Bethesda to buy another IP?

[Crni Vuk]

It's not a juggernaut like Wii Fit, but the estimates I've seen look pretty good. It got a nice boost because it came out during the Holiday season, and it is doing well compared to similar games like Mass Effect and Fable 2, especially if you combine the sales from the different platforms.

To find out about shipped numbers, you can look at the company's financial reports or look for a press release (Beth announced that they shipped >4 million units initially). Sold-through estimates are trickier. NPD has estimates for North America, but you have to pay to see all of the numbers. Media Create and Famitsu do Japan. VGChartz tries to tie everything together. When you look at the estimates, you shouldn't take the absolute number too seriously, but relative comparisons can be useful.

The thing is just that one who was talking about the NPD sales said that Fallout 3 probably did so far not sold more then 2 Million copies aprox. while shipping out 4 million.

Now I am not a genius in math nor do I really know if it is succesfull for Bethesda or not. But just from how I imagine it it doesnt seem that good.

Well I guess to see if it was really a great success one has to wait some time.

 

[Dionysus]

The thing is just that one who was talking about the NPD sales said that Fallout 3 probably did so far not sold more then 2 Million copies aprox. while shipping out 4 million.

Now I am not a genius in math nor do I really know if it is succesfull for Bethesda or not. But just from how I imagine it it doesnt seem that good.

Well I guess to see if it was really a great success one has to wait some time.

You'll never know the actual sold-through numbers because no one (including Beth) will ever know the actual numbers. If we find out that Beth has shipped more, then we could assume that the initial shipment sold through to the consumers.

If you were listening to someone that was talking about NPD #s, you have to remember two things. First, they are estimates, and it's a little silly to directly compare them to real numbers (from Beth's financial reports). It makes more sense to compare estimates to each other (e.g., compare Fable 2 to FO3). Second, NPD only does NA. VGChartz estimates world-wide sales @ more than 3 million on the PS3 and 360 combined. I think it is doing pretty well by all measures. In fact, it seems to be outperforming Oblivion in the short term, which is a surprise to me.

 

[Brother None]

Bethesda doesn't have public financial reports, Dionysus, they're a private companied wholly owned by Zenimax.

That said, yes, from first looks Fallout 3 does seem to be quite a bit more successful than Oblivion. I'm as surprised as anyone at that, really. It's not GTA IV or Halo 3, but it might actually have been the biggest title this Christmas.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

That said, yes, from first looks Fallout 3 does seem to be quite a bit more successful than Oblivion. I'm as surprised as anyone at that, really. It's not GTA IV or Halo 3, but it might actually have been the biggest title this Christmas.

Really? Oblivion with guns in the future sounds like a great cash cow to me, especially with Bethesda's PR manipulating abilities. I hoped that it wouldn't do well but the reality is that a game like Fallout 3 is going to sell well if it's marketed right, even if it is mediocre (judging by how many people think that WoW is the greatest game ever, this should be no surprise). I mean medieval fantasy has more restricted draw than futuristic fantasy does so, assuming all else is equal, the futuristic fantasy game of the same quality as the medieval fantasy game should outsell it, especially if it's made by the same company and the medieval fantasy game did well.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Bethesda doesn't have public financial reports, Dionysus, they're a private companied wholly owned by Zenimax.

That said, yes, from first looks Fallout 3 does seem to be quite a bit more successful than Oblivion. I'm as surprised as anyone at that, really. It's not GTA IV or Halo 3, but it might actually have been the biggest title this Christmas.

One should not forget that there was no real competition this X-Mas. Hell I cant even remember anything remarkable from the E3 either ...

 

[M-26-7]

Bethesda doesn't have public financial reports, Dionysus, they're a private companied wholly owned by Zenimax.

That said, yes, from first looks Fallout 3 does seem to be quite a bit more successful than Oblivion. I'm as surprised as anyone at that, really. It's not GTA IV or Halo 3, but it might actually have been the biggest title this Christmas.

