Witcher 2 sells 1.1 million copies in 7 months.

[QUOTE="SaltyMeatballs"]The pie chart source is OnLive.waltefmoney

Your point?

That chart isn't accurate for every situation. CD Projekt funded the title themselves, not a publisher. There's no reason they'd allow Atari, Namco-Bandai, or 1C (Think they had them do the Russian release) to take the majority of the money just for publishing.

They didn't make $15, because they published the game themselves in some regions. It would have been averaged out. Even going low as 20 is a benefit for you, it might even be higher.

There is no publisher fee and no platform royalty(because it's on PC).PC doesn't have a platform royalty. Also, not sure what returns is, is that game returns? If so, I doubt it's that high, maybe for console game averages.

DragonfireXZ95

You should read my post again:

Not from what I saw retail wise. At DD maybe, but if The Witcher 2 had sold 1.1 million copies at retail, without having self-published in some regions according to that pie chart they would have made like 2 million which I wouldn't calle a ton of profit.waltefmoney

What I was saying is that if the game had been released at retail alone and not published by CD Projekt that it would've made like 2-3 million.

[QUOTE="DragonfireXZ95"]

They didn't make $15, because they published the game themselves in some regions. It would have been averaged out. Even going low as 20 is a benefit for you, it might even be higher.

There is no publisher fee and no platform royalty(because it's on PC).PC doesn't have a platform royalty. Also, not sure what returns is, is that game returns? If so, I doubt it's that high, maybe for console game averages.

waltefmoney

You should read my post again:

Not from what I saw retail wise. At DD maybe, but if The Witcher 2 had sold 1.1 million copies at retail, without having self-published in some regions according to that pie chart they would have made like 2 million which I wouldn't calle a ton of profit.DragonfireXZ95

What I was saying is that if the game had been released at retail alone and not published by CD Projekt that it would've made like 2-3 million.

But it wasn't, so what's the point of that argument?

You also have me saying your quote in that post. :P

That chart isn't accurate for every situation. CD Projekt funded the title themselves, not a publisher. There's no reason they'd allow Atari, Namco-Bandai, or 1C (Think they had them do the Russian release) to take the majority of the money just for publishing.

ChubbyGuy40

That's true, but I specifically pointed that that's the amount of money they would have made if we assumed that pie chart was close to the truth when I posted it.

I'm not denying that at all. All I'm saying is that a niche publisher can release a niche game on consoles and have it be profitable which was the start of the debate. There are examples of this every year.

JLF1MarkII

Not to mention, PC niche can go a low lower-end. THere are pc devs making successful living by catering to such small audiences, that in comparision to then XSEED, Atlus or NIS seem like a huge mega corporations.

I'm not saying that a console game having legs is the norm. They do happen though, especially with niche games. Examples of this are games like Demon's souls, Catherine, Dead Space (not niche), Muramasa, Rayman: Origins, Heavy Rain and Valkyria Chronicles.

JLF1MarkII

But it wasn't, so what's the point of that argument?

You also have me saying your quote in that post. :P

DragonfireXZ95

That what AdrianWerner said

Currently 1mln copies sold on PC brings ton of profit for devs aside from few MMO exepctions. On consoles those sales at most make you break even.AdrianWerner

is not always true. Not all PC games get released at DD and not all of them are self-published by the dev in some regions.

That's true, but I specifically pointed that that's the amount of money they would have made if we assumed that pie chart was close to the truth when I posted it.

waltefmoney

That still would've been huge for them. Take 7 million and turn it into 3 million with a new platform release on the way. We saw what they managed to do with 7 million. Imagine what they could do with double that!

That still would've been huge for them. Take 7 million and turn it into 3 million with a new platform release on the way. We saw what they managed to do with 7 million. Imagine what they could do with double that!

ChubbyGuy40

Was The Witcher 2 development self funded?

is not always true. Not all PC games get released at DD and not all of them are self-published by the dev in some regions.

waltefmoney

That's extremely rare these days because developers finally understand how valuable digital is for PC. I don't think I could name one game, outside of those casino/slot/board/family games, that don't have a digital release as well.

is not always true. Not all PC games get released at DD and not all of them are self-published by the dev in some regions.

waltefmoney

I'm not denying that at all. All I'm saying is that a niche publisher can release a niche game on consoles and have it be profitable which was the start of the debate. There are examples of this every year.

