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NPD Sales Results For August 2016

Sad to see what happened to mankind divided.

I love Human Revolution but didn't buy MD because currently I'm trying to finish Inquisition and I'm kinda tired of WRPGs. Besides, from what I've see, the setting doesn't look interesting. Trailers sold me another game about oppressed rebels and the rebel leader design couldn't be worse. Besides the discrimination setting us poorly presented, its like am appertaid society, if you want to portray racism in an advance society, you should do it as a society that actually went through the XX century.

I'm still going to buy it but probably during an end year sale.
 

Jigorath

Banned
I think Mankind Divided is a failure of marketing. Eidos put out a quality followup to one of last gen's sleeper hits, and Square didn't manage to get people excited for it. I hope this doesn't kill the series, there aren't many sandbox games made in this style.
 

J_Viper

Member
Man. I want to play Inquisition, but all the posts about padding and side quests that I have read makes me not go anywhere near it.

Well, the characters and voice work are great.

Those are the only nice things that I can say about that game.
 

TheFatMan

Member
Who the fuck is still buying GTA5?

I'm dead serious, according to these charts EVERY person on Earth must have a copy by now.

Absolutely crazy Rockstar.
 
Who the fuck is still buying GTA5?

I'm dead serious, according to these charts EVERY person on Earth must have a copy by now.

Absolutely crazy Rockstar.

Who the fuck are still buying consoles?

At only 65+ mil sold, it's still a far cry from Minecraft that also continues to sell.

New audiences enter the fray every day.
 

mozfan12

Banned
These numbers show that the January-February period would have been better for Deus Ex. I saw some bus ads, but was there really a big market for Deus Ex? What a bummer. I actually bought it today. If they need to hit 3 million copies to hit even, then there is no way we are getting another sequel.
 
Who the fuck is still buying GTA5?

I'm dead serious, according to these charts EVERY person on Earth must have a copy by now.

Absolutely crazy Rockstar.

Who the fuck are still buying consoles?

At only 65+ mil sold, it's still a far cry from Minecraft that also continues to sell.

New audiences enter the fray every day.

Yeah, as another poster noted, if you're buying a PS4 or X1 right now, you're going to be picking up GTA5 almost by default. It's a ton of content and the brand comes with some quality assurance. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Skyrim Remastered can do the same thing, at least for awhile.
 

mreddie

Member
Deus Ex is a dud?

Siege's legs is amazing.

Overwatch, MEI IS BAE

Not Shocked Madden and the ONE won. Next month NPD is gonna be crazy

GTA V is still on the charts, it's like a birthmark at this point.
 

mozfan12

Banned
With GTA V, it seems everything is pointing to people double dipping it seems. I know I bought it twice, plus it's a huge YouTube game with an active online community.
 
I think Mankind Divided is a failure of marketing. Eidos put out a quality followup to one of last gen's sleeper hits, and Square didn't manage to get people excited for it. I hope this doesn't kill the series, there aren't many sandbox games made in this style.

What could had been done differently though? (without doubling the marketing budget or anything like that)

It was announced before E3 last year with its own reveal event with quite a good bit of attention to it, it came out of E3 with a good (not great) demo and positively glowing impressions. It carried that all the way to this year, largely praised, with good drops every now and then showcasing the gameplay, the mission, the hub, etc. Had an average marketing push near launch, and thus here we are.

There were some low points, like the preorder nonsense and the art allusions to real-world events, but I would consider those to be very small blips amidst what was a very conventional, safe, if unspectacular boring marketing cycle from April last year till launch.

Sure, in hindsight, it's clear that Deus Ex needed more than an "average" marketing campaign because it has failed to excite people in the same way NMS, etc did, but in hindsight, I couldn't tell that Deus Ex was a game that needed a campaign of massive excitement for it to even sell decently.
 
What could had been done differently though? (without doubling the marketing budget or anything like that)

It was announced before E3 last year with its own reveal event with quite a good bit of attention to it, it came out of E3 with a good (not great) demo and positively glowing impressions. It carried that all the way to this year, largely praised, with good drops every now and then showcasing the gameplay, the mission, the hub, etc. Had an average marketing push near launch, and thus here we are.

There were some low points, like the preorder nonsense and the art allusions to real-world events, but I would consider those to be very small blips amidst what was a very conventional, safe, if unspectacular boring marketing cycle from April last year till launch.

Sure, in hindsight, it's clear that Deus Ex needed more than an "average" marketing campaign because it has failed to excite people in the same way NMS, etc did, but in hindsight, I couldn't tell that Deus Ex was a game that needed a campaign of massive excitement for it to even sell decently.

