But they told me in that thread that releasing all those games at once was good!
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PSN game Derrick the Deathfin sells less than 5,000 units at a loss
- Thread starter Visualante2
- Start date
But they told me in that thread that releasing all those games at once was good!
Kenshin001
Member
I think those games do well despite not having a demo. They have a lot of hype behind them. Games like Derrick, not so much.
The point is, the game didn't do shit because it had no demo. Games can clearly sell well without one.
The problem was, they didn't promote it enough.
It's like being a political junkie but ignoring Ohio during the elections.
Kazuma Kiryu
Member
well, the game does look like junk...
Sintoid
Member
I bought both the game and Derrik is worth is money if you know that the game exists... Playstation Blog gives good coverage of incoming PSN games if you want to know them. Tokyo Jungle is actually a retail Japanese game distributed by Sony at a low price. Comparison is unfair
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Journey is the exception to the rule... and also later got a demo for a reason. Demos sell games.
derExperte
Member
Sad. While the game isn't great (controls are a bit janky for example) it was perfectly priced imo (I payed 5,xx), fun for two, three hours and you can tell he put a lot of work put into it.
Mysterious Stranger
Member
The game title not catchy enough
A massively hyped game from a studio with a massive following.
So what are your sales and profit numbers on your released XBLA/Steam/iOS games?
So bad games sell well on Steam/iOS/XBLA? Because the game apparantly didn't have that good reviews.
Indeed.
Kenshin001
Member
Having no demo didn't help. Not sure why devs don't release a demo. They are either not confident in their product or so confident they think the game will sell without one. Put me in the no demo = no buy camp unless it's something that gets extraordinary reviews and word of mouth like Journey.
I agree with what others have said about the poor choice of name too. Derrick the Deathfin just sounds like a shit game. Even just Deathfin would have been better.
Top 10 EU charts
US
80% of the games dont have demo.
Derrick might sell later on once the game is discounted to 3$ like how Amy and Hydrophobia Prophecy reached in top 10 because of that
I don't know. I barely heard of FTL or Amnesia before release, they were certainly not hyped, and yet they sold a ton. Word of mouth has a much bigger impact than a demo I'd say.
In fact I'd wager the majority of the indie successes on PC have had no demo.
Gentleman Jack
Member
Do we know the sales numbers for Journey before/after the demo came out?
snoopeasystreet
Member
The game looks interesting but if you're an Indie dev, you should probably be selling your game and steam. XBLA and PSN are starting to feel like they're for the high profile Indie devs or the smaller, independent developers. We also haven't heard yet if games bought on those services will run on next gen consoles. It's certainly stopping me from buying anything outside of high profile exclusives on them.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
You are listing full retail games. I know for a fact that Sonic, Tony Hawk, Retro City, and Walking Dead have demos.
It was the best selling PSN game before a demo was released.
FTL is quite popular due to kickstarter
and Amnesia is quite a popular game because its rare game Horror game.
Even Siren is quite popular in psn
Well, looks like putting yourself into debt doesn't seem like a good idea. Lesson learned.
This is one of those posts that guarantees the user never comes back to the thread.
Metalmurphy
Member
Yeah, the game would have been profitable releasing the next week. Yep.
Would have had much better visibility.
Any startup usually involves debt.
Metalmurphy
Member
Or it would have had less. Because no one knew about it and no one went to check the store for something else. Works both ways, neither of which was this games problem.
I guess you're right, maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention. The necessity of a demo could also be platform dependent, could explain the the differences (never seen much demand for demos from Steam users).
LiquidSolid
Member
Should be obvious, shouldn't it? Demos take time and money to make, something a lot of indie developers (and especially this one) don't have.
Plus, it's really easy to fuck up demos and end up hurting sales. Too long, too short, too much early game hand holding, not enough hand holding and so on. They're basically another game altogether. Most games just provide the first level as a demo, which I usually find too easy and boring.
It would have had prominent ad placement. It wouldn't share an ad with 8 other games. The only thing released the following week was Arkedo Series.
Not saying it would have sold huge, but it would make a difference.
TheGreatDivide
Banned
Derrick?
Metalmurphy
Member
Erm, aren't ad placements sold? Pretty sure they could have had ad placement no matter when it released.
