Sales of SH 5

[John Channing]

Coldcall your arguement overlooks the fact that most developers have gotten out of simulations all together. The exception is Oleg, but he is self financed. Other than that... nada. Add to that the fact that there have been several experienced independent developers that have actually started developing Subsims (Akula: Red Hunter anyone?) and then threw in the towel when they ran out of funding.

Subsims like Ubisoft are incredibly complex, expensive simulations to develop from scratch. The reason the Silent Hunter series makes some sense financially is that most of the code is already done and paid for so the development time is shorter than if you were building it from a blank C++ screen. And on the plus side, you have experienced developers who have a passion for Sub-sims involved.

So... if you know of a self-financed, independent, experienced developer with oodles of money that has a passion for WW2 Subs then point them out to me, cuz I sure as heck can't find any.

JCC

[Méo]

Originally Posted by Wurschtie

@christian: the potential one

Exactly!

[Coldcall]

Originally Posted by Méo

Ok, if I understand:

- If a company release a really good and sharp product, a competitor won't dare trying.

- If a company release an unfinished and buggy product, a competitor won't dare neither...

If they released an excellent product, and the market could absorb a second title, then another developer might try a competitive subsim. However if Ubisoft were releasing excellent product then there might not be such a need from the community itself.

However as it stands today, your first scenario is a pipedream :-) If only...

The reason Ubi is stifling the market is because they can keep releasing half-arsed SH games because they have immense development resources, economies of scale etc..They can hedge their games portfolio because they have so many titles.

[GFC Christian]

Originally Posted by John Channing

Coldcall your arguement overlooks the fact that most developers have gotten out of simulations all together. The exception is Oleg, but he is self financed. Other than that... nada. Add to that the fact that there have been several experienced independent developers that have actually started developing Subsims (Akula: Red Hunter anyone?) and then threw in the towel when they ran out of funding.

....and please bear in mind that UBISOFT published the IL2 series. Let's keep our fingers cross that Oleg is really independent.

[Wurschtie]

Originally Posted by GFC Christian

....and please bear in mind that UBISOFT published the IL2 series. Let's keep our fingers cross that Oleg is really independent.

Yeah.

Ability to retract landing gear and flaps - $9.99 @uPlay

*knocks on wood*

[Coldcall]

Originally Posted by John Channing

Coldcall your arguement overlooks the fact that most developers have gotten out of simulations all together. The exception is Oleg, but he is self financed. Other than that... nada. Add to that the fact that there have been several experienced independent developers that have actually started developing Subsims (Akula: Red Hunter anyone?) and then threw in the towel when they ran out of funding.

Subsims like Ubisoft are incredibly complex, expensive simulations to develop from scratch. The reason the Silent Hunter series makes some sense financially is that most of the code is already done and paid for so the development time is shorter than if you were building it from a blank C++ screen. And on the plus side, you have experienced developers who have a passion for Sub-sims involved.

So... if you know of a self-financed, independent, experienced developer with oodles of money that has a passion for WW2 Subs then point them out to me, cuz I sure as heck can't find any.

JCC

I'm not forgetting the current state of the games development/publishing. You are quite right that as things stands many niche genres have gone by the wayside.

However one of the reasons this has happened is because large groups like EA and Ubsioft have bought up many smaller independent developers. They have played the old game of buying up all your compeition and then you will have none, so we will soon be left with 3 or 4 large publishers who control the whole games industry.

But i am optimistic that this phase of consolidation is nearly over now, and because the games market is so huge (and growing) smaller developers will start popping up again where they see holes in the market.

[Eddy Lawson]

I don't know about the sales. Just wanted to add a little comment about the price:
when I first searched for SHV here in italy I though it was a used copy because the price was 30€ and the game was out from not more than 10 days.
I didn't buy it... I was suspicious, it seemed somehow too low to be real... so I went to another shop and... suprise! Same thing!!!

That's an excellent price, if it wasn't for what I read about the DRM I would have bought it. I promise I will as soon as this copy protection farse will end... and I hope it will happen soon!

[alexradu89]

Originally Posted by Coldcall

But i am optimistic that this phase of consolidation is nearly over now, and because the games market is so huge (and growing) smaller developers will start popping up again where they see holes in the market.

It's the little games(and small independent developers, that in the end are bought by large companies) that make the difference.

[msxyz]

There are a few indie developers with great potential.

The most expensive part of videogames are the assets. Graphics, sound and videos. But what we need is a stable, modular and easy to mod code base. That would be a great start. The community can then take care of the assets

[Tomi_099]

I also hope that we get the SH6 a meal.
But this debacle could have been planned or strategy, so from UbiSoft.
Then all the indications are.
I mean in the first weeks to sell the game best.


Whether it's finished or not.
Because it is not the gamer knows what he is buying.


The publication was a disaster.
No Advertising, no Marketing ... only at the end to the customer in good
To maintain mood.

The second UbiSoft knows it can not stopp Crackers Activity.
The more secure the protection is the Game DVD ,l the more interesting for the crackers.
So,
this is applies to the time play.

So who the shops in the first weeks go well and is money in the kitty!
Then we make a Patsch corrects the errors and turn off our internet connection with Patsch with customers, because the support of server management and conservation
are lot of money.

And the gratest Diel is made.

Added to which the customer is an action against the company Ubisoft or other companies could make a constant connection with the Private PC
Spay because of the personal data.
Microsoft has already gained experience here, apart from the attacks on the server.

