Sales figures - Where?

[rascal101]

Jesus no wonder the games scene is dying in the arse - your average sales rep earns 90k in a year

How you get a developer team working for two or three years on a title and only make 90k for your efforts thats serious loss, either that or the developers are paid peanuts

How the hell did SH2 make more than three!

R

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I get my info from several distinct sources, some from some inside Ubisoft (not the devs), some independent of Ubi (marketing research groups), but I cannot say who. These are sources I have built over nearly ten years and I don't want to lose them. And I cannot say I know they are 100% accurate. But the different sources do have similar numbers.

SH2: ~95K
SH3: ~90K
SH4: ~50K

Those are US numbers, worldwide is something like 2X those figures.

[Nisgeis]

Thinking back, SH4 was in the Top 10 (or perhaps 20) best selling PC games in the local games shops where I worked and when the expansion pack came out, that was up there too, always a few places behind the main game, so it can't have sold that badly in the UK.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by rascal101

How you get a developer team working for two or three years on a title and only make 90k for your efforts thats serious loss, either that or the developers are paid peanuts

I think that's copies sold, not amount paid (or brought in).

90k copies x $50 US would be $4.5 million. Still a pittance compared to a mainstream game, but more than ninety thousand.

[martes86]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Correct, they are US numbers, sorry.

Oh... then global sales are probably much higher... wow, lots of subsimmers in the US.

[Heretic]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I think that's copies sold, not amount paid (or brought in).

90k copies x $50 US would be $4.5 million. Still a pittance compared to a mainstream game, but more than ninety thousand.

You need a breakout of how many sold at full price versus various levels of discount to calculate the total revenue generated. I doubt such figures are available. I'd be surprised if the 95k figure refers to full price sales.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Heretic

You need a breakout of how many sold at full price versus various levels of discount to calculate the total revenue generated. I doubt such figures are available. I'd be surprised if the 95k figure refers to full price sales.

Agreed, but not my point. My point was that the numbers quoted were not money figures, as the post I cited seemed to believe.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

Thinking back, SH4 was in the Top 10 (or perhaps 20) best selling PC games in the local games shops where I worked and when the expansion pack came out, that was up there too, always a few places behind the main game, so it can't have sold that badly in the UK.

Yeah but for what time period did it stay in the charts? I saw scant evidence of it in the northern region.

[lynx]

If I was a manager of Ubi, I´d very nervous and worried after reading here, SH5 DRM, Global sales!!
"old this Spanish says: : he is of wise people to rectify(es de sabios rectificar)"

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Yeah but for what time period did it stay in the charts? I saw scant evidence of it in the northern region.

Quite a while, I remember being surprised that it had the staying power, which is why I noticed it each time I went in. It was in the charts from the vanilla version through to the Add-on being released. The add-on bumped it up a bit.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

Quite a while, I remember being surprised that it had the staying power, which is why I noticed it each time I went in. It was in the charts from the vanilla version through to the Add-on being released. The add-on bumped it up a bit.

Interesting ....its just a pity the sales figures aren't known.

[tater]

Originally Posted by martes86

Oh... then global sales are probably much higher... wow, lots of subsimmers in the US.

According to their annual report, US was 45% of sales, and Europe was 49% of sales (total for Ubi).

Assuming SH matches that:
So 90k units is 45% of sales. That's 200,000 units total, and that means Europe bought 98k units. Not a huge difference.

[martes86]

Originally Posted by tater

According to their annual report, US was 45% of sales, and Europe was 49% of sales (total for Ubi).

Assuming SH matches that:
So 90k units is 45% of sales. That's 200,000 units total, and that means Europe bought 98k units. Not a huge difference.

Not really the difference itself, but from where it comes. I mean... the US is a whole country, with a fairly unified culture, while Europe is a continent full of different countries and cultures. Sure, Europe's all big and modern now, and the EU keeps growing (as long as the economy doesn't crash us), but one can't skip the fact that there are lots 'n lots of differences, starting with the ways people see/rate gaming in each country... even within the countries themselves. And seeing like one single country has as many sales as a whole continent, well, it's impressive. I don't know if you get my point, it's too long to explain.

Cheers

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

Concerning SH3. I can account for 3 discs.

There you go, spoiling the curve again.

Although I have to admit to two copies myself.

[Ducimus]

Slighty off topic but related.

You know what i wonder?

What were the sales figures for UBM, and of that number, how many of those sales were made due to mods supporting only SH4 version 1.5. I know i've seen more then a couple of posts by people buying UBM who had no interest in uboats, but got the expansion anyway only so the could run the latest supermod. If the number is high enough, i think the SH4 modders deserve a free game as a pat on the back for supporting the series and generating sales. (yeah i know, self serving wishful thinking. )

[Nisgeis]

Well, I know some didn't like 1.5 being referred to as a patch, but it was. That's the version that went from being stuck at a maximum resolution of 1024x768 scaled up to fit your monitor, to actually supporting native higher resolutions. That's one of the things that SH4 got slated for in the reviews.