Dragon Age 2 - Laidlaw: "Aware of the concerns"

Gorath said:

So why does everybody say DA2 sold miserably ? Is there any proof or source for this?

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The last I heard sales were slowing down but near 2 million was the figure given out by bioware. So not a failure sale wise but it still doesn't mean its a good game.

Couchpotato said:

The last I heard sales were slowing down but near 2 million was the figure given out by bioware. So not a failure sale wise but it still doesn't mean its a good game.

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Well commercially it's a good game if it sold 2million. Critically there are 38 positive reviews vs 7 mixed on metacritc, so critically it appears to be a good game. The scope for not calling a good game seems to be rather narrow, perhaps in the realms of 'we small minority don't think it's a good game', or 'I don't think it's a good game'.

For the record, from everything I've seen, I don't think it's a good game, to the point I haven't bothered to play it. But I accept I'm in the minority, and as much as I value my own intelligence, I don't have any right to elevate the worth of my own opinion over other people's

Well I stand by my opinion its a bad game even though others love it. As they say to each there own.In the words of the godfather bioware your dead to me.

Stating an opinion is not the same as elevating it above that of other people. In fact, I consider the practice healthy and worthwhile.

As for Dragon Age 2 - it's clearly a failure in terms of their publically stated goal of, what was it, 10 million?

The game made a tidy profit, I have no doubt, but we all know that's not nearly enough for the new Bioware.

So, they're just doing what they can to maximise profit for the next game.

Personally, I find it amusing that they really think they could sell 10 million copies of a game with such a short development time - and with such a crappy design. I mean, marketing is how to do it - but even marketing can't fight against word of mouth when it's so powerful.

This is just a lesson learned. I'm sure the next game will be designed by suits again - and this time, there will likely be another vital oversight in terms of design. That's because suits can't design worth shit, and they can't really expect their minions to care enough to create masterful designs. Best they can do is estimate and imitate.

Still, I'm sure they'll lure enough people to buy it and call it a success in public.

zakhal said:

That video should be shown to every EA chief until their eyes bleed and they can repeat it from memory.

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A speech that says that people don't know what they want should first be shown to all gamers that believe they benefit by influencing, and even demanding, design decisions.

The idea that people don't know -or at least are unable to describe- what they want is one that I am a firm believer of, I see it in my job every day. That's why it's so important to keep an open mind: you simply can't know where your next favorite thing is going to come from.

holeraw said:

you simply can't know where your next favorite thing is going to come from.

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Well at this point I highly doubt it's going to come from Bioware.

Pretty sure he's responding to critical fans, not from a business point of view (i.e DA2 not being successful).

holeraw said:

A speech that says that people don't know what they want should first be shown to all gamers that believe they benefit by influencing, and even demanding, design decisions.

The idea that people don't know -or at least are unable to describe- what they want is one that I am a firm believer of, I see it in my job every day. That's why it's so important to keep an open mind: you simply can't know where your next favorite thing is going to come from.

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The video is one man speaking to an audience he has to seduce because that is the way he makes money (on the moment)

All he stated is that some features are non compatible with others. A chunky tomato sauce is not thin and light. It cant be both.
In his narrative, whether or not people tasted chunky sauces before is unclear. If they had not, hard for them to refer to a past experience to state what they want.

His story about the cultural italian sauce is wrong too. Through the US cultural export, one italian sauce became THE italian sauce but italian tomato sauces come in many genres going for 10 pc tomatoes, 90 pc meat to 90 pc tomatoes, 10pc meat.
The US picked one and turned it into the world standard. Different.

I think that people can state what they want but only the developpers have all the data to take the best decisions.

Quick example:
The environment and travel to one location from another.

The environment might be rich, highly detailed, looking alive and all. Implementing such environment might soak something like 40 pc of the total resources a developper allocates to a game.
It follows they have better draw the most from the environment.

An environment can support:
-discovery (exploration)
-path learning (the environment is intricate enough to be worth learning with shorter and longer routes)
-challenging (hot spot of monsters, safer, more dangerous routes)
-surprising (unexpected encounters, laying ambush, being ambushed)
and more

If a developper goes the route of a detailled environment, they have better to try to exploit the environment through all these options. That is travel.

No matter how exciting they manage to make travelling from one location to another, travel remains travel and in the end, travel is a routine.

Comes the negation of travel routine; which is called fast travel.

Fast travel negates all the features brought by the environment. When one fast travels from one location to another, one does not need a between, there is no between.

Here comes the incompatibility: the developpers spent 40 pc on the game budget on developping a feature whose advantages are destroyed by another feature.

So much that developpers usually force one use of the environment on the players (exploration) as one has to discover a place before fast travelling to it.

From the player's point of view, no incompatibility, the environment can be engaging and a fast travel option can be implemented. You use it as you wish.

But from the developpers'point of view, the allocation of resources dictates otherwise.

Only the developpers have the data in hand.

Fast travel wants for no environment between locations while a developped environment calls for no fast travel.

DArtagnan said:

As for Dragon Age 2 - it's clearly a failure in terms of their publically stated goal of, what was it, 10 million?

The game made a tidy profit, I have no doubt, but we all know that's not nearly enough for the new Bioware.

So, they're just doing what they can to maximise profit for the next game.

Personally, I find it amusing that they really think they could sell 10 million copies of a game with such a short development time - and with such a crappy design. I mean, marketing is how to do it - but even marketing can't fight against word of mouth when it's so powerful.

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Isn't the 10 million talk referring to the KOTOR MMO?

Anyhow I agree that 2 million sales for a sequel to a 5+ million game is a disappointment, even if it turned a nice profit.

