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[Archie]

Was the Sims 3, number one when it released?

Will Star Craft 2 make it in time for July? lol

Sims 3 sold 1.4 million units in June 2009 which would have made it the top selling game for the month, compared to the 600,000 that Prototype sold (don't crucify me if the sales are wrong, thanks).

 

[obonicus]

Not entirely surprising, we had heard things of the sort before. DD seems to be up, in fact, from what I last heard.

 

[Wiktor]

But if you accept them and assume that the entire US PC market, from casual to hardcore, from PopCap to Paradox, does 50 million units a year across retail and digital, that bodes pretty poorly for PC game sales as whole.

Does it? I'm not so sure. Maybe it could be scary for console market, where games get often half of their all sales from US market alone. But on PC the sales are spread more evenly among a lot more countries, so US alone might be impressive compared to some other countries, but it still forms just a small part of the pie overall.
You often see even big PC games having trouble breaking 200K a year in US, while they pass million easily in few months worldwide

 

[Stumpokapow]

Sims 3 sold 1.4 million units in June 2009 which would have made it the top selling game for the month, compared to the 600,000 that Prototype sold (don't crucify me if the sales are wrong, thanks).

Those sales aren't wrong and you wouldn't be crucified anyway because by linking to two articles you've made 2000% more effort than the vast majority of posters talking about anything anywhere on the internet.

 

[arstal]

What's up with D2D? I've spent about $30 with them and would be pissed if they went under and I lost access to all my games. Taking a quick glance at their ToS, it looks like they reserve the right to pull content at any time so theoretically they could shut everything down and leave us out in the cold.

The fact that D2D is selling Steamworks games really reeks of desperation. That said, it's possible that a .5-1% market share may still be profitable.

On top of that, many people who don't like Steam, it's for DRM purposes (Steam can be nasty DRM in some regards) and those people would flock to Impulse/gamersgate, as D2D's DRM policy is pretty bad. I actually had a no-DRM game bricked by D2D's DRM. ( a copy of a friend's .exe file solved the problem) Also, that DRM does slow down the starting of games, much like Steam's (it's only a few seconds, but I do notice that)

Personally, I think Steam's DRM is tolerable for budget gaming, but I am wary to pay full price for a mandatory Steamworks game.

 

[Wiktor]

Sims 3 sold 1.4 million units in June 2009 which would have made it the top selling game for the month, compared to the 600,000 that Prototype sold (don't crucify me if the sales are wrong, thanks).

It topped NPD chart...ie US retail numbers.
It overall sold 1,4 mln copies..ie worldwide both retail an DD

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I'm confused, the numbers in the OP refer only to unit sales, not revenue right?

Meaning that if all of those games were $50, the maximum revenue would be roughly 2 billion US dollars, correct?

 

[Stumpokapow]

Does it? I'm not so sure. Maybe it could be scary for console market, where games get often half of their all sales from US market alone. But on PC the sales are spread more evenly among a lot more countries, so US alone might be impressive compared to some other countries, but it still forms just a small part of the pie overall.
You often see even big PC games having trouble breaking 200K a year in US, while they pass million easily in few months worldwide

Oh, yes, absolutely. Sorry, I think we were both coming at this from different angles. I was approaching it from the angle that 50 million unit sales would be considered poor for the US, you were approaching it from the angle of "Can developers achieve commercial success on the PC?" and absolutely they can from a worldwide perspective.

My purchasing habits are a testament to that! Hell, the best use I've found for your very popular website is finding out about obscure, often "casual" games from non-US sources that I end up falling in love with. Just recently I checked out Virtual City based on your website (awesome!), and that's not something that would even register at retail or necessarily in the US, but I bet that's carved itself a nice little niche worldwide.

 

[Archie]

Those sales aren't wrong and you wouldn't be crucified anyway because by linking to two articles you've made 2000% more effort than the vast majority of posters talking about anything anywhere on the internet.

