Fallout 3, who is this for?

[Sorrow]

There's no way GI could give F3 less than 90%.

On the other hand there are a lot of games that I didn't buy because of the word of a mouth.

 

[Starwars]

It will be interesting to see some sales figures on Shadowrun. I liked what limited experience I've had with the PnP Shadowrun, and I played the old computergame a lot (have it for SNES now). This new Shadowrun game was torn apart by the original fans as well, and even so, I don't think those fans are anywhere near as vocal as the Fallout fans.

Again, I also can't figure out why anyone would choose to purchase the Fallout franchise, and then treat it in the way Bethesda seem to be doing. Even if they get profit back from Fallout 3, the hardcore fanbase will continue to be a thorn in Bethesdas ass, spread the word of mouth etc, long after Fallouts 3 release. It won't disappear just because it's displeased with how the game turns out.

And Bethesdas reputation will continue to crack among the internet forums if Fallout 3 turns out to be a sucky sequel. Will they really be able to continue to target the mass market in the future? I wonder.

 

[junkevil]

Here's a wiki article on Shadowrun.

It mentions that the game got poor reviews but was applauded for its gameplay. Here's a Shadowrun fansite

i know you were using it as an example, but i got to play this game on my friends 360 for a while the other day. he got it because he really liked shadowrun, but i have to tell you that if you liked shadowrun, you'll hate this game. theres no character sheet, you buy magic at round start, everyone runs around and shoots each other like a fps, but its far, far, far more silly. you see, you can ressurect fallen teammates and then theres a tree of life, and alot of other things that made me want to stop playing after only about an hour. its like a fps thats good if you hated the genre, and it also manages to betray the PnP people who loved shadowrun. i didn't see a story mode either. i think my friend told me that there wasn't one or something, but i find it hard to believe. at any rate, if youre curious. rent it.

at any rate, if that game got a 7.5, then its just further proof that reviews are totally meaningless and the scores are bloated. that game should have been a 4 or 5 on my scale, but then again, i would have ranked fallout 1 at about a 9 (stuff was broken, but an excellent game) and fallout 2 about a 7 (more stuff was broken and it got really silly at times)... and those two games are personal favorites of mine.

 

[Brother None]

I will make you any kind of bet that you want, that if Fallout 3's average ranking is over 90% (Oblivion was 93% PC & 94% Xbox) that it will outsell Oblivion.

Ah, man, it's a shame I never bet, because that one is hilarious! You actually think a post-apocalyptic ActionRPG with negative word of mouth surrounding it could possibly outsell a fantasy ActionRPG with the biggest hype of the decade?

Man, Oblivion hasn't even outsold Morrowind so far, yet it's rated higher and released on 3 friggin' consoles.

Damn, if only I could make a bet, but I can't.

 

[Autoduel76]

Man, Oblivion hasn't even outsold Morrowind so far, yet it's rated higher and released on 3 friggin' consoles.

You do realize that the Xbox had a userbase that is triple what the Xbox 360 and PS3's current userbase is, right?

 

[aries369]

I don't think any of us really why Beth wanted to buy first the licence and then the IP : if & when they only wanted to make a generic post apoc game in the first place ?

Maybe they wanted to use the Vaults, the Vault Jump Suit(?) and
and some of the art assets in their own game, and then they needed to buy the IP :

We will probably never really know why, though....

 

[Makagulfazel]

I don't think any of us really why Beth wanted to buy first the licence and then the IP : if & when they only wanted to make a generic post apoc game in the first place ?

Maybe they wanted to use the Vaults, the Vault Jump Suit(?) and
and some of the art assets in their own game, and then they needed to buy the IP :

We will probably never really know why, though....

Basically, they spent 5.75 million dollars just to piss us off.

Marketing Brilliance, I say.

 

[SimpleMinded]

Until any game, with a 90+% average, like Oblivion gets poor sales because of a fan backlash, I'd say thinking that it isn't is naive at best..

Here's an example that I'm not 100% sure on but I think its right. Doom 3, on gamerankings got an 87% (a 94 out of 100 from PC Gamer because they got tons of exclusives on it). Yet the general consensus on the web was that the game blew chunks and if I remember right, it made little sales impression compared to past titles as such.

 

[Brother None]

You do realize that the Xbox had a userbase that is triple what the Xbox 360 and PS3's current userbase is, right?

