Was Dragon Age: Inquisition a commercial failure?

[Slow James]

DAI had discounts on Origin, 33%, which is quite a lot considering it's a new game.
Also I doubt crpgs were ever a profitable genre, so there's no real reason to point fingers at bio/ea and laugh at their "loss".

There may be no REASON for it... but it helps pass the time until PoE comes out.

 

[turul]

Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 were the apex of Bioware. They were also the last "authentic" Bioware games. Others may not feel that way but both were in development before EA took over and had consolidated their power.

As far as profit goes, it was Maybe Mass Effect 2 and 3. Dragon Age: Origins probably didn't sell even as good as ME3. Simply, because there are no guns in it and the Call of Duty/Medal of Honor zombies can't be satisfied, if they can't shoot bullets in a game.
ME 3- despite causing some outrage with its plot and playing just like ME2 was a financial success. People bought it because of ME2 and Shepard and people are curious about gay sex and guys who like pretending to be a woman.



Their advertising strategy goes (guessing from just their history) as
1. Make a good selling game (see Mass Effect 2 or D.A.:O)
2. Add some DLC, which can be made within a week or 2. - rake in fanboy money.
3. Follow up with sequel, which can be completed under a year. Even if it's the biggest shit pile of all shit, their branding and rep from the previous title will generate income from the braindead fanboys.
..................tic-toc-tic-toc......
4. Fanboys forgot about how shitty it was before, and there is a new generation of gamers out there, knowing nothing about companies, beside what the gaming sites BS about them.
5. Work on a new title - which takes years and millions of dollars - make sure it's a "game of the year". This project can be started, right after the shitty sequel released (see point 3.)
6. It's time for a new shitty cheap sequel. There is a big group of newly recruited fanboys, who will buy whatever mess they dare to shove out as long as the title and the game resembles the previous "success" or "game of the year" title from 3-4 years ago.

Rinse....repeat...rinse ..repeat... Cha ching!

Just as a reminder, these are not good games at all. They are money makers, cheap shallow trash. McDonalds RPGs. The problem is, that people forgot what a good game is, so if a game come along, that semi-tries to be intelligent, half of the gaming community thinks it's a goddamn miracle, while the other half calls it "hard" , because it doesn't play like farmville on Facebook.

 

[Whiran]

EA's earning report should go live today at:

http://investor.ea.com/

They have a conference all at 2pm PT that can be listened to here: http://investor.ea.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=154657

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

"Dragon Age: Inquisition captivated fans and critics worldwide and it quickly became the most successful launch in BioWare™ history in addition to being named to more than 200 “Game of the Year” lists."

I guess technically it did appear on the Codex GOTY list.

 

[Athelas]

Dragon Age: Inquisition captivated fans and critics worldwide and it quickly became the most successful launch in BioWare™ history in addition to being named to more than 200 “Game of the Year” lists. The single player campaign alone has been enjoyed for more than 113 million hours.

Pointedly not mentioned: the amount of copies that were actually sold.

 

[Mustawd]

"Dragon Age: Inquisition captivated fans and critics worldwide and it quickly became the most successful launch in BioWare™ history"


Well....that's surprising...

 

[Athelas]

"Dragon Age: Inquisition captivated fans and critics worldwide and it quickly became the most successful launch in BioWare™ history"


Well....that's surprising...

It's not, i.e. Dragon Age 2 had a more successful launch than Origins.

 

[Mustawd]

"Dragon Age: Inquisition captivated fans and critics worldwide and it quickly became the most successful launch in BioWare™ history"


Well....that's surprising...

It's not, i.e. Dragon Age 2 had a more successful launch than Origins.

Oops, good point. Forgot we're only talking Bioware here.

 

[pippin]

If youn equal "successful" to "many people are playing it", yeah, DA2 was very successful. But we all knew what was going on, and the metacritic thing happened.
Last time I checked, it happened something similar with DAI. It wasn't as dramatic as DA2, but there are a fair ammount of people saying DAI's Amalur-like approach to gameplay design feels boring in the end.

 

[Mustawd]

If youn equal "successful" to "many people are playing it", yeah, DA2 was very successful. But we all knew what was going on, and the metacritic thing happened.

I would imagine "many people playing it" = commercial success? What am I missing here?

Seriously..haven't read either DA:O or DA2 mega threads.

 

[tuluse]

I would imagine "many people playing it" = commercial success? What am I missing here?

Seriously..haven't read either DA:O or DA2 mega threads.

They didn't say commercial success in the statement you quoted.