I just know how (rightfully) defensive sales agers are with bullshit numbers. At least I had enough common sense not to link chartzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It topped NPD chart...ie US retail numbers.
It overall sold 1,4 mln copies..it worldwide both retail an DD

The wording made it sound like that it sold 1.4 million at US retail alone. If I'm wrong then woops.

 

[madara]

Still waiting for a crazy rpg on the pc that uses 30 gigs or something. Good reasons to get a Blu drive. I doubt there would be many that would want to download games of that size.

 

[Wiktor]

Oh, yes, absolutely. Sorry, I think we were both coming at this from different angles. I was approaching it from the angle that 50 million unit sales would be considered poor for the US, you were approaching it from the angle of "Can developers achieve commercial success on the PC?" and absolutely they can from a worldwide perspective.

Definitly. 50 mln is poor for US, my whole argument was that it's speaks poorly of PCgaming's situation in US, not overall situation of PC gaming market as a whole.

It's similiar to how Xbox360 is doing in Japan, the numbers there are very low and it's poor performance for any console in country of this type. But performance of Xbox brand in Japan isn't a good way to measure the condition of the whole platform worldwide. With US PCgaming it's similiar. Of course the scale is different, but the general idea is the same.

 

[Kosma]

Not surprising

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=22485604#post22485604

 

[Dedication Through Light]

It topped NPD chart...ie US retail numbers.
It overall sold 1,4 mln copies..ie worldwide both retail an DD

Wow had to search but from Gamespot, lol.

On the PC charts--much like in the real world--Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard fought it out for supremacy. From January to July, the former's Sims 3 was a double threat, with the regular edition being the top game and the $70 collector's edition coming in eighth. According to NPD, the game has sold over 820,000 units in June, the month it was released. Despite competing against its own sequel, The Sims 2: Double Deluxe was the six-month period's bronze-medal winner, with The Sims 2: Apartment Life expansion taking 10th place. EA also scored with Spore, the half-year's seventh-place PC title.

So I guess the Sims 3 version sold in June with 820,000 units, which was more than that 600,000 for Prototype.

 

[Archie]

The fact that D2D is selling Steamworks games really reeks of desperation. That said, it's possible that a .5-1% market share may still be profitable.

On top of that, many people who don't like Steam, it's for DRM purposes (Steam can be nasty DRM in some regards) and those people would flock to Impulse/gamersgate, as D2D's DRM policy is pretty bad. I actually had a no-DRM game bricked by D2D's DRM. ( a copy of a friend's .exe file solved the problem) Also, that DRM does slow down the starting of games, much like Steam's (it's only a few seconds, but I do notice that)

Personally, I think Steam's DRM is tolerable for budget gaming, but I am wary to pay full price for a mandatory Steamworks game.

It sounds like you are using conjecture to imply that D2D is in trouble. Steamworks games are typically larger releases and D2D would be missing out on a decent source of revenue. I do wish that Steamworks games gave people the option of using Steam for convenience or if they want to do things on their own.

I'm confused, the numbers in the OP refer only to unit sales, not revenue right?

Meaning that if all of those games were $50, the maximum revenue would be roughly 2 billion US dollars, correct?

I doubt that the lion's share of PC DD sales are at $50. There are to many casual games, games that start out at a lower price point and deeply discounted games for that to happen.

Still waiting for a crazy rpg on the pc that uses 30 gigs or something. Good reasons to get a Blu drive.

Dragon Age is 20 and Age of Conan is 36 gigs. Is that good enough?

 

[gregor7777]

Still waiting for a crazy rpg on the pc that uses 30 gigs or something. Good reasons to get a Blu drive. I doubt there would be many that would want to download games of that size.

It wouldn't have been that long ago we scoffed at 10-15GB downloads that are becoming standard for big budget games.

Force Unleashed is mocked for being ~30GB download, but plenty of people still bought it on the Steam sale. Just wait a few more years.