JLF1MarkII

[QUOTE="waltefmoney"]

[QUOTE="SaltyMeatballs"]The pie chart source is OnLive.ChubbyGuy40

Your point?

That chart isn't accurate for every situation. CD Projekt funded the title themselves, not a publisher. There's no reason they'd allow Atari, Namco-Bandai, or 1C (Think they had them do the Russian release) to take the majority of the money just for publishing.

It doesn't really matter though as most of their sales was from their own DD service. Namco might have taken a huge slice of the pie in EU for them but in the end that didn't matter as it sold good enough for Namco for them to actual legally fight for the right to publish the 360 version. I bet CD Project RED didn't complain about the idea of publishers fighting over their game.

Was The Witcher 2 development self funded?

waltefmoney

It was. CD Projekt RED is CD Projekt's development team. CD Projekt has been around for awhile and formed RED around 2004 I think. They had Atari handle the publishing for TW1.

[QUOTE="ChubbyGuy40"]

That still would've been huge for them. Take 7 million and turn it into 3 million with a new platform release on the way. We saw what they managed to do with 7 million. Imagine what they could do with double that!

waltefmoney

Was The Witcher 2 development self funded?

It doesn't really matter though as most of their sales was from their own DD service. Namco might have taken a huge slice of the pie in EU for them but in the end that didn't matter as it sold good enough for Namco for them to actual legally fight for the right to publish the 360 version. I bet CD Project RED didn't complain about the idea of publishers fighting over their game.

JLF1MarkII

DD sales were only 1/5th of the total number. Namco fought over publishing rights because their agreement was over any platform in the EU region I believe, which is why they interferred when they announced THQ as publisher for the 360 version. THQ was assigned to handle it all, but now Warner Bros is handling the USA portion.

Damn straight they didn't argue. Who would? :lol:

It doesn't really matter though as most of their sales was from their own DD service.

JLF1MarkII

"According to CD Projekt Red, 24 percent of those sales--or about 270,000--came through digital channels."

[QUOTE="JLF1MarkII"]

I'm not denying that at all. All I'm saying is that a niche publisher can release a niche game on consoles and have it be profitable which was the start of the debate. There are examples of this every year.

AdrianWerner

Not to mention, PC niche can go a low lower-end. THere are pc devs making successful living by catering to such small audiences, that in comparision to then XSEED, Atlus or NIS seem like a huge mega corporations.

They can't go too high budget though. TW2 was a huge risk. For instance the average Paradox game have a very small budget. When Southpeak tried to gain back $500K from Paradox they basically said that they would go out of business if they lost that large sum of money. I honestly think we might see a rise in smaller devs on console in the future when the large ones have collapsed. When we have games like Darksiders, Infamous, Demon's Souls that have been very profitable even though they've only reached a mil or two in sales I seriously don't see why publishers push 30-40mil games with a 50-80mil marketing. The AAA budget industry is basically a bubble about to burst.

There have also been very succesful indie games on consoles as well. Braid, Limbo, Flower, Pixeljunk etc but I get what you mean.

I think with the increase of DD the differences between the market for consoles and PC will only get smaller. Something like Minecraft would never on consoles though.

Would definitely be more interested in more smaller devs/indie games next gen. I've been more happy playing those games than big-budget titles lately.

[QUOTE="JLF1MarkII"]

I'm not denying that at all. All I'm saying is that a niche publisher can release a niche game on consoles and have it be profitable which was the start of the debate. There are examples of this every year.

skrat_01

I mean, can you mention any other high budget PC exclusive on the way? There's a ton of small budget games but nothing like TW2 ($8mil budget) in the near future.

Would definitely be more interested in more smaller devs/indie games next gen. I've been more happy playing those games than big-budget titles lately.

ChubbyGuy40

[QUOTE="JLF1MarkII"]

It doesn't really matter though as most of their sales was from their own DD service. Namco might have taken a huge slice of the pie in EU for them but in the end that didn't matter as it sold good enough for Namco for them to actual legally fight for the right to publish the 360 version. I bet CD Project RED didn't complain about the idea of publishers fighting over their game.

ChubbyGuy40

DD sales were only 1/5th of the total number. Namco fought over publishing rights because their agreement was over any platform in the EU region I believe, which is why they interferred when they announced THQ as publisher for the 360 version. THQ was assigned to handle it all, but now Warner Bros is handling the USA portion.

