Mass effect 4
The reaper threat is here, earth is decimated and humanity’s only hope, commander shepard, is dead at their hands. Our only chance is for a small team of elite fighters to go on a suicide mission to the past and stop the reaper threat before it begins, in The Dragon Age!
I don’t know if this is still the case, but previously there numbers were often wrong. You would see some major discrepancies in their numbers compared to NPD or official numbers from the console/software makers. They would then readjust/change their numbers closer to what NPD or the console/software makers had claimed.
Sarkus
3103
Based on things Laidlaw said in various interviews, the changes made to DA2 were almost completely based on what they thought focus groups of console gamers said they wanted. Of course those were the console gamers who had either skipped or bored quickly of the first game. Remember, in the world of AAA developers like EA the goal is not a 2 million seller, its something more. For better or worse the bar is Modern Warfare now, and as Bill Harris has pointed out on his blog it seems the big publishers are operating mostly on the “giant hit” model.
No idea if those numbers are in anyway reliable but I wouldn’t be that surprised if the sales were a bit poor; it launched at a generally worse time of year, word of mouth was bad and Bioware/EA started chucking in a free copy of Mass Effect 2 presumably to try and boost sales after the release.
Dragon Age 3: The Backtrackening
In this case they’re about a factor of two out, DA2 hit 1 mil within a week or two of release and was reported to have hit 2 mil in EA’s May financials.
Spam
3107
And again perception brains itself on the lintel of reality. Unless someone wants to gin up a counter-graphic that disputes vgchartz?
Poking into it a bit more, Dragon Age 1 was reported by EA to have hit 3.2 million sales by February 2010 (3 months sales) while Dragon Age 2 was reported (also by EA) to have reached ‘over 2 million’ by May of this year (2 months sales). I would guess with game sales being strongly weighted to the first month that this means Dragon Age 2 is headed for slightly weaker three month sales than the first one.
Tyrion
3109
I thought the 2 million figure for Dragon Age 2 was sold-in (shipped to retailers) not sold-through (actually bought by end consumers)?
The VGChartz numbers are horribly unreliable, sure, but they’re not pulled out of thin air, and I think the overall trend they represent might be very accurate.
In this case both Origins and 2 numbers are for sold-in so it doesn’t make much difference for the comparison. I suspect that the sold in vs final sales thing is something out of which too much hay is made anyway.
Sooo… Near fact-free speculation says DA2 will end up selling 10-20% less than DA:O? Isn’t it usually the other way around with (quality) video game [edit] sequels?
I don’t think quality sells less than crap as a rule, usually the quality titles that famously didn’t sell had some very obvious reasons for not selling. At least the ones I can remember like Psychonauts (new IP, tricky to explain in a few words, arguably pitched awkwardly between target demographics, publisher pullout and resultant lack of a large marketing campaign to overcome these difficulties).
Perhaps the difference between DA:O and DA 2 sales will be the extra word of mouth sales DA:O picked up from good reviews, generally positive player feedback and from filling a particular niche or perhaps it was just from releasing at the right time of year with no significant competitors in sight. Meanwhile, DA2’s long tail has probably been stamped on by the Witcher 2 now.
DA2 is also pretty much the opposite of DA1 in this regard.
DA1 initially had a lot of people not wanting to get in to it for various reasons, but then had very positive word of mouth which convinced a lot of the previous naysayers to give it a second chance.
DA2 was a sequel to a popular game so it brought at least some of that fan base with it. It also was hyped more (and perhaps more effectively as well) by The Hype Machine. Sadly, the word that it was a huge disappointment spread like the plague and with much the same effect. Even without witcher 2 i would have been surprised if it didn’t drop sharply.
You see this a lot with over hyped games that disappoint.
I specifically meant sequels to hit/quality video games. I just abjectly failed to state as much. Sorry. But hey, you’re as bad a psychic as I am a forumite :p
Perhaps the difference between DA:O and DA 2 sales will be the extra word of mouth sales DA:O picked up from good reviews, generally positive player feedback and from filling a particular niche or perhaps it was just from releasing at the right time of year with no significant competitors in sight. Meanwhile, DA2’s long tail has probably been stamped on by the Witcher 2 now.
But if the 3.2 vs 2.x mil numbers hold up, it doesn’t seem very likely DA2 sales could catch up to DA:O sales, with or without Twitcher2. So again, eh… Isn’t -10-20% sales kind of the opposite of what one should expect?
With regards to the word of mouth stuff, I’m not sure what kind of impact it has on DA:O vs. DA2 sales. Personally I’m a great big SRPG fanboi, so between the DRM and word of mouth there’s very little chance I’ll consider getting DA2. But I’m also under the impression that most gamers aren’t bothered by draconian DRM and prefer dialogue heavy ARPGs to SRPGs - and if that was true of me, I’m sure I’d have gotten DA2 by now.
Sarkus
3115
What part of Dragon Age 2’s DRM is severe enough for it to be a factor in your decision to skip the game?
Spoit
3116
I thought that it was just a disc check and something to check to make sure it wasn’t before the launch date.
I’m sorry, I assumed it used the same as DA:O (which was sort of like Steam, but with limited installs).
I think a lot of people got burned by the release of the “Ultimate Edition” that included the addon + all DLC for cheap.
Bet a lot plan to wait this time for the “All in One” Edition before getting burned again.
I will mention that it still miffs me to this day that buying Awakening (the only thing I’m missing) from any of my standard digital download providers costs me $30 and it has NEVER gone on sale, while someone can buy the Ultimate Edition with the base game, Awakening, and all the DLC for the same exact price if not a little cheaper when it does go on sale. I don’t know if that’s a distributor issue or an EA issue, but either way it’s just terrible. I refuse to buy Awakening until some reasonable drop in price comes along (ffs, it’s $13.53 on Amazon right now).
That said, DA2 just doesn’t click for me and frankly seems to have poor gameplay when compared to its competitors and even Origins, so I would pass on any DLC/expansions based on that product as it is. As mentioned up-thread, I think the best way to view it is as a spinoff game instead of a sequel, and just hope that DA3 gets it right.
I really doubt there’s a significant number of people who are holding off on buying the main game in order to wait a year or two for all the DLC to be completed in an Ultimate edition. I’m certain there are some and an “ulltimate”-anything will always drum up some value sales so I suspect there will be a decent uptick in sell-through whenever something like that comes along. I just don’t think it will be enough to even out the numbers. The buzz isn’t there for the game since its rather dissappointing release.
No disc check. Instead, you have to login to your EA account every time you install the game (functionally server activation) and there’s some sort of online monitoring component that will let you play offline for an unspecified number of days but then require an online login. Unless they changed something since this posting:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/5887403
I will say that after a thoroughly annoying install, the DRM was entirely unobtrusive to me, but it’s still not okay.