Only if you realize it doesn't;
Xbox 24 (and that's now, 6 years after release. I wonder if the XBox had 10 million in people's homes around Morrowind's release?)
Xbox 360 10.4
Playstation 3 3.6

Now, shocker as this may be to you, because your grasp of economics seems to be a bit slim, but releasing Oblivion on the fairly new Xbox/PS3 should have ensured more sales than the release of Morrowind on the XBox back then. "I don't understand!" I know you don't, but considering how starving the X360 and especially the PS3 market were for games of even any remote level of quality, not to mention for anything that even smells barely like an RPG, sales, by any measure, should have been able to beat Morrowind.

They didn't, despite all your little "better ratings means more sales!" Nor will Fallout 3, released to negative word of mouth and a way more satiated console market in late 2008. Can it flop? Dunno, don't care. Will it sell more than Oblivion? Don't make me laugh.

 

[Galdred]

What's "good reviews", exactly? Fallout: BoS got a 7.3 on Gamespot, a 7.5 on IGN and Gamespy (those being the three biggest gaming sites out there, to my knowledge), an 8.0 on Game Informer (biggest US gaming mag) and Maxim Online, an 8.2 on the Official XBox Magazine (biggest XBox gaming mag) and an 8.3 on Play Magazine. Are those not major outlets? Am I confused?

You're behind on the times, Autoduel, the times when the gaming media, or any media, could dominate opinion-making on a product are long since gone. Welcome to Era 2.0!

You miss the point:
Fallout: BoS scored an average 6.6 on major review sites, listed on Gamespot: it is still overall considered crappy by reviewer, even though they overated the game...

Fallout 3 will probably at least score 2 points higher, and it will be probably better marketed than FOBOS was. There are a few games that had good reviews and poor sales, but more often than not, it is the editor's fault for crappy marketting more than the consequences of bad word of mouth.

 

[Brother None]

Fallout: BoS scored an average 6.6 on major review sites, listed on Gamespot: it is still overall considered crappy by reviewer, even though they overated the game..

Uh-huh. Do you think all major review sites are equal in hits? No? Then how does it make sense to take an average based on every review site being equal? Don't fall for metacritics averages for representing numbers, please.

Fallout 3 will probably at least score 2 points higher, and it will be probably better marketed than FOBOS was.

People who paid attention would note I never said it'd do the same as Fo:BoS.

 

[Autoduel76]

Only if you realize it doesn't;
Xbox 24 (and that's now, 6 years after release. I wonder if the XBox had 10 million in people's homes around Morrowind's release?)

Considering that the Xbox 360 only had around 3 million consoles sold, worldwide at the time of Oblivion's release, I'd say its a moot point.

Now, shocker as this may be to you, because your grasp of economics seems to be a bit slim, but releasing Oblivion on the fairly new Xbox/PS3 should have ensured more sales than the release of Morrowind on the XBox back then. "I don't understand!" I know you don't, but considering how starving the X360 and especially the PS3 market were for games of even any remote level of quality, not to mention for anything that even smells barely like an RPG, sales, by any measure, should have been able to beat Morrowind.

They didn't, despite all your little "better ratings means more sales!" Nor will Fallout 3, released to negative word of mouth and a way more satiated console market in late 2008. Can it flop? Dunno, don't care. Will it sell more than Oblivion? Don't make me laugh.

My grasp of economics appears to be at least as strong as somebody who has been trying to argue that high review scores don't impact game sales.

My grasp of Economics also seems to be a little stronger than somebody claiming that Oblivion "didn't beat" Morrowind at this point.

Morrowind sold around 4 million units in over 4 years.
Oblivion sold around 3 million units in 1 year, numbers that are from before its release on PS3.

Hell, it just released, in Europe for the PS3 less than 2 months ago.

 

[Sander]

My grasp of economics appears to be at least as strong as somebody who has been trying to argue that high review scores don't impact game sales.

No one has. People have been arguing that review scores aren't the only thing that boost sales.

My grasp of Economics also seems to be a little stronger than somebody claiming that Oblivion "didn't beat" Morrowind at this point.

Morrowind sold around 4 million units in over 4 years.
Oblivion sold around 3 million units in 1 year, numbers that are from before its release on PS3.

And more false comparison.
Note: try figuring out how many units Morrowind sold in its first year, and compare *that* to how many units Oblivion sold in its first year.

 

[Brother None]

Considering that the Xbox 360 only had around 3 million consoles sold, worldwide at the time of Oblivion's release, I'd say its a moot point.

And the XBox sales numbers are...?

It's not a moot point.

My grasp of economics appears to be at least as strong as somebody who has been trying to argue that high review scores don't impact game sales.

Ah, twisting my words, such a refreshing debating tactics, I've rarely seen it used before on the internet.

Morrowind sold around 4 million units in over 4 years.
Oblivion sold around 3 million units in 1 year, numbers that are from before its release on PS3.

