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It looks like The Witness was priced correctly: week 1 sales tracking > Braid year 1

S

SlickShoes

Member
TyrantGuardian said:
I do think its a bit disingenuous to cite that number rather than the number of people currently watching. Makes it sound like a way bigger deal than it is, even though I agree its scummy as fuck if said streamer can't even bother paying for the game. Then again, neither do review outlets, and at this point its highly arguable which of these provides more marketing value at this point. Please note that I am not equating publisher review copies with piracy, I am just saying that whether a high profile streamers buys a copy or not, it will most likely lead to quite a few of the viewers to end up buying the game that otherwise would not have. So there's that.

Also I love the game and am really happy to see it performing well!
Click to expand...

The streamer in question here produced a steam receipt and blow just ignored the situation after that. I'm not a fan of blows personality, but hes a really smart guy that makes amazing games.
 
D

Dremark

Banned
CaptainGyro said:
You haven't seen anybody angry about the price? where have you been? It's been everywhere. Ok maybe not everywhere, but people have complained about it here, steam and ign and gametrailers podcasts have been talking about people complaining about the price. It's not a big secret
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Saying the game costs too much and being angry about it are two different things. I'll admit I haven't followed this game very closely but if there were people that were so angry about the price that they wanted Blow to fail and close his studio, yeah I guess they'd be butthurt too.
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
TyrantGuardian said:
I do think its a bit disingenuous to cite that number rather than the number of people currently watching. Makes it sound like a way bigger deal than it is, even though I agree its scummy as fuck if said streamer can't even bother paying for the game.
Click to expand...
Not really, the Views number is still a really good measure of how popular a streamer is. Someone with 3 million views is definitely not some small cookies streamer even if his/her current stream only has a couple hundred people currently watching. In fact, it's more accurate of how popular someone is since it gives a good idea of how popular they are overall as opposed to "how popular am I right now?" Blow picked the right number to mention I'd say.

Either way, someone with 3 million total views is probably getting a lot of income from their job of playing games on the internet. So if you still can't shell out $40 then that's just sad.
 
M

M0nochromatic

Member
Not surpising in the least that it's selling well. The notions that it should'nt have out on PC, or that a pure puzzle game without a focus on characters and story wouldn't succede, can be put to rest.
 
D

Dremark

Banned
acm2000 said:
he probably lost more sales due to the high price than he did for piracy
Click to expand...

I think most people who are interested in the game will buy it later after the price has gone down or will snag it on flash/steam sale or an indie bundle further down the line.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
The Real Abed said:
If he had a way to detect when the game is pirated, he should have done some more creative fuckery. Like someone in the Twitter chat said, move puzzles around and make it harder to solve. Maybe he actually does. It's something most people wouldn't expect. Maybe he made it so on pirated copies, the puzzles look different. Not too different, but just different enough for Blow and company to know when they see it, but other people wouldn't really notice because to them it would just be a puzzle. That would be amazing and I bet that's what he did.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a good amount of work, more than pirates need to have devoted to them from an indie game.
 
A

acm2000

Member
Dremark said:
I think most people who are interested in the game will buy it later after the price has gone down or will snag it on flash/steam sale or an indie bundle further down the line.
Click to expand...

yep, but thats lost money since people wait for silly prices on steam so its almost as bad, mobile gaming/xbla/etc has reduced puzzlers to low priced casual games in the mind set of a lot of people
 
M

Mohasus

Member
The Real Abed said:
If he had a way to detect when the game is pirated, he should have done some more creative fuckery. Like someone in the Twitter chat said, move puzzles around and make it harder to solve. Maybe he actually does. It's something most people wouldn't expect. Maybe he made it so on pirated copies, the puzzles look different. Not too different, but just different enough for Blow and company to know when they see it, but other people wouldn't really notice because to them it would just be a puzzle. That would be amazing and I bet that's what he did.
Click to expand...

what's the point of adding a "drm" like that if you are also offering a drm-free version?
 
H

Hasney

Member
Sweet. The Witness actually doesn't look like a game for me so I'll pick it up when it's cheap, but I'm glad that an indie game is doing well at this price point. Hopefully if an indie developer has an ambitious idea that will appeal to me, they can now have a bit more confidence that they can price it appropriately enough to make it worthwhile.
 
O

OnionPowder

Member
acm2000 said:
he probably lost more sales due to the high price than he did for piracy
Click to expand...

He lost some people who would impulse buy it, but he didn't lose the people who have been interested in the game. If he lost 33% of potential purchases vs it being priced at $30, then he still is in a better or same position financially. Lots of people will wait for a sale no matter what the price is.
 