No the old ps store just threw all the weeks releases in 1 ad. Usually 3rd rotation on the large ad spot on the right.
I don't think much of anything's skipping Greenlight anymore without a prior contract or direct publisher backing. Having your game published on another platform doesn't help - Shantae, La-Mulana, and Mutant Mudds were all published on Nintendo's store and havn't had any additional consideration.
HamPster PamPster
Member
I know poor marketing is used as an excuse more often then deserved, but I never heard of this game until I listened to an interview with the developer on PSNation around two weeks AFTER it was released, and I check PSN ever week.
The developer described it as a mix of Echo the Dolphin and Sonic, which sounds like the greatest game ever. I meant to look up some videos but I listened to the interview over lunch and forgot about it by the time I got home (and forgot about it until this thread), sorry
The developer described it as a mix of Echo the Dolphin and Sonic, which sounds like the greatest game ever. I meant to look up some videos but I listened to the interview over lunch and forgot about it by the time I got home (and forgot about it until this thread), sorry
Melchiah
Member
I definitely agree that the PSN Store, especially the new one, could be organized better, but why should Sony fund the marketing of the game?
Little no-name games seem to get overlooked by gaming media, unfortunately.
Rollo Lawson
Banned
Game doesn't look bad...just needs a demo
Selling on Steam isn't that easy to do. It's a very closed system.
Melchiah
Member
This is what the store looked like the day it released.
I fail to see the point of the pic. There's a big game displayed on the front page, and a little game under it. Are you implying that DtD should have been on the front page? Didn't it appear on the New Releases section like most of the titles?
Metalmurphy
Member
He thinks that if the game released next week it would have been the one featured on the front page...
Bethesda paid the big bucks, that's all there is to it.
Melchiah
Member
Ah, my bad.
Wait, is this confirmed?
Metalmurphy
Member
Not confirmed, but likely that it will happen do to different architectures of the systems.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
This is what the store looked like the day it released.
Won't the game show up in that animated bar in the middle?
Games are not investments.
But yeah, I suppose if this $8 game was at retail you would have made $0.50 back when trading it in for a PS4. Score!
That's sad. Gordon is a really nice guy, and I know he had trouble with his previous game, lilt line, also, despite the press it received. Hope they can bring it to other platforms and recoup some of the cost.
Also, do people really think Sony will abandon the PS3 digital library? Unlike Nintendo, and even moreso than Microsoft, Sony has really pushed the idea of PSN as a Library, with cloud saving and cross-platform play. I think it'd be disastrous if their next platform didn't support the stuff.
Also, do people really think Sony will abandon the PS3 digital library? Unlike Nintendo, and even moreso than Microsoft, Sony has really pushed the idea of PSN as a Library, with cloud saving and cross-platform play. I think it'd be disastrous if their next platform didn't support the stuff.
No, it was lumped with 6 others in 1 banner on the right
Except that isn't what I am saying. The next week was skinned with whatever the next D1D title was (nba? Don't really remember).
What it would have had was an ad in rotation pretty much to itself, sharing with 1 title.
kurtrussell
Banned
AFAIK (and I admit to not keeping up with the rumours too much) it is confirmed that the PS4 will not have a cell processor. This pretty much rules out backwards compat because emulating a cell on a non-cell would be a bitch, and Sony learnt from the PS3/Emotion Engine fiasco that putting a custom chip in your machines just for backwards compat is a bit of a mistake.
That pretty much leaves any PS3 DD owners with two outcomes - 1) some DD gets ported (probably the most successful) or 2) it just dies.
In the event that it gets ported, I'd imagine people being forced to double-dip if they wanted to play it on their new consoles. If it remains un-ported in the PS3 store then you can either continue purchasing PS3s to play your old DD content, or just write it off. Either way, you're significantly out of pocket.
This has certainly lead to my decision to not buy any DD software on consoles in the last year, and may play a large part in whether I go DD on any new consoles. Part of what I love about my hobby is my archive of stuff - my Saturn, my Dreamcast, my Snes, my GC etc etc, all with tangible software that I can collect. If software isn't tangible, I don't own it, I just lease it and my interest wanes somewhat.