Game News Bloodlines appears on sales charts

[Spazmo]

Tags: Troika Games; Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

U.S. PC game sales figures for November (presumably, Voodoo Extreme isn't specifying) are in. Here's the 20 best sellers:<blockquote>1/ Half-Life 2 - Vivendi Universal
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2/ The Sims 2 -Electronic Arts
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3/ Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 -Atari
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4/ Half-Life 2: Collector's Edition - Vivendi Universal
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5/ Zoo Tycoon 2 - Microsoft
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6/ Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault - Electronic Arts
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7/ The Sims 2 Special Edition - Electronic Arts
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8/ EverQuest II - Sony Online Ent.
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9/ Need For Speed: Underground 2 - Electronic Arts
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10/ Rome: Total War - Activision
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11/ Doom 3 - Activision
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12/ Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault Director's Edition - Electronic Arts
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<b>13/ Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines - Activision</b>
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14/ Axis & Allies - Atari
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15/ Halo: Combat Evolved - Microsoft
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16/ Call Of Duty: United Offensive Expansion Pack - Activision
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17/ Star Wars Battlefront - LucasArts
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18/ MS Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection - Microsoft
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19/ Call Of Duty - Activision
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20/ World Of Warcraft Collector's Edition - Vivendi Universal</blockquote>Bloodlines' showing is less than stellar, but at least it's there. Interesting trivia: the Half Life 2 sales listed (note that the collector's edition alone is in an impressive 4th place) don't even include sales made over Valve's Steam delivery service, which means some pretty serious numbers of copies of that title must be moving. It's also interesting to note that about the only thing that could knock The Sims and its expansions off the charts is, of course, The Sims 2.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.ve3d.ign.com">Voodoo Extreme</A>

 

[dojoteef]

Hmm... that list is interesting, though it doesn't seem to make much sense. First thing is World of Warcraft is in the list, though dead last. Well, Blizzard claims that in the first day of sales, they sold over 240,000 copies of WoW and they reached a total of around 350,000 copies through the Thanksgiving weekend. So are we expected to believe that in 20th place, WoW sold that many copies. Then please explain what the hell some of these older games are doing in the list. I mean admittedly Doom 3 isn't that old, but are you saying in the month of November it sold more than 350,000 copies? Holy fuck. Also Halo: Combat Evolved sold more than 350,000 copies in the past month; that's the biggest crock of shit I have ever heard. I can't imagine that this is just November sales.

So I'm not sure what the time frame on these numbers are, but I sure as hell want to know, because these numbers seem extremely suspect.

 

[Mendoza]

I'm not too concerned about Vampire's figures, since all the reviews it's had have been online. I'd imagine (and hope) they pick up once there's some actual magazine reviews.

Half Life 2 apparently had 2 million prerelease downloads, which as well as making Valve a crapload of money would also put it's sales figures in the same kind of crazy zone as Halo 2.

 

[Volourn]

Vampire seems not to be doing as well as TOEE though TOEE didn't have as much competition so the ranking may not mean as much.... I figure Bl will land up selling about the same as TOEE if it does reasonably well.

 

[HanoverF]

It being the hollidays a lot of 'older' titles are going to see a resurgance

 

[Whipporowill]

Nah, I think BL has a lot more potential buyers than ToEE. Also, it's worth noting that BL didn't go on sale for like the 17th or 18th of the month - many people spent days trying to get the game once it was actually out. 13th best selling game on november based on less than two weeks? Not bad at all, although HL2's numbers are insane.

 

[Volourn]

"Nah, I think BL has a lot more potential buyers than ToEE. Also, it's worth noting that BL didn't go on sale for like the 17th or 18th of the month"

Means very little. The first week or two is always the best selling week for any game. It's always the case.

 

[Surlent]

btw broken link there. http://ve3d.ign.com/

13th place doesn't seem so bad even though it's first month of release.
Lot's of games got separate editions there like Half Life 2 and Sims.
BL has also age requirement of 18 and is targeted to more RPG/Whitwolf audience.
Long waited blockbusters and sequels like Rome, Doom3 and WoW are expected to be on the top and BL fighting in the same category is a good sign IMO.
But what's weird, is those Tycoon games from Atari and MS, do they really sell that well ?

