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Andrast posted:I don't think you can compare numbers for games that have been out for years and have had multiple sales with heavy discounts to new games like that If a game takes 4 years or whatever to reach a million+ sales, that's not going to matter to the publisher because the developer will have long since been shuttered by then. Prey's lead guy already left Arkane, so I have a feeling there will not be a Prey 2. Even if Deus Ex Mankind Divided gets a million more sales in its lifetime, there ain't gonna be a continuation. It's too late for that game. We're seeing this right now with Mass Effect: Andromeda. The launch window is basically the make or break for these studios. Which I say not to guilt people who wait for sales, but just to say that some of these numbers go beyond a launch window and are still bad. And it does make me a little sad because there are some real good games in that list The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Aug 20, 2017 |
# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:07 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 22:13 |
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thank you my friends that continue to screenshot Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:10 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:A concerning trend for single-player games in 2017: bad sales I mean, the numbers for those older games are after years of being on Steam, and years of deep discounts. If there was a way to compare figures during the first year of release that would be more helpful. That said...I have kind of felt for a while that Steam's numbers for individual games just aren't that impressive for a service that apparently boasts over 125 million users, way more than any current gen console. Outside of giant, established franchises (GTAV, Fallout 4), surprise Indie hits (Stardew Valley), and legitimate, topical phenomenons (PUBG), it really seems like a lot of games aren't actually as huge as you'd think. For example, Steam listed XCOM2 as one of their platinum sellers for 2016 and Steamspy puts it at 1.5 million today. Nothing to sneeze at, but that is after it was part of a monthly bundle, as well as several other sales, and for comparison, Horizon: Zero Dawn sold well over 2 million in two weeks.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:12 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:I mean, I could grant you the comparison issue for Dishonored 2 except that the game has already gone on sale at $20, so it definitely is underselling. But the other games, c'mon, you're telling me I can't compare Bulletstorm's flacid remaster reception to the original game? The original game was already a flop. I don't think Bulletstorm Remaster is going to be a million seller guys. I also don't think The Surge can be interpreted any way other than a disaster. Bulletstorm remaster was obviously going to flop as a full price title though. The Surge followed Lords of the Fallen, which was godawful. This has nothing to do with them being single-player titles. Comparing the numbers between, for example dishonored 1 and 2, is still really dumb unless you look at their numbers at similar points in time. Steam sales and time account for a lot of those numbers. I'm not even saying that the game sold well or did badly, just that straight up comparing the numbers like doesn't tell us anything.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:15 |
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Also looking at the Steamspy numbers is interesting in terms of what games this thread is into and how that compares to the mainstream. Slayaway Camp which I very much enjoy and has been mentioned on this page, only has 21k owners. My favorite Metroidvania this year, Alwa's Awakening, has less than 3000 owners
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:16 |
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maybe you should curate it
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:17 |
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Synthbuttrange posted:maybe I don't necessarily like Steam Curators because it's a hassle to get to, it's easier to just dump a lot of poo poo in this thread as I, a shitposter, am known to do Stuff with less than 10,000 owners for sure. like Copy Kitty everyone has to go get that.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:18 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:I also don't think The Surge can be interpreted any way other than a disaster. This is some bullshit, straight up. The Surge has done fine.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:22 |
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No one (hyperbole) wanted the Bulletstorm Remaster by Gearbox. I don't know who that was for and why it was overpriced. E: Anyway, single player games will be fine.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:22 |
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Synthbuttrange posted:
You're only seeing one out of every three or four I take, because some scenes keep topping themselves.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:25 |
