heretic on 18/2/2008 at 22:53
I can't think of one game that could not have been made better in some way given a bit of hindsight, but that doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on the initial releases.
Zillameth on 18/2/2008 at 23:15
Well, of course no game is perfect, but some of them are more imperfect than others. Besides, it's not a matter of wether the game is imperfect, as much as what kind of weaknesses it has. Witcher has room for substantial improvement, both as a game and as a product. Not every less-than-perfect game grants you this luxury.
Zygoptera on 18/2/2008 at 23:28
Quote Posted by Zillameth
But I've also found an article claiming they've sold 600 thousand copies. Which is not very sensational (especially with most of sales occurring in Poland and Russia), but surprisingly nice nevertheless.
FYI, 600k sales
is pretty close to sensational. The vast majority of games don't sell anywhere near that amount over their entire lifetime, let alone in 3 months. It's not Bioshock, Mass Effect or Halo 3 numbers, but then those three titles would have spent (much) more on marketing than was spent on TW's entire development.
Gaph on 18/2/2008 at 23:34
Riding off 600k sales and they put money right back into the game, just to make it better. Shows a lot of dedication and love for the game. I quit playing at Chapter 3 because it got laborious but I'll sure as hell download the update and go again. Making potions, loading screens, and confusing dialogue were just becoming a hassle.
Zillameth on 18/2/2008 at 23:41
Quote:
FYI, 600k sales is pretty close to sensational. The vast majority of games don't sell anywhere near that amount over their entire lifetime, let alone in 3 months. It's not Bioshock, Mass Effect or Halo 3 numbers, but then those three titles would have spent (much) more on marketing than was spent on TW's entire development.
I know the numbers, thank you. This one is not sensational. Not anymore. It would have been ten years ago. Now it means they have barely made it even.
And you need to remember this number is beefed up by sales in countries where Sapkowski is well known. He's a major pop culture icon in Poland. Plus, the game was being hyped by CD Projekt for some five years. And people waited for it like some kind of messiah, becuase there hasn't been a really good Polish mainstream game for, like, forever (although Painkiller came close at some point).
dvrabel on 19/2/2008 at 00:28
Retailers have around 30% gross margin which leaves 70% of the retail price to the publisher and developer. If the witcher sold for on average for $30 [1] then CDProjekt would make around $13 million dollars of revenue for a single title. This is enough to fund more than one game (even at today's production costs[2]).
[1] Amazon.com are still selling The Witcher for $50 dollars so this is a conservative estimate.
[2] A (very rough) ballpark estimate: 35 staff @ $40,000 per year for 5 years is $7 million.
Gaph on 19/2/2008 at 01:17
They should've taken advantage of Steam. Glad to see GSC is using it to put out Clear Sky.
Zygoptera on 19/2/2008 at 02:19
There is actually a semi-official estimate of how much The Witcher cost to make, from one of the devs. While I cannot be bothered to look it up, it was around about 8 mill, IIRC, and I am sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Even if you assume that a large proportion was lower price point Eastern Europe sales, it still tends to be balanced by the high price point Eurozone sales (or here for that matter, where it costs the equivalent of $80US).
In short, 600k sales- at full price point- more than covers an 8 million outlay under any sensible circumstance, and it's only been out three months.
Or what dvrabel said, effectively.
june gloom on 19/2/2008 at 02:46
I'd be suprised if they don't eventually get picked up on Steam eventually.
Zygoptera on 19/2/2008 at 03:06
You can get TW via download, from GamersGate, in North America at least.
