BtS a commercial failure?

[Locutus]

NPD released the sales figures of PC games for North America for all of 2007 and I found the list shocking in several regards. The most shocking is just how poorly PC games are selling overall (although it should be noted that this is North American retail sales only, PC gaming is much bigger outside the US and many PC games are now sold online), but that's a discussion for the Other Games forum.

The second most shocking thing is that considering how low these numbers are I would've expected BtS to be in the top ten, but it's not. While we haven't heard any official numbers, reading between the lines Civ4 sold well in excess of 2 million copies, and for XPs you can normally expect in the vicinity of 20% of that, so that should still be at least 400,000 copies. That would've made it 4th or 5th in the list of best selling PC games of 2007, but in reality it's not even in the top 10. Even if a good portion of the game was sold outside the US or through digital distribution I would've expected to have sold over 230K in North America.

So is BtS a commercial failure or is it just much more popular in online distribution and outside the US than (at least I) previously assumed? If the former, is that a result of Civ4, Warlords and/or BtS itself not being attractive enough to the average gamer, poor marketing, or just part of the existing trend of (traditional) PC gaming going to sh*t?

FYI, the top ten best-selling games of 2007:

1. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Vivendi) - 2.25 million
2. World Of Warcraft (Vivendi) - 914,000
3. The Sims 2: Seasons Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 433,000
4. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision) - 383,000
5. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (Electronic Arts) - 343,000
6. Sim City 4 Deluxe (Electronic Arts) - 284,000
7. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts) - 281,000
8. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 271,000
9. Age Of Empires III (Microsoft) - 259,000
10. The Sims 2: Pets Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 236,000

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=17110

[CerberusIV]

Conclusion - only people who play WoW or The Sims are prepared to pay bricks and mortar prices. People smart enough to play strategy games are also smart enough to buy online and generally save money.

[wodan11]

Are the #s from online sales available? What about the international retail sales #s?

Wodan

[Nugog]

Re: BtS a commercial failure?

Originally posted by Locutus
poor marketing,

What marketing?

In this part of the world - there has been none for any of the Civ 4 franchise that I have seen.

[Heraclitus]

Re: Re: BtS a commercial failure?

Originally posted by Nugog


What marketing?

In this part of the world - there has been none for any of the Civ 4 franchise that I have seen.

Tis is about teh all-important US market.

[Sabre2th]

Re: Re: BtS a commercial failure?

Originally posted by Nugog


What marketing?

In this part of the world - there has been none for any of the Civ 4 franchise that I have seen.

There were a couple of American ads for Civ4 vanilla back when it first came out, but they were not widespread. Honestly, I was surprised by even that. I don't recall ever seeing a Civ game advertised before Civ4.

[Bhruic]

Re: BtS a commercial failure?

Originally posted by Locutus
Even if a good portion of the game was sold outside the US or through digital distribution I would've expected to have sold over 230K in North America.

It's not even North America, it's just the US.

Considering that Crysis has sold over 1 million copies world-wide at this point, and it's not even on the list, I'd guess that the list isn't very representative of the world as a whole.

Bh

[joncnunn]

Well to me it looks like the Sims franchise gets extra placements in the top ten due to all their expansion packs. Three of the lines were expansions and the other the main game.

The World of Warcraft numbers are indicating that the expansion was so popular that people who hadn't bought the base game before bought it just for the addon. (Same thing applies to a lessor degree to Sims base game.)

Also game in mind that WoW & the Sims are both completely different genres from Civ IV.

WoW is a massive online game.
And the Sims franchise amounts to a pretend life.

I think the Command & Conquer series and Call of Duty series are both real time games. But in any case their limited to a single war, not trying a raize a civilization over time.

Age of Empires III would be the closest competor to Civ IV on that list because it does cover an extended time frame.

[Solver]

Interesting stats. Let's not forget that BtS is an expansion, though - expansions typically sell less than full games. What I'm seeing on the list is just the continued ridiculous sales of Sims in all forms and the popularity of WoW.

There are only three other games on the list. CoD4 has had amazing sales and is a very good FPS. Tiberium Wars is the biggest RTS release of 2007 - I'm just surprised to see AoE3 up there as well, without the very acclaimed Bioshock and the much-hyped Crysis on the list.

