• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

STEAM | January 2016 - Out of cash, out of cache

Status
Not open for further replies.
I think sales are just lower than he expected, and he's blaming the convenient boogieman.

Even I thought it would do better than 20k at launch, but this January has had extremely strong competition for some reason, and it is an extremely niche genre.
If piracy was the cause, why wasn't PS4's sales number significantly better than PC's? Sales not meeting his expectation just means people don't want his game that much.
 
Obviously all of the pirates and people who wanted to buy it on PC would go out and get a PS4 for just The Witness.

Depends on how interested someone is in the game.
I have no trouble in saying I bought a PS4 for Bloodborne. It's true and everything else that is a benefit from having one is bonus. If someone was really a fanatic for Jonathan Blow's next game, it's not that far-fetched.

Futhermore, all the people who "wanted to buy it on PC" but already owned a PS4, would have to just suck it up and buy it for $40 on PSN if they were really interested... while the rest of the world would be left waiting and hoping it might one day be ported (and at a much lower price).

The Witness on PC is doing about the same as PS4, I have no idea why Jonathan was complaining.

That's his MO, I think.
 

oipic

Member
Blow needs to move on past his delusion that one copy pirated equals one sale lost - yes, to some extent it'll hit sales, but the 'this is costing me millions, my next game is in jeopardy!' thing is pretty tiresome at this point.
 

now reverted, the rest still stands

D2EJiFC.jpg

 

Nordicus

Member
Even I thought it would do better than 20k at launch, but this January has had extremely strong competition for some reason, and it is an extremely niche genre.
Well, it took Talos Principle 4 months to sell 92k despite the absolutely glowing reviews. 400k additional copies have been sold since just on PC
 
D

Deleted member 144138

Unconfirmed Member
Hey guys, is Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel worth the price of 16 euros?
 
now reverted, the rest still stands

Thats good, but its still a stupid move. I can see why they wouldnt want someone to have some stupid weapon skin on every community server, but I mean custom mods/configs, skins and weapons?#

Regarding Blows statement: Thats stupid. How is the getting those numbers? Torrent-sites? DDL sites?
Even if that were true, I know some pirates, who download almost EVERYTHING without the intent to play it, just so they have it. There are rom-collectors on the internet, that own whole libraries of console games, just to have them.
 

Arthea

Member
Talking about all "piracy is ruining my future" Blow's attitude, if he really thinks he loses more than he gains by releasing game on PC, he shouldn't release it here. I'm not big on hypocrisy, as in actions speaks louder than words.
It would suck not to have it on PC, true, but we are talking about someone's future here. We are an understanding bunch.
 

Lomax

Member
It's often said that there's no such thing as bad publicity... but one has to wonder if Blow's approach with claiming the 90% piracy rate of PC games and continuing to make statements about piracy and his games isn't actually doing harm in the long run. Sure, usually it's said that even bad publicity can be good publicity because it raises awareness of the thing in question, but in Blow's case, I wouldn't be surprised if people who had no interest in the game previously are now pirating it out of spite -- especially since he apparently released a fake version of braid to screw with pirates when that came out back in 2008.

It's definitely having that effect on me. It's one of my pet peeves, and it's definitely making me think it's more of a $5/bundle game than anything else. It also comes across as a stealth brag "look at me, little indie developer, having the most pirated game!" even though that isn't remotely true, everyone who looked into the numbers says it doesn't come close to being the most pirated.

Of course this could all be a brilliant ploy and the version seeded he put there and is full of some sort of sabotage-ware set to launch a world conquering botnet or something. He does sort of come across as a maniacal evil genius.
 
It ain't Paradox tho!

Cities XXL, of the Cities XL series, is a Focus developed and published game. (even tho, Cities XL was developed by Monte Cristo IIRC)

Cities: Skylines, a follow-up to the Cities in Motion series, is a Colossal Order developed and Paradox published game.

They don't share anything, except the misleading titles.


Even more, Colossal Order (and Paradox) is currently leading an extremely consumer-friendly approach, releasing big patches of amazing free content along with paid DLCs of almost aesthetic additions, basically making you pay for it only if you actually want to support them for their job, and not because you'd miss some important new content.

Yeah, just realized it. Got it mixed up with the Cities in Motion series.
 

Spirited

Mine is pretty and pink
I will make a thread about NX rumors that only source myself and by proxy myself where I will make the most ridicilous claims I can get.

This is how every NX thread looks like^
 

Tizoc

Member
Playing RotTR and when the antagonist gives Lara the whole "consider my offer to join me" speech, and she straight up shoots them without hesitation in the shoulder XD



Forget the witness, £30 for Bombshell, wtf is that about? o_O

It is cheaper at Bundlestars.
 
im trying to find the comment but now im wondering if i've lost it,

didnt Blow state something to the effect that 90% of the PC copies of his games were pirated?

im trying to find the comment on the web but his most recent comment is all that's surfacing

edit: found it, he was talking about Braid's sales on PC
 

oipic

Member
Canadaaaaaaaaaaaa
chart

whyyyyyyyy

Almost identical to the movement and current state of the Australian dollar - we feel your pain, my dear Canadian brethren, stay strong (the investment mob I work for predict that the worst is still to come, though, unfortunately).
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
This one is 30fps right?

Yes, it's based off the PS3 version which itself was based off the PS2 version which was 30fps, despite the original GC game running at 60fps.
 
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1177299

I don't get why this kind of spin is such a huge revelation to people on this forum. Every marketing firm does it.

When I'd send out a news release to outlets in one of my previous jobs, I'd intro my emails in the exact same way, give a rundown of the subject/talking points in the same fashion (though not in bullet-point form - two to three paragraphs max) and give them my contact info to follow up. Would usually send out 50-75 emails just with a normal PR blast.

That email Kotaku got is pretty lackluster compared to some of the marketing emails I got (and still get) on a regular basis, for different industries. And don't even get me started on advertorial placements.
 

Backlogger

Member
If piracy was the cause, why wasn't PS4's sales number significantly better than PC's? Sales not meeting his expectation just means people don't want his game that much.

I'm not really interested in it to be honest. Even if my backlog hadn't increased significantly during the last 60 days I probably still wouldn't have bought it. It's a $10 or less game for me.

Edit: crap! 1st post on new page and broke the 20k barrier
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom