Company News Troika games sales figures

[MarFish]

Hmm.. This brings up an interetsing though. TOEE supposedly outsold the NWN expansions so I'd like to see the expansion numbers...

The Bioware site lists NWN and expansions as 2.6 million units sold. The last interview I saw that had numbers claimed NWN sold 1.8 million. This would leave 800.000 units for the expansions and various gold and platinum editions, so I would guess tat ToEE managed to outsell the NWN expansions for one quarter and dropped after that while the expansions continued to sell like hot cake.

Incidentally for a point of reference, the Bio web-site claims that the BG series has sold over 4 *million* copies to date. Kind of puts Troika in perspective.

http://www.bioware.com/games/baldurs_gate/awards/

Actually "to date" seems to be start of 2001

"To January, 2001, The Baldur’s Gate series has sold over 4 Million copies world wide."

Edit: found this one

* Baldur's Gate, released in 1998 has sold over 2 million units for PC and has won many industry awards; in 1999, BioWare released Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, a Baldur's Gate expansion pack. It debuted at #1 worldwide and sold over 600,000 units
* Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, was released in Sept. 2000 and continued the award winning story line of the Baldur's Gate series, selling nearly 1.5 million units so far; in June 2001 Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal was released, the expansion pack to the award winning Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and the conclusion to the Baldur's Gate series, selling more than 500,000 units
* In total Baldur's Gate I, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal have sold nearly five million units world-wide with sales still continuing

Not sure how up to date that page is, but I guess after Interplay died, the sales for the BG series will no longer increase significantly.


This one is interesting for comparing "first release title" stats

Shattered Steel

* BioWare Corp.'s first game - released in October 1996 for PC
* Shattered Steel has sold over 170,000 units

Credits (for team size comparison)
http://www.mobygames.com/game/credits/p,3/gameId,3875/

Edit2: 15 people for shattered steel. 60 for BG

http://www.bioware.com/10years/developm ... years.html

I mean, they have a full staff or writers and they stuff is still as campy as Old Navy commercials.

Trying to collect codex points again eh? The masses like it, and that's what feeds them. Unless they are stupid they will keep it that way rather than trying to produce for a niche market.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Why are you trolling? Bioware employs many writers to work on different titles. Most of them aren't writing the same game and some of them do more than just write - they also script and design areas as well. It's stupid to think that Bioware had 6 writers all toiling away at Neverwinter Nights. What does Jade Empire's story have to do with NWN OC, anyhow?

I wouldn't call Bloodlines' story better than Knights of the Old Republic, either. For starters it didn't even have 1/10th of the cinematic direction in KOTOR. Remember the torture scene, or the 2-minute training collage when you arrive at Dantooine? That should count for something, shouldn't it? Bloodlines didn't have anything like that, and the intro was absolutely atrocious.

Call me old fashion but cinematics aren't the same as good writing, nor do they make a good game. I guess I belong to the school that would rather play the game, not interact with the movie. However, I was under the impression the writers were dedicated to just that, writing dialgoue trees and what not. If they do stuff like level design and scripting I stand corrected, and more power to them. However, they way he discussed it sounded like there was a design team seperate from them that did that stuff.

Oh, Jade Empire had little to do with Neverwinter nights, I was just watching the feature, which was primarily about Jade Empire. They didn't talk about it for just 50 minutes. One guy talked about his place at Bioware, for which he was a writer. I was under the impression he was paid to write the scripts, and compared to Troika's wonderful dialogue which was done with out any credited writers, seems a like a discrepancy.

As for KotOR being more cinematic... yes, I do remember the torture scene. Thought the whole affair came off as a little trite. "Speak, or I will punish you. OK. ZZZZZzzzzzt! Ha, you have spoken and I still punish you!" Why do all the villains of the Republic hace the same personality and motivation? Now, compare that to the drama of the Voerman sisters. Or LaCroix's soliloquys. The line about "wearing the Albatros and the Bullseye" was fantastic. Heck, for all the terrible scripting of the intro (I won't deny the scripting was terrible) it did a wonderful thing, let you know right off the bad that LaCroix was a politician dirty type. Yet, no one had to tell you that, nor was it spelled out for you. Thats just good writing/voice acting.

Also, Marfish, good writing appeals to everyone. Masses might take the campy stuff and like it, but remember Shakespeare plays were performed not to royalty, but to the masses. And they loved him even then. I think Bioware is in a position where they can try to get their games on the same level as Fallout, Torment, or now Bloodlines. Hmmm... I guess I do need to say something good about Bioware's games now... Ahh... one thing I really liked about Neverwinter Nights was the large and involved character creation process. I love the sorts of games that give you lots of ways to creator various literary and societal archetypes. I could counterbalance it with something bad about it now, but that would defeat the point, so I won't.