 

[Dhruin]

Meh, you can't read much into this one way or the other. The first 3 months is what really counts but it's a pretty crowded market at the moment (Rome: TW, HL2, WoW, EQ2...). I think Bloodlines will hold up OK, particularly if they throw out a patch.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Means very little. The first week or two is always the best selling week for any game. It's always the case.

There are exceptions to this rule. Halo sold more copies later in it's life than when it was first released. It's all a matter of how hyped the game was. I've seen games crawl at first only to pick up once word of mouth got around.

 

[baelstren]

Vampire seems not to be doing as well as TOEE though TOEE didn't have as much competition so the ranking may not mean as much.... I figure Bl will land up selling about the same as TOEE if it does reasonably well.

ToEE appeared on a few "gift lists" in the mainstream press (Time or Newsweek, IIRC) as a "classic D&D computer game". This kind of thing probably affects sales more than a plug in the gaming press. Perhaps this explains it?

 

[Volourn]

"There are exceptions to this rule."

True. Of course, as exceptions they prove the 'rule' I stated.

Maybe Bl will be one. Who knows. Though I'm kinda iffy to detemrine if it deserves good word of mouth at this time...

 

[Whipporowill]

. Though I'm kinda iffy to detemrine if it deserves good word of mouth at this time...

I told my friend to get the game, which he did - and he hasn't tried to kill me yet, so I guess it's ok?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I've recommended it to people who are enjoying it as well.

 

[Volourn]

I have nneither reccommend for or against the game yet. To early for me to pass final judgment. However, my worst fears about the game pre release might have sparked up.

Atmopshere, graphics, music, B00BIES, stories, character creation, npcs (BL's easily has the best npcs of any Troika game and better than 2 and possibly more than BIO's games) and the little stuff tm = good

Role-playing = meh So far I have not seen a lot of it. Some; but not a lot. My first major quest was a bust in that regard from what I've seen.

Combat, and control are poor and *might* ruin the game for me in the end if it truly pulls a Gothic 2. I sure hope not.

 

[Roqua]

I think the most interesting thing to note is how well deluxe/collectors editions sell for. Menu pricing is second degree price-discrimination and sucks up consumer surplus.

Due to the internet and information data bases we are moving more and more towards perfect personalized pricing (first-degree price discrimination); PPP is a pricing strategy that extracts the highest price each consumer is willing to pay for a product. Every consumer will be charged a price that makes the consumer indeifferent between buying the item or not buying the item and the firm recieves all potential gains possible from trade, leaving zero consumer surplus.

PPP is not feasible when resale is possible, but with technology like Valve' "steam" we are headed that way.

Some on line cataloques do offer different prices and quotes based on your consumption history, clickstreaming, demographic information recieved from registering, and information gained from bots and spyware.

The good thing is that as information gathering tech improves, so does information sharing and awarness. So company info and comsumer info are ppulling each other in the opposite directions, kind of the the e function. This only leaves the stupid out in the cold. I think that is a good thing personally since I believe there should be a high price for stupidity. But then I think about my grandmother and my heart melts and then I disagree. Oh well, fuck that stupid old bitch, she can buy a tech magazine or two if she wants to be a savvy internet buyer.

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FYI, menu pricing is only possible in markets where the split between sophisticated and non sophisticated consumers makes multiple items more profitable. For instance I am going to produce a dvd with a regular and deluxe edition. The sophisticated buyer sees a difference in the products and is willing to purchase the staqndard edition dvd for $30, and the deluxe for $80. The unsophisticated consumer sees no difference between the two items and is only willing to pay $15 for the standard or the deluxe edition dvd.