KapitanUnterhosen said:

Isn't the 10 million talk referring to the KOTOR MMO?

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No, Greg Zeschuk said in an interview about Dragon Age 2 that 10 million was the new target:

Q: I was going to say. If Mass Effect 2 is a 'minor hit', I can't wait to see a major one.

GZ: Well, we need to sell 10 million units. That's actually the new target, right? We do Top 10 games, our stuff is quite successful. I know Mass [Effect 2] is number eight so far this year, in North America. Sometimes I'm facetious when I say some of those things, knowing that we can sell a few million but seeing that someone else can sell 25. You're kinda like, 'Well, that's a hit!' We always joke that if we only do half as well as Blizzard on Star Wars: The Old Republic, we'll be quite satisfied. We've been very fortunate. I always joke about that, but…

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So all future releases need to hit 10 million.

In no way shape or form does he say that he expects DA2 to sell 10 million units, DA2 hasn't even been mentioned at that point in the interview. In an earlier presentation he said that Bioware had a few minor hits in the past, so the interviewer asks him what would constitute a big hit: he answers 10 million, leading him into saying that if TOR sold half as much as WOW(which sold 10 million copies, 25 if you count expansions) he'd already be quite satisfied.

Perhaps, but I think it'd be safe to say BioWaste and EA see DA2 as a disappointment. Any copy would want to see a sequel do at least as well as its predecessor, and 2 million vs. 5 million in sales is a big step backwards.

A broken trackball on my phone doesn't allow me to edit my posts. "Copy" = "company" in my post above.

@Kap I love how seriously people take this whole Bioware nonsense now.

Whatever, I just hit google and came up with that interview. To me it reads like he expects 10 million on all future releases to be considered a hit, but you read it anyway you want.

holeraw said:

A speech that says that people don't know what they want should first be shown to all gamers that believe they benefit by influencing, and even demanding, design decisions.

The idea that people don't know -or at least are unable to describe- what they want is one that I am a firm believer of, I see it in my job every day. That's why it's so important to keep an open mind: you simply can't know where your next favorite thing is going to come from.

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The video had nothing to do with that. It simply said that there is no such thing as "sweet spot". You cant make best profit by creating one game for everyone as the EA suits are trying hard to do. If you make more than one rpg then it would beneficial to make them cater to more than one group.

EA is going the same singleminded way as say Apple. One phone for everyone. But who do you think is going to win in the end? Apple or Google? But even apple has announced that in future they are planning to cater to more than one group of buyers so I guess they are changing their mind.

ChienAboyeur said:

developpers developper

If a developper the developpers spent developping a feature
So much that developpers
But from the developpers'point of view,

Only the developpers

developped environment

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Chien, there's only one P, EVER, in the the word "develop" and all usages thereof.

"developer" "development" "developed", these are all examples of how to use the word in various contexts. Just FYi, in case you havent realized that yet.

ChienAboyeur said:

Fast travel wants for no environment between locations while a developped environment calls for no fast travel.

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Generally speaking, this is correct. But that does not necessarily mean you cant have both. Some of the most sublime vistas I've seen in a game were in Lotro... and there's a variety of travel methods in that game.

You can have both, there is no technical restriction on that.

But in terms of budget, going for a fast travel option and a rich environment might end up with an Oblivion like result: subpar between locations and subpar locations.

Developpers want to get the whole content of their games experienced by gamers. Every penny must show in one way or another.

A game associating both a luxurious environment and total free travel features the possibility that all the content associated to the between locations is missed by the player.

If the player can FT anywhere from the start, the player might fast travel to resolve all quests. That is why developpers force exploration before allowing fast travel to ensure that the content between the location is seen by the player at least once.

Players can know what they want and they can want both fast travel and a rich environment.
Trouble is that fast travel and a rich environment compell respectively to divergent designs.

I had a big rant prepared but have decided da2 deserves no more of my time. I would bet i've spent more time complaining about it than playing it. No matter what they say it's clear bioware no longer cares to make the kind of games I like. I had a bad feeling when they released jade empire. At least I got a couple more good games out of them. It was a good run time to look elsewhere.

Couchpotato said:

The last I heard sales were slowing down but near 2 million was the figure given out by bioware. So not a failure sale wise but it still doesn't mean its a good game.

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Unless Bioware has updated things (possible, of course) the 2 million was an initial shipment figure, ie the number of copies they sent to stores in advance of the games's release. So a significant proportion of those may be sitting on shelves and in warehouses rather than having been sold to actual customers. In contrast, DAO's first shipment was 2.7 million, to which they added at least another 500k a month or so later. The only data on 'realworld' (sell through) sales I've seen is BW saying 1 million plus within two weeks; which was not as good as it appears since this includes all the preorders and they had a very agressive preorder push.

Gorath: The reason why the sales are thought to be poor are; early discounting (I could buy DA2 for less than DAO, last week and for 30% off within three weeks of its release), the ME2 sweetener so soon after release, the generally poor fan reception and that Bioware itself seems to be treating it as a failure (defensive, delayed DLC etc) plus looking at sales data like NPD and VGChartz (which should be taken with salt as they have significant limitations) that suggest sales flatlined very quickly. There's also some relativity at work, too- DAO sold very well so even in DA2 had sold 2 million copies that's still only ~2/3 the numbers of its predecessor at an equivalent time.

With regards to how well EA/ Bioware expected DA2 to go, the shipped figures suggest they actually didn't expect it to do that well despite their pre release talk, since they shipped significantly less copies in their initial shipment than for DAO. On the other hand, the development cycle was far more efficient and shorter than for DAO so they needed fewer sales to hit the profit line.