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I'm a freak because the first time I played multiplayer COD was MW3 last year. COD is still a single player series for me. The only battlefield games I ever put any time into were the bad company games.

Are you actually buying $60 COD games just to play the singleplayer campaign?

I don't do COD multiplayer at all, but I still rent the new games from Redbox just to try out the campaign. So I can see your perspective, but at the same time I only pay $4-6 for a short rental of every COD game. I'm not coughing up big bucks to experience a one-time-only campaign.

 

[Leflus]

These numbers are not for USA only. They wouldn't just omit the numbers from UK and other territories in their PR.

You're right.

I thought that they were talking about the US numbers up until the UK launch, but I guess I was wrong.

 

[Duxxy3]

Are you actually buying $60 COD games just to play the singleplayer campaign?

I don't do COD multiplayer at all, but I still rent the new games from Redbox just to try out the campaign. So I can see your perspective, but at the same time I only pay $4-6 for a short rental of every COD game. I'm not coughing up big bucks to experience a one-time-only campaign.

It's rare that I pay full price for any game. I did pay ghosts $60 for ghosts last year, but that was mostly because there wasn't much else on PS4 at the time.

And I don't play the campaigns once and I'm done. I played through MW3 more than any game last gen (somewhere around 10 times). I just enjoy running through them the same way people run through action movies.

 

[Linkyn]

I find it strange they aren't saying whether these hundreds of thousands are distinct individuals.

 

[Neuromancer]

I have to imagine that creating bots is almost as inefficient as creating a singleplayer campaign. There's all kinds of testing and tweaking that has to occur, and most people probably give up on the bot-mode in less than an hour.

We'll never get the numbers but I think more people appreciate the existence of bot matches than you realize.

At the very least it's a way to play the game when the servers are down (temporarily or permanently), your internet connection is spotty or you just want to blow off some steam with a little bot stomping.

Google search call of duty and bots, you'll see there is actually a lot of interest for that kind of thing. With Titanfall, the AI is already in place for the grunts and the titans. They're already 2/3rds of the way there.

 

[Vast]

I find it strange they aren't saying whether these hundreds of thousands are distinct individuals.

lolwut

What do you think a more specific or appropriate phrasing be? Or do you think that that numbers are inflated and its not hundred of thousands?

 

[madmackem]

Every time a developer goes bankrupt or a publisher gets sold or dissolved, everyone complains that game industry budgets are out of control and that there's not enough new IP.

Finally a developer finds a sensible and realistic way to scale back budgets with a new IP -- drop the singleplayer, since it eats up a huge chunk of resources and contributes very little to overall sales. But almost overwhelmingly the response is "WHY ISN'T THERE A CAMPAIGN??!!!"

You charge full price then theres an expectation though, even as a mp its pretty bare bones in modes leaderboards etc things you take for granted in most big budget shooters. I like titanfall its fantastic but at full price its lacking in alot of ways even if we remove single player.

 

[QaaQer]

I definitely agree. When you ask people directly what they'd recommend to help curb budgets, a common suggestion is "efficiency."

It's a vague sense that probably, somewhere, companies could be more efficient in the development process. And probably, when spoken of broadly, those people are correct to some degree or another. But I think it's also a response that allows people to basically argue "I think companies should figure out how to lower budgets without actually scaling back the game in any way."

If by people you mean consumers, you are basically asking them if they would like to get less for their money. Which speaks to the entitlement of game developers and the game industry in general.

There was a podcast recently that had one of the main devs of nba2k14 answering questions. One of his points was that the game is a great starting point for what they are hoping to accomplish in the future, and that they have laid some solid groundwork. And he was very disappointed that the players didn't recognize that. It was some seriously insular commentary.

I see Titanfall the same way. It is a starting point, a proof of concept that will be built on. But wanting consumers to appreciate that is silly. They just want a full-on AAA game.

OT: My take is that Respawn is approaching it wrong. Super popular multiplayer only games going forward are going to be free to play. Making a f2p COD would have shaken the gaming world.