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Jamfrost posted:No one (hyperbole) wanted the Bulletstorm Remaster by Gearbox. I don't know who that was for and why it was overpriced. Top sales for 2017-released games so far (so not Dishonored 2 for example cause it was released in the 2016 holiday season): #1 Playerunknown's Battlegrounds 7.3m holy cow!!! #2 The Long Dark 1.04m #3 Dear Esther Remaster 803k (did original owners get grandparented in?) #4 Slime Rancher 754k #5 Portal Knights 585k #6 Conan Exiles 582k #7 LEGO Worlds 577k #8 Black Desert Online 568k #9 A Youtuber's Life 545k (why) #10 For Honor 506k #11 Hollow Knight at 501k (just wanted to include this on here cause yay for Hollow Knight selling well) If you include F2P games the list is almost entirely different of course: #1 Unturned 30m #2 PUBG 7.3m #3 Creativerse 3.9m #4 Fallout Shelter 3.1m #5 Last Man Standing 3.1m #6 Dungeon Defenders II 3.0m #7 Argo 2.2m #8 Line of Sight 2.0m #9 Orcs Must Die Unchained 1.6m #10 Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop 1.56m Paid Games released in 2016: #1 H1Z1 6.6m #2 Don't Starve Together 6.3m #3 Skyrim Special Edition 5.9m #4 Bioshock Remastered 3.8m #5 Bioshock 2 Remastered 3.4m #6 Stardew Valley 3.0m #7 Starbound 2.9m #8 Wallpaper Engine 2.8m #9 DOOM 2.2m #10 Dead by Daylight 2.0m #31 Dishonored 2 853k top 2015 seller: Rocket League (5.8m) top 2014 seller: Shadow of Mordor (4.0m) (most likely because of that GOTY deal Bundle Stars always ran) top 2013 seller: Rust (5.6m) top 2012 seller: CS:GO (31.4m) top 2011 seller: Skyrim (11.4m) top 2010 seller: Civ V (10.1m) someone will have to explain to me the success of A Youtuber's Life e: oh yeah also with these lists I'm not trying to prove anything I just thought I'd share them because they were interesting to me, although it does seem like year-over-year AAA sales are trending down a bit while indie games are skyrocketing. this is a fun rathole to go down. e: e: since i'm about to hit the hay i may as well pre-emptively respond to anything else: obviously bundles will inflate some owner numbers, although in Youtuber's Life's case, it was the single game of a $12 tier, so its success is still really bizarre to me. slime rancher was an early access game and in a humble monthly. and i think steamspy is not the most accurate website around, though it's still better than vgchartz at least The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Aug 20, 2017 |
# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:33 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:#9 Orcs Must Die Unchained 1.6m
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:38 |
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I will never understand anything about Plunkbat, but Hollow Knight, Slime Rancher etc. doing well means single-player's gonna be fine, if only by virtue of indies. Indies have really saved PC gaming, drat.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 08:57 |
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Xander77 posted:Whatever happened to that, anyways? Apparently it went from multiplayer moba to an actual sequel (but still f2p)? Unchained was massively retooled after release. The main game is still PvP but it has a pretty strong co-op mode that works as a sequel to the others in gameplay.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 09:16 |
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Steamspy remains anywhere from relatively to horribly inaccurate depending on how many sales overall there are. E: Which is not to say that it's not enlightening, but I think video games will probably survive. Orv fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Aug 20, 2017 |
# ? Aug 20, 2017 09:43 |
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Deadly Premonition doesn't seem to want to open.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 09:55 |
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Orv posted:Steamspy remains anywhere from relatively to horribly inaccurate depending on how many sales overall there are. Anyways I think most of those are ok except for Prey, but that's sadly to be expected because :bethesda: PC definitely isn't no console for some huge volumes for some bigger releases, but still does well enough to warrent PC releases Xaris fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Aug 20, 2017 |
# ? Aug 20, 2017 09:59 |
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Xaris posted:idk, HK dev here postedthey had sold a little over 100k copies and Steamspy said about 110k at the the time just one sample point with dev stated vs Steamspy stat but that was really on the nail and only a few weeks after release. If it pulls owned games from every public profile which I think it does, really the only inaccuracy is private profiles which isn't a huge chunk but can still reasonably statistically be estimated. Free weekends also screw the numbers up
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:01 |
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Xaris posted:idk, HK dev here posted they had sold a little over 100k copies and Steamspy said about 110k at the the time just one sample point with dev stated vs Steamspy stat but that was really on the nail and only a few weeks after release. If it pulls owned games from every public profile which I think it does, really the only inaccuracy is private profiles which isn't a huge chunk but can still reasonably statistically be estimated. Yeah it's accurate enough to draw general conclusions but the moment you get down to money and not simply copies existing, you really want much harder facts, since it doesn't track sales or MSRP changes or anything like that. Either way, single-player AAA games are unlikely to die, given how much more work and expense a multiplayer game and its infrastructure are, especially considering how gamers have turned against P2P competitive games lately. Orv fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Aug 20, 2017 |
# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:21 |
If the wayback machine works on steamspy, you could at least make estimates of what sales drew in. Or obsessively collect all statistics on the games you want to know about frequently.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:26 |
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Guy Mann posted:My house burned down because of my piles of ebooks. in the future try not to stack so many powerbricks for external HDDs next to each other
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:31 |
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While not a Steam game, it's still PC & Digital Distribution-related: Mass Effect: Andromeda officially shuts down its single-player updates
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:32 |
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Looking exclusively at Steam numbers to argue "SP games aren't selling well" is kind of misleading, as Zelda and Horizon are both gigundo megahits this year and neither are available on Steam.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:33 |
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Fart of Presto posted:While not a Steam game, it's still PC & Digital Distribution-related: fukken lol
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:33 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:My favorite Metroidvania this year, Alwa's Awakening, has less than 3000 owners maybe if you mentioned it more often, because this is legit the first time I have heard about this game.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:37 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:A concerning trend for single-player games in 2017: bad sales I consider that a good look at why devs need to try harder and stop phoning in bad games/sequels that don't do enough And Prey would (I am deadly serious when I say this) have literally sold twice as many copies if it was called literally anything other than Prey. If it was just called "SS3" It would have broken 1m on steam.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:47 |
Alwa's Awakening looks cool, the block magicking is neat and almost a call back to Solomon's Key.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:49 |
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I will definitely play Alwa's Awakening once I'm done with Hollow knight
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 10:49 |
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you have to remember that steamspy is half-assed and should not be used as anything but order of magnitude of sales in a worst case scenario it functions by loading everyone's steam profiles repeatedly and seeing what they own. this gets them a stat of how many people with public profiles have bought a game title within 2 weeks or so (and is why you never use its stats for anything shorter than that timeframe - its elastic). the ratio of public:private profiles is used to guess the total figure but its a flawed premise as it assumes everyone who plays every title has an equal public/private split regardless of game genre or demographic served.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 11:22 |
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vorebane posted:Alwa's Awakening looks cool, the block magicking is neat and almost a call back to Solomon's Key. The game is really fun, but I got stuck because the game seems to bug out on me and phases my character a few frames forward whenever I attack something.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 11:37 |
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exquisite tea posted:Looking exclusively at Steam numbers to argue "SP games aren't selling well" is kind of misleading, as Zelda and Horizon are both gigundo megahits this year and neither are available on Steam. Single-player games only existing as console exclusives would be nearly as bad as single-player games dying out, we are in the Steam thread.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 12:12 |
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I just think it's dubious to look at the top-selling single player games on Steam only in 2017 and conclude "SP games are dying out" when you can just as easily build an argument to the contrary using the same available evidence. 1. Steam is not the only online marketplace and totally discounts sales from places like GOG, Blizz, Ubi or Origin. Steamspy itself is not even completely reliable as an information source. 2. Many people, even the majority of people will experience games like GTAV or Mass Effect as single-player only, but because they have MP modes they're excluded from this list. GTAV and Andromeda are both in the top 10 selling games of this year. 3. Zelda and Horizon are both gigantic hits that coincidentally happen to be console exclusives, but that doesn't mean future SP hits can't be multiplatform. 4. 2017 is just a particularly strong year for gaming and the little niche titles people might normally take a chance on are being swallowed up by masterpieces left and right. 5. Several SP games are in fact outperforming expectations on PC (Nier) which lo and behold are because they're good and getting strong reviews. One year does not a trend make, correlation not causation, que sera sera.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 12:43 |
