better, find any evidence anywhere that a Mickey Mouse game sold over 2m, go on right ahead.

I don't understand why you are going on about 'best debut ever'  I never said anything about Mickey party is going to have the best debut ever...  You are almost forcing your statement in my throat while I think a VGchartz veteran as you should have developped during his years on VG the knowdledge that party games never are big first week/month sellers and it is even not unusual that those games sell 5-10 times or even more than they did first week/month so I dont see Mickey party game would do that;.

Sales are hard to find and I can not use VG number ..Their are games missing..Only I know that their were platinum Disney/Mickey games who had the possibility to sell 1-2 million in the USA and even more...



 

MaxwellGT2000 on 18 January 2011
Declan said:

Perhaps, but not this one - one month isn't enough time for word of mouth to generate 1.3 million sales.


Well it's a mixture of ads and word of mouth, not just how they're liking said game, sometimes it could just be people talking about the ads,it does happen, and that raises awareness and in the end generates sales.  You cannot just go on word of mouth cause like you said it doesn't generate 1.3 million sales and there are many examples of games just not being advertised but good word of mouth kept their sales going it just took time.

Basically sustained word of mouth like people posting You Tube videos of them playing Wii Sports or Just Dance perpetuates sales, and if Epic Mickey is a consistent seller that's typically good word of mouth being spread.



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mundus6 on 20 January 2011
jarrod said:
Acevil said:

It is a lesson, a lesson I doubt anyone really even learned. 


This.

 

If you make a AAA game, and means in all facets (AAA budget, AAA talent, AAA promotion, AAA brand, etc), then you can get AAA sales on Wii.  MH3 already proved this in Japan also a year and half ago, and just look at all those AAA 3rd party games that have been rolling in since...


Epic Mickey is not AAA and yeah cause EA Sports Active is so AAA right? If Epic Mickey did not have Mickey mouse it would probably not have sold so well. That does not mean that 3rd party cant do well on the Wii, however they sure as hell don't have to be AAA.



Declan on 20 January 2011
mundus6 said:
jarrod said:
Acevil said:

It is a lesson, a lesson I doubt anyone really even learned. 


This.

 

If you make a AAA game, and means in all facets (AAA budget, AAA talent, AAA promotion, AAA brand, etc), then you can get AAA sales on Wii.  MH3 already proved this in Japan also a year and half ago, and just look at all those AAA 3rd party games that have been rolling in since...


Epic Mickey is not AAA and yeah cause EA Sports Active is so AAA right? If Epic Mickey did not have Mickey mouse it would probably not have sold so well. That does not mean that 3rd party cant do well on the Wii, however they sure as hell don't have to be AAA.

What isn't AAA about the title?

If New Super Mario Bros didn't have Mario in it it wouldn't have sold as well.

I don't think the point was that third parties have to produce AAA titles to find success, just that they would be as likely to find success with AAA titles on the Wii as they would with the HD consoles.



Xen on 20 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;.

The top ten Third Party games (sales wise) on Wii are not known for their quality..  I doubt it is sending the right message to the devs...but who am I..

Yup. This.