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Do we have to be worried about recent disappointing sales and quick pricedrops?

R

Ragona

Member
Watchdogs 2, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2, new Call of Duty all seemed to sell worse than their previous entries - some apparantly by a significant margin and are on sale for half the price in black friday deals.

All of the above mentioned games are great qualitywise and 3 of the 4 mentioned are (relatively speaking) new Ips.

Looking at each of them individually, I guess its easy to find explanations for their weak numbers:

Titanfall 2 - bad timing between BF1 and CoD
Call of Duty - brand saturation
Watchdogs 2 - disappointing predecessor
Dishonored 2 - niche game in crowded release window.

So, is this 'development' just the sum of individual publisher mistakes or do we see an increased amount of AAA saturation across the board?
Mafia 3 apparantly sold gangbusters as a much weaker game, but better release window.
What should publishes learn here?
 
M

Marow

Member
You make it sound like a bad thing, when it's a good thing the AAA bubble is finally bursting (to a degree).
 
F

Fliesen

Member
are you a consumer or a publisher?

unless you are the latter, you should be psyched to get stuff on the cheap :p

edit:
Also, i don't think people are playing less / fewer games on their home consoles. I think too much AAA crap was released in late 2016 and people are tired of certain franchises. - the demand for games in general doesn't change.
 
M

Metalmarc

Member
No not really, people are getting better at waiting for sales thanks to sites like hotdeals UK, psn sales, steam sales, cdkeys, etc.

Pricedrops also happen at this time of the year

Also some people have spent a lot of cash either going for a ps4 pro, slim or xbox one S or saving for a switch, first time we ever had a mid gen upgrade.
 
L

labaronx

Member
Or developers could look at releasing games the other 10 months of the year... everytime i see a thread like this i think what if sony had released horizon zero dawn in oct to the demands of some...
 
D

danowat

Banned
No, leave the worrying to the money men at the big AAA pubs.

Well, if you really wanted to worry, you could worry about the ways AAA pubs might try and recoup those costs from other avenues.
 
T

tiebreaker

Member
Prices fall so quickly makes me hesitant on buying any game day 1.

Should just drop the regular price to 50€ or give a pre-order price that is cheaper than the regular price.
 
H

Hoo-doo

Banned
As a consumer, these things only benefit me. And I really don't care about the AAA market crashing.

So I say keep the bomba's coming.
 
N30RYU

N30RYU

Member
Same as always... wanna sell 20 for 60$ or 40 for 30$???

And the answer always will be 20 for 60$ and later another 20 for 30$...

profit
 
P

Par Score

Member
That depends whether you're a fan of the big AAA blockbuster style of games or not.

If the market is moving away from those, and that leads to developers moving away from them too, then that's something to be worried about if you enjoy those games.
 
S

secondspace

Member
I've forgotten who it was, but someone on Youtube mentioned that Titanfall 2 would have been a candidate for delay until January most years. It seems like every publisher decided to hold their nerve this year and stick with October/November. I'm guessing this is the last year that we'll be seeing that happen. Black Friday does seem to be getting bigger as well.

I doubt this year is going to be too momentous, although for some developers it might be. A more sensibly spread out release schedule seems like the main consequence.
 
B

boiled goose

good with gravy
AAA saturation around fall has been a problem since last gen.

It's publishers fault.

How about spreading release dates to other months? Despite it's smaller markets, how about a WiiU, Vita, or 3ds game everyone once in a while? WiiU has nothing this fall. How about other genres made with smaller budgets?


It's like a failure of game theory. Everyone ends up going after the big fish of Fall AAA shooter/open world games on same systems.
 
E

Enter The 36 Chambers

Member
I only play AAA blockbuster games.

And I only buy them cheap during digital sales outside of the likes of Gears, Halo and GTA.

If AAA disappears I'll probably end up stopping buying games.
 
P

ps3ud0

Member
Loving it myself - hope the AAA bubble bursts and perhaps pubs will have to go back to the drawing board. Ill enjoy the price drops while that happens...

Hopefully it also a bit of consumer action burnt from all those terrible launch problems we seem to have, wait a month and youll likely get a better performing game and a better price too!

ps3ud0 8)
 
Z

Zojirushi

Member
tiebreaker said:
Prices fall so quickly makes me hesitant on buying any game day 1.

Should just drop the regular price to 50€ or give a pre-order price that is cheaper than the regular price.
Click to expand...

Fucked up releases should have made you hesitant to buy any game day one for a while now.

I see these bombas as a positive sign of people becoming more aware of publishers screwing them over.
 
M

Memorabilia

Member
As a consumer I love paying less. I'd never in a million years pay $60 for most games...the vast majority simply aren't worth even half that to me. Never mind the ridiculous $100+ price points of many games releasing with "season passes". Gimme a break. I just bought 12 relatively recent games from Best Buy for a little less than $200. With prices dropping so fast post release more and more consumers are catching on that paying $60+ at launch is for suckers.

If I put my analyst hat on I'd say this is a natural evolution of the market as delivery methods and games go through a continual adjustment to consumer demands. I must admit to a bit of schadenfreude towards greedy publishers blindly pushing a top heavy (arguably unsustainable) AAA model that treats games, the devs who make them and the gamers who play them with disdain. Workers aren't slaves and consumers aren't ATMs. There's too much pent up creativity - and demand for unique experiences - to keep a derivative, bloated AAA model going indefinitely. The problem is - like with any other market - this learning process can't occur without some serious pain first.
 