C

CaptainGyro

Banned
Dremark said:
Saying the game costs too much and being angry about it are two different things. I'll admit I haven't followed this game very closely but if there were people that were so angry about the price that they wanted Blow to fail and close his studio, yeah I guess they'd be butthurt too.
Click to expand...
Ok. I don't really see the point of singling out Blow as the one who was butthurt when the post you were responding to was just vague and didn't single out a specific person or say it was about everybody that didn't like the price,Just seems mean and unnecessary to single him out specifically .But whatever it doesn't really matter.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
It was actually a three part tweet, the OP had the first one:

It's hard to talk about numbers without breaking NDAs, but The Witness is on track to sell more in a week than Braid sold in its first year, and Braid was a hit indie game! (I'll let you know if this officially happens!) Which is not to be too money-oriented, it's just great that we'll be able to make the next game at a comparable budget level (maybe bigger, we'll see!)​
He seems pretty happy about this.

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693668210499977216

I updated the OP with the full string.
 
down 2 orth

down 2 orth

Member
Good on him. I haven't played the game yet, but I respect that he's made a giant leap from his last creation and a lot of people are enjoying it.
 
H

Hasney

Member
GhaleonEB said:
It was actually a three part tweet, the OP has the first one:

It's hard to talk about numbers without breaking NDAs, but The Witness is on track to sell more in a week than Braid sold in its first year, and Braid was a hit indie game! (I'll let you know if this officially happens!) Which is not to be too money-oriented, it's just great that we'll be able to make the next game at a comparable budget level (maybe bigger, we'll see!)​
He seems pretty happy about this.

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693668210499977216

I updated the OP with the full string.
Click to expand...
Ah, sounds like Gametrailers Mandatory Update won't have to buy Blow tacos anymore to fend off the hunger.
 
GlamFM

GlamFM

Banned
down 2 orth said:
Good on him. I haven't played the game yet, but I respect that he's made a giant leap from his last creation and a lot of people are enjoying it.
Click to expand...

That´s just such a bold move.

Instead of making Braid 2 he goes dark for close to 7 years and makes something completely different.

And spends all of his money on it.

Balls of steel.
 
U

Ucchedavāda

Member
That's good to hear.

Personally, I am not interested enough to pick it up at the current price-point (and instead decided to pick up several other puzzle-games from my wishlist for less than what TW costs), but I'll probably pick it up eventually if it goes on sale.
 
G

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
Such great news. The Witness is the best gaming experience I've had this console generation. I don't want to have to wait another 7-8 years for Blow's follow-up, but it's nice to know we'll get one sooner or later :)
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
GlamFM said:
That´s just such a bold move.

Instead of making Braid 2 he goes dark for close to 7 years and makes something completely different.

And spends all of his money on it.

Balls of steel.
Click to expand...

Yup. It's really quite remarkable. He took everything he made on Braid and then some, and poured it into a dramatically different, much larger and more ambitious game...and took 7 years to fine tune it. Put all the chips on the table. I'm so glad it's paying off.

He'd said a while ago that he wasn't assuming he'd ever get to make a game of this size without constraints of time or money again, so that's why they just kept going despite the realization of how long it was going to take midway through development. I can't imagine the relief he's feeling right now.
 
D

Dremark

Banned
acm2000 said:
yep, but thats lost money since people wait for silly prices on steam so its almost as bad, mobile gaming/xbla/etc has reduced puzzlers to low priced casual games in the mind set of a lot of people
Click to expand...

It's the way the industry works now. Blow still gets paid but he gets paid less. This is actually why I think him pricing it at $40 works (Assuming the game is good enough to justify it). It communates that it's a premium game and it gives him higher revenue in front loaded sales and he can actually get demand with that because he's well known.

Later sales will come in with price drops and sales, and he might get some of the sales that would have been $20 for $5 depending on how the price drops and sales go but I think I'll profit more.

CaptainGyro said:
Ok. I don't really see the point of singling out Blow as the one who was butthurt when the post you were responding to was just vague and didn't single out a specific person or say it was about everybody that didn't like the price,Just seems mean and unnecessary to single him out specifically .But whatever it doesn't really matter.
Click to expand...

The post was vague but it seemed pretty clear who he thought would or should be mad about it. Iirc his response was a hand jerk off gif too so I think I inferred the initial post properly.

Again the only person I've actually seen upset about this is Blow. It wasn't intended as a personal insult against the guy or anything though.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
GlamFM said:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/12/23/jonathan-blows-the-witness-aims-for-a-physical-release
Click to expand...