 

[Wiktor]

Since people are actualy making an effort to provide ilustrative data with links and all that I decided I need to stop being so lazy and contribute a little

top 10 selling PC games in US retail in 2007

1. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade – (Vivendi) – 2.25 million
2. World of Warcraft– (Vivendi) – 914K
3. The Sims 2 – (Electronic Arts) – 534K
4. The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack – (Electronic Arts) – 433K
5. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – (Activision) – 383K
6. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars – (Electronic Arts) – 350K
7. MS Age of Empires III – (Microsoft) – 313K
8. Sim City 4 - (Electronic Arts) – 294K
9. MS Flight Simulator X - (Microsoft) - 280K
10.The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack – (Electronic Arts) – 272K

Yes, those are for the whole year. To show just how bad it can be when compared to the rest of the world, let's look at Command and Conquer 3:

in the same earnings call (on May 8), CFO Warren Jenson reported that C&C3 had sold over one million copies worldwide.

CnC3 launched on 26.03.2007.
So, essentialy, worldwide it sold over 1mln copies in 1,5 month, while in US retail it took it over 9 months to reach 350 K.
And mind you, US retail is actualy worse today when it comes to PC gaming than in 2007.

 

[MonkeyMoves]

It wouldn't have been that long ago we scoffed at 10-15GB downloads that are becoming standard for big budget games.

Force Unleashed is mocked for being ~30GB download, but plenty of people still bought it on the Steam sale. Just wait a few more years.

I think Conan MMO was like 50GB too or something.

 

[Diablohead]

I can't remember the last time I bought a retail PC game.

I still buy them if the price is good, aka DiRT 2 pc for £18 at launch, same with Batman AA that I paid £11 for.

I fully support digital downloads outside of cheaper games on store shelves sometimes.

 

[arstal]

It sounds like you are using conjecture to imply that D2D is in trouble. Steamworks games are typically larger releases and D2D would be missing out on a decent source of revenue. I do wish that Steamworks games gave people the option of using Steam for convenience or if they want to do things on their own.

It's a source of revenue that gives money to your biggest competitor. It's like say, Cheerwine selling Cokes at their store.

When MW2 became Steamworks- Gamersgate and Impulse promptly decided to say no sale. they didn't need to do this.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I can't remember the last time I bought a retail PC game.

BTW, just as a late reply to this, you're missing out!

A lot of retail PC games get super cheap super fast. I just bought East India Company for $5 at retail. In the same bin, Godfather II for $5. About a year ago my girlfriend and I bought 15 adventure games (Overclocked, the eXperiment, Scratches, about a dozen others) for less than $40 total at retail.

Even though the PC section at any given retail is tiny at this point, it's still worth scanning through because I think you'll find you can really get some sweet deals!

 

[MonkeyMoves]

BTW, just as a late reply to this, you're missing out!

A lot of retail PC games get super cheap super fast. I just bought East India Company for $5 at retail. In the same bin, Godfather II for $5. About a year ago my girlfriend and I bought 15 adventure games (Overclocked, the eXperiment, Scratches, about a dozen others) for less than $40 total at retail.

Even though the PC section at any given retail is tiny at this point, it's still worth scanning through because I think you'll find you can really get some sweet deals!

Yeah retail is still amazing value for some stuff.

Plus I can't imagine buying SC2 as a DD only and miss out on the box etc. Especially since i have all the other Blizzard games boxed.

 

[Wiktor]

It's a source of revenue that gives money to your biggest competitor. It's like say, Cheerwine selling Cokes at their store.

When MW2 became Steamworks- Gamersgate and Impulse promptly decided to say no sale. they didn't need to do this.

Well, to be honest, Gamestop also had problems with selling Steam enabled games, but backed away from it because they've realized how pointless it would be

 

[szaromir]

I just bought East India Company for $5 at retail.

The title sounds super tempting. I must google it.

 

[Wiktor]

The title sounds super tempting. I must google it.

Unfortunately the game is barely decent, it's the add-ons (especially the second one) that make it worthwhile, altough even then...the next game from this dev will be out like in 2 or 3 weeks and it promises huge improvements

 

[Stallion Free]

:lol Impulse wasn't even in the top 5. They sure do a lot of talking for not even being able to compete with Blizzard's "store."