Damn straight they didn't argue. Who would? :lol:

Oh, alright then.

Come back in 10 years and we'll see who was wrong :P

Well it isnt HALOGEARSFORZA or Call of Duty, So i hardly expect lemkids to buy into an indy PC game.

Well it isnt HALOGEARSFORZA or Call of Duty, So i hardly expect lemkids to buy into an indy PC game.

ChupacabraIII

When is shark week?

They can't go too high budget though. TW2 was a huge risk. JLF1MarkII

True. But since generally making and marketing pcgames is pretty damn cheap compared to consoles PC games do not need such high budgets to deliver high production values.

I hope you're right about chances of small developer's ressurgence on consoles, but in this case I'm a pesimist. So far they seem be doing worse and worse and I can only see it getting even worse.

Also..while I get the idea behind Paradox's example, it's one that's fortunatelly not true anymore. Not after stuff like Magicka selling over 1 mln copies.

Yeah about 10 million pirate copies! :(

True. But since generally making and marketing pcgames is pretty damn cheap compared to consoles PC games do not need such high budgets to deliver high production values.

I hope you're right about chances of small developer's ressurgence on consoles, but in this case I'm a pesimist. So far they seem be doing worse and worse and I can only see it getting even worse.

Also..while I get the idea behind Paradox's example, it's one that's fortunatelly not true anymore. Not after stuff like Magicka selling over 1 mln copies.

AdrianWerner

[QUOTE="ChubbyGuy40"]

Would definitely be more interested in more smaller devs/indie games next gen. I've been more happy playing those games than big-budget titles lately.

JLF1MarkII

I think the "middle" devs are what we're gonna be seeing more of. Devs like Flying Wild Hogs, CD Projekt, and Croteam. Not owned by a publisher, but they're not a small indie team either. That way we get the best of both worlds. :D Cheaper games filled with great content.

I think the "middle" devs are what we're gonna be seeing more of. Devs like Flying Wild Hogs, CD Projekt, and Croteam. Not owned by a publisher, but they're not a small indie team either. That way we get the best of both worlds. :D Cheaper games filled with great content.

ChubbyGuy40

Yeah, peoples apparently don't know jack about game development... big suprise.

Someone said that these were PS3 exclusive numbers... you're right.

Except that this game cost about 1/4 of what it costs the typical PS3 exclusive to develop, and 1/10th what it cost for a typical PS3 exclusive to be marketed.

In other words, the developers here made WAY more money than a typicla PS3 exclusive.

Now, imagine what a game that's in a more popular genre, it's a more well known quality, and is properly marketed can do on PC....

Well, you can take a look at Skyrim on PC, Starcraft, and the upcoming diablo. And games with only slightly more marketing, and some more history on the PC like Totla war, can easily sell twice that amount in under a year.

No wonder they wanted to port it.

:3

[QUOTE="ChupacabraIII"]

Well it isnt HALOGEARSFORZA or Call of Duty, So i hardly expect lemkids to buy into an indy PC game.

waltefmoney

When is shark week?

1.1m in year - digital sales included - is very lackluster. i don't know why, but i don't think lousy marketing is the reason. the game didn't come out of no where. following its critically acclaimed predecessor, W2 was launched amidst strong media and fan anticipation.

more telling to me is the digital sales figure, which is surprisingly low imo. for years we pc gamers have been keeping our fingers crossed on the potential of digital distribution, claiming that behind every disappointing sales figure there's a huge, untracked volume through dd. well, one of the year's biggest exclusives managed to just rack in 300k. i'm not sure what that tells you... but to me, in terms of the financials, we seem to be running out of feel-good stories, let alone bragging right.

Jinroh_basic

Well first you need to understand the whole picture when it came to TW2 retail because CDPRojekt gave really good incentives to buy which ever version the customer wanted and the retail version had a lot of incentive. Retail they basically gave stuff you would find standard in CE in other games for normal price in the regular edition and loaded even more goodies in the actual CE.

[QUOTE="skrat_01"][QUOTE="JLF1MarkII"]

I'm not denying that at all. All I'm saying is that a niche publisher can release a niche game on consoles and have it be profitable which was the start of the debate. There are examples of this every year.

JLF1MarkII

I mean, can you mention any other high budget PC exclusive on the way? There's a ton of small budget games but nothing like TW2 ($8mil budget) in the near future.