 

[MarFish]

http://university.imdb.com/title/tt0356070/quotes

that's all I have to say about the subject "dedicated writers". Count me as part of the "masses" in this regard.

I think Bioware is in a position where they can try to get their games on the same level as Fallout, Torment, or now Bloodlines.

I'm fairly sure they can live better with their current sales level.

 

[DemonKing]

While TB dungeon crawlers aren't bad per se, there's no doubt that most of Atari's own customers were jaded by the company's release of POR2, and Troika failed to capture the market that had bought Arcanum.

SSI released POR2, not Atari. I'm pretty sure most people who even casually looked at the back of the box would realise it was a completely different engine, if not made by a different company and published by a different publisher.

How was it flawed?

Arcanum's dialog was a one-trick pony. Sure everyone recognised I was a half-orc in dialog, but they all behaved like racial bigots until I suggested they weren't being very open-minded and suddenly they behaved like I was Joe average again. Every Single NPC in the game behaved this way, which seemed a bit whacked to me, since surely a realistic world would have die-hard full-on bigots, casual bigots and non-bigots, not the same predictable cookie-cutter reaction from everyone.

Well, as I said BL was my favourite Troika game - apart from some slightly questionable design decisions like respawning enemies and the game-stopper Leopold bug (which has since been patched up) it was pretty good. Certainly the best dialog of any Troika game.

 

[Elwro]

SSI released POR2, not Atari. I'm pretty sure most people who even casually looked at the back of the box would realise it was a completely different engine, if not made by a different company and published by a different publisher.

You'd be surprised how many people e.g. on IPLY boards said things like "We all know that TB DnD RPGs can't be good - just look at POR2!" and how many of those stated that "I won't buy ToEE because that company really screwed things up with POR2". It's beyond me where did they get the idea from.

 

[DemonKing]

You'd be surprised how many people e.g. on IPLY boards said things like "We all know that TB DnD RPGs can't be good - just look at POR2!" and how many of those stated that "I won't buy ToEE because that company really screwed things up with POR2". It's beyond me where did they get the idea from.

Yeah - you'ld think though that looking at the pictures on the box would give them some idea it was different, even if they were totally illiterate. :wink:

 

[Kuato]

I personally think you get what you pay for and TOEE appears to have been set up to be bugdetware from the start I wonder if the same circumstances surrounded the Ravenloft title that was canceled at Reflexive, Greyhawk and Ravenloft are settings far from the coveted Forgotton Realms Property I guess that means Drizzt's image won't be getting tarnished if they use an ancient gygax module and its not much of loss to the value of an unused aging IP if they go cheap on them.

How many AAA games have one animator, one modeler and no fulltime design

 

[Volourn]

"Now, do us all a favor and go read Kuato post about the staff sizes of Baldur's Gate (bio's first project if I'm not mistaken)"

Once again, you show your idiocy. Better read MarFish's posts.


"so I would guess tat ToEE managed to outsell the NWN expansions for one quarter and dropped after that while the expansions continued to sell like hot cake."

I'm guessing the same thing. NWN expansions got good word of mouth. Sadly, TOEE didn't overall.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Incidentally for a point of reference, the Bio web-site claims that the BG series has sold over 4 *million* copies to date. Kind of puts Troika in perspective.
...
I mean, they have a full staff or writers and they stuff is still as campy as Old Navy commercials.

Trying to collect codex points again eh?

I didn't write that. DemonKing did.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Arcanum's dialog was a one-trick pony. Sure everyone recognised I was a half-orc in dialog, but they all behaved like racial bigots until I suggested they weren't being very open-minded and suddenly they behaved like I was Joe average again.

Certainly there was more to Arcanum's dialogues than greetings. MUCH more.

 

[corvax]

Troika found a winning formula with Arcanum, as evidenced by the sales figures

: i'm not sure about that, the sales figures weren't enough for Arcanum 2 or any type of that game...it was easier to secure deals for D&D and Vampire games...if Troika decided to perfect their formula and shop around for another publisher then they would have closed down much earlier

 

[Killzig]

Bloodlines probably would have been better if it had been built for a console. Not surprised by these sales figures. Arcanum was teh ween. ToEE and Bloodlines were killed off by word of mouth by release week's end. I don't know, hopefully their ideas aren't lost to us as RPG'ers for good.