One should not forget that there was no real competition this X-Mas. Hell I cant even remember anything remarkable from the E3 either ...

Eh, I don't see best seller of Christmas as too likely. Even though Fable 2 is exclusive it's pretty popular among eckbawksfags. There's also Lich king which has a ten million person audience built in. Plus there's Gears 2 and if I recall correctly CoD5 was selling well. Not better than 4, but pretty good all the same (edit: some real numbers can be found here http://kotaku.com/5132576/what-was-2008s-best-selling-game-in-the-us http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/01/20/the-real-top-5-selling-games-of-2008/). The real problem is that even though it's a watered down RPG a lot of hardcore console shooter fans find even the mere mention of RPG scarey and tend to avoid anything with even a hint of percentages. I would say Bethesda has always been cursed to be only mildly successful, des[ite their best attempts at going mainstream.

 

[Crni Vuk]

well yeah. Though most of the games you listed I would say are rather ... unimpressive or a dissapointment. I mean CoD 5? The series was interesting a few years ago together with the Medal Of Honor games. But it was already in that time pretty generic shooter action in WW2.

Though to be a bit more clear I was talking abotu RPGs in particular. And this year was probably one of the worst years for RPGs since the ... I dont know last 10 years ? Or does is just get with every year worse?

 

[maximaz]

It better not be Shadowrun, I swear to God. (talking about the Genesis/SNES games).

Could it be a Troika IP?

It could be that free roaming Batman game that dude (howard?) always talked about.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

It better not be Shadowrun, I swear to God. (talking about the Genesis/SNES games).

Shadowrun already got whored out in that flop of a FPS that came out a few years ago.

It still begs the question.:

What's the point of buying an old license, stripping of it's essential gameplay and then marketing it to a younger generation for whom the brand has no recognition? Really just selling the name, to those for whom the name has no value.

 

[Dionysus]

Bethesda doesn't have public financial reports, Dionysus, they're a private companied wholly owned by Zenimax.

That's a good point. You have to hope for a press release from Bethesda.

And the big hits this X-mas were GoW2, CoD, Guitar Hero, Fit, Play, and Mario Kart. FO3 really can't come close to competing with the Wii's hit titles. But it's still a success for Bethesda.

well yeah. Though most of the games you listed I would say are rather ... unimpressive or a dissapointment.

But this isn't an issue of personal taste. This was not an off year in terms of sales. There was plenty of competition, and Fable 2 and FO3 both did well for themselves. Yeah, they weren't as big as Final Fantasy VII or Pokemon, but they did pretty well.

 

[PlanHex]

What's the point of buying an old license, stripping of it's essential gameplay and then marketing it to a younger generation for whom the brand has no recognition?

Not having to make up a new setting and your target audience won't care if you butcher the existing one.

If running around in generic fantasy woods killing stuff gets boring, why not buy our new game where you can run around in a wasteland killing stuff? Come on kiddies, it's only 60 bucks.

 

[Brother None]

And the big hits this X-mas were GoW2, CoD, Guitar Hero, Fit, Play, and Mario Kart. FO3 really can't come close to competing with the Wii's hit titles. But it's still a success for Bethesda.

CoD might have outsold it, otherwise only the Wii titles can apply. But "compete"? Seriously, Wii titles are not just on another platform, they have a fairly different target audience. Games like GoW 2, CoD:WoW, Fallout 3 and Fable 2 compete with one another, but not with Wii titles.

One should not forget that there was no real competition this X-Mas. Hell I cant even remember anything remarkable from the E3 either ...

Yes there was. PS3 was held by LittleBigPlanet and the BioShock port, and other platforms had Gears of War 2, CoD:WoW and Rock Band 2. There was no one dominating title as far as I know, but there was a heck of a lot of competition

I mean medieval fantasy has more restricted draw than futuristic fantasy does so, assuming all else is equal, the futuristic fantasy game of the same quality as the medieval fantasy game should outsell it, especially if it's made by the same company and the medieval fantasy game did well.