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As soon as Genital Jousting gets single player we'll be great again.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 12:44 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:A lot of people wanted Bulletstorm without the awful GFWL integration, but Gearbox thought the best thing to do was sell it at $60 and half-assedly put Duke Nukem in it and call it a day. And also they didn't award it to original Bulletstorm owners, and offered a discount that was just not good enough. Just a note - on your 2016 list you should exclude Skyrim Special Edition and the Bioshocks because most of those numbers are from people that owned the original Skyrim/Bioshock and got the updated version for free. I would also exclude games that's been on Steam for years but got out of Early Access in 2016, like Don't Starve and Starbound.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 12:45 |
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:These games are mostly bad or underwhelming or years-old ports, though. What were they expecting? There are only so many people playing games and gaming dollars are finite. Any time a new person comes into gaming on a digital platform they are presented not only with new games but also the entire catalog to purchase. It's just as easy to buy old stuff as to buy new stuff, and when you're looking at indies in particular there isn't a compelling reason for buying this year's 2D darling vs last year's 2D darling. This is fundamentally different from how things used to work with distribution of physical media. Every new release is competing against every other new release but also against this back catalog. The market is incredibly crowded. Stardew Valley is actually a great example of how the economics are changing. A one man dev studio was able to make a game that sold better than Doom (admittedly at a lower price point). What does that mean from an investment perspective? Probably a reduction in the number of AAA games. If Rime's numbers are as bad as you say, bigger indie studios are probably also going to need to take a hard look at their models. I'd be curious to know what the total spend on games was this year. My guess is it's more than last year. The winner here is the retailer. The people making the games are probably due for the a market correction.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 12:56 |
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Quest For Glory II posted:A concerning trend for single-player games in 2017: bad sales Everyone got smart and is waiting for sales or bundles. Also the crushing weight of backlogs. Prey, Dis2 and Styx2 are on my wishlist but they is literally zero reason to buy singleplayer story driven games like that for more than :tenbux: See if those companies were smart they'd have made a multiplayer survival shooty game with lootbox keys. e; Outlast2 sucks that's why no one bought it, hth
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 13:14 |
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There are many competing factors behind every market trend but "gamers suddenly became savvy consumers" should always be ruled out.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 13:16 |
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Also, is there proof that the market wants more stealth-focused games? Hitman 2016 bombed despite being the best Hitman game, Dishonored 2 is, well, more stealth, Styx 2 is more mediocre stealth.... Like, these games aren't being set up to sell well. Not to mention the absolutely true point early - Prey was named the worst possible thing. System Shock 3 would've sold like hotcakes...or at least a little better.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 13:26 |
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The market is just incredibly saturated and there are way more great games than any human could possibly play and a lot of them go for 5 bux or less. Most of those games that weren't that successful are all stuff that looks great and I want to play but I haven't bought them because there are so many other competing games to get to.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 13:32 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 22:13 |
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StrixNebulosa posted:Also, is there proof that the market wants more stealth-focused games? Hitman 2016 bombed despite being the best Hitman game, Dishonored 2 is, well, more stealth, Styx 2 is more mediocre stealth.... I don't see any reason to think this is true, considering Dishonored 2's numbers. The marketing for Prey was terrible / nonexistent though. One thing to consider is if this is an intentional move on the part of the companies - AAA marketing budgets got to be pretty insane, and one obvious cutback in game development costs is the marketing budget.
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# ? Aug 20, 2017 13:33 |