Penny Arcade Game Sees Record Breaking Numbers 124
Kotaku is reporting that the new Penny Arcade game is showing record breaking numbers, earning $330,000 in the first three days, surpassing previous record holder Worms HD. Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik was very pleased with the result saying: "Given that our price point was double the other games on that list I'm pretty f***ing happy. We fully expected some people to complain about the $20 price tag but we honestly felt like our game was worth it. Pricing something like this is tricky. Obviously you have to look at the length of time it will take someone to complete the game but you also need to factor in the quality of the experience."
Missing mouse pointer (Score:1, Interesting)
Sigh. Maybe I'll actually play more than 10 minutes of it when the first patch is released.
Oblig. (Score:1, Interesting)
An excellent example (Score:3, Interesting)
Will their example inspire less visible developers to explore distribution? I hope so.
Nice game (Score:4, Interesting)
It shows some symptoms of fetch quest syndrome, but the combat, art style, and shear volume of amusing things to see kept it from dragging.
Overall it's a very enjoyable game and I'm looking forward to the next episode.
Re:If you're thinking about the PC version: DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:still not buyin it (Score:3, Interesting)
Do yourself a favor -- download the demo. It's at least a third of the game, anyway. Then tell me it's not worth $20.
Re:And if you're thinking about the Xbox version.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm about to tell you...
Remember, this isn't a movie where there's One True Aspect Ratio
No, it's not a movie. But chances are you may have seen a movie. And having seen a movie, in that aspect ratio, helps provide previous visual context and helps the format feel more comfortable.
Beyond that, framing is totally up to the artist - in photography, some things look better totally square, others look better wide. It all depends on the content. And because the game is heavily built around art by artists, it simply would not look or feel the same if you simply arbitrarily hacked the thing to fill your ancient screen.
And that brings me to me last point, is that basically Penny Arcade would say you are a wanker for using such an ancient display device with modern consoles. Get with the program, it's not like small 720p sets cost that much at this point. It's not like the Penny Arcade game is the first or last game that is going to give you issues with your weak display.
For those interested in getting this for Xbox... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And if you're thinking about the Xbox version.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember, this isn't a movie where there's One True Aspect Ratio
No, it's not a movie. But chances are you may have seen a movie. And having seen a movie, in that aspect ratio, helps provide previous visual context and helps the format feel more comfortable.
But I've also seen TV. Lots more TV than movies, in fact. And I've seen games, every one of which (that I've seen) manages to fill the entire screen. So on the context and comfort scale, 4:3 wins out.
On the other hand, if I want to get a TV of equal or greater size than the one I have now, then yes, they do cost that much. I'm not spending $800 on a TV when I have a perfectly good one that cost less than half that much.
Furthermore, it's not like I'm the only guy out there who has better things to spend his money on than new TVs. One third of Xbox 360 owners are using a standard TV. That means one third of the potential buyers of this game are left in the cold, simply because the developers were too lazy to do what every other studio does and make the game playable on a 4:3 screen.
As for whether it's the last... hopefully by the time a majority of games are only playable on HD, the sets will have become affordable.
How many games on your hard drive... (Score:5, Interesting)
Its not like Penny Arcade descended down from heaven yesterday and declared "And let it be possible to sell video games, for money, over the Internet! So it is written, so shall it be done!" Its been done. The overwhelming majority of folks who do it fail to make any significant amount of money relative to the fair-market value of the time invested.
http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/ [gameproducer.net]
Those statistics aren't representative -- everyone likes hearing about the success stories (hint: most of the ones with numbers in the title). Vastly more numerous are results like these folks:
http://www.gameproducer.net/2006/09/20/sales-statistics-pharaohs-curse-gold-2000-yearly-sales/ [gameproducer.net]
Several man months of labor. $2,000 worth of sales.
Games are just a tough, tough market to make money in. Your core customers don't want to spend money and fly the Jolly Roger by default. Your product will be obsolete in 3 to 6 months, even for "casual" gaming. You have enormous expenditures for assets to remain competitive. Your customers have rather little loyalty and it is difficult to turn them into ongoing revenue streams.
Compare this to selling software on the shareware model: your core customers have problems and are willign to pay to solve them. Your core customers don't have LimeWire installed. Your product will last for years. Your expenditures on assets may cost less than a date (I started my software business with $60... working on hitting $20k this year, on about 2 hours a week). Your customers provide a built-in base of people to sell upgrades and new related products to, and they are often fanatically loyal to you.