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

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Arthea

Member
Well, Ys titles are niche titles, I presume the public for Trails is, more or less, the same one.
The expensive Ys game is 18€, first Trails was 16€, so 30€ is a big step compared to those.
Probably people decided to wait for a sale (like me), but meanwhile the game sold poorly.
only Trails series are nothing like Ys


It's not that the game is too long (compared to other rpgs), the fact is there's ton of useless text and backtracking artificially increasing the game's lenght.
In fact there are just a bunch of locations.

oh wow
 

Ludens

Banned
In my case I bought it during the autumn or winter-sale. Dont remember which one. But I didnt even start TiTS, because everyone says its a pretty lengthy game and that is kinda scaring me.

It's not that the game is too long (compared to other rpgs), the fact is there's ton of useless text and backtracking artificially increasing the game's lenght.
In fact there are just a bunch of locations.

only Trails series are nothing like Ys

I never wrote they are the same. The publisher, otherwise, is the same. And I think a part of their public is the same too (like me).
So that's it.
 
You don't need PR for a direct sequel. The target audience already knows about the game, because they played FC.

But that game just kinda came out of nowhere. Everyone was waiting for it, waiting for it, waiting for it and I guess a lot of people already lost interest then.
Then that game came out of nowhere, even though XSeed had an event just 1 week before it.

Maybe the possibility is also, that people played the first one but didnt understand the "hype" about it and then didnt buy the second one.

I still think part of the problem was with XSeeds "marketing" and release-politics.
 
But that game just kinda came out of nowhere. Everyone was waiting for it, waiting for it, waiting for it and I guess a lot of people already lost interest then.
Then that game came out of nowhere, even though XSeed had an event just 1 week before it.

I don't see how announcing the game 2 weeks earlier would have helped. If you think the long wait is the problem, well tough luck, nothing they could have done
I still think part of the problem was with XSeeds "marketing" and release-politics.

XSEED doesn't really "market" any of their games more or less than SC.
 
no they don't, Xseed are porting Little King's Story and Senran Kagura just fine.
What they needed were good Trails sales as that would have convinced Falcom, now we can kiss those games good bye.
Or... maybe we will get them in 10 years or so.

oh c'mon now
let's blame Xseed for releasing a game that we wanted on PC like we wanted and not going to port other games, because those released before sold nothing.
They are porting other games to PC, they won't bother with Trails and you know why.

There wasn't a PC port of Danganronpa, and yet we are getting the game soon.
Same with FF9.
This is just XSEED being Sony ponies. It bit their arses earlier, and will bit their arses again sooner or later.

Well, that's just what i remember xseed stating regarding the cold steel games. take that up with them if you disagree with their reasoning.

It's likely that they just don't see the cost of doing the port worthwhile and if NF did the port then that makes their lives much easier.

I have no investment in the series myself since i'm one of those people who has been sitting on an unplayed copy of FC for a long ass time but i would love to see them on PC just so they aren't stuck on dying platforms
 
I don't see how announcing the game 2 weeks earlier would have helped. If you think the long wait is the problem, well tough luck, nothing they could have done

Not 2 weeks earlier, but 1 month. The game just showed up on Steam without any knowledge about that.

You cant just put a game up on Steam and expect it that everyone who played the first game to directly buy the second. Most people on Steam are not "hardcore" like us, that check the store all the time. They see something they might like, they buy it.
 
Well, Ys titles are niche titles, I presume the public for Trails is, more or less, the same one.
The expensive Ys game is 18€, first Trails was 16€, so 30€ is a big step compared to those.
Probably people decided to wait for a sale (like me), but meanwhile the game sold poorly.

Definitely not.
At least I'm not part of it.
 

Knurek

Member
You don't need PR for a direct sequel. The target audience already knows about the game, because they played FC.

This is what XSEED seems to think and this is exactly why their games seem to sell not as well as we'd hope to see. You need PR for everything. Period.

Your hate for XSEED about matters they have no control over is hilarious

I'm just hurt that after we've save their company once (after they bet everything on PSP) with our support for pretty much everything they put on Steam in that period (Ys 3, Origins, 1+2, TitS FC) they just all of a sudden decided they don't care about PC and seem to have bet everything on PS3, 3DS and Vita.
In 2016.
Not sure who is going to save them now, sure as hell isn't going to be me.
 
Not 2 weeks earlier, but 1 month. The game just showed up on Steam without any knowledge about that.

You cant just put a game up on Steam and expect it that everyone who played the first game to directly buy the second. Most people on Steam are not "hardcore" like us, that check the store all the time. They see something they might like, they buy it.
Games don't have to sell day one. The game came out, they talked about it, a few reviews popped up over time. A few weeks earlier doesn't change that.
Go check the sales? If you think it didn't not sell because of the non existent marketing and the high price, what did you think that prevented sales? Magic?

Only 10% of people finishing FC and most not having a reason to pick up SC because of that
I'm just hurt that after we've save their company once
lol
Not sure who is going to save them now, sure as hell isn't going to be me.
Yeah I think they'll be fine without you, or people like you who hold unreasonable grudges
they don't care about PC and seem to have bet everything on PS3, 3DS and Vita.
Did I dream the Xanadu Next, Senran Kagura and LKS announcements?
This is what XSEED seems to think and this is exactly why their games seem to sell not as well as we'd hope to see. You need PR for everything. Period.
Please tell me who should have bought SC that didnt. 160k own FC. 10% have finished it. 16k own SC. Who else is there? Who would have been convinced to buy SC with more marketing? If you want to blame anyone, blame the people that bought FC, never played it and set wrong sales expectations for the sequel.
 

Arthea

Member
Go check the sales? If you think it didn't not sell because of the non existent marketing and the high price, what did you think that prevented sales? Magic?

no, prove to me that they could sell it for less.

no PR was a mistake, true, that has nothing to do with game's price.



and getting back to price talk, why would they release $40 game on steam, if steam userbase isn't willing to buy $30 game?
 

Kriken

Member
Danganronpa a bit more expensive than I imagined it would be. I'll probably still pick it up early because I loved the game and want to show my support for the platform
 
and then there's the simple fact that JRPG direct sequels simply never sell as well as their predecessors. Lots of people will not pick up the direct sequel if they didn't finish the original, and given the nature of JRPGs being lengthy games and all that's probably a lot more prevalent in that genre. That's why you have the EA's of the worth lying through their teeth to tell you that you can play Mass Effect 2/3 without playing the previous games even though just about anyone who has played that series would tell you that's crazy talk. They don't want to scare away customers who don't like the idea of jumping in halfway through a series.

Xseed likely knew this and decided to put a premium price on SC so as to pull in as much cash from early adopters as possible. Charge a premium to make up for there being less sales.
 
I don't see how announcing the game 2 weeks earlier would have helped. If you think the long wait is the problem, well tough luck, nothing they could have done


XSEED doesn't really "market" any of their games more or less than SC.

Everything needs marketing -- promoting awareness leads to sales. If someone really wanted Trails SC, they might not have budgeted the $30 to drop on the game without knowing it was coming any time soon. That's a lost sale, potentially, as you then have to hope that the person gets the money together and buys it at some point in the future; and even if they do, it might be during a sale or after a price drop, which will cost them a portion of the revenue they could've gotten if they didn't just surprise everyone with a stealth release.

Games don't have to sell day one. The game came out, they talked about it, a few reviews popped up over time. A few weeks earlier doesn't change that.

Tell that to Arcen Games who are hoping everyone rushes out to buy Starward Rogue because of budgeting/revenue issues, especially since their Steam Sale profits have dried up compared to what they were.

no, prove to me that they could sell it for less.

Go into the page for the game > edit price > 24.99, 19.99, etc.

Hell, if it was less than $27 during the sales, Santa Frost might've handed out more copies, even if he's not a fan of the series himself.

That's why you have the EA's of the worth lying through their teeth to tell you that you can play Mass Effect 2/3 without playing the previous games even though just about anyone who has played that series would tell you that's crazy talk. They don't want to scare away customers who don't like the idea of jumping in halfway through a series.

Nah.
 
I'm on mission 22 of mgsV and its starting to feel like a bit of a chore. Maybe I'm just not creative enough with solutions. I just sneak by and put a slowmo tranq in the face of anyone that notices me. Most of these missions feel like filler.
 

MUnited83

For you.
no, prove to me that they could sell it for less.

no PR was a mistake, true, that has nothing to do with game's price.



and getting back to price talk, why would they release $40 game on steam, if steam userbase isn't willing to buy $30 game?

CS was originally released in 2013.


Trails in the Sky SC was released in 2006.

And let's not forget that the PSP western release bombed just as hard.

Pretty much. People seemed to be fine with paying $40 for Cold Steel on those dying consoles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh boy, I wonder where those guys went since they didn't bother to pay 30$ for Second Chapter...
 
I'm on mission 22 of mgsV and its starting to feel like a bit of a chore. Maybe I'm just not creative enough with solutions. I just sneak by and put a slowmo tranq in the face of anyone that notices me. Most of these missions feel like filler.
youre about to hit the part of the game where the story picks up and keeps you engaged. Then, you'll hit another filler-ish section and then the game ends.
 
What number of people though?
For all we know, CS may as well sold half of what SC did.
For all we know it could have sold twice.
Fact is: People didn't complain about the price, like they did with SC.

Tell that to Arcen Games who are hoping everyone rushes out to buy Starward Rogue because of budgeting/revenue issues, especially since their Steam Sale profits have dried up compared to what they were.

Please... XSEED is not Arcen "Let's bundle everything" Games.
Go into the page for the game > edit price > 24.99, 19.99, etc.

Hell, if it was less than $27 during the sales, Santa Frost might've handed out more copies, even if he's not a fan of the series himself.

They can do that next sale. It doesn't seem like they're on the verge of bankruptcy.
Everything needs marketing -- promoting awareness leads to sales. If someone really wanted Trails SC, they might not have budgeted the $30 to drop on the game without knowing it was coming any time soon. That's a lost sale, potentially, as you then have to hope that the person gets the money together and buys it at some point in the future; and even if they do, it might be during a sale or after a price drop, which will cost them a portion of the revenue they could've gotten if they didn't just surprise everyone with a stealth release.
Please look at the sales and achievemnt data I posted again and tell me how it would have helped
 

Arthea

Member
Everything needs marketing -- promoting awareness leads to sales. If someone really wanted Trails SC, they might not have budgeted the $30 to drop on the game without knowing it was coming any time soon. That's a lost sale, potentially, as you then have to hope that the person gets the money together and buys it at some point in the future; and even if they do, it might be during a sale or after a price drop, which will cost them a portion of the revenue they could've gotten if they didn't just surprise everyone with a stealth release.



Tell that to Arcen Games who are hoping everyone rushes out to buy Starward Rogue because of budgeting/revenue issues, especially since their Steam Sale profits have dried up compared to what they were.



Go into the page for the game > edit price > 24.99, 19.99, etc.

Hell, if it was less than $27 during the sales, Santa Frost might've handed out more copies, even if he's not a fan of the series himself.

that's not how it works, Trails FC day one sales were bellow 90K (so that's all what SC could hope for in sales department for foreseeable future) and that was a game that only had to be adopted to new OSes and steam features added, while SC had to be localised from the scratch, that's much more expensive project, not comparable even. To even think that it could have had the same price as FC is ridiculous.



CS was originally released in 2013.


Trails in the Sky SC was released in 2006.

And let's not forget that the PSP western release bombed just as hard.


Oh boy, I wonder where those guys went since they didn't bother to pay 30$ for Second Chapter...

are we really going here? How many people in the west even have PSP? Have you checked how many users steam has, lately?
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Oh the irony. How far are you in? I only managed to finished the first zone and by then I had two teams off dungeoning at a time to try and keep the stress levels down. Eventually Team A merged with Team B after a number of unforeseen deaths. Unforeseen in the way Bloodborne was robbed of course.

well I only have rank 3 guys (veterans) as my max ones (quite a few now, one less not that I lost zky), it goes up to rank 6. all these guys cant go on rank 1 (green) quests, only rank 0-2 guys can, so it limits what I can do, and rank 3 quests (orange) judging from this one I did are quite a step up (and it was just a shrot lenght one)

I believe people do money runs with low level fodder guys, kinda like rogue legacy, so you have money to upgrade your veterans I assume, but I havent done that yet
 

Ludens

Banned
that's not how it works, Trails FC day one sales were bellow 90K (so that's all what SC could hope for in sales department for foreseeable future) and that was a game that only had to be adopted to new OSes and steam features added, while SC had to be localised from the scratch, that's much more expensive project, not comparable even. To even think that it could have had the same price as FC is ridiculous.
So localization should apply to all games.
I mean, SquareEnix should charge people 20€ more for every FF released in the west following this reasoning (just the first example came in my mind).
 