I think your 2 million figure for Civ4 is worldwide, while the list is US copies only - so maybe BtS did sell 400k. But that list does indeed confirm two trends - WoW retains huge popularity and anything created in the Sims franchise is a guaranteed sale.

[Locutus]

Re: Re: BtS a commercial failure?

Originally posted by wodan11
Are the #s from online sales available? What about the international retail sales #s?

Wodan

No, and no Well, you can get weekly top tens for some countries from certain websites (e.g. UK and Ireland here), but those only list the relative top ten, not actual sales numbers and nothing on an annual basis.

Originally posted by Nugog
What marketing?

In this part of the world - there has been none for any of the Civ 4 franchise that I have seen.

Well, we are talking about the US here, where at least the vanilla game did get marketed surprisingly well IMO -- as Sabre2th said better than previous versions. And there have been online campaigns for every version of the game (I think for BtS it was those YouTube-esque clips with a fake Bush and Blair, or was that for Warlords?)

Originally posted by Bhruic
Considering that Crysis has sold over 1 million copies world-wide at this point, and it's not even on the list, I'd guess that the list isn't very representative of the world as a whole.

1 million? That's big news, I hadn't seen that yet. Before yesterday it was assumed, based on NPD numbers, that they had sold around 100,000 copies (87,000 in the first month to be precise, and the first month usually accounts for 90% of the total sales numbers). Everyone in the industry press was waiting for the announcement that Crysis 2 would be canceled...

So yes, if that's true then I agree, we are now indeed finding out just how worthless NPD has become when it comes to PC sales, where it used to be a pretty good gage in the past and is still regarded decent as far as console numbers go.

Originally posted by joncnunn
Well to me it looks like the Sims franchise gets extra placements in the top ten due to all their expansion packs. Three of the lines were expansions and the other the main game. [...]

Yes, that's why I usually don't attach much value to these top tens, but this one lists absolute numbers. If it's not on here it sold <230K units, which is pretty bad for US retail sales, or at least it was until 2-3 years ago.

Originally posted by Solver
Let's not forget that BtS is an expansion, though - expansions typically sell less than full games.

Yes, as a rule of thumb about 20%, as I said.

[Bhruic]

Re: Re: Re: BtS a commercial failure?

Originally posted by Locutus

1 million? That's big news, I hadn't seen that yet. Before yesterday it was assumed, based on NPD numbers, that they had sold around 100,000 copies (87,000 in the first month to be precise, and the first month usually accounts for 90% of the total sales numbers). Everyone in the industry press was waiting for the announcement that Crysis 2 would be canceled...

Yeah, I was surprised too, most of the forums I read had been talking about how bad the sales were.

http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=18805

That's the link with the news.

Bh

[Locutus]

Yeah, when I read that I did a double take and immediately checked with some reputable gaming sources -- hadn't read those in the last 2-3 days but that was indeed one of the top stories in the blogosphere this week. 's what I get for taking two days off

[Hercules]

I think we have to be mindful of the audience for Civ games now and especially for the expansion packs.

Wasn't there a recent survey amongst 'poly members about their first Civ experience and for quite a high proportion, it was Civ1 or Civ2, way back in the late 20thCentury.

In other words much less new blood attracted by Civ concept but a solid core, older and more questioning.

For many, newcomers, the Civ3 experience may not have been the most enriching game experience.

[Solver]

I think that's true for Apolytoners, not gamers in general. There are many newcomers to Civ. And Civ3 wasn't bad in that sense, either. Civ3 isn't a bad game. It's bad for most of the hardcore fans because of the exploits and poor game design choices. For a newcomer to Civ, there was nothing wrong with Civ3.

Out of TBS games, Civ is the most popular, but in the grand scheme of things, even the most popular FPS games pale in comparison to other genres. These days, MMORPGs are absolutely HUGE - WoW being proof to that. FPS game are also huge - look at the sales of CoD4 or Bioshock. And then you have The Sims, selling by default, much as the appeal of those games escapes me. Strategy games cater to a smaller audience, and out of those, RTS is more popular than TBS.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Solver
.....
For a newcomer to Civ, there was nothing wrong with Civ3.
.....

I can confirm that.