Doom: The Dark Ages - 3 Million Players Already - 7x Faster than Doom: Eternal
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Lokaum D+
Member
*looks at Steam engagement*
DOOM Eternal
DOOM: The Dark Ages
They don't fold as easily as Walky-Talky Cinematic Movie Sims™ did.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I think that might be a big part of it. The 3rd person or bust contingent seem to be heavily skewed to PlayStation.
Nydius
Gold Member
You got that backwards. Fanboys shifted the goalposts to "engagement metrics". Sales are still what makes or breaks a game. People subscribing for a single month at a fraction of the game's cost, beating the game, then unsubscribing is the absolute death of the triple-A gaming business.
You cannot sustain a model where games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and your customer base pays less than a third of retail price to experience all the content in less than a month.
I'll rehash my former comment in an Ubisoft thread: I subscribed to Ubisoft+ for one month ($17.99) to play AC Shadows, which gave me access to their highest tier version they charge $129.99 for. I beat it in under a month, then turned around and played the other Avatar DLC I hadn't tried (so that's another $20 they didn't get from me) and then played a bunch of Riders Republic. They lost money on my one month sub. And investors see the writing on the wall.
The number of "players" who booted up the game doesn't pay the bill. The number of game sales does.
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Killjoy-NL
Banned
Why did Tango get closed then?
vaibhavpisal
Member
Got it.
So basically this model is doomed to fail.
So, maybe we should wait for that to happen before we talk about sales again? Clearly when subscription model is active, sales is not going to be the focus.
Certainly wasn't due to gamepass. Its standalone sales are high enough now.
They did mentioned that leadership wasn't in place for future games. Shinji Mikami had left the studio. Maybe some others as well ?
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
Was able to play doom dark ages another banger
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Sony made more revenue from add on content than they do game sales. Fortnite makes zero revenue from game sales but makes enough money to prop up the entire company and a store and give away 50 odd games for free per year.
Game sales obviously matter but all the other revenue sources matter just as much.
Epic right now are giving away a day one game away free - explain that one?
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ResilientBanana
Member
Sony's in the same boat.
TheChumpNation
Member
I think the relevant question whenever a company says "x many players" is asking why the company is reporting number of players, rather than number of sales. If the sales number was promising, you'd expect they'd want to publicize that.
Epic store is run at a loss.
ResilientBanana
Member
While I won't download Epic Games Store, my collection on there is actually quite fantastic.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
The first question you should ask is why are they reporting anything?
Once you answer that (advertising) then the rest should fall into place.
If you are advertising the game being for sale then you would go with sales.
Advertising the game plus something else (subscription) then you go with players.
Killer8
Member
Doom doesn't but I only mention microtransactions as an example of additional monetization that goes beyond the traditional sales figures paradigm.
dgrdsv
Member
To prevent said companies from putting a positive spin on something which is less than positive in an attempt to trick both shareholders and customers into thinking that something is doing better than it actually is. (And I'm not talking about Doom here.)
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Okay, I could see DOOM TDA costing say.....$125 million.
Crayon
Member
Everyone talking about shorter, more focused single player games but when it's time to put the $70 where their mouth is....
The amount of play you expect to wring out of a game is a huge component of a game's value. Go ahead with the stealth brags but $70 is not peanuts to a lot of people. Sure it's less than a back of groceries but some people need those groceries pretty bad. They also need entertainment but they should and will consider $/hr.
Action games need a demons souls moment. DS found a new way to inspire players to die and keep trying at a time when games were going to lengths to make sure the player never felt any kind of frustration. Action games need to figure out how to get players to want to play again once they finish the game. Achievements are a cheap, ad-hoc attempt. We need some real vision. Idk how well doom here holds up to hard play but there could be 2-4 times as much play time in there if players felt inspired to start over and do better.
The amount of play you expect to wring out of a game is a huge component of a game's value. Go ahead with the stealth brags but $70 is not peanuts to a lot of people. Sure it's less than a back of groceries but some people need those groceries pretty bad. They also need entertainment but they should and will consider $/hr.
Action games need a demons souls moment. DS found a new way to inspire players to die and keep trying at a time when games were going to lengths to make sure the player never felt any kind of frustration. Action games need to figure out how to get players to want to play again once they finish the game. Achievements are a cheap, ad-hoc attempt. We need some real vision. Idk how well doom here holds up to hard play but there could be 2-4 times as much play time in there if players felt inspired to start over and do better.