And Rex... KOTOR2's story = t3h suk. SURPRISE YOU ARE TEH REVAN!ERM I MEAN EXILE!! LOLLER

 

[Briosafreak]

Sorry to burst the buble guys, but those numbers are incorrect. here`s what a former Troika employee just posted at NMA, and it goes in the same sense of what i heard about Troika figures previously:

This is incorrect. By a signficant factor. I was there when the royalty checks came in, and Arcanum did much better than that. I do not think the publisher would have written checks for copies that they hadn't sold.

I never heard a final number on ToEE, as I wasn't directly involved in it, but the number I recall for its first-month sales was more than this article claims it did overall.

I do not know any numbers on Vampire, but I do know what I think of this source's accuracy.

 

[jiujitsu]

Heh, that shut everyone up. Good job, Briosa.

 

[taks]

I agree Baldurs gate seems like it was a much larger operation that spanned nearly three years working with 2d tech while TOEE was only 18 months with full 3d art

uh, no, it's not full 3D. irrelevant either way, since 2D is actually harder to detail than 3D according to most developers.

5 artists and one animator on TOEE
100 monsters in TOEE off the box*
thats one busy animator


23 artists and 10 animators on Baldurs Gate
60 monsters in Baldur's gate off the box*

seems that's troika's fault for not staffing properly. sure, maybe they didn't have the budget from atari, but that's still their fault for saying they could do it with the reduced staff when obviously, they could not.

TOEE's design department = 1 Designer between the major shared responsibilites of these two
Lead Designer/Project Lead -Tim Cain
Producer/Designer -Tom Decker
... snip...

again, who chose the team size? not atari, but troika.

the question is would have a three years and 4 times as many people made a difference on TOEE

Atari obviously didnt think so, somebody at Atari put the BIG cheap sticker on this project

I really hope they don't go super cheap on NWN and BG3

yes, more time and more people really would have helped. regardless of what atari did, it was still troika's responsibility to properly bid the project... too bad, because the potential was there.

NWN2 has a pretty long schedule and the team is pretty big. BG3 is looking like it will be the same. perhaps atari has learned that the more money you offer to develop, the more money you stand to gain in the end?...

taks

 

[NeverwinterKnight]

As for KotOR being more cinematic... yes, I do remember the torture scene. Thought the whole affair came off as a little trite. "Speak, or I will punish you. OK. ZZZZZzzzzzt! Ha, you have spoken and I still punish you!" Why do all the villains of the Republic hace the same personality and motivation? Now, compare that to the drama of the Voerman sisters. Or LaCroix's soliloquys. The line about "wearing the Albatros and the Bullseye" was fantastic. Heck, for all the terrible scripting of the intro (I won't deny the scripting was terrible) it did a wonderful thing, let you know right off the bad that LaCroix was a politician dirty type. Yet, no one had to tell you that, nor was it spelled out for you. Thats just good writing/voice acting.

One thing to remember; star wars tends to have over the top, cheesey dialogue. its part and parcel with the genre. just watch the movies and youll see the type of malak-esque over-the-top dialogue in almost every scene. so i dont think its fair to knock the writers (both bioware and obsidian) for making the scenes somewhat cheesey. whereas in comparison, the "vampire" genre is supposed to be more serious (unless you are talking about buffy) in general, and thus maniacal, psychotic laughter wouldnt fit quite as well.

you make it sound like bloodlines had the greatest piece of voice acting and dialogue ever made in a video game, but kotors stuff was laughable and crappy. thats simply not the case. but its also obvious that youre a big troika fan, and thus youll see the negatives of bioware/obsidian games only, and the positives of troika games, making it difficult to offer a differing opinion. atleast thats what it seems from the posts ive seen of yours.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Sorry to burst the buble guys, but those numbers are incorrect.

Thanks. I'll edit the news post accordingly.

This is incorrect. By a signficant factor. I was there when the royalty checks came in, and Arcanum did much better than that.

One thing is for sure though, Arcanum did much better than most people thought.

 

[Sol Invictus]

SSI released POR2, not Atari. I'm pretty sure most people who even casually looked at the back of the box would realise it was a completely different engine, if not made by a different company and published by a different publisher.

Don't be so sure about that. A lot of people, including those on the Atari forums as well as big review sites made the comparison between TOEE and POR2 due to its bugs. There was a lot of backlash from the fans for that comparison (including me) but the damage had already been done. TOEE was painted as another failed D&D campaign and the reputation stayed with Troika.

snip

I don't know if I'm willing to take that guy's word over PC Gamer which managed to dig up the actual statistics. Granted, they might be wrong and it wouldn't be the first time that happened, but his vague explanation hardly sheds any light on the subject and just makes things even more confused for us, though his statement that Arcanum sold a lot more copies than PC Gamer suggests means that the game was far, far more successful than it seems, which begs the much larger question: Why didn't Troika stick with their niche?