The original blog post: http://the-witness.net/news/2015/12/entering-the-home-stretch/

We’ve had some people asking us whether there will be a physical retail release of The Witness. It’s seeming likely, as we have been in talks with a couple of parties for a while about that possibility. *However*, it looks like if there is a retail release, it won’t happen until a little bit after the digital release. The reason is just that we need all the time we can get up until the release date in order to get all the finishing touches into the game; but because of the lead-time involved in physical manufacturing and distribution, we would have to freeze the game right about now in order to have it on store shelves for the release date. *Or* we could delay the digital release date in order to wait for the physical. But I don’t see a good reason to do either of those things. I would rather just focus our energy on making the game as good as we can make it, and a retail version can lag behind by a little bit.
Click to expand...
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
Fucking fantastic. I'm so glad this is a victory over the miserly gamers who think indie by default must equal bargain basement. If The Witness was 2015 it would have been in my top ten of the year and I would have paid $60 for the pleasure of paying it.
 
S

Saty

Member
Braid was released on XBLA in August 2008. By August of next year it had 326K on the leaderboards.

Braid was one of the first few $15 games available, and it was able to stay in the Top 10 for 13 weeks before falling off. The game also had a week-long price drop to $10 back in February, which catapulted it back to the top spot. Based on the games’ Leaderboards, over 326,000 people have played the game.
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http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/116111/InDepth_Xbox_Live_Arcade_Sales_Analysis_August_2009.php
 
P

peakish

Member
Sounds good. I totally caved and bought it already, despite thinking that I'd wait a bit, and it's been great so far. It's always fun to see premium puzzle games do well.
 
D

Dremark

Banned
GlamFM said:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/12/23/jonathan-blows-the-witness-aims-for-a-physical-release
Click to expand...

Cool.

Amir0x said:
Fucking fantastic. I'm so glad this is a victory over the miserly gamers who think indie by default must equal bargain basement. If The Witness was 2015 it would have been in my top ten of the year and I would have paid $60 for the pleasure of paying it.
Click to expand...

Honestly the industry is conditioning people to think this way and it's probably only going to get worse as time goes on. If Blow was a new dev rather than a known one following up a huge hit I don't think this game would have made a profit.

And don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's a bad thing that people can get games cheap via flash/Steam sales or bundles but this is a negative effect they have.
 
GlamFM

GlamFM

Banned
Amir0x said:
Fucking fantastic. I'm so glad this is a victory over the miserly gamers who think indie by default must equal bargain basement. If The Witness was 2015 it would have been in my top ten of the year and I would have paid $60 for the pleasure of paying it.
Click to expand...

It would have gotten quite a few GOTY awards I´m sure.
 
C

cyba89

Member
Really great to hear a $40 puzzle game manages to be such a success for him. Seems like there is still some common sense and appreciation for great games left in this industry.
 
H

Hasney

Member
Stereogatari said:
How much of that do you think Blow gets? Is he a millionaire?
Click to expand...

The standard store % is 30% to Sony/Steam. I know that matches Steam, but I'm not sure how PSN works with an indie game.

Then it depends how the rest of his contractors and that were paid if they get a cut or not and the fact that I think he has debts to pay off now. But in terms of revenue, he might have saw some million pass through his accounts at the very least.
 
C

Cave Johnson

Member
From my time playing the Witness, it is most definitely worth the asking price. Game is a AA budget tier which puts it in the area of SOMA when it comes to production value.
 
W

woen

Member
Stereogatari said:
How much of that do you think Blow gets? Is he a millionaire?
Click to expand...

From what he said about the money he got from Braid (pretty much all re-invested in The Witness, he also had to borrow more millions from the bank) he seems to be the kind of artist that once he has money he prefers to use it on his next idea rather than keeping it or using it to have a luxurious way of life. So he may be virtually millionaire (after re-imbursing his debts) or for just a short moment of his life before building an even bigger and full-of-risk project.
 
P

patapuf

Member
Dremark said:
Cool.



Honestly the industry is conditioning people to think this way and it's probably only going to get worse as time goes on. If Blow was a new dev rather than a known one following up a huge hit I don't think this game would have made a profit.

And don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's a bad thing that people can get games cheap via flash/Steam sales or bundles but this is a negative effect they have.
Click to expand...

I don't know. There's quite a few recent examples of games doing well at 40$. If your game is good it works. You also have more room to do discounts later without dropping to sub 10$ immediately.

The higher revenue can absolutely be worth fewer copies sold day 1.
 
G

gelf

Member
It doesn't look like my thing but I'm glad its selling well at that price point. I've never been entirely comfortable with the race to the bottom of price competition even though I've benefited from it. I feel that ends up in a free to play shovelware hellhole if allowed to further deflate thanks to unrealistic consumer expectations.
 
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