A games industry analyst said Wednesday that he expects the recently-released Duke Nukem Forever to see overall sales of 1.5-2 million units.
Analyst Arvind Bhatia with Sterne Agee noted in an investor report that the long-awaited Take-Two Interactive-published title will sell at the lower-end of the estimate. He also revealed that store checks indicated that first day sales of the game in the U.S. were "mediocre."
However, he said he believes Take-Two "was conservative in its unit assumptions on Duke Nukem," and that the game's performance will not reflect on the company, as it was originally in development outside of the studio and "is a one-off title for Take-Two."
Duke Nukem Forever has received average reviews from critics, although Sterne Agee noted that this was to be expected. "Overall, we believe management was conservative in its guidance on this title," the report said.
So, 14 years dev and 1.5M, I've just read a news about the 250M Angry Birds downloads, I'm really wondering what it means to analysts... What really worth for startups and core devs make these days?
Seriously though, angry birds was a home run and should be compared to anther home run like black ops. It would be very interesting to know what the revenue streams from those two IPs look like.
Big difference is angry birds can be played by anyone it does not require a lot of skill. Most hardcore games are sufficiently complex enough to warrant an increase of skill and investment.
Angry birds does not require an enormous amount of time invested in the game to get something out of it. The real issue is the tools and asset pipeline for AAA games needs to get a lot better to bring costs down.
I guess the real ouch for DNF is the price $$$. If the game had been launched at $24.95 or less the backlash would have been far less. But when you come out at a top-budget title price, like they did your just asking for trouble! The price didn’t match player’s expectations after so many years of waiting. Yes, we can all point to the years of development ups and downs, but the buying public shouldnt be expect the shell out their hard earned cash because of it. Currently people are returning the game in droves and some have been turned around by friends warning them off the game prior to even getting it home.
Publishers need to understand, (price equals expectations) and during these hard financial times players are unforgiving when disappointed! It cost publishers a great deal more in profits by shooting for too high of a product price at launch, just to have the games returned or hitting eBay at blowout process, undercutting their retailers.
Question: Does this erase some of the goodwill Pitchford received for essentially coming out of nowhere with Borderlands and delivering a product a lot of people really enjoyed?
The game is perfectly acceptable as non-AAA title. If they marketed it as such (like charging 30 USD at most), probably they would sell MUCH more and be less bashed by the critics.
Duke Nukem franchise was NEVER AAA grade stuff, it was NEVER about being "epic" and "big", Duke Nukem was always about being hell fun to play, even if the story made no sense and the graphics were crap. (seriously, in my opinion all duke games have crap graphics, even the 2D ones... But dude... how these games were cool!)
Seriously though, angry birds was a home run and should be compared to anther home run like black ops. It would be very interesting to know what the revenue streams from those two IPs look like.
Angry birds does not require an enormous amount of time invested in the game to get something out of it. The real issue is the tools and asset pipeline for AAA games needs to get a lot better to bring costs down.
MS Solitare is on Guinness as the most popular electronic game ever.
Publishers need to understand, (price equals expectations) and during these hard financial times players are unforgiving when disappointed! It cost publishers a great deal more in profits by shooting for too high of a product price at launch, just to have the games returned or hitting eBay at blowout process, undercutting their retailers.
The game is perfectly acceptable as non-AAA title. If they marketed it as such (like charging 30 USD at most), probably they would sell MUCH more and be less bashed by the critics.
Duke Nukem franchise was NEVER AAA grade stuff, it was NEVER about being "epic" and "big", Duke Nukem was always about being hell fun to play, even if the story made no sense and the graphics were crap. (seriously, in my opinion all duke games have crap graphics, even the 2D ones... But dude... how these games were cool!)