 

[Volourn]

"Sorry to burst the buble guys, but those numbers are incorrect."

Burst whose bubble? Certainly not mine. I had my doubts with these figures myself. Still, I have no reason to automatically believe a former Troikaina either. Afterall, it was Troika who promised that TOEE was gonna have as good role-playing as FO did.

R00fles!

 

[Briosafreak]

That`s completely ridiculous Rex. First the numbers aren`t from PCGamer, but from the NPD Group, a sales and marketing company that in the case of games and other fields try to show trends based in partial numbers, from a few sources, not the total numbers (except movie goers numbers).

Second if you think any publisher would give money from royalties that weren´t supposed to be given then you live in fairy land. Yes i do believe more on what Andrew writes, since he was inside when the figures showed up, and so would you if you didn`t have personal issues regarding him.

And last but not least those numbers don`t add up to what we previously knew, so what Andrew says makes a hell lot of more sense.

 

[Greatatlantic]

One thing to remember; star wars tends to have over the top, cheesey dialogue. its part and parcel with the genre. just watch the movies and youll see the type of malak-esque over-the-top dialogue in almost every scene. so i dont think its fair to knock the writers (both bioware and obsidian) for making the scenes somewhat cheesey. whereas in comparison, the "vampire" genre is supposed to be more serious (unless you are talking about buffy) in general, and thus maniacal, psychotic laughter wouldnt fit quite as well.

you make it sound like bloodlines had the greatest piece of voice acting and dialogue ever made in a video game, but kotors stuff was laughable and crappy. thats simply not the case. but its also obvious that youre a big troika fan, and thus youll see the negatives of bioware/obsidian games only, and the positives of troika games, making it difficult to offer a differing opinion. atleast thats what it seems from the posts ive seen of yours.

Yeah, if you are Star Wars fan there is a lot to love about the Old Republic. And I'm sure I've used some hyperbole when describing games of Bioware and Troika. However, I'm not a fan of Troika's, I'm a fan of Bloodlines, which by extension does make me a Troika fan, I suppose. I thought it was a game written for a more adult audience as oppose to the 6th grade audience the industry seems to target now a days. And yes, I do think Bloodlines has the greatest voice acting and dialogue I've ever played in a game since Torment. Hence, I praise it. I don't think KotOR is crappy, though if you took my posts at literal value you might think that. I just think their general design philosphy (typical epic story as an excuse to dungeon crawl) on a whole, is inferior to what games like Fallout and Torment and now Bloodlines do. Basically, I don't like dungeon crawlers, and all the Bioware titles I have played are clear the room of baddies oriented. If you like that sort of thing, more power to you, I guess.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yes, Volourn, but Troika was just doing PR! It's okay to lie as long as it's Troika, and Troika needs PR!

Not okay if your name is Pete Hines and you work for Bethesda, though. Then you're just full of shit and nobody can ever forgive you.

 

[Volourn]

"Basically, I don't like dungeon crawlers,"

You are stupid. That's exactly what a good part of BL is - a dunegon crawler. That's why it's obvious youa re a fnaboy. Youa re blind to this fact while youa ccuse other games of the thing the object of your effection is guilty of.

And, oh, Bl had a lot of immature stuff in it.

B00BIES for one!

Stupid comments like the following: "This shit is whack!"

 

[Sol Invictus]

Fact: NPD Funworld / NPD Group is more reliable than anyone who works at Troika who does not have access to the financial records of the company. I do not believe that Mandrew, being a Lead Programmer and not "Chief Finance Officer", had access to these records, and as such, his word can't be taken as being completely reliable.

They have more access to sales facts, marketing details, and they share close ties with both publishers, investors, retailers, manufacturers, and stock traders who rely on completely accurate information that would otherwise be unavailable to them if they had to rely on the developers who can't even find the back of their own heads when it came to matters like these.

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Sorry. I am just going where the numbers take me. Until someone reliable can provide a more accurate figure that disproves the ones the NPD Group released, I'm just going to have to go with NPD Group on this one.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yes, Volourn, but Troika was just doing PR! It's okay to lie as long as it's Troika, and Troika needs PR!

Not okay if your name is Pete Hines and you work for Bethesda, though. Then you're just full of shit and nobody can ever forgive you.

First, it's not like anyone cares about ol' Pete and that comment. You are the only one who keeps bringing it up. Second, ToEE was criticized here and the empty promises were remembered. Bloodlines was heavily criticized as well. I assume you've seen my review, so no double standards there.