Ganado

Member
Pretty much. People seemed to be fine with paying $40 for Cold Steel on those dying consoles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Come on now, Cold Steel is 2 years old. Second Chapter is 9 years old and looks like a PS1 game. That makes it 20€ tops for me, even though it (most likely?) is a really good game with a lot of content. However, if Cold Steel arrived on PC soon-ish, I'd have no problems paying around 40€.
 

MUnited83

For you.
that's not how it works, Trails FC day one sales were bellow 90K (so that's all what SC could hope for in sales department for foreseeable future) and that was a game that only had to be adopted to new OSes and steam features added, while SC had to be localised from the scratch, that's much more expensive project, not comparable even. To even think that it could have had the same price as FC is ridiculous.





are we really going here? How many people in the west even have PSP? Have you checked how many users steam has, lately?

The game is compatible with every Vita out there and I just read that Vita users wouldn't have problems paying 30$ for it.

But apparently they did.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
ugh these XCOM 2 reviews!!!!! wheres the cheapest place to buy this that isn't suspect for Canadians? :D

oh is the embargo up? I assume they are good?

yup they are good, as expected. Like the souls games, it was a easy blind purchase for me, come on with the key already GMG
 

Arthea

Member
So localization should apply to all games.
I mean, SquareEnix should charge people 20€ more for every FF released in the west following this reasoning (just the first example came in my mind).

what?
All SE games when localised are $50-60 games, not $30, except for remakes and remasters.
What are you even talking about?


The game is compatible with every Vita out there and I just read that Vita users wouldn't have problems paying 30$ for it.

But apparently they did.

care to show those numbers? Because I have no idea what are you talking about.
 
Come on now, Cold Steel is 2 years old. Second Chapter is 9 years old and looks like a PS1 game. That makes it 20€ tops for me, even though it (most likely?) is a really good game with a lot of content. However, if Cold Steel arrived on PC soon-ish, I'd have no problems paying around 40€.

The age of the game sadly doesn't influence the localization cost. If anything it makes it harder. If that's your justification they should probably not bother with the other Trails games at all, even though Ao and Zero are supposed to be the best ones. Localization is hard and expensive, but not enough people care because "it looks like a PS1 game". That's the whole problem.
The game is compatible with every Vita out there and I just read that Vita users wouldn't have problems paying 30$ for it.

But apparently they did.

They did?
 
If Xseed really thought that the game wasn't doing well at $30 then they would've put it on sale by now. That they haven't means they're okay with how it's selling as is and aren't desperate to move more copies at a lower price point just yet.
 
If Xseed really thought that the game wasn't doing well at $30 then they would've put it on sale by now. That they haven't means they're okay with how it's selling as is and aren't desperate to move more copies at a lower price point just yet.

Yeah, here's no reason to devalue the game right now. I don't see what getting lots and lots of sales right now at $15 that no one would play would accomplish.
 

Ludens

Banned
what?
All SE games when localised are $50-60 games, not $30, except for remakes and remasters.
What are you even talking about?

Well, you told localization cause a price bump for the game
It's true localization has a cost, but I think charging almost double the price of FC in order to recover the money lost it's just stupid. Following this, I wrote if a FF game is 60€ in Japan, it should be 80€ in the rest of the world in order to recover money spent on localizing it.
 

Hektor

Member
Anyways guys, you remember XCOM-2? I heard it's good.

So localization should apply to all games.
I mean, SquareEnix should charge people 20€ more for every FF released in the west following this reasoning (just the first example came in my mind).

You're joking, but SE actually did that with multiple games. Drakengard 3's JP Dub is paid DLC and so is Thiafs.
 

MUnited83

For you.
what?
All SE games when localised are $50-60 games, not $30, except for remakes and remasters.
What are you even talking about?




care to show those numbers? Because I have no idea what are you talking about.

The age of the game sadly doesn't influence the localization cost. If anything it makes it harder. If that's your justification they should probably not bother with the other Trails games at all.


They did?

Xseed already said both PC and PSP releases sold similarly. Guess what, the magical Vita userbase wasn't willing to buy the game too.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
i feel bad i didn't even try sunless sea during free weekend

i downloaded it but it's new ranked season and i just played a stupid amount of league

i guess it's better that i didn't find the need to buy another game, i've already kind of abandoned the witness and with 5 days left for xcom i'm probably gonna abandon it for a lot longer
 
Please... XSEED is not Arcen "Let's bundle everything" Games.

