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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The Forgotten HD 3rd Party Bombs

Words Of Wisdom on 16 January 2010
naznatips said:

I'm a big HD gamer. More than most people on this site who don't even own non-HD consoles. That said, the recent attitude gamers and a few pubs seem to have that implies HD is a garaunteed formula for success completely confounds me. So here are some games to remind you of what can happen in HD development, specifically picked from 2 publishers who've been very vocal on the subject recently.

The point is this: Games bomb. Mostly bad games, some really good games, but regardless they bomb on all platforms, and it always hurts developers when it happens. Singling out one specific console for this and blaming it for poor profits is silly when there are literally dozens of examples on all platforms from all major publishers of games that have cost them a lot of money.

You were that bothered about people pointing out 3rd party failures on the Wii that you made a thread for this?

A "Haha 3rd party games can fail on your consoles too" thread is rather petty for you.  I'd have expected a thread showing key success factors in successful 3rd party Wii games illustrating the potential is there but unrealized.  This is just plain disappointing.



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psrock on 16 January 2010
Words Of Wisdom said:
naznatips said:

I'm a big HD gamer. More than most people on this site who don't even own non-HD consoles. That said, the recent attitude gamers and a few pubs seem to have that implies HD is a garaunteed formula for success completely confounds me. So here are some games to remind you of what can happen in HD development, specifically picked from 2 publishers who've been very vocal on the subject recently.

The point is this: Games bomb. Mostly bad games, some really good games, but regardless they bomb on all platforms, and it always hurts developers when it happens. Singling out one specific console for this and blaming it for poor profits is silly when there are literally dozens of examples on all platforms from all major publishers of games that have cost them a lot of money.

You were that bothered about people pointing out 3rd party failures on the Wii that you made a thread for this?

A "Haha 3rd party games can fail on your consoles too" thread is rather petty for you.  I'd have expected a thread showing key success factors in successful 3rd party Wii games illustrating the potential is there but unrealized.  This is just plain disappointing.

And that thread was made by trestres, he's a Wii owner. And he was mostly complaining about 3rd party support.

And most of the talk comes from the developers themselves.



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naznatips on 16 January 2010
Words Of Wisdom said:
naznatips said:

I'm a big HD gamer. More than most people on this site who don't even own non-HD consoles. That said, the recent attitude gamers and a few pubs seem to have that implies HD is a garaunteed formula for success completely confounds me. So here are some games to remind you of what can happen in HD development, specifically picked from 2 publishers who've been very vocal on the subject recently.

The point is this: Games bomb. Mostly bad games, some really good games, but regardless they bomb on all platforms, and it always hurts developers when it happens. Singling out one specific console for this and blaming it for poor profits is silly when there are literally dozens of examples on all platforms from all major publishers of games that have cost them a lot of money.

You were that bothered about people pointing out 3rd party failures on the Wii that you made a thread for this?

A "Haha 3rd party games can fail on your consoles too" thread is rather petty for you.  I'd have expected a thread showing key success factors in successful 3rd party Wii games illustrating the potential is there but unrealized.  This is just plain disappointing.

There aren't key success factors for 3rd party games. There is no golden ticket. That's the stupid thing people expect. Obviously if you slap Mario on your game it's going to sell, but aside from that, there is absolutely no proof of potential sales on the Wii, just as there's none on the PS3 and 360.

Every game has the possibility of success and failure. You are never ever garaunteed to make money on a game. Even on a brand name. You have a better shot if you advertise, but damn WoW half those games up there had big ad budgets (Virtua Fighter, Condemned, Avatar, HAWX, etc.). If Wii fanboys thinking pushing some TV ads is going to garauntee their 3rd party games success they are delusional.

This is hardly a mocking thread, it's a facing reality thread. Reality sucks. Good games fail quite often, bad games sometimes succeed. Any game that fails puts publishers that much closer to going out of business in an industry where all but a tiny fraction maintain numbers in the red. That's the truth.

Updated the OP's conclusion to clarify for you WoW.



disolitude on 16 January 2010
naznatips said:

I'm a big HD gamer. More than most people on this site who don't even own non-HD consoles. That said, the recent attitude gamers and a few pubs seem to have that implies HD is a garaunteed formula for success completely confounds me. So here are some games to remind you of what can happen in HD development, specifically picked from 2 publishers who've been very vocal on the subject recently.