 

[scitek]

Funny thing is, I thought it was higher, way higher. The retail market still holds a lot of weight despite the fact that I, personally, haven't purchased a boxed game for PC for the better part of 10 years.

 

[Sysgen]

The title sounds super tempting. I must google it.

Gamersgate has the game and the addons for $15

 

[arstal]

:lol Impulse wasn't even in the top 5. They sure do a lot of talking for not even being able to compete with Blizzard's "store."

Stardock claims to be #2 with 10% of the market share (Brad wardell has blogged that). That said, I wonder if they're counting their non-gaming side on those calculations. (While their gaming side is very profitable, their non-gaming side is still the bigger part of their business) They say Steam is at 70%.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=26158

I do think Stardock is helped by its exclusives. Nowhere near as much as Valve of course, but Sins and GalCIv II were top sellers.

As for Gamestop, they don't really have a reason to boycott Steamworks games.

 

[TheRagnCajun]

I would have expected something closer to 70% DD, 30% retail

 

[arstal]

I would have expected something closer to 70% DD, 30% retail

Wal-Mart is a huge factor in PC retail sales.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I would have expected something closer to 70% DD, 30% retail

Blizzard and, as Arstal said, Wal Mart are huge factors for PC retail in US. The majority of Blizzard's titles are still sold through retail, since Blizzard hasn't really taken DD seriously until now. Starcraft II will be the first Blizzard title that will be available through retail and DD on the first day.

 

[Kabouter]

Unfortunately the game is barely decent, it's the add-ons (especially the second one) that make it worthwhile, altough even then...the next game from this dev will be out like in 2 or 3 weeks and it promises huge improvements

Improvements of what sort? Will it offer actual depth?
Because I thought EIC was fun enough, but it was only fun for like twenty minutes because it's about as shallow as Call of Duty.

 

[charlequin]

The fact that D2D is selling Steamworks games really reeks of desperation.

Choosing to earn revenue in your chosen business by selling games that your customers have asked you to sell so that they can preferentially buy them from you rather than a competitor strikes me as much more "sensible business for a small player in the market" than "desperation."

It's a source of revenue that gives money to your biggest competitor.

Using Steamworks is 100% free.

 

[Stallion Free]

Stardock claims to be #2 with 10% of the market share (Brad wardell has blogged that). That said, I wonder if they're counting their non-gaming side on those calculations. (While their gaming side is very profitable, their non-gaming side is still the bigger part of their business) They say Steam is at 70%.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=26158

I do think Stardock is helped by its exclusives. Nowhere near as much as Valve of course, but Sins and GalCIv II were top sellers.

As for Gamestop, they don't really have a reason to boycott Steamworks games.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they count the applications they sell on Impulse towards sales when comparing.

 

[CiSTM]

I'm still a retail man. I only dip into DD when Steam has crazy days but other than that I don't see any reason to buy games from DD services at least not untill universal price drops.

 

[shintoki]

No they're not 10x worse than anyone in this thread thinks they are. I have a pretty good idea what they are. And they're pretty goddamn awful. Except for a handful of titles, sales of retail PC games in the US are basically negligible.

Normally, they consist of the same 10 titles(With an occasional one or two new ones that appear for a month or two...only to be replaced by Sims and Warcraft :lol )

And the numbers do occasionally pop up. Unless there is a major release, normally the entire top 10 will be under 100k.

Here we go, the top 10 for 2007.

1. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade -- 2.25 million
2. World of Warcraft -- 914,000
3. The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack -- 433,000
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare -- 383,000
5. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars -- 343,000
6. SimCity 4 Deluxe -- 284,000
7. The Sims 2 -- 281,000
8. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack -- 271,000
9. Age of Empires III -- 259,000
10. The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack -- 236,000

It is without a doubt old data, but NPD keeps a tight lip on numbers now(Difficult to get more recent ones).

