I must admit I'm surprised to hear the number of sales is that high for Sacred, and it's much more than what I would have expected. Is that for the original Sacred alone, and not the expansion and gold version combined with the original release?
It´s unclear, but I guess they include everything. Which means the average sales price is probably relatively low.
Oh, and Gorath, don't take this the wrong way - but you give off a strong "pro-german-developers-vibe" which is not unnatural, I suppose, but it's pretty obvious.
Oh, I also noticed this a couple of months ago.
It´s not a "pro-german-developer" bias, though. I would act in the same way in case of games by foreign developers, if I had the same amount of information about them. At the moment I know most about German RPGs. This may change when dtp pushes the Divinity 2 marketing.
It has several reasons. In case of Drakensang it was a counter-reaction to all the unfounded criticism flowing around, mostly from DSA fans who expected them to copy & paste the ruleset into a game. Furthermore I´m the only editor left who can write newsbits based on German sources. The Drakensang review collections were not biased, btw. They included every review I found.
Sometimes I´m simply too optimistic, which is a contrast to many others who are always pessimistic. I tend to give developers and games the benefit of the doubt.
Many German games are simply much better in German. They lose through crappy translation and are less buggy on German PC configurations. The same is true for every other country.
Furthermore I'm mostly staying away from discussions about games I know other editors are more interested in. Which strengthens the impression.
Our newsbits are as neutral as possible. Our reviews explain in detail why the reviewer believes a game deserves a certain score. Forum posts include personal opinions and biases. They reflect the poster's personal taste.
I remember our discussions about Gothic 3 before release, where you insisted that the technical problems wasn't going to be a problem, and that everything would be fixed soon
Well, maybe not everything I wrote back then was correct in hindsight.
Gothic, G2 and NotR also shipped in bad condition, and they were fixed quickly. G3 was not.
There's sometimes politics involved. I don't want RPGWatch to become such a negative place as other hardcore gamer sites. Then I post a wave-breaker.
Let's just say I've learned to be wary of previews and early praise - especially from people with an obvious bias.
Me too.
I'll be getting Sacred 2, but there are things that worry me - and the incredibly poor voice acting is indeed a strange flaw in what some call a "flaghip title".
That's something I don't understand. Ascaron is also the publisher in the UK and the US, AFAIK. They are in full control. So why the crappy voice acting?