Jinxed
Member
I'd use an another example. Fortnite generates billions of revenue per year for Epic, it's the unicorn. Everyone's dying (literally) trying to be the next unicorn right now.
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PeteBull
Member
If that was the case, exp 33 studio would post meaningless active players announcements too, and yet they treat their customers- gamers as inteligent human beings, so they post real achievement, aka sold copies, 3m players isnt an achievement when u are on gamepass or ubi premium and u gotta be super casual to not comprehend it, we are here on a hardcore gaming forum so at least minimal inteligence and knowledge about gaming industry should be implied from the get go, yet here we are ...
Same way its never a flex for a woman when she tries to boast that she can sleep with any guy(coz nothing in this world is easier than getting a man to sleep with u as a woman- we as men can even fuck u if we genuienly hate u, literally hate u, and still our dick will get hard as long as u are hot enough- simply coz nature made sure human species survives at any cost
, same way its not a flex for a game on gamepass/ubi premium to have number of players which such subscription service has montly active anyways, make it 3x previous month active sub number, make it 10m active players on first or 2nd month after launch, that would be some srs flex 
Plague Doctor
Member
If that was the case, exp 33 studio would post meaningless active players announcements too, and yet they treat their customers- gamers as inteligent human beings, so they post real achievement, aka sold copies, 3m players isnt an achievement when u are on gamepass or ubi premium and u gotta be super casual to not comprehend it, we are here on a hardcore gaming forum so at least minimal inteligence and knowledge about gaming industry should be implied from the get go, yet here we are ...
I mean people falling back on "What is sales, really?" and bending them in pretzels aren't dumb. Just being painfully obtuse.
Fuck I wish there was a proper Sony version Game Pass so I could watch the 180 pirouettes from people... either for or against. Now that would be comedy.
For some, sales magically matter then. And for others then, engagement suddenly matters more.
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AtomicStarving
Member
DA PLAYERS 
PeteBull
Member
Sony isnt stupid enough to do xbox-like gamepass, they know day1 exclusives on subscription service make customers stop purchasing games, and ur customers not willing to purchase games is last thing platform holder should want obviously, otherwise u are kicked out of console business and gotta go 3rd party even if u are juggernaut like microsoft
Plague Doctor
Member
Sony isnt stupid enough to do xbox-like gamepass, they know day1 exclusives on subscription service make customers stop purchasing games, and ur customers not willing to purchase games is last thing platform holder should want obviously, otherwise u are kicked out of console business and gotta go 3rd party even if u are juggernaut like microsoft
I don't think they would but who the fuck knows these days. The big dogs are doing dumb shit as time moves on.
I am saying people touting 'ENGAGEMENT' now if a Sony game under performed in sales but boasted X million player in a meaningless press release, they would be ruthless (as they should be. Its bullshit metrics).
Console war never changes though.
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ChorizoPicozo
Member
for different reasons.
ResilientBanana
Member
I disagree. Games aren't really rolling out and their GaaS division isn't panning out.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Even with that institutional failure, PlayStation is actually a profitable business. It's just that, in the second half of its lifecycle, the PS5 has shifted from consumer acquisition to "engagement and MAU" due to the natural slowdown in the former
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
What "relatively low PlayStation sales?" According to this data, PlayStation sold the most copies. Even more than Steam.
I'm failing to understand your point.
The game just sold poorly overall. But even then, it sold the most on PlayStation.
Killjoy-NL
Banned
It kinda depends though.
Ampere estimates 500k sales on PS5, but Alinea Analytics estimates 200K sales on PS5.
Analytics Firms Predict Pitiful Full-Price Sales for DOOM: The Dark Ages on PS5
Skewered
www.pushsquare.com
Both numbers are very low, but it's quite a gap.
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They're still in the 'trying to do things the right way' phase. I give it one game.
Felessan
Member
If it would be a proper FPS game and not just atrocious chimera (S stands for shooter and not for shield).
F2P games judged by number of players and to be successful they should attract people fast. A successful game can attract tens of millions just in matter of days.
2M for semi-free title is low. A good indication of success of how GP game should accumulate numbers is FH5, that did 4.5m on launch and 10m on launch week.
Killjoy-NL
Banned
Seems pretty accurate. And let's say Xbox invested minimum marketing at ~$50M (going by Gemini) and you'd end up around ~$175M.
If they only sold ~1M at launch, it would generate ~$80M.
I reckon it'll be similar for games like Indy and Avowed.
Doesn't seem like good results, even if GP retention would be the ulterior motive.
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HerjansEagleFeeder
Member
So what's GAFs verdict? Is it any good? Should I buy it?