 

[border]

You charge full price then theres an expectation though, even as a mp its pretty bare bones in modes leaderboards etc things you take for granted in most big budget shooters. I like titanfall its fantastic but at full price its lacking in alot of ways even if we remove single player.

But like I've already said, there are plenty of companies that charge full price for a singleplayer-only experience, and they do not get the same kind of harsh reaction as a multiplayer-only game.

Titanfall is about shifting expectations. If you're going to spend 30-50 hours with a game, what does it really matter that you miss out on a 5-hour campaign? The amount of money spent on developing that campaign is not really proportional to the amount of fun people get out of it.

 

[Memorabilia]

That was 6 years ago though. Broadband penetration was lower, Wifi penetration was lower, and people weren't as willing to subscribe to a service for online play.

I think it's probably fair to say that if the next COD game were multiplayer-only, they wouldn't really take a big hit in sales.Or at least the hit they'd take would be offset by the fact that they didn't have to spend untold millions developing a singleplayer campaign that most people don't even finish.

It's a little weird that there are so many people complaining about developers shoehorning multiplayer in to games where it doesn't fit (Bioshock 2, Uncharted, Batman Arkham, etc) while at the same time there's relatively few complaints about shoehorning a singleplayer campaign into a multiplayer-focused title (COD, Battlefield, etc).

I still think of COD as a primarily story based, narrative driven experience and care very little about the MP. In fact, Id go so far as to say post BO MP has sucked in my estimation. Im not sure you're correct sales wouldnt take a major hit if they left out SP. As much fun as Im having with Titanfall, its very shallow and the universe thet've created would benefit greatly from being fleshed out by a strong story-line.

 

[border]

If by people you mean consumers, you are basically asking them if they would like to get less for their money. Which speaks to the entitlement of game developers and the game industry in general.

How does that not also speak to the entitlement of gamers? "I want you to keep budgets under control, but still deliver exactly the same amount of content you have always given me." You cannot simultaneously ask for lower budgets and expect the same level of polish and content-creation. You have to expect that lower budgets will result in fewer games, fewer levels, lower playtimes, etc.

 

[NolbertoS]

I'm betting 200k or less TBH. Knowing MS PR and pretty much Marketing sales verbatum, if they had sold more then 250k, would've been better to say a quarter million or half a million for 500K than "hundreds of thousands". 200k sounds like a bomba for an EA FPS game. A million is what I would be expecting, based on reviews saying the next COD type game

 

[Memorabilia]

But like I've already said, there are plenty of companies that charge full price for a singleplayer-only experience, and they do not get the same kind of harsh reaction as a multiplayer-only game.

Titanfall is about shifting expectations. If you're going to spend 30-50 hours with a game, what does it really matter that you miss out on a 5-hour campaign? The amount of money spent on developing that campaign is not really proportional to the amount of fun people get out of it.

I dont necessarily disagree with this, but I do think theres a major missed opportunity here if they dont at least release a reasonably priced SP campaign DLC. Building an emotional connection to the brand with a high quality story line would be a good thing for the long term health of the franchise. People love a good story.

 

[kaching]

That was 6 years ago though. Broadband penetration was lower, Wifi penetration was lower, and people weren't as willing to subscribe to a service for online play.

Really, that's the excuse you're going to go with? Broadband penetration, in 2007?!? Yeah, it was "lower" but it was hardly a rarity either. And it wasn't like other games with online MP were struggling to get online players. Hell, I'll even take a wild guess and wager Halo 2's total online population from 3-4 years before either of those games was much bigger than those two games combined. Wifi/Broadband penetration wasn't the problem.

...developing a singleplayer campaign that most people don't even finish.

Take it from a gamer with limited play time these days - if there's any type of SP campaign I'm likely to finish, it's the ones for your average FPS. They're almost always easiest and quickest to run through. Pointing to how few people on your friends list didn't get past the first few chapters in a massive open-world game like AC4 isn't remotely the same thing. I didn't either, but I certainly did complete the SP campaigns for both KZSF and BF4 recently.

