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Paleo-Sales-Age: Infocom sales (Zork > 400K, HHGTTG > 300K)

jvm

Gamasutra.
Edit: Let's make with the graphs already!
24v4odj.png

a411z.png

nd055k.png


Original post:

Seeing this data brought out an incredible desire to make graphs, but so far I've resisted. Since I've got the kids all day, I won't have time to do anything until later, but maybe someone else will feel the desire.

Here you go:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/2419969220/sizes/l/in/set-72157604579363487/

And here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/2419990922/sizes/l/in/set-72157604579363487/

How about that Fooblitzky with negative sales!

Looks like Zork I hit over 400K in the LTD sales shown here... :^)

Others:
Suspended = 100K
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy = 340K

Neat!

Source: GSW
 
Wow Zork must have brought an insane ammount of revenue back then, what happened to Infocom anyway? Couldn't keep up with the changing market or something?
 

CTLance

Member
Nice, Zork I must have been quite profitable.

Given the recent mankotaku/cag shenaningans I'm tempted to be wary though. Can't. trust. no one. *twitch*

Edit: Priiiimeeeee Croooootch!!
 

soco

Member
Prime crotch said:
Wow Zork must have brought an insane ammount of revenue back then, what happened to Infocom anyway? Couldn't keep up with the changing market or something?

didn't games at the time cost like 10-20$ ?

granted each game could be done by a single person or two instead of hundreds...
 

jvm

Gamasutra.
DavidDayton said:
What's with the Commodore columns? I take it there was a special deal in place?
Commodore sold Commodore-branded copies of the games. In the case of Zork, these are the originals I owned. They came on Commodore-branded floppies in Commodore-branded floppy sleeves. I'm not even sure they came with manuals. When I bought my copies (maybe 1986 or so, and yes, my mother bought them for me, since I was only 13) they were fairly cheap. Maybe $10-12 each?
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
jvm said:
Commodore sold Commodore-branded copies of the games. In the case of Zork, these are the originals I owned. They came on Commodore-branded floppies in Commodore-branded floppy sleeves. I'm not even sure they came with manuals. When I bought my copies (maybe 1986 or so, and yes, my mother bought them for me, since I was only 13) they were fairly cheap. Maybe $10-12 each?

I had forgotten about that... I figured it must be something like that, but I wasn't entirely sure. Commodore had done the same thing with some of Scott Adams's text adventures... I think there are VIC-20 Adventureland carts out there.

I have a couple of old Infocom boxed games, all obtained from thrift stores in the late 80s or early 90s. Generally, though, my Infocom ownership stems from the Masterpieces of Infocom CD they released at some point in the late 90s. It got it around the same time I purchased my $10 copy of Earthbound from a local Best Buy.
 
soco said:
didn't games at the time cost like 10-20$ ?

granted each game could be done by a single person or two instead of hundreds...
Yeah but floppies aren't the cheapest and they crammed a bunch of trinket-y stuff in the games.
 

jvm

Gamasutra.
Suburban Cowboy said:
do not see what these charts have to do with pedophilia
At first I was like "WTF?" and then I realized that people might not know what "paleo" means. :lol
 

gkryhewy

Member
Thanks to the OP for this thread - reminded me that I owned a Zorkmid coin, which somehow turns out to be quite valuable now. Ebay!
 

Sharp

Member
What these Zork sales tell me is that nowhere near the number of people who have at some point said or written anything about grues actually purchased the game. Not that it was ever really in doubt.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
gkrykewy said:
Thanks to the OP for this thread - reminded me that I owned a Zorkmid coin, which somehow turns out to be quite valuable now. Ebay!

I want a Zorkmid. :(
 

Gadfly

While flying into a tree he exclaimed "Egad!"
soco said:
didn't games at the time cost like 10-20$ ?

granted each game could be done by a single person or two instead of hundreds...
No, actually I remember Zork I was $50 or $60 CDN.

Believe it or not, PC software and games were just as expensive (or even more) back then. WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were going for close to $500. Games were $40-$50. Taking inflation into account, games are not that more expensive these days (and are a lot more expensive to develop). But successful ones sell more.

Zork I was the first PC game I played. it is an excellent game.
 
Trinity, AMFV and Bureaucracy numbers make me sad...

Hooray for Wishbringer (not a masterpiece, but a good place to start if you want to discover the joys of IF).
 

gkryhewy

Member
Is there a way to obtain/play any of the more obscure Infocom games legally? Someone at work is looking for two specific mystery games - Suspect and Deadline - and can't find them anywhere.
 

jvm

Gamasutra.
gkrykewy said:
Is there a way to obtain/play any of the more obscure Infocom games legally? Someone at work is looking for two specific mystery games - Suspect and Deadline - and can't find them anywhere.
I'm fairly certain I saw several Commodore 64 versions on eBay recently.

Or you could look for one of the Infocom CD collections. They're decent, but the scanned manuals in PDF are crap. Ah well.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
gkrykewy said:
Is there a way to obtain/play any of the more obscure Infocom games legally? Someone at work is looking for two specific mystery games - Suspect and Deadline - and can't find them anywhere.

Your best chance would be to get a copy of the last CD release of all the Infocom stuff -- The Masterpieces of Infocom. Sadly, as best as I can tell that was last sold around 1998.

I feel old now.
 

gkryhewy

Member
DavidDayton said:
Your best chance would be to get a copy of the last CD release of all the Infocom stuff -- The Masterpieces of Infocom. Sadly, as best as I can tell that was last sold around 1998.

I feel old now.

Wow, ridiculous. These things should be available on some download service, or let loose as public domain if no one's going to bother.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
gkrykewy said:
Wow, ridiculous. These things should be available on some download service, or let loose as public domain if no one's going to bother.

It's Activision. Do they support any of the "classic" gaming download services?
 

Pneophen

Neo Member
I remember playing Wishbringer on the C64. I remember it came with a glowing stone and the letter you were suppose to deliver. I think I may still have the stone somewhere.
 
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