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
You are completely true though.
Imagine people demanding sales figures for films that have released from netflix.
It makes absolutely no sense.
Also, i was thinking about this the other day. I wasn't really active here back then but I seem to remember universal praise for Sony adding free games to playstation plus in the ps3 games. I don't recall a push that the service is negative and will affect profitability in sales of the included games.
I thought it was welcomed as Sony needed to do something to differentiate because they couldn't compete with Xbox live.
Ms introduces gamepass because they need a differentiator and now we are all worrying about the sales of games...
I find it odd. Both will have agreements with the publisher that they agree to.
Negotiator101
Member
What are you talking about? The Gamepass subscription pays for the game's, I don't understand how you people don't understand that. Additional sales and Doom will certainly have more than 1 million just adds to the revenue.
Branded
Member
A co-op horde mode of some kind would have been a perfect fit for this. Or perhaps take the existing maps, remix them, add ridiculous difficulty settings and do co-op that way.
vaibhavpisal
Member
Sony never got the push against games being added to PS+.
Xbox did receive some pushback for paid online. One of the reasons I went PS3. Didn't like X360 back then. Too much Halo / Gears focus.
Killjoy-NL
Banned
Results likes this can only eat into profits.
Seems like the opposite of what a company would want.
Negotiator101
Member
What results?
Killjoy-NL
Banned
A game like Doom only selling ~1M copies at launch.
These games aren't only on a subscription service though, they are hybrid releases. If a movie released in theatres and on streaming, I would expect to still get box office numbers. If they only gave a viewer number (combining theatres and streaming), I would treat that with the same suspicion as I do 'player' numbers.
Baemono
Member
It's way too expensive. I bought 2016 and Eternal for 60€ when they launched, I don't wanna pay 80€ for the sequel.
Negotiator101
Member
And it can't sell anymore? And totally discount the money generated by Gamepass? Ok I think I'll leave it there as you ain't getting it.
Killjoy-NL
Banned
I get you, alright.
But GamePass is stagnant and sales are declining, while costs are rising.
Their is no other way than these kind of results eating into profits.
PeteBull
Member
Even Jim Ryan knew it was terrible idea over 2years ago when it wasnt that clear for most of us how fucked microsoft's console business already is/gonna be:
In an interview with Famitsu (translated via ResetEra), Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) CEO Jim Ryan shot down the idea of PlayStation 5 (PS5) exclusive games also launching on PC from day one. Ryan says that the primary goal of console first-party games is to build the game for the PlayStation experience. He added that overall reactions from fans have been "favorable" when games arrive a couple of years after initial release.
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Killjoy-NL
Banned
That's because Gaf is living in a rather isolated bubble.Even Jim Ryan knew it was terrible idea over 2years ago when it wasnt that clear for most of us how fucked microsoft's console business already is/gonna be:
In an interview with Famitsu (translated via ResetEra), Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) CEO Jim Ryan shot down the idea of PlayStation 5 (PS5) exclusive games also launching on PC from day one. Ryan says that the primary goal of console first-party games is to build the game for the PlayStation experience. He added that overall reactions from fans have been "favorable" when games arrive a couple of years after initial release.
They're mostly out of touch with reality.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Thanks for sharing this. I hadn't seen the data by Alinea Analytics, so I was referring only to the Ampere data which I shared earlier.It kinda depends though.
Ampere estimates 500k sales on PS5, but Alinea Analytics estimates 200K sales on PS5.
Analytics Firms Predict Pitiful Full-Price Sales for DOOM: The Dark Ages on PS5
Skewered
Both numbers are very low, but it's quite a gap.
Sidebar: Though in my experience the 10x rule applies fairly accurately and consistently for new single-player launches on Steam. (i.e., CCU x 10 = ~Steam sales). In this case, (31,000 * 10 = ~310,000 Steam sales, which is inline with what Ampere shared).
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Yes, I completely get it. But, if a studio like Disney launched a film day one in the movies and on Disney plus, then it only makes sense to consider this when discussing the box office numbers. The box office opening weekend would absolutely be affected and not give a true reflection if comparing to other films. its not an apples to apples situation.
Hopefully, people start to understand that it is different and you cant compare the sales numbers of a game on a sub service like gamepass vs one only for sale.
Baemono
Member
Last time it happened, Disney got sued https://time.com/6085578/scarlett-johansson-black-widow-lawsuit-disney/
It was indeed a terrible idea. Same for Matrix 4 releasing on Max simultaniously.