It's a little weird that there are so many people complaining about developers shoehorning multiplayer in to games where it doesn't fit (Bioshock 2, Uncharted, Batman Arkham, etc) while at the same time there's relatively few complaints about shoehorning a singleplayer campaign into a multiplayer-focused title (COD, Battlefield, etc).

I think you're just choosing to see what you want to see - plenty of people complain about both. There's no lack of complaints from many about how bad the SP campaigns are in COD and BF, for example.

 

[AstuteClass]

If this sells low, how mad will EA be? Think they'll be striving to make Titanfall: Sigma for PS4?

 

[QaaQer]

How does that not also speak to the entitlement of gamers? "I want you to keep budgets under control, but still deliver exactly the same amount of content you have always given me." You cannot simultaneously ask for lower budgets and expect the same level of polish and content-creation. You have to expect that lower budgets will result in fewer games, fewer levels, lower playtimes, etc.

Consumers don't give two rat-balls about budgets and are not asking for them to be reduced.

When they look to buy a game, the only perspective they care about is their own, just like when they buy a car, a house, a pair of shoes, etc. Consumers don't think about the industries and workers behind those things. They care about getting the most they can for their money.

'hey man, here is a house built by some trainees on a reduced budget. By buying it, you're really helpling the future of the industry.' It is silly.

 

[HunterOfBananas]

I'm betting 200k or less TBH. Knowing MS PR and pretty much Marketing sales verbatum, if they had sold more then 250k, would've been better to say a quarter million or half a million for 500K than "hundreds of thousands". 200k sounds like a bomba for an EA FPS game. A million is what I would be expecting, based on reviews saying the next COD type game

We've been over this, most games don't officially release their sales numbers for about a week.

 

[lifeexpectancy]

I'm betting 200k or less TBH. Knowing MS PR and pretty much Marketing sales verbatum, if they had sold more then 250k, would've been better to say a quarter million or half a million for 500K than "hundreds of thousands". 200k sounds like a bomba for an EA FPS game. A million is what I would be expecting, based on reviews saying the next COD type game

The thing is that the bulk of the sales will be on 360. You're not going to move millions of units when you don't have that 70million+ install base to sell to. I'm of course not factoring in PC sales. I don't even know how to figure that into this conversation.

I'm sure in a week or whatever when it releases on 360 you'll hear more MS PR about how many units of Titanfall were sold "during march" or during "the game's launch month".

 

[TechnicPuppet]

I'm betting 200k or less TBH. Knowing MS PR and pretty much Marketing sales verbatum, if they had sold more then 250k, would've been better to say a quarter million or half a million for 500K than "hundreds of thousands". 200k sounds like a bomba for an EA FPS game. A million is what I would be expecting, based on reviews saying the next COD type game

Less than 200k now. I wonder how low it can go in another few pages.

 

[Memorabilia]

I'm betting 200k or less TBH. Knowing MS PR and pretty much Marketing sales verbatum, if they had sold more then 250k, would've been better to say a quarter million or half a million for 500K than "hundreds of thousands". 200k sounds like a bomba for an EA FPS game. A million is what I would be expecting, based on reviews saying the next COD type game

Yeah Im expecting sales numbers to be a lot lower than typically associated with COD. The Xbone install base is still relatively small, the XBL Gold sub numbers cant be much better than 60% of Xbone owners, and even with all the hype and there being basically nothing else to play on the system right now I just dont think theres a huge next gen audience for an MP only game yet. The 360 version has the same factors working against it, but does have a relatively huge install base so they should have bigger sales numbers there to help offset the massive advertising costs. I dont know what to expect from the PC audience, but I dont see a massive movement to this game happening. Its far too simplistic compared to Battlefield, for example, to draw a massive number of the more cerebral PC gaming audience who I would say generally have higher expectations and an inherent appreciation for complex/deep gameplay. Titanfall is fun, but it doesnt check off the boxes for a lot of my PC gamer friends.