You got it upside down there, chokky. Medieval fantasy has always been and will always be the biggest seller amongst fantasy settings. During certain periods sci-fi outsells it (when sci-fi is "hot", as in during the original Star Wars saga), but post-apocalyptic? Never.

Shooter > melee game, tho'. That might be a bigger factor.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Well BN youre the pro here so I guess its possible that you know what you are talking about.

Anyway ... I still think that when it comes to RPGs the past years have been fairly "stale". Seriously. I did not played Fable and I am sure its a fun game but no where have I seen anything that would make it a RPG that I could enjoy. NOt just from content, but visualy as well. I am personaly just not a fan of this kind of graphic. But thats a different issue.

I think that Bethesda somewhat had a lot of luck with both Oblivion and now Fallout 3. I mean with a serious competion in their field they would have mroe issues. THink about a company like Interplay to have the same finances and make a game with big graphic, huge roleplaying value and the right hype.

I dont know how to explain it. I am not a pro and I hardly can say that I have experience or followed every evolution and trend for the last years to even get a oppinion that might be seen as "general". But I am just saying that if someone would use certain games of the past and give them a face lifting that they would literaly "rock your socks" Bethesda might have hit nothing with Oblivion if they had such a competition in the same range, think about a game with the visuals of Demigod but role playing of Fallout 1, Arcanum, Planescape or at least of Gothic and Baldurs Gate.

 

[Dionysus]

CoD might have outsold it, otherwise only the Wii titles can apply. But "compete"? Seriously, Wii titles are not just on another platform, they have a fairly different target audience.

They are competing for our "biggest title this Christmas" designation. Certainly Fit and Play were big sellers this X-mas. And you shouldn't discount Guitar Hero or even Gears 2. Gears only came out on the 360, but it still moved 2.3 million in 2008 according to NPD. It's a surprisingly successful franchise. There's a chance that it outsold all of the FO3 versions combined.

But I am just saying that if someone would use certain games of the past and give them a face lifting that they would literaly "rock your socks" Bethesda might have hit nothing with Oblivion if they had such a competition in the same range, think about a game with the visuals of Demigod but role playing of Fallout 1, Arcanum, Planescape or at least of Gothic and Baldurs Gate.

Everything can sell more with advertising, but I think you are generally wrong, at least when considering the NA market. FO and Arcanum don't have enough hand holding and they don't have the same sandbox appeal as FO3 or Fable 2. Planescape has way too much reading. Something like BG2 could sell well, but it honestly isn't very different from some contemporary games, except that it packed in more content than you'll ever see from Bioware again.

 

[aenemic]

I sure hope this turns into another Oblivion clone actually. because then, I can find some kind of peace in knowing that's their thing - using someone else's work and turning it into their kind of game. when they've done it the third or fourth time, people might actually realize what a lazy and unprofessional company Bethesda is or they might've already grown sick of such games.

if they make something completely different out of this IP, I'll know that they could have actually gone down another path with the Fallout IP but chose not to. and that'd probably feel worse.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Or they may designate this kind of mediocrity the title of "awesome", and drool at it, like it already happened to Halo 2-3, GoW, Oblivion etc.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Everything can sell more with advertising, but I think you are generally wrong, at least when considering the NA market. FO and Arcanum don't have enough hand holding and they don't have the same sandbox appeal as FO3 or Fable 2. Planescape has way too much reading. Something like BG2 could sell well, but it honestly isn't very different from some contemporary games, except that it packed in more content than you'll ever see from Bioware again.

And why do a lot of gamers I know desperately crave for more games with "deep" content and meaningfull (complex) gameplay ?

Look I mean as said. I do not even say I am a professional or something when it comes to games. I just form my oppinion on my own experience and feelings, which frankly could be wrong of course. But by saying that. With a lot of gamers I am talking in my neighbourhood (people I know for years) and with people trough the internet from US and Norway I can see one thing. People have been feed with a lot of "same" shit but in different package over the last years [speaking of different visuals but always more and more simplified gameplay. There is just so much awesomnes you can take with CoD or the 24254th WW2 Brothers on Moon game before graphic becomes shallow].

