denizsi said:
I get the impression that ZeniMax/Bethesda made a market research about commercial potential of Fallout IP and found promising results, even before they bought it. Now, of course, who wouldn't, other than Troika? I mean, they didn't hype FO3 nearly half as much as they hyped Oblivion, even if all previews and reviews favoured them again. Even if half of everyone who bought Oblivion suddenly became fanboys and bought FO3 no questions asked, a significant part of the other half of F3 sales might be the unsuspecting and nonvocal fan base of the original games. Otherwise, 4.7 million units so fast is fucking crazy, for a relatively forgotten/unknown IP.
See, I have no interest in buying Fallout 3.
But damn, from a business point of view, these people have been very shrewd. 4.7 million copies in 3-4 weeks is alot. Yeah, it must have cost alot to market the game. The game in itself must have been quite expensive. But the margin still looks impressive.
Assuming that every copy of the game costs $60, 4.7 million copies amounts to $282 million in revenues. That's the sort of money movies make, and movies have bigger hyping campaigns behind them.
Again, the total cost of marketing the game must have been huge. How much could it have been? $20 million? $30 million? At most? I fear I may be exaggerating. So 4.7 million copies still looks damn good. And there are still a few more months to go, so there are bound to be more sales.
Now here's what is truly astonishing. They made this game from a 10 year old IP. Yes, Fallout sold well for its time. But the market was smaller and games were cheaper to make. It's not like that would guarantee many sales. You know what I was thinking for a long time?
I thought these guys were shooting themselves in the foot. I mean, instead of making another Elder Scrolls game, they picked up an old IP, scrapped its original gameplay, and started making a different game afresh, a move that can alienate both their normal fanbase and the fans of the IP. Business-wise, it sounded like the worst thing to do. And then the lead designer says that he will make the game he wants to make, and "refuse to be villified" for it. Back when Emil said that, I thought this guy was nuts, to think that he can ignore what people want, and just make a game by his own discretion. I was convinced this whimsical project would run them down.
Now, months later, Emil and Bethesda have proven me wrong. The fact that this game outsold Oblivion, a game of a more well-known franchise, and that too in a few weeks, all with an old IP, while audaciously ignoring the conventions of the other games of this very IP, and shifting away from their usual franchise, is all simply incredible. I don't know what foresight or what potential they were able to see in this whole thing back then, but fate has proven them the wiser.
What a bold mad act of genius it was to make this game and have it sell so well. Someone somewhere did something right with this game. I can't speak for its inherent quality, but it still takes alot of business talent to be able to achieve such a commercial success.
This is not a small deal. A game is a speculative venture. Its success can not be predicted. You can predict the success of a new food brand, but not of a luxury good that is meant for personal entertainment. There is no telling if it will click right with people. The fact that it is a videogame you are selling is in itself a setback - you don't believe me, you look at how the gaming industry fell apart in the 80s.
I didn't anyway, I'm not going to lie about what I enjoyed or didn't enjoy :D
