Jimquisition: Dark Souls and Dark Sales

[Aggieknight]

The Empire Strikes Back was a commercial failure and never turned a profit...kinda like Tomb Raider and Deadspace 3. Hmmm....

Is there a different Empire Strikes Back that I'm not familiar with?

He surely can't be talking about the fifth episode of Star Wars which was made for $18m and had a return of over $209m... $538m if international sales are considered.

I am actually. Keep in mind there is a significant difference between revenue (money coming in) and profit (money left over after all expenses are paid). What you provided was the cost to make the movie, only one portion of the total expenses.

I'd encourage you to look into Hollywood accounting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Officially, Empire has never turned a profit and therefore none of the actors have been paid residuals. David Prowse (who played Darth Vader) was pretty vocal about this in an interview in 2009.

My exact point is that maybe the game publishers are taking on their own version of hollywood accounting to line their pockets without every having to deal with the "trouble" of making a profit (i.e. pay developers and people their bonuses).

 

[BBboy20]

2 MILLION!? AND PEOPLE SAID HARD GAMES WERE DEAD!

 

[scorptatious]

That reminds me, I should think about getting the PS3 version of Dark Souls in the near future considering that my 360 has kicked the bucket and I won't be able to play the 360 version anymore.

PRAISE THE SUN Jim!

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

First off: Congratulations to Dark Souls for selling that many copies, wouldn't have thought a game like that could do as well. Funnily enough, I wouldn't have thought the Tomb Raider reboot or Hitman Absolution would touch the million unit mark for months. I mean, both are games in franchises that have been going downhill, slowly but steadily, so selling over 3 million copies should be a positive surprise, not a disappointment to any sane publisher.

But hey, since many publishers still believe DRM and other ways of treating your customers like shit is helping their business, I guess there is proper reason to doubt their sanity anyway.

So yeah: Spot on, Jim.

 

[bunji]

Fuck you Jim for saying it should have had an easy mode. If it had it wouldn't have pulled in the niche crowd it needed and it would have gone down the drain as a sub-par action title with a hardmode thats bullshit.

 

[BrainBlow]

Fuck you Jim for saying it should have had an easy mode. If it had it wouldn't have pulled in the niche crowd it needed and it would have gone down the drain as a sub-par action title with a hardmode thats bullshit.

Did you ever actually WATCH the video where he talks about it?
An easy mode would be OPTIONAL. If you're so "hardcore" then DON'T USE IT.
It's that freaking simple.
The niche would be "turned off" by something that's completely and utterly optional? What utter nonsense!
it's like saying that people that want to play as characters being douchebags would not buy Infamous or Mass Effect because of the "paragon" options, or visa-versa. It's your CHOICE to do so!

 

[bunji]

Fuck you Jim for saying it should have had an easy mode. If it had it wouldn't have pulled in the niche crowd it needed and it would have gone down the drain as a sub-par action title with a hardmode thats bullshit.

Did you ever actually WATCH the video where he talks about it?
An easy mode would be OPTIONAL. If you're so "hardcore" then DON'T USE IT.
It's that freaking simple.
The niche would be "turned off" by something that's completely and utterly optional? What utter nonsense!
it's like saying that people that want to play as characters being douchebags would not buy Infamous or Mass Effect because of the "paragon" options, or visa-versa. It's your CHOICE to do so!

Thats the point. Many many many games have harder "hard" modes than dark souls only mode is. But people dont praise them for their excellently balanced gameplay. I applaud the team behind DarkSouls for basically going "No, we won't include a difficulty setting because we know how we want our game to be balanced". Theres a huge difference between how those games you listed and DarkSouls engaged players, Infamous and ME does it through player actualization, while dark souls does it through incredibly fine-tuned gameplay. Dark Souls isn't even that hard, if you scavenge around and look for secrets, something that would have been completely rendered moot by an easy mode where what weapon your using isn't as important.

 

[BrainBlow]

Fuck you Jim for saying it should have had an easy mode. If it had it wouldn't have pulled in the niche crowd it needed and it would have gone down the drain as a sub-par action title with a hardmode thats bullshit.

Did you ever actually WATCH the video where he talks about it?
An easy mode would be OPTIONAL. If you're so "hardcore" then DON'T USE IT.
It's that freaking simple.
The niche would be "turned off" by something that's completely and utterly optional? What utter nonsense!
it's like saying that people that want to play as characters being douchebags would not buy Infamous or Mass Effect because of the "paragon" options, or visa-versa. It's your CHOICE to do so!

Thats the point. Many many many games have harder "hard" modes than dark souls only mode is. But people dont praise them for their excellently balanced gameplay. I applaud the team behind DarkSouls for basically going "No, we won't include a difficulty setting because we know how we want our game to be balanced". Theres a huge difference between how those games you listed and DarkSouls engaged players, Infamous and ME does it through player actualization, while dark souls does it through incredibly fine-tuned gameplay. Dark Souls isn't even that hard, if you scavenge around and look for secrets, something that would have been completely rendered moot by an easy mode where what weapon your using isn't as important.

And again, if it is rendered moot in the easy mode then it DOESN'T MATTER.
You don't HAVE TO play with that mode.
An easy mode can be something as simple as readjusting enemy HP and Damage. It doesn't mean jack shit for those who play the hard mode regardless.
Your delicious challenging game is still THE SAME delicious challenging game regardless.
What, you'll be physically compelled to play on an easy mode if it is available?
We're not talking about stuff like exploitable glitches that make a game easy when it should not be. We're talking about a completely optional mode that you never have to touch.
What, you're just bitter at the thought of someone being able to play the same game as you but not with the exact same difficulty?
That's so unbelievably juvenile.

 

[bunji]

That's so unbelievably juvenile.

What you don't seem to understand is that game design and balance is hollistic. Adding a game mode thats easier effects the whole game, because you have to design a game that works on all settings, not just on one and then dumb it down or up for the other settings.

 

[C14N]

I've been going through a good few old Jimquisitions lately and he frequently brings up the case of Dark Souls' 2m sales success vs 3+m sales flops like Dead Space, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 6. It seems so startlingly obvious that the solution is to budget more effectively but realistically why aren't these companies doing that? Some of these are multi-billion dollar revenue companies. They must have marketers and people who studied commerce and accounting at university working for them; they're hardly run by a bunch of 15 year old kids. So why can't they figure out the very basic practice of turning a profit? There must be something else going on here that we don't know about. It's simply too much to believe that people would keep trying failed ideas over and over and expect them to suddenly work.