[gimpy117]

Originally Posted by Barso

The problem is that the financial suits of ubisoft will blame the poor sales on a lack of market for subsims now.
Thinking that, what the people really want is more rabbid rabbits and the evolution of motion controllers.
Instead of the drm issue and the fact that it got terrible reviews.
Sad isn't it but I think this is the last silent hunter we will see.

A agree...i play sims like RoF and Silent hunter and my roomies ask me why i "play those boring games". I am in the key 18-25 demographic and i don't think this game is too popular with my age group. this might be the last silent hunter

[The General]

If I worked in Marketing for Ubisoft, I would've made damn sure that Gametrailers.com did a review of SH5. That website has huge exposure. It's not too late for a review on there either, get on it Ubisoft, sheesh!

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by Coldcall

Guys,

The best thing that could happen is that SH5 sales are such a huge nightmare that Ubisoft decide not to continue with the franchise.

My view is that Ubisoft has had too many chances to get it right, and that they keep getting it so wrong is an indication that they could not really care less about SH franchise.

I hope and pray that they have a tantrum over sales and say they wont produce another.

There are plenty of excellent smaller developers who could produce as good or better as any SH title ever released.

Ubisoft are not the only game in town, and a decent sub simulator has a guaranteed 200,000 sales plus worldwide which is more than enough for a strong 2 year dev process, and still a large profit margin thereafter.

It is my hope the Devs in Romania get released from UBISTANK and get with a GOOD niche market publisher (remember the SSI of old guys) and live their dream of developing a Silent Hunter that ALL can be proud of.

Without a doubt, if the devs had more budget and another 6 months to a year on SH5 it would have been a thing of BEAUTY.

In fact.... why didnt UBI have any beta testers....this would have elminated 90% of the bugs before release?? Is it Ubi's policy to NOT beta test? Such a shame as this community is not only full of subsim experts...but modders that UNDERSTAND the code and when things work as they should or not. And some of the BIG mod developers have PROVEN they can keep their mouth shut (GWX folks were great at keeping us guessing to the end) Why not tap that level love/dedication/devotion?

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Coldcall

Guys,

The best thing that could happen is that SH5 sales are such a huge nightmare that Ubisoft decide not to continue with the franchise.

My view is that Ubisoft has had too many chances to get it right, and that they keep getting it so wrong is an indication that they could not really care less about SH franchise.

I hope and pray that they have a tantrum over sales and say they wont produce another.

There are plenty of excellent smaller developers who could produce as good or better as any SH title ever released.

Ubisoft are not the only game in town, and a decent sub simulator has a guaranteed 200,000 sales plus worldwide which is more than enough for a strong 2 year dev process, and still a large profit margin thereafter.

There are excellent smaller developers out there, but I doubt very much any of them can make an AAA title like Silent Hunter that will match our expectations. Even before Ubisoft took over the SH series, there has only been one game that rose to the level of SH: Aces of the Deep. And Sierra, even with the crack Dynamix dev team ready to make a sequel, decided it was not profitable. They decided it was not profitable.

Anything is possible, I suppose. But there is a lot more evidence that a game as good as SH3/SH4 can only be created by a large publisher like Ubisoft. And with a weak SH5, if anyone was going to try to take that market over, now would be the time. I haven't heard anything at all that remotely sounds like this will happen. EA is making a major sub game, but it will be like Battlestations: Midway, and it's X-box all the way, baby.

Originally Posted by Wurschtie

I am quite certain that the major problem is the lack of business competition. I believe Ubisoft was able to get a bit lazy about SH, because players do not have any games to go to as an alternative.

From a marketing point of view, this leads to the conclusion that SH5 is not more than a second class cash cow, in a dying genre.

As a long time flight simulator enthusiast, I would even say that simulations themselves are a dying genre. Even Microsoft closed the aces studios, which were responsible for nearly every MSFS of the last two decades (which is not really the end of the world, because the MSFS series has a product life cycle of about 5-10 years). That is mainly because playing habits of the masses change from enthusiasts (as known from the early amiga and commodore days) to casual console gamers. In order to persist, it is crucial for a studio to have mega-selling titles like Assassin's Creed for the kiddie gaming generation, which likes to play GTA and stuff like that. Sims like SH5 are not an obligation, but more like an accessory and a question of image. And sure as hell Ubisoft is not coming out of this mess near zero, but with a big fat red minus at the end of the day. And this estimation does not even consider the negative effects on Ubisoft's image as a publisher in whole.

Silent Hunter was, unfortunately, one big fail. It was a communication fail in the first place. It is simply impossible to create a product which has such a high-involvement character as SH5 without asking or talking to the community. And chances are, that this will be the end of a whole genre, unless some studio (or even Ubisoft) is brave enough to do better (which is easy), or the community continues to maintain and mod the sh* out of this game and keep it alive, to prove that there still IS a market for sub sims. Without wanting to meet the trouble halfway, I am not really confident about the will of Ubisoft to keep trying to ride a dead horse.

IF (!) this game is dying in the arms of ubisoft, we can only hope that it will be given away at some point in time to a studio that dares to pay a license and continue the beloved stuff in the means of the community.

I agree 100% with your assessment. Our biggest hope remains that if Ubisoft refuses to support SH5 and fund SH6, that the serious sim guys in Bucharest can work out a deal with another publisher. Oleg, everyone's favorite messiah, someone... The next subsim will probably be Russian, like T-34 vs Tiger.

[Coldcall]

Originally Posted by alexradu89

It's the little games(and small independent developers, that in the end are bought by large companies) that make the difference.

absolutely, Ubisoft and EA have gobbled up the best once-independent talent in game development such as Bioware for instance.

Look at Bioware now, they are not the same company that developed genre defining games like BG series, or KOTOR.