 

[Memorabilia]

Really, that's the excuse you're going to go with? Broadband penetration, in 2007?!? Yeah, it was "lower" but it was hardly a rarity either. And it wasn't like other games with online MP were struggling to get online players. Hell, I'll even take a wild guess and wager Halo 2's total online population from 3-4 years before either of those games was much bigger than those two games combined. Wifi/Broadband penetration wasn't the problem.

Take it from a gamer with limited play time these days - if there's any type of SP campaign I'm likely to finish, it's the ones for your average FPS. They're almost always easiest and quickest to run through. Pointing to how few people on your friends list didn't get past the first few chapters in a massive open-world game like AC4 isn't remotely the same thing. I didn't either, but I certainly did complete the SP campaigns for both KZSF and BF4 recently.

I think you're just choosing to see what you want to see - plenty of people complain about both. There's no lack of complaints from many about how bad the SP campaigns are in COD and BF, for example.

I think one of the underlying points that is very important is that a SP campaign helps give depth, context, and *purpose* to a player's actions in both the SP AND MP aspects of a game. Take away the story and you fail to captivate a large swath of gamers who need that narrative to get sucked in. Halo 1-3 + Reach/Anniversary (and even 4 to an extent) didnt become a phenomenon because it had amazing MP but, rather, because the storyline was well done and created a consistent fictional universe within which the player was made to feel he had an integral role. The MP being a blast was a nice bonus, but the SP fueled the series success and gave rise to all the additional surrounding fictional content, from books, to cartoons, to movie rumors, etc... None of that happens without the SP campaign, no matter how good the MP. The long-term success of Titanfall depends on much more than MP gameplay unless all they want is flash-in-the-pan success. To build a successful franchise you actually have to tell a story to capture people's imaginations. I think many of the complaints about there being no SP are largely because there is a sense of missed opportunity. Titanfall has the look and feel of a fictional universe that a great story to tell, but without a fully realized story mode it feels shallow. Its a blast to play, but ultimately its difficult to get sucked in or care beyond the next kill.

 

[Cthulhu_Steev]

Microsoft put a lot of eggs in the Titanfall basket,.

I hope they didn't buy their eggs from Arzest.

 

[Fixed2BeBroken]

Halo 1-3 + Reach/Anniversary (and even 4 to an extent) didnt become a phenomenon because it had amazing MP but, rather, because the storyline was well done and created a consistent fictional universe within which the player was made to feel he had an integral role. The MP being a blast was a nice bonus, but the SP fueled the series success and gave rise to all the additional surrounding fictional content, from books, to cartoons, to movie rumors, etc... None of that happens without the SP campaign, no matter how good the MP.

You sure about that? I thought After Halo 2, Halo's strongest point was always their MP. Yea I enjoyed their SP and many people did, but it also got a lot of flack. I honestly never gave a shit about the story, just the gameplay. I thought it was always the gameplay, esp multiplayer that drew people to these games. I had many friends who, when they got the game, first thing would be going online and joining multiplayer while I was the only one on my playlist playing the single player campaign. I'm not saying Halo didn't really push the "Story driven' SP aspect of FPS games because it really did, but, I just remember Halo always being popular for it's MP.

 

[aly]

How does that not also speak to the entitlement of gamers? "I want you to keep budgets under control, but still deliver exactly the same amount of content you have always given me." You cannot simultaneously ask for lower budgets and expect the same level of polish and content-creation. You have to expect that lower budgets will result in fewer games, fewer levels, lower playtimes, etc.

I don't think people are begging for lower budgets, but they do what enough for their money. It's up to developers and publishers to learn how to be efficient, work on pricing and have reasonable expectations. As a consumer, I don't care about your budget, just about what your game can offer me. If you scale back, then I could still be interested in purchasing at a lower cost instead everything is $60 mess.

 

[Wynnebeck]

We've been over this, most games don't officially release their sales numbers for about a week.