Needed a hook that would make it a week 1 purchase. Like Nirolak was talking about earlier, I think the big difference between NMS and Deus Ex is that NMS was built up as having these secrets that needed finding, and worlds to explore, and the center of the universe schtick. In 6 months, NMS will lose a lot of its appeal (it already has, to be honest). It's like Pokemon Go in a way; the game is fun if you get on board at launch so you're even with the other players (in level, knowledge, etc...). But if you try to start 2 months after launch, it's really hard to get the same enjoyment out of it.

Deus Ex isn't like that. To my knowledge, there's nothing about the game that demands you play it quickly to get in on the ground floor, so to speak. A good analog would be to emulate ME3 in the design phase; everyone knew that ME3's ending was going to be a big deal (since there were 3 games building to it), and you needed to get it early to be in on the conversation.

Deus Ex doesn't really give that vibe at all. I barely played Human Revolution, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on this game at all (which may not be true! but that's marketing). I'm probably going to try HR again (since it was GwG, and now backwards compatible), and then if I get into it, I'll pick up MD. But nothing about the marketing for MD leads me to think I'm missing out if I buy this next summer instead of next week.
 
It's crazy how little fanfare Deus Ex seemed to get. I started seeing some ads on gaming sites maybe a week beforehand with a few YouTube video ads and that's about it. With most big non-Nintendo releases, they have commercials plastered all over the channels that I watch(mostly sports) and YouTube. I completely forgot it was releasing in August until someone made a thread about 2 weeks out. Maybe it will be end up like TR2013 and get decent sales numbers but at a really low ASP. I see it being deeply discounted this Fall.
It's made by modern day Square and has bad writing it was bound to fail
 
Man. I want to play Inquisition, but all the posts about padding and side quests that I have read makes me not go anywhere near it.

The padding sidequest ARE COMPLETELY OPTIONAL.

People did that to themselves. If you focus on the story, you will have enough power (a kind of progress gate) to finish it.

It's a great game
 
woah at the Deus Ex numbers...

I sort of was anticipated this based on my own video analytics (I upload and stream on Youtube ... very small channel, beside the point other than to explain my sample). Anyhow I get a decent enough sample that I sort of recognize trends... e.g. Blood & Wine actually seemed to pick up 3-4 weeks later, maybe because it was an expansion and people would 'get around to it.'

The point being, I was kinda surprised my Deus Ex videos had so little traffic (relative to my low traffic standards). Almost everything I did from my longplays to a few 'secrets' videos basically never get hit. I've been watching the traffic versus other games and at times it even seemed to get less search results than Tropico V... my Romance of the Three Kingdom XIII videos are even getting better random search traffic.

This explains it though.

Interestingly enough, my GTA V videos have been pretty steady for almost 2 years. I have a sort of 'trick/guide' video, it's barely declined about 15-20% in 2 years... it's almost a perfectly straight line (and it even went back up to its historical average last Christmas)... I've read the same thing for a lot of GTAO streamers...

The game has crazy legs.


Anyhow, we talked about Deus Ex a lot in the UK sales thread and my feeling still is that I think the marketing just didn't click. It may be exciting, interesting, deep, controversial, whatever... but if it's also depressing, gloomy... people just may not give a shit.... people just may not want to go get oppressed by cops and spit on my civilians for 20 hours lol

The thing with Human Revolution was that it was... a revolution! ;p a cyber renaissance.

It had this exciting futurist tone to it, despite its conspiracies. even the original Deus Ex, despite its conspiracies, was an exciting thriller. Human Revolution was in some ways inspiring, at least creatively.

In contrast, Mankind Divided is rather.. gloomy and depressing. I mean, even the title itself sounds like a summary of current global social politics. It ain't exactly 'fuck yeah day one' exciting.

So I wonder, for all the effort into trying to make a socially, politically, philosophically relevant game... did anyone at Eidos do research on if people actually thought the theme and setting were... fun? Was it focused grouped to see if people actually wanted it?

And I say that as likely someone to select it as my GOTY... it's an awesome game: good plot foundation, great gameplay, and some of the best exploration and world design around. Darn good atmosphere and music, too. But if people looked at and just said.... 'eh.... not in the mood for that, I'll pass' I think I could understand why.
 
Saturday is the three year anniversary of GTA V's original release... Granted it's due to the current gen versions that it's still in the top ten but goddamn.
 

