A large amount of RE6's numbers are from the Capcom bundle. It was about 600k before that. It's likely sold 100k or more since then, but more than 100k of the 923k are from redeemed bundle codes.
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A Look at Japanese Game Sales on Steam - Oct 2016 edition [Steamspy figures]
- Thread starter kswiston
- Start date
A large amount of RE6's numbers are from the Capcom bundle. It was about 600k before that. It's likely sold 100k or more since then, but more than 100k of the 923k are from redeemed bundle codes.
Not at all. The concept seems to trip up so many people in this thread that I guess a chart could help.
Basically, games on Steam often have a pattern of some significant sales at launch, then a dropoff, then significant sales the first time the game is ~30% off (and some additional full-price sales after that) then again at 50%, and 75%, and so on.
Now, if you take a game and its 3 sequels, and assume that they all sell exactly as well as each other, and that they are released in 10 month intervals with a sale happening roughly every 9 months, and fill in some made-up-but-sort-of-realistic numbers, then then the sales pattern will look like this:
If we now look purely at a snapshot in month 37 then it will seem like there is a heavy drop-off for the sequels (the most recent game sold less than 20% of the first one!) even though we filled in the exact same sales pattern.
Of course, that's not to say that there will never be a sales drop for sequels -- obviously that does occur -- just that only looking at current sales without taking the release date and pricing history into account is inconclusive on a long-tail platform.
There are also games that don't have a huge drop off, such as Neptunia Re:Birth 2 to 3 or Danganronpa 1 to 2.
I think this really is a significant issue right now because a number of Japanese publishers figured out that they can make money by selling off their back catalog on Steam, at the same time. Even for a single publisher, they can obviously port games much more rapidly than they release new ones, then spread that over more than one publisher and you have a problem. If I only bought games I play, which is surely how most people operate because they are sane, I wouldn't have bought even 1/5th of the ports I did get. Of course, this should normalize when they catch up with their console releases.
They could just skip the back catalog entirely and jump right up to the day-and-date releases which generally seems to work really well -- once again Namco-Bandai is leading the pack here.
Kinda silly though that they wont release 2 of their biggest JRPG franchises on steam namely Sword Art Online and Digimon but on the other release super niche stuff like Saint Seiya.
Saint Seiya isn't niche in Europe or Latin America.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Yeah, I guess. Maybe people just played the first out of curiosity and decided it's not for them. It's just the decline is pretty steep, like almost 50% fewer copies.
Oh so it's a case of the first game just being on sale longer? I feel like the back catalog JRPGs seem to be released with relatively short windows between each game, but I haven't really thought about it. I suppose if the sequels follow the same trends, then hopefully the publishers are happy with the numbers.
I think a big reason for more of the niche games lower sales as time goes on is a kind of saturation. I've bought enough games on Steam to last me for a good year without buying anything else and I still have ~70 titles in my wishlist (with some I know are coming being day 1 buys like 999). But like a lot said in this thread, the PC platform is for the long run. Publishers/devs might not like it but they'll get their money in time.
A lot of "first game of the franchise" or "first game of its type" definitely do better on steam than subsequent releases, even if you account for time periods. Part of this is novelty. Part of this is the fact that pubs will often use the older game to get people hooked on the series. Dark Souls is practically given away in every sale (hell, it was given away once). Dark Souls 2 and 3, not so much. Dark Souls 2 is going on 3 years old, and I still don't think we have had a $10 sale on Steam.
Going back to Neptunia, ReBirth 2 and 3 are following almost the exact same sales pattern. Rebirth 3 is about where ReBirth 2 was in the previous May thread, and ReBirth 3 in May 2016 was around where ReBirth 2 was in October 2015. Neither game is selling as well as the first, but the first has been cheaper and bundled in the past (on top of being first). If the later games in the series can follow the same pattern as ReBirth 2 and 3 going forward, Idea Factory will probably be more than content.
Going back to Neptunia, ReBirth 2 and 3 are following almost the exact same sales pattern. Rebirth 3 is about where ReBirth 2 was in the previous May thread, and ReBirth 3 in May 2016 was around where ReBirth 2 was in October 2015. Neither game is selling as well as the first, but the first has been cheaper and bundled in the past (on top of being first). If the later games in the series can follow the same pattern as ReBirth 2 and 3 going forward, Idea Factory will probably be more than content.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
The problem is that the market overflooded very fast. We went from a few small releases to a lot of releases with little window from each other. This niche market needs some estabilozing.
(I have to buy so many of these VN, sometimes I didn't even know they were released)
I bought SC on gog. I wonder if there's any way to tell how many sales were on gog.
There are too many games coming out close to each other.
How many neptunia games for example are people going to want to buy and play in one year. Didn't 5-6 neptunia games get released in the span of 2 years?