I think the same for this applies as with Japan and gaming. The market hasn't shrunk, it's shifted. In Japan they went from Home Consoles to Handhelds+Cellphone. While with PC, it's gone more to the casual play, cheaper titles while the more traditional sense of PC gaming has shrunk down.

 

[Vanillalite]

I'm still a retail man. I only dip into DD when Steam has crazy days but other than that I don't see any reason to buy games from DD services at least not untill universal price drops.

Problem is Steam ALWAYS has crazy Steam days! :lol

I'll admit outside of WoW shit I haven't bought a retail release in forever. Not that I'm against it. I did buy LOTRO a few years back cause it was like 6 bucks on clearance at Target. It's just none of the stores I go to have a good PC selection, and nothing good is ever really on sale.

 

[dionysus]

The good thing about DD for US customers is that it allows access to games that would never be released in the US otherwise. The type of stuff gamersgate specializes in. Most of my PC gaming collection would never be found at Walmart. Even if it is only 20% of the sales pie, it has revolutionized access to games from all over the world. I can see how DD is less important if one lives in Germany.

 

[ElFly]

Blizzard.com came in third for unit sales and they essentially sell a total of 4 different games digitally :lol

And WorldofWarcraft.com comes in fifth place.

 

[Wthermans]

I'm not sure this is particularly accurate, simply because there's no casual digital distribution service listed in the top 5. Really, Big Fish and Popcap didn't manage to move a few million units?



Since the PC DD services don't set their own prices, publishers do, I would assume the impact of having no competition to Steam would be that Valve would be less likely to be willing to take a hit for time-limited sales but publishers would be equally as likely to be willing to take a hit for time-limited sales.

Agreed. PC DD is a relatively open market. Yes there are a handful of gatekeepers to have access to your games, but there are a good number of ways to get DD content for a game you want. You at least have Steam and the publisher's own DD store. Not to mention GoG, D2D, and now OnLive. Plus you still have the retail outlets available (which include both brick and mortar and online sales. The DD market on PC is flourishing and it's all due to options.

 

[jvm]

I didn't see anyone linking to a primary source for the NPD PR, so here you go:
PC Game Digital Downloads Reaching Parity With In-Store Purchases

As for the methodology:

Methodology:
Information contained in this press release sources from two of The NPD Group’s ongoing consumer services covering the games industry:

- Games Acquisition Monitor
The NPD Group’s Games Acquisition Monitor is a quarterly tracker which measures both digital and physical forms of games acquisition activity, volume, awareness and usage of retailers and services, as well as other technology and entertainment activities that could influence game acquisition trends. It is based on online survey responses from over 8,000 members of NPD’s online consumer panel. Data is weighted and projected to be representative of the U.S. population ages 2 and older.

- NPD Consumer Tracker
NPD collects data on PC game purchases via its weekly video games consumer survey. Each week, over 180,000 individuals are selected from the NPD online consumer panel to participate in one of four weekly studies. The responding sample is demographically weighted and projected through a series of steps to represent the Total Adult (18+) and Total Teen (13-17) U.S. population. Respondents to the survey report whether in the past week they purchased a PC game on a disc or downloaded the game from a web site
directly to their computers.

Only digital purchases of games from the above websites are tracked in this report. Shipped boxed products from these sites are not covered; information about these can be obtained through our PC Retail Tracking service.

Short version: Appears to be survey information only, not information from the companies involved. That sound right to y'all?

 

[CiSTM]

Problem is Steam ALWAYS has crazy Steam days! :lol

I'll admit outside of WoW shit I haven't bought a retail release in forever. Not that I'm against it. I did buy LOTRO a few years back cause it was like 6 bucks on clearance at Target. It's just none of the stores I go to have a good PC selection, and nothing good is ever really on sale.

Well not every day I admit that STEAM always has good offers but more then usually they are one day specials or something like that. Latest example is Just Cause 2. Steam asks 49,99€ while I can find it almost any retail store under 29,99€

Retail prices (at least here) for a new pc game is 34,99€ and takes about a month for first price cut. Steam can't compete those prices yet. When it can I will go steam only... DVD cases are eating up some serious space and I don't like swapping DVDs all the time :lol

 

[Danneee]

I think space in stores for PC titles has decreased drastically in years. I didnt even realize some places had PC games sections still, lol.

