Meanwhile people complain about crowdfunding facilitating the success of shit...
For all the shit I give them, they still make quality games. Maybe not as good as the PS2 era games, but many are still fun. I'm so tired of Assassins Creed right now but FC3 was incredible.
travo said:For all the shit I give them, they still make quality games. Maybe not as good as the PS2 era games, but many are still fun. I'm so tired of Assassins Creed right now but FC3 was incredible.
They were definitely more of an Xbox developer back then. I know most of their stuff was multi-platform but the Xbox titles were usually much higher quality. The Splinter Cell games were ridiculously better on the BOX. That carried over into the early 360 days too.
As for sales, Ubisoft know how to capitalize on early adopters not having tons to choose from. They never really ship their games at competitive times so other franchises can cut into the sales either.
Well you have to consider how many platforms each of these games were sold so to me some of the single platform titles while they may not have sold as much in shear numbers still made a more impressive impact. Those are still great numbers for sure though. I am surprised that no Madden game ever sold 10 million.
Ubisoft knows how to reach out to the casual core gamer better than anyone. That kind of gamer who only buys a handful of games each generation. They'll pick up the new GTA games, maybe a Madden or a sports game, a Call of Duty, a handful of others, but usually no more than a dozen per generation. Action games that are realistic looking and offer some story. And Ubisoft has made Assassin's Creed and now Watchdogs as a part of their list. Rockstar gets them by releasing high quality material (usually). Ubi does it by focusing on making the best looking kind of game they can and gives it a shot in the arm with excellent marketing.
I'd say a lot of what made Watchdogs sell was the dearth of titles available for the XBO and PS4 at the time of it's launch. Hell, even I bought it at launch.
With FarCry 4, it was a slow burn, I think everyone expected it to be FC 3.5 and would get it on sale eventually, turns out it was FC 3.9.
To the larger point, Ubisoft has mastered the ability to induce sales on will. As has Activision. It's like pop music, there is a machine in place to create re-producable results, and we'll see this happen more and more.
Pabulum and Curry, that is the future (where curry is small team games).
What I find annoying is when shit - and by shit I mean medicore/average 7/10 games like Unity sell in massive quantities. Because of the marketing campaign really.
We've reached a stage where it's not about how good your game is, it's how high profile. People are buying games even before reviews hit because they've been hyped for 2 years.
robio said:Ubisoft knows how to reach out to the casual core gamer better than anyone. That kind of gamer who only buys a handful of games each generation. They'll pick up the new GTA games, maybe a Madden or a sports game, a Call of Duty, a handful of others, but usually no more than a dozen per generation. Action games that are realistic looking and offer some story. And Ubisoft has made Assassin's Creed and now Watchdogs as a part of their list. Rockstar gets them by releasing high quality material (usually). Ubi does it by focusing on making the best looking kind of game they can and gives it a shot in the arm with excellent marketing.
Great point Rob.
People always think of casual gamers as people who play stuff like Wii Sports, dance games and mini games.
BUT the fact is, there has been true casual gamers since the beginning. Most people ARE casual gamers....people like us on this website are not the norm.
Most of my friends and my brother are exactly what you are talking about. The guys that just want sports games and 1 or 2 of the big "cool" looking games that release every year. These are the people who focus on Madden, Call of Duty, Halo (although Halo has been slipping from the casual cores attention for awhile) Grand Theft Auto, etc.
They will also grab whatever else is being hyped up as the big thing at the time, be it Resident Evil 4, Goldeneye, Final Fantasy 7, whatever.
These guys have existed since the Genesis and even the NES era. And yes, Ubisoft know how to tap into this market better than anyone.
Btw....I always get a kick out of guys like my brother who act all excited about a given big game, but as soon as they get stuck they never touch it again. Always dying to get new consoles to see the new graphics tech but then only use said console for these few games that they barely even play.
Pfft.
I laugh at the guys who have "moved on" from gaming. And think it's just for kids.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-02-12-ubisoft-holiday-sales-up-56-percent
Credit for the uptick in sales was spread throughout the Ubisoft catalog. Assassin’s Creed Unity and Assassin’s Creed Rogue combined to ship 10 million units, while Far Cry 4 sold-in 7 million copies on its own. New racing title The Crew shipped 2 million copies, which the publisher said was the best sales performance for racing games released in late 2014 (Driveclub was released on PlayStation 4 in early October, while Forza Horizon 2 landed on Xbox One in late September). Just Dance 4 shipped 4 million units, while Watch Dogs continued to sell, reaching a total of 10 million units sold-in since its May 2014 debut.
Ubisoft also touted a boost in its digital revenues, which jumped 157 percent year-over-year to €138 million ($157.4 million). For the fiscal year to date, digital sales have made up just over 21.2 percent of the publisher’s revenues, compared to 15.3 percent for the comparable stretch in the previous year. Even back catalog sales were up, as Ubisoft reported a 25.9 percent jump to €67.1 million ($76.53 million) for the holiday quarter.
Lets put these numbers in perspective. Not one RE game has ever sold 7 million copies. Not one Tomb Raider game has sold 7 million. Only one MGS game ever reached 7 million sales. Not one Zelda game has sold 10 million copies. Not one Madden has sold 10 million. Not one Final Fantasy game has sold 10 million copies. Only one Halo game passed 10 million.
Meanwhile Ubisoft creates a franchise and like nothing sells 10 million copies, despite gigantic backlash. Far Cry, a franchise that really only became huge with the third game now ships 7 million in one quarter. Assassin’s Creed games sell 10 million YEARLY. Even their piece of shit racing game outsold the other two major racing games, one being Forza.
Has Ubisoft discovered the magic formula to sell insane amount of copies? They definitely have a certain open world game style that most their games use now. I think they understand hype and marketing better than anyone. Maybe they have the ability to ship crazy amounts of games regardless of how they will actually sell. Whatever the reason, Ubisoft has clearly mastered making games that appeal to this generation of gamers.