Hell, it just released, in Europe for the PS3 less than 2 months ago.

The PS3 sales might make a difference, but if you actually think the amount of sales of a game one year after release make any significant impact on its total sales, you really don't know much about economics. What do you think a game's shelf life is? 4 years? How much do you think Oblivion is still selling per month on PC and XBox360?

Also, the news that Morrowind sold 4 million units was from late 2005, somewhat over 3 years after its release. Dinnae twist the numbers, laddie. If your theory about game's shelf life's right, it probably sold twice that number since, huh. Hah! Good fun!

 

[Autoduel76]

And more false comparison.
Note: try figuring out how many units Morrowind sold in its first year, and compare *that* to how many units Oblivion sold in its first year.

Its not a false comparison at all.

The first year of its release it sold over 3 million units.

Oblivion will outsell Morrowind...period.

The PS3 sales might make a difference, but if you actually think the amount of sales of a game one year after release make any significant impact on its total sales, you really don't know much about economics. What do you think a game's shelf life is? 4 years?

Actually...

http://pcgames.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/9453/Oblivion_Sales_Records.html

"NPD reports that Oblivion represented approximately 13% of all PC game sales in the first week of it release, more than four times the sales volume of the next best selling title. (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the highly-regarded predecessor to Oblivion, remains one of the top 25 best selling PC games nearly four years after its release, according to NPD)."

 

[Brother None]

Oblivion will outsell Morrowind...period.

Of course it will, it's a three-platform title versus a two-platform one

Yeesh. Braniac much?

Also;

The first year of its release it sold over 3 million units.

Prove it.

 

[Autoduel76]

The first year of its release it sold over 3 million units.

Prove it.

"Oblivion was released in March of 2006 for the Windows and Xbox 360 platforms, and by April 10, 2006 it had sold 1.7 million copies,[3] and over 3 million copies by January 18, 2007.[4] It was released for the PlayStation 3 on March 20, 2007 in North America, and on April 27, 2007 in the UK.[5]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion

 

[Sander]

Its not a false comparison at all.

The first year of its release it sold over 3 million units.

Yes, and you're comparing it to a higher number over 4 years. That's a very different timespan, and a false comparison because *sales do not stay at the same level over time*.
For all we know, Morrowind sold 3.5 million units in its first year, and .5 in the following 3. And no, that's not unlikely at all.
Also, to be exact, you'd have to compare Oblivions X-Box360 and PC sales to Morrowind's sales to get a good view of the real numbers. You're now just twisting numbers and statistics and ripping them out of context to suit your point.

 

[Brother None]

Actually...
http://pcgames.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/9453/Oblivion_Sales_Records.html
"NPD reports that Oblivion represented approximately 13% of all PC game sales in the first week of it release, more than four times the sales volume of the next best selling title. (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the highly-regarded predecessor to Oblivion, remains one of the top 25 best selling PC games nearly four years after its release, according to NPD)."

That surprises me. But if that is so, won't it have continued to sell afterwards? What makes you think it hasn't sold significantly more than 4 million now?

Also notice how Gamespot doesn't actually compare the initial sales of Oblivion vs. Morrowind, hmmm?

"Oblivion was released in March of 2006 for the Windows and Xbox 360 platforms, and by April 10, 2006 it had sold 1.7 million copies,[3] and over 3 million copies by January 18, 2007.[4] It was released for the PlayStation 3 on March 20, 2007 in North America, and on April 27, 2007 in the UK.[5]"

Yeah, Sander was kind of asking how many copies Morrowind had sold in its first year. For a desperate defender of Bethesda, you're not very good at this.

Also, nice going ignoring half of the posts strewn around. Eegh.

Haven't we kind of gotten off-topic? Do you still stand by your ludicrous call that Fallout 3 will outsell Oblivion? It amuses me to know. Kind of missed the fact that the RPG-starved status of the X360 and especially the PS3 won't last until late 2008?

 

[Autoduel76]

Yes, and you're comparing it to a higher number over 4 years. That's a very different timespan, and a false comparison because *sales do not stay at the same level over time*.
For all we know, Morrowind sold 3.5 million units in its first year, and .5 in the following 3. And no, that's not unlikely at all.
Also, to be exact, you'd have to compare Oblivions X-Box360 and PC sales to Morrowind's sales to get a good view of the real numbers. You're now just twisting numbers and statistics and ripping them out of context to suit your point.

Well, if you read my post above, the quote said that Morrowind was still in the Top-25 of PC game sales 4 years after it released.

I don't have the first year sales numbers, but, I'd say that that makes it pretty unlikely that Morrowind outsold Oblivion's 3 million in it's first year.