Please stop. You've been pushing that silly notion all night. It's not true. MS has a history of announcing sales and revenue records when it suits them. They haven't said anything yet, so we can assume there is a reason behind it, not waiting til next week for some arbitrary reason.

 

[HunterOfBananas]

Please stop. You've been pushing that silly notion all night. It's not true. MS has a history of announcing sales and revenue records when it suits them. They haven't said anything yet, so we can assume there is a reason behind it, not waiting til next week for some arbitrary reason.

You mean the silly notion proved true with Halo 4 as evidence?

I have never known any dev to simply announce day one sales right away.

Looking at Gears of war 3 I see the same story on google.

 

[Acidote]

I wish they would fix the latency problems in southern Europe (At least Spain and Portugal, I'll keep asking people around).

 

[Blablurn]

Would like to know the Ratio between XB1 and PC.

 

[B.O.O.M]

I'm going to try not let the hype/marketing machine for the game cloud my expectations when it comes to sales for it. But I do find a bit odd MS hasn't bragged about sales for the game yet...I expected it to happen during the NPD but nothing so far.But in the end I expect the game to do rather well.

 

[GhostWriter24]

Hundreds of thousands = ninety thousand.

 

[Wynnebeck]

You mean the silly notion proved true with Halo 4 as evidence?

I have never known any dev to simply announce day one sales right away.

Looking at Gears of war 3 I see the same story on google.

Because these games came during a time where Activision smashed those records year after year. What's the point of announcing something on day one when the latest Call of Duty just crushed your record before you even put out PR? Besides, this being a new generation and MS having a chance to tout a record for an exclusive and they aren't taking it? Yeah, I'm not buying them waiting.

 

[FeiRR]

Less than 200k now. I wonder how low it can go in another few pages.

If Microsoft gave straight answers instead of pumping turd up their usual PR pipes with vague terms, we could be discussing some facts. But they will never change and GAF will reflect that.

 

[Nightengale]

Less than 200k now. I wonder how low it can go in another few pages.

Historical precedence from MS clearly shows that something that has a difference of 30%-50% could be inferred as practically no difference/in the single digit framerates.

So that means hundreds of thousands could be inferred as 30%-50% less than that, so :

200k divided by 50% = 100k.

Round it down, since rounding figures is a favourite practice of companies = 95,001 copies of Titanfall sold.

/sarcasm

 

[Frillen]

My god, so many people in this thread that desperately want this game to bomb. Does it sting that much, the fact that it isn't available for a system you own? Deal with it.

 

[Occam]

You've got some weird expectations if "hundreds of thousands" after a few days in a single country is disappointing. Titanfall isn't an established phenomenon like GTA or CoD.

The borderline insane hype could have let me to believe otherwise

Is there a way to see how many topics with the word "Titanfall" in their headline have been created on NeoGAF? I'd really like to know. That would be a pretty good hype-meter.

 

[Nafai1123]

I hope the game sells well since it's really fun. My take on the PR speak...

200-450k= hundreds of thousands which is more positive than "nearly/almost half a million"

501-800k = "over half a million"

800-950k = "nearly a million"


I'm guessing over 400k.

 

[Coolwhip]

So it's not the second coming of Call of Duty?

 

[Nightengale]

So it's not the second coming of Call of Duty?

It has potential.

But games that become monstrously huge do so, mostly organically. League of Legends, Minecraft, etc didn't become overnight behemoths.

What needs to happen from March onwards is that it, through word of mouth/marketing, continue to gain a larger audience week after week, continues selling absurdly well, pull away a chunk of the FPS audience strongly entrenched in their defacto FPS franchise, have ridiculously long legs, then we can call it the second coming of CoD.

And even that 'second coming' will realistically only materialise when Titanfall 2 comes out.

 

[The Freeman]

Having not played Titanfall yet (360 and PS4 owner here) I would have thought the MP would have said how many people were currently online like the CoD series does.

