How are commercial companies able to sell hundreds of thousands of copies to their games? Why can't small developers come close to this number? Is it the money that large developers spend on advertising? Advertising has become unpredictable. Not all games with lots of money spent on advertising have sold well. Advertising can increase sales, but it does not make a game into a hit. So what does make a game successful? A strong selling point. This does not mean that you need Unreal technology to make a game sell. It means that a game must offer something that no other game in the current market does. For example, if all other online games charged a sign-up fee, then you would want to have no sign-up fee in your game, and use that as the selling point. Most large developers started out as small developers. In most cases, these developers made a game offering what other games could not at the time, and the game became a huge hit. This approach -- offering what other products cannot -- can be applied not only to games but to virtually every product being sold. Books that successfully implement this can sell millions of copies. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. - mecha

Quote: Original post by mecha
How are commercial companies able to sell hundreds of thousands of copies to their games? Why can't small developers come close to this number? Is it the money that large developers spend on advertising?

It is a combination of quality of product, quality of the marketing and access to the market.

People are more likely to buy a good game (or at least one they think is good). They are more likely to buy a particular game if they have heard of it (marketing) and if they can buy it easily from a store near them (that needs good distribution).

Small developers don't come close because their games generally aren't as perceived as being as good, they aren't as well known (small/no marketing budget) or they aren't widely distributed. - retail is still important as many people still don't shop over the net.

As sad as it is, it is all 80% about the marketing and 20% about the game as far as initial sales are concerned. I mean without a doubt to make a blockbuster game you need a great game all around, but there are tons of examples of bad games that sold plenty of copies because of a big advertising budget with a marketing team that knew what they were doing.

Lots of money on marketing = lots of sales. Now don't confuse this with them making tons of money just because of the marketing, you need to spend more money on marketing to make a bad game sell as well as a good game, so in the end you might not even cover your advertising expenses if you produce poor quality games.
But yea, that is what it comes down to.. $$$$

It makes a difference in advertising, but also in quality.. When you have 40 modelers making every model painstakingly beautiful, and a team of 15 programmers you are going to produce a better looking(at the least) product in the same amount of time as a team of 5 part time guys in their basement.

Here is what I say:

Marketing: 40%
Game Originality/Gameplay: 30%
Graphics: 20%
Hardware/Software Requirements: 10%

A lot of big games (take movie games for example) are complete cookie cutter crap. People only buy it because it's associated with a franchise. Personally I only buy games based on word of mouth.

Quote: Original post by M-Works
Here is what I say:

Marketing: 40%
Game Originality/Gameplay: 30%
Graphics: 20%
Hardware/Software Requirements: 10%

I think more money is usually spent on graphics than gameplay. The graphics are, in themself, a marketing tool because the screenshots can be shown off in ads for the game. It's sad, but more people will be excited by good graphics than they will claims of great and original gameplay.

Quote: Original post by mecha

Quote: Original post by M-Works
Here is what I say:

Marketing: 40%
Game Originality/Gameplay: 30%
Graphics: 20%
Hardware/Software Requirements: 10%

I think more money is usually spent on graphics than gameplay. The graphics are, in themself, a marketing tool because the screenshots can be shown off in ads for the game. It's sad, but more people will be excited by good graphics than they will claims of great and original gameplay.

Good point, I would definitely agree with that.. I have also seen an equal number of games sell well based solely on the eye candy they show in their marketing and then the game turns out to be so much less

I think that commercial developers could learn a few things on gameplay from indie developers. Let's look at indie games for a second. The developer(s) don't "rush" these games out, they usually take the time needed to perfect the gameplay. Commercial developers, on the other hand, have to work to a strict timeframe. So most of them only have the approved budget for a development time of 6-18 months.

No company ever wanted to create a crap game. It happens when these huge projects are rushed to meet a deadline. Often, these bad games were created by experienced programmers and designers. Then, these people move onto another company and create a great game because they had the proper time needed to perfect every aspect of gameplay. Regardless of the quality of their game, a company must release it to stay profitable.

It's possible for a game with bad gameplay but excellent graphics to sell a lot of copies in the current market. But to sell a game with great gameplay and bad graphics would be nearly impossible for a commercial developer. According to advertising, every game is "great". So, any games that claim to be good in the advertising is taken as face value -- few people really believe this coming from an advertisement.

Let's also keep in mind that more people work on the graphics than gameplay -- 3d model artists, menu artists, texture artists, the list goes on and on. But it would be a bad idea to have too many programmers working on a single project -- there would be a lot of confusion, because some would not know which variables went to which part of the game, and the developer would ultimately be lost in source code. So if the lead programmer cannot make the best decisions, this might affect the gameplay.

That's my 2c on bad games.

- mecha