crysis and ut3 tanking?

I had no idea UT3 was coming out until it was already out.

UT2004 I knew about months in advance. I don't think my 'habits' regards following the gaming community have really changed all that much.
 
In January 2005, Vivendi said it sold 1.7 million copies of Half-Life 2 in just two months; much more than either Crysis or Unreal 3 for a similar period.

Well there goes any semblance of credibility in this article:

1) If you look around, the 1.7million figure quoted includes figures from multiple nations: "The countries with the most number of sales includes: Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia and the US."

This article is looking purely at US sales for Crysis/UT3

2) They think that 10 days is a similar period to 2 months. What?! Plus, crucially, the HL2 figures include the whole of December (when Xmas boosts video games sales significantly), whereas the Crysis/UT3 figures don't include December at all.

Now, I'm not going to try and argue about whether Crysis or UT3 have 'flopped' or not - maybe they have. But one thing is for certain, this article proves nothing and just strikes me as being either incredibly naive and poorly thought out, or just some kind of targetted propaganda. In neither case should anyone with an IQ higher than their Crysis framerate take it seriously.
 
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I don't buy that. Crysis was made first and foremost as a game, and Crytek did not say at all that it's a tech demo. People use this as a defense way too much. If the game itself bombs, how would any other licensed games help to 'generate huge sums of money'? Doom 3 and Farcry are classic examples of this. I will bet you that the next two Crysis games in the trilogy will appear on consoles.

Engine licesence go for huge sums of money, the old unreal one went for something like 500k, not saying the game is just a tech demo, but that if the game doesn't sell to well, they will still make money from th. Didn't buy it my self as I'm looking for a game with a decent bit of game play.

But aren't these sales for only 1 or 2 months? that's still a large amount of sales.
 
No it's not

Halo 3 got 2500,000 on its first day alone.

in just one country or all of them?

How much money did they make from these sales, and how much did the game cost to develop

How much did the engine cost to develop and how much did it generate from sales.

Also halo, is a much bigger franchise than either of these./ hugely more advertised.
 
So ?

Alright, 1500,000 in the US on first day. Crysis with 87,000 in a week is laughable. It's a flop, no matter which way you look at it. Large amount of sales, no sir it is not.
 
So ?

Alright, 1500,000 in the US on first day. Crysis with 87,000 in a week is laughable. It's a flop, no matter which way you look at it. Large amount of sales, no sir it is not.

The amount of advertising that Microsoft could afford to do meant ads for Halo were everywhere on tv, non gaming magazines and other avenues they used. It is little wonder Halo sold as well as it did they hyped it to the hilt and used their financial base to make sure it sold in large numbers.

There is not many pc game producers who can afford to do the same thing as microsoft did as they just don't have the cash to do so. So not a fair comparison in any way comparing halo made by microsoft to any pc based producer the financial gulf is too much to compete with.

SCM
 
Also Halo 3 isn't a PC game, so it's a bit of a moot point.
A better comparison would be Halo 2 PC sales vs Crysis PC sales.
 
Also Halo 3 isn't a PC game, so it's a bit of a moot point.
A better comparison would be Halo 2 PC sales vs Crysis PC sales.

And even that ain't fair seeing as i had already played it on my Xbox years before but would have gotten the PC version if it was out at the same time instead.
 
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The amount of advertising that Microsoft could afford to do meant ads for Halo were everywhere on tv, non gaming magazines and other avenues they used. It is little wonder Halo sold as well as it did they hyped it to the hilt and used their financial base to make sure it sold in large numbers.

There is not many pc game producers who can afford to do the same thing as microsoft did as they just don't have the cash to do so. So not a fair comparison in any way comparing halo made by microsoft to any pc based producer the financial gulf is too much to compete with.

SCM
Also Halo 3 isn't a PC game, so it's a bit of a moot point.
A better comparison would be Halo 2 PC sales vs Crysis PC sales.

My point: consoles have a far larger installed base. Crysis bombed for many reasons, Halo was successful in part due to advertising, but also because it's on consoles.

What if I told you that UT3 sold more on PS3 than PC? What would you say then? It's inevitable.
 
So ?

Alright, 1500,000 in the US on first day. Crysis with 87,000 in a week is laughable. It's a flop, no matter which way you look at it. Large amount of sales, no sir it is not.

A flop loses money, if they make more money than they spent it is a success.
 
And even that ain't fare seeing as i had already played it on my Xbox years before but would have gotten the PC version if it was out at the same time instead.

I figured someone might bring that up :) I only brought Halo into it because someone else did.

What I'm driving at is that comparing sales of game 1 on platform X against game 2 on platform Y doesn't really tell you anything meaningful in relation to whether a game 'bombed', because they are different markets.

Game sales are judged as successes or flops relative to their peers - i.e. other games on the same platform. For all I know, an average PS2 or XB360 game that ranks maybe outside the top 10 in their charts could outsell a PC game from the top 5. That doesn't mean the PC game is necessarily a flop.

I also think the fact that PC games are much easier to acquire via means of non-payment (and thus ommitted from the sales figures) can play a factor here, now that every tom, dick and harry has broadband to their home and these things spread to the P2P networks eventually. Another reason why it is best to compare like-to-like, i.e. PC game sales relative to other PC games.
 
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First it's not a flop because it was a tech demo anyway, then 87k sales since release in the US is a large amount, now it's not a flop simply because it's earning more than it cost to make (which nobody actually knows). You're not making a coherent, convincing debate on why Crysis is not a flop.

It bombed. In terms of sales against expectations. When a major PC release like Crysis does abysmally like this, you can't help but wonder what if it was released on consoles - it'd get the audiences it deserves, and Crytek wouldn't be doubting themselves so much. I know EA isn't particularly pleased with the figures, and they would most likely be pushing for multi-platform releases of future iterations of Crysis.
 
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My point: consoles have a far larger installed base. Crysis bombed for many reasons, Halo was successful in part due to advertising, but also because it's on consoles.

What if I told you that UT3 sold more on PS3 than PC? What would you say then? It's inevitable.

Have you any proof of this or is just an opinion you have to consoles being more numerous that PCs?

Again the figures given were for US sales only and didn't include worldwide sales so you cannot say Crysis has bombed based on 1 months sales its ridiculous. There were probably another 100k upwards in international sales so basing your argument on one countries sales figures renders it null and void. Same with UT3 the figures were for 10 days not a month as that biased article claimed.

Also the sales figures for Halo are poor in comaprison to mmo sales in the far east, there are literally millions of players there playing regional mmos. WOW alone has 4 million chinese playing the game out of the 8.5 million subscribers plus they have local mmos we never see that will rival these figures. Korea is starcraft mad but i have no figures to say how many are playing this but this is a game that is years old with a strong player base still.

So no the PC gaming scene isn't dying it is changing into something more resembling the new choices PC gamers are making with regards to games they want to play. At present there is a trend towards mmos among a lot of pc owners this might change in the future back to fps games we just cant tell. The PC gaming scene is alive and kicking for a lot of years to come yet.

SCM
 
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