There are enough unsophisticated consumers willing to buy the dvd you will take the loss in producer surplus of $15 (the difference of what they could sell it to the sophisticated buyers for) and sell the standard edition dvd for the maximum the unsophisticted consumers will pay for it--$15. But you can't sell the collector's edition for $80 now to the sophisticated consumers since they see they can gain a consumer surplus of $15 for buying the standard edition (willing to pay $30, but only have to pay $15).

Sop the most I can sell the collectors edition for is a price less than the sophisticated consumers consumer surplus. So $80 - $15.01=64.99.

I can sell to all the unsophisticated consumers the standard edition for $15 (no consumer surplus, or producer surplus) and sell the collector's edition to the sophisticated consumers for $64.99. I make producer surplus off of menu selling and the sophisticated consumer makes consumer surplus.

It is hard to call any gamer besides TB rpgers sophisticated, but economics dictates otherwise. Personally, I think richy rich fucking stupid kids and people that love cloth maps, shitty in-game soundtracks, and figurines are the only collectors edition buyers I can think of. Those tastes are as sophisticated as my collection of dingle-berries (for non native English speakers, a dingle-berry is a ball of either toilet paper or shit that dangles from an ass hair).

Edit: Wow sold 350k + total, so those games wouldn't have had to sell more than 350k, just better than the collector's edition sold for (the one on the list). I think its crazy if a collectors edition sold more than the regular.

 

[Jinxed]

IRole-playing = meh So far I have not seen a lot of it. Some; but not a lot. My first major quest was a bust in that regard from what I've seen.

The first main plot quest was a setup for a demo, IMO. You can sneak in, talk your way inside using one of 5 possibilities (two of them are disciplines)

Then you either talk them into giving it to you or fight them. There isn't a sneak resolution to getting the item because of its placement.

You also get bonus XP for getting the cash back from them, which I only did the second time around.

Combat, and control are poor and *might* ruin the game for me in the end if it truly pulls a Gothic 2. I sure hope not.

The way I see it is that generally the 3rd person combat model is not regarded with praise in any game. Max Payne had almost the same model when it came to melee weapons. So I think this is a matter of personal preference.

In Gothic 2 there was that auto targeting feature that usually targeted enemies behind the one in front of you. (you could turn that off right?) Another thing was that there were multiple enemies in many cases and they always tried to flank you. Makes sense in a way although it was highly annoying (lizardmen anyone?)

What I don't like in the combat is that a lot of bosses in this game use melee, and without a proper skill in ranged you are forced to use it as well. That's because when they strike you the camera goes haywire and you loose touch wth where you are and where the enemy is. A high skill in ranged will allow you to kill them before they reach you.

 

[Volourn]

"The way I see it is that generally the 3rd person combat model is not regarded with praise in any game."

What kind of bull is that? 3rd person combat is the best. 3rd person combat is not the problem here. Heh. teh problem is that the 3rd person view is untrustworthy says the game forcefully changs you to 1st person every few minutes for no reason. It's the controls that make combat unfun. Good thing the combat is easy I haven't even died yet anyways.

R00fles!


"You also get bonus XP for getting the cash back from them"

Yeah, missed the cash somehow. Don't know why i chekced everyhwere there and have a pretty good investigations core for that part of the game I would think. Ah well.

 

[Roqua]

The cash is near the washer and dryer in a vent in the bottom of the wall.

CAUTION SPOILERS ABOVE

 

[Volourn]

Thanks for taking the time away from your rant to share that info.

 

[Seven]

The cash is near the washer and dryer in a vent in the bottom of the wall.

CAUTION SPOILERS ABOVE

Idiot.

 

[Volourn]

No. She was helpful. You are the idiot.

 

[Seven]

No. She was helpful. You are the idiot.

What type of jackass defends some one who posts' "Caution Spoilers Above" in a forum where you scroll down?

On a side, I hadn't found the cash my first time through, (and since it's the little things that make replaying so much fun) I have a right to call him/her on something stupid that he/she posted, so piss off.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I thought it was quite funny.

It wasn't much of a spoiler, either.

 

[Volourn]

Geez.. When Ex and I agree 100% it really proves how much of a marooon you really are.

Seriously, lighten up se7en.