I think the same holds true for other franchises and genres especially for japanese games at this point. We just have to give it time.
Even then sales seems to be good enough for the ports to be worth it in the vast majority of cases which is also why japanese publishers keep releasing so many games on steam.
How many neptunia games for example are people going to want to buy and play in one year. Didn't 5-6 neptunia games get released in the span of 2 years?
I think the same holds true for other franchises and genres especially for japanese games at this point. We just have to give it time.
Even then sales seems to be good enough for the ports to be worth it in the vast majority of cases which is also why japanese publishers keep releasing so many games on steam.
Yeah, I think this is actually the definable real problem. There are just too many good games releasing back to back. Not just new releases but old great back catalog games.
It's paralyzing, because I limit my game spending purposefully, yet there are so many games I would love to play and support. The competition for my play time is extremely fierce....
Releases of Nier 2 and Tales of Berseria are going to be interesting to watch next year. Platinum is likely doing the work in-house as per usual, and hopefully will be at least on par with their previous port work.
Bamco on the other hand probably farms the port out. They have been pretty big on QLOC again after the misstep with Tales of Symphonia and Other Ocean so lets hope for the best in that case.
Bamco on the other hand probably farms the port out. They have been pretty big on QLOC again after the misstep with Tales of Symphonia and Other Ocean so lets hope for the best in that case.
MetalSlug
Member
Every time it's on sale I tend to buy a few copies and gift them to my friends list. Would be nice to get JSRF as I've never played it before.
Not sure why thats hard to believe? Dragon Quest Heroes is a good game even if the port isn't prefect. No one would play SC unless they finish FC, and very few finish FC.
DmC was supervised, produced and published by Capcom, and it's an IP born in Japan.
Trails FC is a fantastic game, but its problem seems to be that its length is a double edged sword. 50+ hours of solid entertainment really gives you your bang for your buck, but people have huge backlogs these days and many games are no longer than 20 hours. Add to that the fact that there are some games people play regularly (such as Overwatch and League), and that FC is merely a prologue and the full story actually takes 100+ hours to go through, and it should be easy to see why FC's completion rate is what it is.
sixteen-bit
Member
ayyy
Yeah but might as well list western spins of Japanese series for comparison's sake. EDF IA isn't made in Japan either but it's useful to compare its sales to EDF 4.1
God that's sad.
XIII released two years earlier and only costs half as much
Realized upon looking again at the list, Idol Magical Girl Chiru Chiru Michiru Part 1, but Part 2 was listed.
Also forgot one more retail ADV:
pretty done
Member
lol no
Lightning Returns came out a whole 5 months before IX. And they launched at the same price. nt
Or it's just a slow, boring game. People tried it because of the oddly overwhelmingly positive reception and got burned, then didn't buy the sequel. Reminded me of Radiant Historia, because they're both extremely boring by the books JRPGs that people claimed were incredible for some reason.
I was misreading that, mea culpa
Kresnik258
Member
I have to wonder if the slowly decreasing market is what sparked Sekai Project to finally look into getting their games on PlayStation consoles.
I mean, it took them long enough given the amount of time they promised they were working on WEE Vita etc.
Basileus777
Member
It actually took them years to get things together on those releases. They hired someone specifically for that last year and things finally started moving.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I feel dumb... what's the pattern?
Kresnik258
Member
I know, I'd been following most of the saga as an avid Vita VN fan. I just came across this article recently which reminded me most of what a fubar it had been with them saying they were porting it but then having nothing to show of it. It was only a few months ago that they laid out concrete plans with Mighty Rabbit to actually get the games finished.
Same release date as consoles (or close to)
I'm not surprised about the huge drop in VN, too many crappy ones being flooded on Steam, I dunno which to buy anymore other than the really huge names, lol. I did support Clannad and Umineko. I wish Umineko did better because I want the answer chapters.
Koei-Tecmo wont be getting any of my money due to their crappy ports. Many of them don't support over 1080p and are often locked to 30 FPS for brand new games. At least something like Tales of Symphonia has the excuse that it was a low budget game based off old PS2/PS3 versions, there was no way they were going to be able to combine the Gamecube version with the PS2/PS3 builds. But a modern game like Attack on Titan being limited to 1080p is inexcusable and I wanted to play it too ;p.
Koei-Tecmo wont be getting any of my money due to their crappy ports. Many of them don't support over 1080p and are often locked to 30 FPS for brand new games. At least something like Tales of Symphonia has the excuse that it was a low budget game based off old PS2/PS3 versions, there was no way they were going to be able to combine the Gamecube version with the PS2/PS3 builds. But a modern game like Attack on Titan being limited to 1080p is inexcusable and I wanted to play it too ;p.