J

Jucksalbe

Banned
Really depends on if overall sales (and/or profits) are down as well. If the whole market is shrinking, that'd be worrying, if it's just specific series or maybe a specific type of game it'd not be as worrying or might even lead to something positive.
 
D

dragonyeuw

Member
I would say I've all but dropped out of the AAA market on the console side, really have no reason to buy AAA games outside of exclusives on my Ps4. And I haven't bought a $59.99 game in at least 5-6 years. It helps that I'm mainly a single player gamer nowadays, so I don't have to worry about the community dying out on multiplayer-centric titles. The indie scene is more interesting to me nowadays.
 
moozoom

moozoom

Member
I don't care about any of those games so I'm not really worried.

the type of games I like (puzzle / Rhythm / jrpg / quirky games) has been slowly fading due to the rise of the AAA blockbusters so I'll take that as a revenge if they crash and burn actually.
 
A

ArkhamFantasy

Member
It's true that less and less games are becoming viable as budgets become more and more bloated, but a game like Titanfall 2 would have been very successful if they had released it in any other quarter. That's not the games fault. Publishers need to do a better job of working with each other to spread this shit out and stop cutting each others throats during the holiday season.

As you said in the OP, Mafia 3 did great because there was nothing to compete with.
 
T

TrutaS

Member
Alternatively you can consider prices are inflated nowadays to capitalise on the pre-order and first day sales trend. And then go down to the actual perceived market value. I believe most of the price drops are fully calculated and predicted sales decisions, made way before a launch date is even revealed.
 
RedAssedApe

RedAssedApe

Banned
pretty sure BF1 didn't bomb. its being sold for under $30 BF. quick price drops have been happening for awhile even for popular games. i think we need to at least wait for BF to be over to kind of gauge overall sales (hardware and software) versus just looking at individual franchises

also...please tell me where i can find watch dogs 2 on sale. i want to play it lol
 
Deft Beck

Deft Beck

Member
No, because on the consumer side, I can benefit from pricedrops due to the Citi price adjustment policy.

On the business side, it is disheartening, and makes me wish that more moderately-budgeted games were made.
 
B

Bliddo

Member
Most of these games need a slap in the face for their pricing (think of all the special digital editions where the only special thing is how high the price is).
Maybe the future prices will stop spiraling out of control now that people are voting with their wallet.
 
E

El Topo

Member
Whether you have to be worried depends entirely on what you want. Games as service and mobile gaming are going to get bigger, traditional gaming is going to shrink further.
 
poodaddy

poodaddy

Member
Hoo-doo said:
As a consumer, these things only benefit me. And I really don't care about the AAA market crashing.

So I say keep the bomba's coming.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is my take as well. I don't wish for failure of big AAA games necessarily, but I will be honest and admit that if I hear the games not doing too hot I kind of get excited about imminent price drops.
 
U

Upinsmoke

Member
I'm not worried. Also all the games you mentioned and the sales and price drops are a direct result of poor decision making by publishers and/or developers, bar Dishonoured 2 which is probably just never gonna sell that well regardless of how good it is, just not a mass market game like the others mentioned.

Titanfall is funny really, EA chose a stupid release window and on top of that they want people to dive in who got burned by a MP only game last time round and died pretty early. Fair enough by all accounts this game is supposed to be more populated (though it's still early days) but you can't moan at people not wanting to pick it up.

Call of duty sold copies because it was bundled with a remastered MW but the standalone is really dissapointing and Activision refuse to acknowledge that people don't want to play in such a setting, plus they can't even make a futuristic setting work.

Watchdogs 2 falls into the once bitten twice shy thing for me. Watchdogs one wasn't what it was initially shown to be and why should I give them another chance? Maybe petty and stubborn but they was happy to take my money first time round and dish up a woeful experience
 
B

Barrel Cannon

Member
Nocturno999 said:
4th quarter got flooded with great Games and too many sequels.

The industry is bloated and needs to sort itself.
Click to expand...

This, people will always vote with their dollar. I don't play many games anymore like I did when I was in high school, but if I did then this past summer was a pretty shitty summer as usual.
 
G

gelf

Member
The main worry is how publishers will try and recoup those losses and if any downsizing gets done in the aftermath as I hate seeing developers being laid off.

Outside of that I don't feel too much sympathy for poor sales for sequels in oversaturated genres.
 
wapplew

wapplew

Member
Less and less gamers will go day 1, publisher will invent more day 1 "incentive".
Let's see how low can they go.
 
comshoplesce

comshoplesce

Member
Games are expensive anyway, especially in my country.

60-70€ new one, no thanks....40-50€ we can talk. Otherwise I'm in preowned 10-20€ range waggon - did I typed it right?

Digital prices? Yeah, right.....5-10€ range yes, otherwise pass.

People & customers: be smart, vote with you wallet.
 
S

superNESjoe

Member
I think this is just a super crowded year and people are either sick of certain franchises or deciding to spend less right now.
 
E

etta

my hard graphic balls
If this is indeed the beginning of the industry imploding, I can't say it's a bad thing. Consumers are finally getting tired of the DLC packs and microtransaction and day one DLC that was cut from the game and other horseshit. The costs of developing games has grown way too much, and for what? For graphics? We're not getting any better stories than we were 10 years ago, not really. Sound and graphics have improved significantly, but at what cost? The industry imploding.
 
I

Iva Demilcol

Member
This is a good thing. Publishers have to learn big budgets don't make good games. Their obsession for high budgets led to the homogenization of the industry and the dissolution of gaming studios since they had to play safe to make sure they'd make money.
 
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