Now that doesnt mean a short time and super graphic experience would be bad or would not have a place in the game. Games with short lifespawn are awesome and needed. What one can just see though is that a lot of games that were not intentionaly designed for such a experience like RPGs and strategy games now as well try to adopt this for their market for what ever reason. Money, biger audience. What ever.

That is the reason why a series like Commandos 1-3 which was known as a tactical complex "top down" game was changed with Commandos:Strike Force to a first person shooter worse then CoD! Though they had not the same marketing as CoD and thus the game failed misserabely. But the result was that it killed the frachise. Now it is even very unlikely to see in any way a new Commandos to happen

There is just not enough ... meat on most games if you know what I mean. No game where I could say "that is it. That is exactly the same/smilar experience as with Jagged Alliance! The same awesome feeling like with Carmagedon!" To many games today feel to similar in one way or another as they are just a copy of a copy of a copy from gameplay you seen 10 years back just heavily simplified ... and even more simplified till a point where its called Elder Scrolls Oblivion. The reason why I liked BG2 was cause of its neat story and really good gameplay. It was rather complex and hard but still feelt rewarding. What ever if it was a RPG now or not. But its gameplay was interesting for someone that likes to take his time with party play and combat.

And I am still searching for a game that is offering the same freedom and experience in a RPG with party play. Kotor was nice with this. But it was way to forgiving. NPCs in your party never die nor is the interaction as interesting like in past RPGs. Arcanum would come here as well in to my mind. Once a NPC is dead. Hes Dead. I can remember that a NPC in Baldurs Gate 2 was that important for me that when he got spellbound in to stone I walked a long way back to get a spell to cure him! Something like that would never happen in Kotor. Not even to mention Fallout 3 here ... there is just today not enough of small details in the games today.

 

[Dionysus]

And why do a lot of gamers I know desperately crave for more games with "deep" content and meaningfull (complex) gameplay ?

Selection bias? Most of the gamers I know don’t play Fit, Play, or Mario Kart but those were the top three games last year according to NPD. We tend to congregate with people that share our values. But like I said, I can only really talk about NA or Japan. I don’t have any feeling about Norway, but it probably isn’t a terribly big market anyway.

As for the rest of your post, I think you should recognize that you are comparing big multiplatform/console games to relatively less popular PC exclusives. If the question is, “Why won’t publishers give Jeff Vogel 20 million dollars to make his next game?”, then the answer is “While he might make a swank game, it probably wouldn’t turn a profit unless he changed his formula and target audience.” To put it bluntly, Planescape or Arcanum’s sales don’t justify a big budget. Sure, they’d sell more with prettier graphics and a ton of advertising, but they are not mainstream games like SSBB, Fit, or even FO3. They weren't mainstream games back then, and they wouldn't be mainstream games now.

 

[Public]

... think about a game with the visuals of Demigod but role playing of Fallout 1, Arcanum, Planescape or at least of Gothic and Baldurs Gate.

VTM:Bloodlines was going that way, and the second Arcanum was going to be made using the Source engine (like in Bloodlines). Imagine how that would be cool? Seeing your character actually wearing a hat

Planescape has way too much reading.

That's a personal opinion. I've read every line, every dialogue and whatever was in the game that could've been read, every time I replayed the game, and though- I am not much of a book reader.

 

[Brother None]

I sure hope this turns into another Oblivion clone actually. because then, I can find some kind of peace in knowing that's their thing - using someone else's work and turning it into their kind of game. when they've done it the third or fourth time, people might actually realize what a lazy and unprofessional company Bethesda is or they might've already grown sick of such games.

There should be no doubt. Whatever they buy, they'll turn it into a first person real-time action-oriented freeroaming game. Because that's what they do well.

I doubt the media will come down on them immediately, tho'. Jiournos are inherently cowards, and Bethesda are media darlings, you don't criticize media darlings. If it were EA or shit, ok, but Bethesda? They're so "sweet"