I think one major thing that people are missing is just how niche a lot of these releases are, in Japan. Complaining about the sales of something like a shmup doing ~10k or so when even the biggest releases in the genre from the last generation barely get over 30k LTD (Deathsmiles is at ~33k LTD at retail in Japan).
With the specific example of Mushihimesama to Deathsmiles, even though they're both super late there's some additional context needed. Mushihimesama was the first Cave game released on PC and never has been released internationally up until this point, whereas Deathsmiles had a X360 release in the US and Europe (which was unheard of at the time), came out later, was more expensive and is a worse (and borderline broken) port.
So I'm not too worried about some rando VN or dungeon crawler only doing 5-10k as they weren't selling much better in Japan to begin with. A lot of these niche games are developed to survive on rather low sales.
As an aside, I'm shocked at how well Melty Blood has done, especially being a years-late port. It's almost caught up to the current BlazBlue release on PC. Such is the power of Type-Moon waifus, I guess. Even Under Night In-Birth has done fairly well compared to its Japanese release (the game only did 14K LTD at retail in Japan).
With the specific example of Mushihimesama to Deathsmiles, even though they're both super late there's some additional context needed. Mushihimesama was the first Cave game released on PC and never has been released internationally up until this point, whereas Deathsmiles had a X360 release in the US and Europe (which was unheard of at the time), came out later, was more expensive and is a worse (and borderline broken) port.
So I'm not too worried about some rando VN or dungeon crawler only doing 5-10k as they weren't selling much better in Japan to begin with. A lot of these niche games are developed to survive on rather low sales.
As an aside, I'm shocked at how well Melty Blood has done, especially being a years-late port. It's almost caught up to the current BlazBlue release on PC. Such is the power of Type-Moon waifus, I guess. Even Under Night In-Birth has done fairly well compared to its Japanese release (the game only did 14K LTD at retail in Japan).
Crash Station
Member
I think a big problem with VNs is there are very few "killer app" titles in the genre on Steam in addition to a widespread lack of quality and low-effort Renypy games. You got your Danganronpa and your Zero Escapes and that's pretty much it, and those aren't even "true" VNs. Yes, Higurashi and Umineko are iconic, but they're also long as hell which will lead to some crazy drop-off between chapters.
Where's the Saya no Uta-tier horror VNs? What about Fate? Hell, what about Phoenix Wright?
Where's the Saya no Uta-tier horror VNs? What about Fate? Hell, what about Phoenix Wright?
Fate will never happen as long Type-Moon gives as flying fuck about the english also no one of the VN publisher has the money to buy the license IF they would be willing to sell it.
She shall not be forgotten
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
The House in Fata Morgana basically takes a giant, steaming dump on Saya no Uta... but it's a genre where there's really not a good way to stand out, so few people took note.
mrmickfran
Member
Jebus f'n Christ at Dark Souls
The demo put me off. The story made no damn sense, and there was little gameplay in the way.
Suda game!
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
How does this go against my point of low price floors being able to inflate sales? I never said that games couldn't sell well at higher price ranges.
Read through the thread. There have been mentions and I partly want to know as well for the reason I mentioned prior.
Lets not be disingenuous here. The price floors on PSN and Steam being the same......come on.
So companies shouldnt release PC ports because of lower price point, only release on console because they dont discount as much a Steam does.
What exactly are "killer app" titles to you? Just the Type-Moon games (suggesting maybe, 3 titles at best?)
Saya no Uta already has been released, it's not going to be a "killer app" for Steam.
There are definitely "big" (ie popular/renown) ADVs that have been released on Steam, and sales have not always been proportional to their popularity.
At this point the quality is available out there for the genre on Steam. People aren't buying because it's niche... and adding Type-Moon is not going to suddenly fix that.
Not counting Humble Bundles, they are pretty similar now. Symphonia HD was like $3 on PSN not too long ago. All of the earlier PS3 Tales games (up to Xillia 2) have had sales in the $5-10 range.
That's pretty bad for localization companies. Low profit margins, a ton of text to translate, often original developers don't provide adequate tools and they have to hack the games on their own. It definitely wouldn't be possible to have so many over if the people working on them weren't passionate about them.
Basileus777
Member
For VN localizations it's done by underpaid contract workers, which is how these companies survive on low sales and narrow margins. Many of the games have to be ported to a different engine for localization too.
CertifiedFP
Member
Well, to be fair, Tsukihime and Fate/ are practically legends. It's why people want them so much, and also why no one can actually afford to do a real localization of them.
I mean, Fate/Stay Night is probably the single most popular and successful VN of all time. Shit, there's probably not a single thread on GAF you can look through without at least one person with a Saber or Rin avatar.