This, and if I am ordering online anyway then i might just as well go with dd and get the game right away.

 

[Wiktor]

Stardock claims to be #2 with 10% of the market share (Brad wardell has blogged that). That said, I wonder if they're counting their non-gaming side on those calculations. (While their gaming side is very profitable, their non-gaming side is still the bigger part of their business) They say Steam is at 70%.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=26158

I do think Stardock is helped by its exclusives. Nowhere near as much as Valve of course, but Sins and GalCIv II were top sellers.

As for Gamestop, they don't really have a reason to boycott Steamworks games.

I think Impulse meant worldwide though. I mean...D2D opened up to European gamers only recently. EA is also less popular here and the prices they set on DD can be pretty ridiculous. Added with non-gaming software sales I could easily see Impulse being no.2
But yes, Impulse is definitly being helped by exclusives. They are the only non-Valve big DD service that can claim to have their own exclusive. Even Paradox started to release their games outside Gamersgate

 

[Brofist]

PC games would benefit from DD more than console since the used market is nonexistent.

 

[Wiktor]

Improvements of what sort? Will it offer actual depth?
Because I thought EIC was fun enough, but it was only fun for like twenty minutes because it's about as shallow as Call of Duty.

I had a lot of good time with the second add-on (Battle of Trafalgar). It removes the weak ass economy and concentrates solely on sea battles. it adds more depth to tactics, admirals that actualy change the outcome of battles, the AI has been rewritten to follow the real tactics from that era. Really nice game. It also helps that there hasn't been a game with good naval combat since Age of Sail: Privateer's Bounty:lol

 

[Javaman]

Even though the PC section at any given retail is tiny at this point, it's still worth scanning through because I think you'll find you can really get some sweet deals!

Especially if it's a steamworks title for cheaper than usual. Best of both worlds.

Well not every day I admit that STEAM always has good offers but more then usually they are one day specials or something like that. Latest example is Just Cause 2. Steam asks 49,99€ while I can find it almost any retail store under 29,99€

That's the perfect situation since it's a steamworks game. Just enter the key into steam and you'll be able to "buy" it for 30 and have the hard copy + automatic updates.

 

[donny2112]

I have no idea what NPD's methodology is for tracking PC DD sales, and until I hear something reasonable, I'm going to put them in a little box next to Oi-Oi's Magic Butt.

Unless they changed what they planned to do, that's probably a good place to put them.

The original plan (that I recall) was to estimate DD numbers by polling its consumer panel. Also, it was designed to exclude the casual stuff like browser games, F2P, etc. Sort of basically just trying to see what the DD side of retail games (or DD on consoles) was doing. No hard numbers outside of their consumer panel so no point-of-sale data, though.

Short version: Appears to be survey information only, not information from the companies involved. That sound right to y'all?

Yep. Thanks, jvm!

 

[Jive Turkey]

I can't remember the last time I bought a retail PC game.

Same. I think it was 2004 or 2005.

EDIT: What the hell am I thinking? I bought Sins of a Solar Empire, Civ 4, and Guild Wars + Nightfall on clearance at Target over the past two years.

 

[arstal]

Choosing to earn revenue in your chosen business by selling games that your customers have asked you to sell so that they can preferentially buy them from you rather than a competitor strikes me as much more "sensible business for a small player in the market" than "desperation."



Using Steamworks is 100% free.

But if D2D sells a Steam game, their customer installs Steam, and will start using Steam.
That will lower your base of customers.

As for Paradox and Stardock- I don't think Paradox cares about competing with Steam as much as Stardock does. Paradox's main concern is getting their games out. Then again, Paradox has a lot more 3rd party publishing then Stardock.

I do think Stardock backing the wrong OS back in the early-mid 90s has shaped a lot of decisions over there.