Kresnik said:
Profits.
The expectation method seems to be based on "If a game is mentioned on the forums here at VGChartz, then it has been 'hyped beyond belief' on the whole of the internet and thus causes people to expect 1 million + week one sales". Which of course is ludicrous.
Of course, as countless games have shown, week 1 sales =/= an indication of lifetime sales, but most people don't have time/aren't going to be a member here long enough to wait around and see if a game has legs or not so we just get flop threads based on the first available data. I'm led to believe there's some sort of tradition around here about this though, which doesn't make it right but at least explains it.
The problem with basing it on profits is that without access to game budgets we're going to have no idea what is a flop and what is a success. If Heavenly Sword can't break even off 1.5 million sold but the Yakuza series gets regular sequels off a ~ 1 million fanbase then it causes problems. Thus, people make threads off week 1 sales because at least it's a talking point. |
Agreed.
As for the last paragraph. We can typically determine whether or not a studio makes profit. Of course, we can never determine the exact profit cutoff point, but we can make approximations. If a game looks really cheap, then it probably doesn't need much sales, and would probably be a success with a few 100k sold. We can especially determine if a game made a profit after it releases. If the publishers seems to encourage making more sequels, then it probably was a success. However, if the studio shut down immediately after development, then they probably didn't make sufficient profit.