 

[imweasel]

That is PR speak for "week one sales were great and then plummeted" IMO. They aren't boasting with sales numbers and not claiming that it was a commercial success either, so it probably wasn't very successful over all, which reflects upon chart data.

Dragon Age: Inquisition captivated fans and critics worldwide and it quickly became the most successful launch in BioWare™ history in addition to being named to more than 200 “Game of the Year” lists. The single player campaign alone has been enjoyed for more than 113 million hours.

A somewhat naive calculation:

hours played on all platforms = 113,000,000 h
estimated average playtime (of a game with 150 hours of filler) = 50 h

113,000,000 h / 50 h = 2,260,000 copies.​

Yeah, about 2 million sold copies isn't very good.

 

[Mustawd]

I would imagine "many people playing it" = commercial success? What am I missing here?

Seriously..haven't read either DA:O or DA2 mega threads.

They didn't say commercial success in the statement you quoted.

I assume that's implied when a large public company is using that term. Don't think they mean artistic success.

 

[Bubbles]

You don't need to make assumptions about play time to get a feel for the amount of copies sold.

- there are 10 dragons in the game
- this list was published on the 14th of January

This also gives you some idea of how much end game DLC to expect.

 

[DeepOcean]

Dragon Age: Inquisition captivated fans and critics worldwide and it quickly became the most successful launch in BioWare™ history in addition to being named to more than 200 “Game of the Year” lists. The single player campaign alone has been enjoyed for more than 113 million hours.

Pointedly not mentioned: the amount of copies that were actually sold.

The very fact of them using hours played instead of copies sold speak all people need to know.

 

[Gozma]

How coy is EA when they have an obvious big hit?

 

[Bubbles]

How coy is EA when they have an obvious big hit?

Major corporations are generally extremely coy about their big hits. Zenimax Online never published any numbers about TESO at all.

The very fact of them using hours played instead of copies sold speak all people need to know.

Maybe they've sold so many copies that they haven't been able to count them yet?

 

[imweasel]

You don't need to make assumptions about play time to get a feel for the amount of copies sold.

Spoiler

- there are 10 dragons in the game
- this list was published on the 14th of January

This also gives you some idea of how much end game DLC to expect.

It is always good to have more than one source.

Anyway, the little data we have all points to DA:I selling pretty badly.

Major corporations are generally extremely coy about their big hits. Zenimax Online never published any numbers about TESO at all.



Maybe they've sold so many copies that they haven't been able to count them yet?

Bubbles never fails to amuse.

 

[Mustawd]

How coy is EA when they have an obvious big hit?

Obvious successes are published. They keep saying "record breaking", but I doubt it's extremely impressive.

For example, their record breaking 2013 Madden Sales were published.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/31/madden-nfl-13-sells-900000-in-24-hours

 

[Mustawd]

How coy is EA when they have an obvious big hit?

Obvious successes are published. They keep saying "record breaking", but I doubt it's extremely impressive.

For example, their record breaking 2013 Madden Sales were published.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/31/madden-nfl-13-sells-900000-in-24-hours

Also, same for Battlefield 3:

http://kotaku.com/5922548/battlefie...s-ea-to-give-more-games-the-premium-treatment

 

[fizzelopeguss]

lol, codex pwnt again. stop trying to deny the power of the marketing dollar.

"The very fact of them using hours played instead of copies sold speak all people need to know."

Judging by a quick glance over the rest of the report it's how they do their financials now.

 

[Mustawd]

"The very fact of them using hours played instead of copies sold speak all people need to know."

Judging by a quick glance over the rest of the report it's how they do their financials now.

Hmm, not seeing that. I'm sure their reported Revenue is based on sales. Not hours.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

How coy is EA when they have an obvious big hit?

Obvious successes are published. They keep saying "record breaking", but I doubt it's extremely impressive.

Better take that sarcasm detector in for a service.

 

[Mustawd]

How coy is EA when they have an obvious big hit?

Obvious successes are published. They keep saying "record breaking", but I doubt it's extremely impressive.

Better take that sarcasm detector in for a service.

Lol. True Dat.

 

[Gozma]

No it was not sarcasm it was a sincere question.

In fact, everything I write on the Codex is composed in utter and total sincerity except this sentence

 

[Mustawd]

Analyst: "NPD sales down...what's up?"

CFO: "Be really careful using NPD date...blah blah blah"

Especially when it makes you look bad right?

Lol'ed at that response. They really didn't like that question. Bet that analyst doesn't get reinvited for next Quarter :D