The point wasn't that XSEED was Arcen. It was merely that your statement of "games don't need to sell day one" isn't always true. Publishers/Developers have operating costs and need steady money coming in. If the game doesn't sell steadily over time, then your "long run" approach is useless; ideally, you don't want to get all your sales on day 1 and have 0 sales for the rest of the game's existence... but you don't want to be getting 1 sale a week for it's lifetime either.

that's not how it works, Trails FC day one sales were bellow 90K (so that's all what SC could hope for in sales department for foreseeable future) and that was a game that only had to be adopted to new OSes and steam features added, while SC had to be localised from the scratch, that's much more expensive project, not comparable even. To even think that it could have had the same price as FC is ridiculous.

Sure, buddy. Whatever you say.
 

Arthea

Member
Xseed already said both PC and PSP releases sold similarly. Guess what, the magical Vita userbase wasn't willing to buy the game too.

where did they say that? kindly show those numbers.


Well, you told localization cause a price bump for the game
It's true localization has a cost, but I think charging almost double the price of FC in order to recover the money lost it's just stupid. Following this, I wrote if a FF game is 60€ in Japan, it should be 80€ in the rest of the world in order to recover money spent on localizing it.

that's not what I said, I said the first game was cheaper because it wasn't localisation but adopting to new OSes.
 

dex3108

Member
i feel bad i didn't even try sunless sea during free weekend

i downloaded it but it's new ranked season and i just played a stupid amount of league

i guess it's better that i didn't find the need to buy another game, i've already kind of abandoned the witness and with 5 days left for xcom i'm probably gonna abandon it for a lot longer

Delete League and be free again :p
 

zkylon

zkylewd
i bet tits will have some legs and make a bunch of money in time with sales and as ppl finish tits1 and move on to 2

i dunno if that's enough to port tits3 (if it exists, idk)

Delete League and be free again :p
that's too big a cost to pay for freedom
 

Ludens

Banned
that's not what I said, I said the first game was cheaper because it wasn't localisation but adopting to new OSes.

Umh.

that's not how it works, Trails FC day one sales were bellow 90K (so that's all what SC could hope for in sales department for foreseeable future) and that was a game that only had to be adopted to new OSes and steam features added, while SC had to be localised from the scratch, that's much more expensive project, not comparable even. To even think that it could have had the same price as FC is ridiculous.

I don't understand.
 

MUnited83

For you.
If Xseed really thought that the game wasn't doing well at $30 then they would've put it on sale by now. That they haven't means they're okay with how it's selling as is and aren't desperate to move more copies at a lower price point just yet.
That they are fine with the sales we know, but people do like to enter steamspy.com and claim it bombed and it couldnt have bombed because its a good game and all that, without realizing the sales are fine for the niche title it is.
where did they say that? kindly show those numbers.




that's not what I said, I said the first game was cheaper because it wasn't localisation but adopting to new OSes.
Pretty sure they said that when they said the sales were fine for them. Of course, you don't believe them because you have different expectations, which makes no sense.

So... the initial localization of the first one on 2011 was free or something? Just because they only released a PC port a couple of years later doesn't mean the localization was free.
 
i bet tits will have some legs and make a bunch of money in time with sales and as ppl finish tits1 and move on to 2

i dunno if that's enough to port tits3 (if it exists, idk)

Pretty much. SC will sell well over time, XSEED is doing more PC (and Vita and PS4) games, everything is fine.
But as of right now, Trails in the Sky 3rd looks very unlikely.
 

Dr Dogg

Member
Reading the last few pages. The February OT can't come soon enough, Jesus.

Oddly there are apparently 96 posts on this page but I can only see 34. Well the last page now.

well I only have rank 3 guys (veterans) as my max ones (quite a few now, one less not that I lost zky), it goes up to rank 6. all these guys cant go on rank 1 (green) quests, only rank 0-2 guys can, so it limits what I can do, and rank 3 quests (orange) judging from this one I did are quite a step up (and it was just a shrot lenght one)

I believe people do money runs with low level fodder guys, kinda like rogue legacy, so you have money to upgrade your veterans I assume, but I havent done that yet

Ah that's right. I knew there was a reason I was resting some and sending the new blood out to die on low level dungeon runs. Just reinstalled it and it's been so long since I last fired the game up I can't remember if there were these flashy story-like cutscenes framing the beginning.
 
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