Note: it's been said an HD game needs well over .8 million units to break even on an average core game, implying that even 1 million units would only yeild a marginal profit. source

 

Ubisoft:

Enchanted Arms - .38 million units
Vlevet Assassin - .09 million units
Call of Juarez (original, not Bound in Blood) - .25 million units
James Cameron's Ego, er.. Avatar - .57 million units
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja - .32 million units
Beowulf: The Game - .5 million units
HAWX - .84 million units
Naruto: The Broken Bond - .55 million units

 

Sega:

Sonic the Hedgehog - .97 million units (note almost half of these were at a price of $40 or less, i.e. no profit/no loss sales)
Virtua Fighter 5 - .73 million units
Universe at War - .07 million units
Phantasy Stary Universe - .10 million units
Virtua Tennis 2009 - .51 million units
Golden Axe: Beast Rider - .22 million units
The Club - .39 million units
Armored Core 4 - .42 million units
Armored Core For Answer - .25 million units
Viking: Battle for Asgard - .69 million units
Condemned - .47 million units
Condemned 2 - .79 million units

 

And just for a kicker, the infamous massive budget Capcom game, Bionic Commando - .37 million units.

 

 

The point is this: Games bomb. Mostly bad games, some really good games, but regardless they bomb on all platforms, and it always hurts developers when it happens. Singling out one specific console for this and blaming it for poor profits is silly when there are literally dozens of examples on all platforms from all major publishers of games that have cost them a lot of money.

I dont know anyone that would call the bolded games "bombs".

If Epic games can make gEars of War for under 10 million dollars, a lot of those games should not cost more than that. You will say "but Gears was made bt Epic who made the Unreal 3 engine themselves..."...well Condemned for example was built on the same engine as FEAR and many other games and was designed in house by Monolith.

A game only needs to sell ~250K units to recover 10 million dollars invested at 40 dollars profit per game.

There is marketing cost, distrubution, packaging...etc which I am not acounting for, but some of those game should be easily profitable at 500K sold.



Words Of Wisdom on 16 January 2010
naznatips said:
Words Of Wisdom said:
naznatips said:

I'm a big HD gamer. More than most people on this site who don't even own non-HD consoles. That said, the recent attitude gamers and a few pubs seem to have that implies HD is a garaunteed formula for success completely confounds me. So here are some games to remind you of what can happen in HD development, specifically picked from 2 publishers who've been very vocal on the subject recently.

The point is this: Games bomb. Mostly bad games, some really good games, but regardless they bomb on all platforms, and it always hurts developers when it happens. Singling out one specific console for this and blaming it for poor profits is silly when there are literally dozens of examples on all platforms from all major publishers of games that have cost them a lot of money.

You were that bothered about people pointing out 3rd party failures on the Wii that you made a thread for this?

A "Haha 3rd party games can fail on your consoles too" thread is rather petty for you.  I'd have expected a thread showing key success factors in successful 3rd party Wii games illustrating the potential is there but unrealized.  This is just plain disappointing.

There aren't key success factors for 3rd party games. There is no golden ticket. That's the stupid thing people expect. Obviously if you slap Mario on your game it's going to sell, but aside from that, there is absolutely no proof of potential sales on the Wii, just as there's none on the PS3 and 360.

Every game has the possibility of success and failure. You are never ever garaunteed to make money on a game. Even on a brand name. You have a better shot if you advertise, but damn WoW half those games up there had big ad budgets (Virtua Fighter, Condemned, Avatar, HAWX, etc.). If Wii fanboys thinking pushing some TV ads is going to garauntee their 3rd party games success they are delusional.

This is hardly a mocking thread, it's a facing reality thread. Reality sucks. Good games fail quite often, bad games sometimes succeed. Any game that fails puts publishers that much closer to going out of business in an industry where a tiny fraction maintain numbers in the red. That's the truth.

Missing the forest for the trees.  Focusing on the example caused you to miss my point entirely.  You can rationalize this thread's motivations all you like but it's not a facing reality thread, it's a simple revenge thread.  Even in the beginning you subconsciously attempt to justify it by opening with "I own XYZ so I'm qualified to criticize it" line.  Just step back and ask yourself, "How many non-trolling posters have I seen use that line?"



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naznatips on 16 January 2010
disolitude said:

I dont know anyone that would call the bolded games "bombs".

If Epic games can make gEars of War for under 10 million dollars, a lot of those games should not cost more than that. You will say "but Gears was made bt Epic who made the Unreal 3 engine themselves..."...well Condemned for example was built on the same engine as FEAR and many other games and was designed in house by Monolith.

A game only needs to sell ~250K units to recover 10 million dollars invested at 40 dollars profit per game.

There is marketing cost, distrubution, packaging...etc which I am not acounting for, but some of those game should be easily profitable at 500K sold.

Epic's statement of $10 million for Gears of War didn't include development costs for UE3, licensing costs it has to other developers outside of Epic (which are quite high), or advertising budget, which for a game like Gears was easily a match for the development budget.

Epic is the only company in existence to provide a figure anywhere near that low for HD development. Everything else starts at $18 million (before advertising) and goes way up from there, stopping at around $65 million (with advertising). I can garauntee you that Modern Warfare 2's ad budget, for example, totaled a development cost higher than that though. Overwhelming evidence against Epic Games makes their statement obsolete. It's like the guy who's house happened to not be destroyed by the hurricane saying that the hurricane wasn't that bad, while everyone else's homes were trashed. That doesn't make him right, just means he got lucky.



naznatips on 16 January 2010
Words Of Wisdom said:
naznatips said:

There aren't key success factors for 3rd party games. There is no golden ticket. That's the stupid thing people expect. Obviously if you slap Mario on your game it's going to sell, but aside from that, there is absolutely no proof of potential sales on the Wii, just as there's none on the PS3 and 360.

Every game has the possibility of success and failure. You are never ever garaunteed to make money on a game. Even on a brand name. You have a better shot if you advertise, but damn WoW half those games up there had big ad budgets (Virtua Fighter, Condemned, Avatar, HAWX, etc.). If Wii fanboys thinking pushing some TV ads is going to garauntee their 3rd party games success they are delusional.

This is hardly a mocking thread, it's a facing reality thread. Reality sucks. Good games fail quite often, bad games sometimes succeed. Any game that fails puts publishers that much closer to going out of business in an industry where a tiny fraction maintain numbers in the red. That's the truth.

Missing the forest for the trees.  Focusing on the example caused you to miss my point entirely.  You can rationalize this thread's motivations all you like but it's not a facing reality thread, it's a simple revenge thread.  Even in the beginning you subconsciously attempt to justify it by opening with "I own XYZ so I'm qualified to criticize it" line.  Just step back and ask yourself, "How many non-trolling posters have I seen use that line?"

I don't give a crap about the Wii, I care about balance. Realistic views. Real life isn't so pretty that you can find perfect little formulas for some games to win and some to lose, regardless of console. Stop looking for such childish perfection in business. Things aren't that smooth.

And you are dangerously close to being banned for calling me a troll. So be very, very careful how you proceed from here.



kingofwale on 16 January 2010

really??? People actually expect a subpar movie-turned-game such as Avatar or Beowulf: The Game to sell well?

Also, games that are multiplatform, shouldn't it be more FAIR to combine the sales, as the developers do make more money when it sells on more than one systems.



when factor those in, the list diminishes greatly. In one word, the argument is invalid



Soriku (Feb 10/08): In 5 years the PS3/360 will be dead.

KH3 bet: "If KH3 comes to Wii exclusive, I will take a 1 month of sig/avatar by otheres open a thread apologize and praise you guys' brilliance." http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?start=50&id=18379
Original cast: Badonkadonkhr, sc94597 allaboutthegames885, kingofwale, Soriku, ctk495, skeezer, RDBRaptor, Mirson,

Episode 1: OOPSY!
selnor: Too Human I even expect 3-4 mill entire life and 500,000 first day. GoW2 ( expect 7 - 9 million entire life and over 2 mill first day), Fable 2 (expect 5-6 million entire life and 1.5 mill fist day) BK3 (expect 4 - 5 mill sales entire life and 1 mill first day).. Tales/IU/TLR should get to 2 or 3 million! post id: 868878
Episode 2:
Letsdance: FFXIII (PS3+360) first week in NA = 286K
According to pre-order rate in week 13 (post id: 2902544)
naznatips on 16 January 2010
kingofwale said:
really??? People actually expect a subpar movie-turned-game such as Avatar or Beowulf: The Game to sell well?

Also, games that are multiplatform, shouldn't it be more FAIR to combine the sales, as the developers do make more money when it sells on more than one systems.



when factor those in, the list diminishes greatly. In one word, the argument is invalid

Indeed the sales were combined on PS3 and 360 for all multiplatform games in the topic.

It's not about whether you think the game was good or not, but whether the games had large budgets put into them. Both Beowulf and Avatar qualify for that. The latter more than the former.



outlawauron on 16 January 2010

I wouldn't call some of those games listed bombs. I mean, it's kinda silly to think all of those lost money.



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