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- Jun 18, 2002
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Tags: BioWare; Mass Effect 2
<p><a href="http://www.videogamer.com/news/in_the_house_with_dr_greg_zeschuk.html">In an interview with videogamer.com</a>, BioWare's Greg Zeschuk takes a bit of a shot at sales targets... sort of:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Q: I was going to say. If Mass Effect 2 is a 'minor hit', I can't wait to see a major one. </strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>GZ:</strong> Well, we need to sell 10 million units. That's actually the new target, right? We do Top 10 games, our stuff is quite successful. I know Mass [Effect 2] is number eight so far this year, in North America. Sometimes I'm facetious when I say some of those things, knowing that we can sell a few million but seeing that someone else can sell 25. You're kinda like, 'Well, that's a hit!' We always joke that if we only do half as well as Blizzard on Star Wars: The Old Republic, we'll be quite satisfied. We've been very fortunate. I always joke about that, but...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The urge to make Dragon Age: Gears of War must be getting overwhelming.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Q: Talking of spin-offs, how do you feel about Mass Effect on the iPhone? Was it something worth attempting? </strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>GZ:</strong> Oh, I think it was very worth attempting. Even when something's not as successful as you'd like, you can take some lessons away and apply them, right? For us, that's kind of where humility comes in, to eat the humble pie on the Mass iPhone game [laughs] and go, 'Yeeeaaah, we made a big mistake,' in the sense that we thought story could carry it. [...] an iPhone app able to somehow access one of the other games' universes, or something. That would be really cool. [...] What's interesting is imagining things like the unlocking games on your iPhone. [...] Suddenly you have to pull out your iPhone, to unlock the thing!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If I understand that correctly (someone correct me if I'm wrong here) but he's saying you'd be playing Mass Effect on your PC and to get further, you'd pull out your iPhone in order to complete a puzzle before you could move on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I guess they didn't learn from their earlier mistake. Hyuk?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Finally though, I want to quote this bit:</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Q: What's your opinion of review scores? How worthy are they?</strong><br /><br />GZ: Well, I think they have an impact. [...] I don't think they always reflect the quality of the game, for example, with kids games the review scores aren't written with the context of the audience in mind. They're written from the reviewer's perspective, and they often won't put themselves mentally in the place of a 12-year-old boy who the game is made for. Instead they review it as a 22-year-old hardcore gamer and go, 'This is terrible!'.<br />[...]<br />What we did in the case of both Mass and Dragon Age, the guys went through all the reviews and pulled out positives and negatives. We put it all down and looked at the whole feedback. While in a sense we're trying not to simply develop to the review score, it's a good source of data. Reviewers play a lot of games, they're opinions often reflect the core segment, and generally they're well put-together and comprehensible. Fan feedback can be all over the map, right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com/">Blues News</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.videogamer.com/news/in_the_house_with_dr_greg_zeschuk.html">In an interview with videogamer.com</a>, BioWare's Greg Zeschuk takes a bit of a shot at sales targets... sort of:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Q: I was going to say. If Mass Effect 2 is a 'minor hit', I can't wait to see a major one. </strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>GZ:</strong> Well, we need to sell 10 million units. That's actually the new target, right? We do Top 10 games, our stuff is quite successful. I know Mass [Effect 2] is number eight so far this year, in North America. Sometimes I'm facetious when I say some of those things, knowing that we can sell a few million but seeing that someone else can sell 25. You're kinda like, 'Well, that's a hit!' We always joke that if we only do half as well as Blizzard on Star Wars: The Old Republic, we'll be quite satisfied. We've been very fortunate. I always joke about that, but...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The urge to make Dragon Age: Gears of War must be getting overwhelming.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Q: Talking of spin-offs, how do you feel about Mass Effect on the iPhone? Was it something worth attempting? </strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>GZ:</strong> Oh, I think it was very worth attempting. Even when something's not as successful as you'd like, you can take some lessons away and apply them, right? For us, that's kind of where humility comes in, to eat the humble pie on the Mass iPhone game [laughs] and go, 'Yeeeaaah, we made a big mistake,' in the sense that we thought story could carry it. [...] an iPhone app able to somehow access one of the other games' universes, or something. That would be really cool. [...] What's interesting is imagining things like the unlocking games on your iPhone. [...] Suddenly you have to pull out your iPhone, to unlock the thing!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If I understand that correctly (someone correct me if I'm wrong here) but he's saying you'd be playing Mass Effect on your PC and to get further, you'd pull out your iPhone in order to complete a puzzle before you could move on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I guess they didn't learn from their earlier mistake. Hyuk?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Finally though, I want to quote this bit:</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Q: What's your opinion of review scores? How worthy are they?</strong><br /><br />GZ: Well, I think they have an impact. [...] I don't think they always reflect the quality of the game, for example, with kids games the review scores aren't written with the context of the audience in mind. They're written from the reviewer's perspective, and they often won't put themselves mentally in the place of a 12-year-old boy who the game is made for. Instead they review it as a 22-year-old hardcore gamer and go, 'This is terrible!'.<br />[...]<br />What we did in the case of both Mass and Dragon Age, the guys went through all the reviews and pulled out positives and negatives. We put it all down and looked at the whole feedback. While in a sense we're trying not to simply develop to the review score, it's a good source of data. Reviewers play a lot of games, they're opinions often reflect the core segment, and generally they're well put-together and comprehensible. Fan feedback can be all over the map, right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com/">Blues News</a></p>
W2 sold more that 12 million but lets look at launch data ... sold 4.7 million, The total revenue from first day sales in the U.S. and the UK was $310 million.