I no it's no indicator, but I'm still a big MW3 player, and since Titanfall was released the number of players online has dropped by over 10,000.

Hopefully the series does well, I would love to play the next one on PS4.

 

[Leflus]

So it's not the second coming of Call of Duty?

Well... COD's sales didn't explode untill the fourth entry. Respawn and EA are probably in it for the long haul.

Titanfall 2 should sell a lot better (higher userbase and more brand awareness).

 

[Pjsprojects]

The only part of it I don't agree with is the part that says the Xbox One is the best place to play Titanfall . My game has been ridden with slow downs, screen tearing, the whole works. I regret having the digital copy and not opting with the PC version... Not to say that that version is any better, but at least I would have a fighting chance. *sigh*

Sadly for Microsoft the PC version is much better but at least the Xbone owners get to play it,unlike PS4 owners,which is a shame.

 

[RulkezX]

Anecdotal but on BF4 launch week my gaming community/clan had 30-40 playing every night for the first couple of weeks , 6 of us bought Titanfall. A lot of the guys who tried the Beta didn't like it all that much.

People need a bit of perspective anyway , it's a new IP that had it's marketing push on a new console. Those who thought it was going to do CoD numbers out the door and shift hundreds of thousands of X1's were/are nuts.

I'm sure in the end it's life time sales will be good, but I expect a long view needs to be taken with TF ie I think a lot of existing X1 owners will have bought the console with TF in mind given the wait for it was only a couple of months from launch , and I think a lot of X1 owners going forward will be purchasing TF alongside their console either in a bundle or as their +1 game.

 

[Into]

There is a achievement in the game that i think every player will get, custom building your own Pilot, cant remember its name but its the first achievement i got. Its similar to making your custom class in CoD

So is it not possible to see how many people got that achievement? And get some sort of number?

 

[Sioen]

The game is fun enough, but I have a feeling it won't have lonv legs. I'm now sharing my game time between this and dark souls 2 and everytime I play titanfall I get bored after 45 minutes. There isn't enough content and the game modes that are there are dissapointingly boring.

 

[GoofsterStud]

The game is fun enough, but I have a feeling it won't have lonv legs. I'm now sharing my game time between this and dark souls 2 and everytime I play titanfall I get bored after 45 minutes. There isn't enough content and the game modes that are there are dissapointingly boring.

I'm in the same boat as you. I play for a little bit, then get board and play hearthstone for a while... Then after a few games go back to Dark Souls 2.

 

[Eppy Thatcher]

Didn't the respawn guys want a long evolving franchise out of this game? Id say this is a pretty good start for an online only new ip...

I would also bet money Microsoft was expecting too much of it.

 

[Messofanego]

Is there a way to see how many topics with the word "Titanfall" in their headline have been created on NeoGAF? I'd really like to know. That would be a pretty good hype-meter.

Three Hundred And Ten.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/search.php?searchid=13406871

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

I've just realised.

XB1 by now should have a userbase of 3.5+ million and PS4 has one of 6 million+. Thats a massive gap almost twice the userbase. Comparing KZ with Titanfall may not be fair as even if the tie ratios are the same KS would have almost twice the sales. This game may not be as big as I thought it would be.

 

[Forkball]

"Millions of fingers have played Titanfall."

Titanfall is fun. It does a lot of things right, but also has some striking flaws. But hopefully it's here to say, I think the franchise can turn into something great in the future.

 

[NavyPharaoh]

You mean the silly notion proved true with Halo 4 as evidence?

I have never known any dev to simply announce day one sales right away.

Looking at Gears of war 3 I see the same story on google.

Activision has. Gta V announced their day one milestone sales. Ps4 announced it sold a million consoles n a day. Halo 3 announced day one numbers as well.

Having a few examples to support your theory doesnt make it accurate when there are examples proving the exact opposite.

So if there was anything extraordinary about launch we would've heard by now, but that doesn't take away from how good the game is or what it will sell over time. It just means that millions of ppl aren't rushing to buy a $500 system for titanfall.... yet