Chiggs said:
It matters because if half of those sales came from the price being $19.99 it's not nearly as impressive financially. My guess is that once people got more powerful rigs, they purchased the game. Then again, how many people purchased new hardware because of Crysis? And how many pack-in deals was Crytek awarded? Something to chew on.
Crysis is an incredibly forward-thinking game in terms of visuals; I hope part 2 is along the same lines, but a little more viable for people with reasonable rigs. That way the sales are at full retail pricing.
It matters significantly because, again, they were profitable long before any of those sales took place.
-They reached 1.5 million as of June 2008.
-They announced the game was profitable in August of 2008.
-The game wasn't even available on Steam until September of 2008
-Before the game was on Steam, it never had any major discounts of any sort
So with all that said, that's another 1.5 million to go after June of 2008, and that's at a
minimum $10 for each of those copies sold (Crysis has never gone for cheaper than that, I don't think).
Then consider that Digital sales get them a huge portion of that $10, compared to retail, and you're looking at a huge wad of cash. Still impressive.
I really don't think people appreciate just how wide a chasm revenue is for digital sales compared to retail sales for PC games. Even Crysis selling for $10 on Steam gets them a pretty decent amount of money compared to a discounted title selling at retail.