Dinjooh

Member
Looked around to see how the Danish retailers were reacting to the new PS4.

Quite funny, they all have labelled it 'PS4 Slim' - is that just a Danish thing or do retailers do that in UK/US to differentiate it as well?

They tried the hardest to not call it the slim model at the reveal at least, heh.
 

u_neek

Junior Member
Looked around to see how the Danish retailers were reacting to the new PS4.

Quite funny, they all have labelled it 'PS4 Slim' - is that just a Danish thing or do retailers do that in UK/US to differentiate it as well?

They tried the hardest to not call it the slim model at the reveal at least, heh.
Danish retailers called the PS3 hardware revision 'Slim' too iirc
 
120k for Deus EX, that's crazy low.

SE did say Europe sold something like 1.5 million and US 800k for the last game at a certain point, so perhaps US isn't that strong
 
D

Deleted member 284

Unconfirmed Member
Doesn't NPD only track physical purchases? Most of which can't be returned?' I imagine NMS's resale rate will still be relatively high, but the refund train most impacted digital copies.

This monthly report only tracks physical sales. We do have a digital tracker that was launched this July:

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/...l-games-tracking-service-for-gaming-industry/

The NPD Group Launches Digital Games Tracking Service for Gaming Industry

Port Washington, NY, July 11, 2016 – The NPD Group today announced that it has launched a digital point-of-sale (POS) sourced service, tracking SKU-level sales data on digital games. NPD’s Digital Games Tracking Service is the first service to provide the U.S. gaming industry with publisher-sourced data on digital game sales, aggregated from the participants of a Digital Panel that includes leading publishers in the industry.
 
Who the fuck is still buying GTA5?

I'm dead serious, according to these charts EVERY person on Earth must have a copy by now.

Absolutely crazy Rockstar.
As I say every few NPD threads...I still haven't bought one! And whenever I have a break in my gaming calendar to get one, I'll finally add to the numbers :p
 

Durante

Member
Seems like Deus Ex did relatively better on PC than consoles. Between this and the UK numbers it's still below 200k, while it's at ~320 on SteamSpy. Even with high sales in mainland Europe that's pretty far from the split you expect from AAA games.
 

Jumeira

Member
I bought GTA5 last week on X1. I didn't beat it on 360, and really missed the sandbox it provides along with the humour. Everything in the game feels incredible, it's a masterpiece. Really shocked I had to pay near full price for it though.
 
Seems like Deus Ex did relatively better on PC than consoles. Between this and the UK numbers it's still below 200k, while it's at ~320 on SteamSpy. Even with high sales in mainland Europe that's pretty far from the split you expect from AAA games.

Do we know the split for Human Revolution?
 

Mooreberg

Member
Those Deus Ex numbers are brutally bad for such a great game. Square simply cannot stop fucking up their release timing. PS4 Tomb Raider in October is next. Breaking Hitman up into regularly released episodes that generate a lot organic video coverage might be the smartest decision I/O ever made. If it had simply released as a delayed retail product, the marketing push would not have existed beyond last December.

FFXV coming in way below expectations with the bizzaro post Black Friday release is the only thing that will get the message across at this point.
 
I think Mankind Divided is a failure of marketing. Eidos put out a quality followup to one of last gen's sleeper hits, and Square didn't manage to get people excited for it. I hope this doesn't kill the series, there aren't many sandbox games made in this style.

I feel like the "Augment Your pre order" thing spooked the marketing dept into oblivion lol
 
OléGunner;217062130 said:
I feel like the "Augment Your pre order" thing spooked the marketing dept into oblivion lol

That was a misstep, but it's not as if the game hasn't marketed itself relatively rationally. There's nothing about Deus Ex's marketing that can be said to be especially lacking or especially bad either.
 

Shin-chan

Member
Deus Ex really didn't manage to get people interested. I guess it's a lesson to AAA pubs - if you want to make a franchise don't wait longer than 2-3 years to release an iterative sequel, or interest will just dwindle.

There are only a few series that can do this, and they're pretty well established now, and also featured significant changes between editions (GTA, Elder Scrolls, Fallout).
 

Lime

Member
I think Mankind Divided is a failure of marketing. Eidos put out a quality followup to one of last gen's sleeper hits, and Square didn't manage to get people excited for it. I hope this doesn't kill the series, there aren't many sandbox games made in this style.

It's hard to get excited for a game that looks incredibly similar to a 5 year old game (from a branding perspective) and it features an already finished and quite boring central character for the second time.
 
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