And the PC market supports it fully; money isn't throttled through one channel, nor funding and reliance on publisher backing and distributors while retailers peddle their wares.

They were aiming for a self funded high budget - and high risk - title, which is a phenomenal task. For 'high budget' you don't need to look further then the variety of 'exclusive' lists that people put together. And what does it matter? Budget doesn't determine the games quality and scope, in any industry. I'd rather see a bunch of creative games that were developed for a fraction of Uncharted 3's marketing budget, then the reverse.

And the PC market supports it fully; money isn't throttled through one channel, nor funding and reliance on publisher backing and distributors while retailers peddle their wares.

skrat_01

I'm not one to praise generic high budget games :P

Uncharted is good though.

well lets be honest,piracy is the main culprit,i know 10 people that downloaded the witcher 2,granted not all of them would buy it but at least 3-4 would

well lets be honest,piracy is the main culprit,i know 10 people that downloaded the witcher 2,granted not all of them would buy it but at least 3-4 would

Hate_Squad

this is true, I know 50 people that downloaded *insert game name* for the xbox, at least 49 of them would have bought it.

Wonder how many hermits are steeling this game? It also looks like DD is not as big as hermits make it out to be.

No wonder they wanted to port it.

:3

freedomfreak

.

[QUOTE="OB-47"]

[QUOTE="loosingENDS"]

Fable 3 sold 2 million in 7 months

That is not really impressive at all, seems more like a disaster to me

loosingENDS

Fable 3 has alot of marketing, was an established franchise, was on both xbox 360 and PC, bigger budget etc.

I think 1.1 million is alright, but people are making it sound way worse. It should sell way more though

Fable 3 came a year later on PC, so was not both on PC and 360

Plus the 2 million sales was 360 sales alone, i did not include the later PC version, now is at 3 million on 360 alone

And Witcher is an established franshise on PC, with Witcher 1

1.1 is far from alright for such a game, it is much lower than expected by miles

Piracy is killing PC gaming, that is why they seem to focus on consoles, they even confirmed two new console projects are on the way

one previous game from a small developer makes it an established franchise?

It also looks like DD is not as big as hermits make it out to be.dontshackzmii

It should have selled way more, it's a wonderful game.

[QUOTE="Hate_Squad"]

well lets be honest,piracy is the main culprit,i know 10 people that downloaded the witcher 2,granted not all of them would buy it but at least 3-4 would

tenaka2

this is true, I know 50 people that downloaded *insert game name* for the xbox, at least 49 of them would have bought it.

stupid attempt at sarcasm,3-4 out of 10 is a reasonable amount.

No wonder they wanted to port it.

:3

freedomfreak

[QUOTE="ChubbyGuy40"]

[QUOTE="lazerface216"]

nah, it sold over 200k in it's first 2 weeks. sorry.

lazerface216

And it didn't sell for s**t right after that.

difference is, that's considered a flop in the console world, it's supposedly an amazing feat in the pc world.

how sad.

lolpcgamingisdead

What's sad (for consoles) is that a console game sells 1 million units and the developer is on life support, due to the absurdely high budgets, where a PC game sells 1 million units and the developer has so much money they can fund the next game and go multiplatform.

1 million units for a small developer, with 0 marketing, is absolutely huge. TW2 is not a mainstream game, not an established IP, and no one outside of TW1 fans or forum users knows about the game.

I mean, I'm not trying to hate on the PC only community or anything, but the way hermits talk is like the PC community outnumbers the console community like 10 to 1, which might be true, but when one of their biggest exclusive releases sells 1 million, it just looks bad when a Halo exclusive or something sells 10 million.

arkephonic

You need to understand that while console gamers have an extremely small selection of games to choose from, PC gamers have a huge catalogue of games to choose from, including older games, MMOs, etc., so while the total figure for PC game sales are much higher than any individual console, it's also spread through much more games, while on consoles sales tend to me focused on a few games only.

[QUOTE="Sserv"]

For a game of its quality, those sales are pretty poor. PC gamers need to buy more games.

NoodleFighter

Meanwhile in Skyrim

[QUOTE="NoodleFighter"]

[QUOTE="Sserv"]

For a game of its quality, those sales are pretty poor. PC gamers need to buy more games.

Bread_or_Decide

Meanwhile in Skyrim

he means that it sold a lot.Of course skyrim isnt a quality name and its also a household casual game,even girls and bro gamers play it