Mark Rein has described Unreal Tournament III on PC as not "doing so badly" in response to a question on the game's retail performance in launch month.
More than a few surprised eyebrows were raised when data released by NPD Group put the sequel at 33,995 unit sales in November 2007 in the US, which seemed very low for such a high-profile game.
Crysis, which launched in the same month, shifted just under 87,000 units.
"It is amazing how people can look at two weeks of sales (in our case) in one single territory in the busiest Xmas sales season the industry has ever seen and come to the conclusion these titles are doing 'badly'", Rein has said in a fan-led interview on Guardian Unlimited's games blog.
"I don't think either title [UTIII and Crysis] is doing so badly", he continued.
"Crysis probably has 3-4x the marketing budget of UTIII and more mindshare because it is a PC-only, high-end, single-player oriented game", he added.
Rein admitted that Unreal Tournament III isn't the fastest selling game in the series ever "but it's doing pretty well and we're going to support it with some pretty cool things to help it keep selling over time".
problem is mentioned in the article, top end pc gaming moves fast, the computer im typing this on is 2 years old and doesnt play any new games that come out these days, i have no intention to upgrade or buy a new one yet, and so therefore i am destined not to play any new pc games for a while. if this is the case with the average person then you are reducing your market staight away, sad fact but true.
When the game runs brilliantly on a £300.00 console with pad or m&k support, why bother upgrading your pc to run the same game? The pc game market is shooting itself in the foot. With a plasma.
problem is mentioned in the article, top end pc gaming moves fast, the computer im typing this on is 2 years old and doesnt play any new games that come out these days, i have no intention to upgrade or buy a new one yet, and so therefore i am destined not to play any new pc games for a while. if this is the case with the average person then you are reducing your market staight away, sad fact but true.
I could play all the Unreal 3 games( Unreal 3 demo, Bioshock, CoD4 ) fine on a 2 year old 7800GTX, everything maxed ath 720p resolutions( i only upgraded so i could play them all at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 with loads of AA and AF )
He's right in the article, PC games are slow burners, the continue selling for several months at the same pace as when released as people upgrade their PC's or get broadband or whatever. Console game sales peak on release, and then drop off very very fast only peaking again when the title is released on budget
I still havnt bought UT3 becuase i have no boradband at the moment, but ill be picking it up soon and looking forward to playing it online( the demo is great )
That's £1.4 million at retail (roughly) How much would Epic take in profit? Even at a whopping 50% that's a paltry £700K. Hardly enough to pay for the marketing and PR.
*roll-eyes* released in USA for ps3 about 2+months..its totally pro...hook a keyboard and mouse up and its just like playing pc. why oh why isnt the pal version out i'll never know
maybe we shud just start commenting on the topic which if my frnds if u ppl dont understand is regarding just the PC sales of the game which acc to mark rein himself is doing pretty well so now i guess we can stop the whole pc gaming is dead bs and move on with our gaming lives
*roll-eyes* released in USA for ps3 about 2+months..its totally pro...hook a keyboard and mouse up and its just like playing pc. why oh why isnt the pal version out i'll never know
I never liked using keyboards and mice in front of the telly( and thats since my Amiga days ), even if i link my PC to the tv i end up using a gamepad for convienence. Then again, i much prefer arcadey games on consoles and FPS on my PC with headphones( for surround sound, but no background noise affecting gameplay ) and having the monitor right in front of me
u can pick ut3 for 15quid now on pc...for that price you would expect more people to buy it.
From where? and yeah i agree with the guy. I have every intention of buying unreal and hopefully playing it on and off for years ( i still dip into 2004 now and again) and also still have to get crysis. Theres just so many good games out there at the minute and im doing the mostly single player ones 1st so i can put them to one side when im finished and start another. Ive only played team Fortress 2 quickly since the beta, dont have time for more online games. Crysis and unreal will sale for years, which to be honest probably causes a bit of a cash flow crisis for developers
The game is so similar to UT2004 that there's no reason to buy it. I only got my copy as part of a deal and it's just utterly snoozeworthy. TF2 is far superior, ET:QW has more depth and CoD4 is, well, CoD.
We can't afford to buy all these games that get released before christmas, and if we could, we end up just playing one or two. Although I'm not a great fan of the Orange Box, I can't see anything stopping it's domination with the range of single and multplayer games it opens up.
Then there's MMO's...whilst the monthly fee may seem small, people generally only stump up for one MMO, and anyone paying for an MMO tends to play that most of the time.
For the last 3 months, I've played a lot of what's on offer, and nothing sticks. I'm now entering the post christmas phase where I go back to the old favourites that are worth playing...Guild Wars, Football Manager GalCiv II & EVE.
To be honest, UT3 isn't even worth the £5 it cost me in the bundle/deal that it came with - it's even dull to look at with a really bland colour palette.
Rein's just another casualty of his overconfidence in knowing the market...
The game is so similar to UT2004 that there's no reason to buy it. I only got my copy as part of a deal and it's just utterly snoozeworthy. TF2 is far superior, ET:QW has more depth and CoD4 is, well, CoD.
We can't afford to buy all these games that get released before christmas, and if we could, we end up just playing one or two. Although I'm not a great fan of the Orange Box, I can't see anything stopping it's domination with the range of single and multplayer games it opens up.
Then there's MMO's...whilst the monthly fee may seem small, people generally only stump up for one MMO, and anyone paying for an MMO tends to play that most of the time.
For the last 3 months, I've played a lot of what's on offer, and nothing sticks. I'm now entering the post christmas phase where I go back to the old favourites that are worth playing...Guild Wars, Football Manager GalCiv II & EVE.
To be honest, UT3 isn't even worth the £5 it cost me in the bundle/deal that it came with - it's even dull to look at with a really bland colour palette.
Rein's just another casualty of his overconfidence in knowing the market...
The game is so similar to UT2004 that there's no reason to buy it. I only got my copy as part of a deal and it's just utterly snoozeworthy. TF2 is far superior, ET:QW has more depth and CoD4 is, well, CoD.
We can't afford to buy all these games that get released before christmas, and if we could, we end up just playing one or two. Although I'm not a great fan of the Orange Box, I can't see anything stopping it's domination with the range of single and multplayer games it opens up.
Then there's MMO's...whilst the monthly fee may seem small, people generally only stump up for one MMO, and anyone paying for an MMO tends to play that most of the time.
For the last 3 months, I've played a lot of what's on offer, and nothing sticks. I'm now entering the post christmas phase where I go back to the old favourites that are worth playing...Guild Wars, Football Manager GalCiv II & EVE.
To be honest, UT3 isn't even worth the £5 it cost me in the bundle/deal that it came with - it's even dull to look at with a really bland colour palette.
Rein's just another casualty of his overconfidence in knowing the market...
Its not the PCs fault that it costs a lot of money to upgrade. When you buy an Xbox Microsoft is paying that money for you, they, and sony, make a loss on every console and make the money back with games.
High End PC games arent to blame either, its stupid consumers. Why do you think all games have graphics settings ranging from high to low? For fun? No, its so people with 2-5 year old PCs can still play them, albeit on the lowest setting, and if you are shallow enough to not play a great game because you have to play it low graphics then you dont deserve to play them in the first place and should go back to your Halo!
Trouble is, most people don't feel as though they're getting the full experience unless they're using a lot of the higher settings.
I'd much prefer the time and money spent on fantabulous gfx spent on depth and gameplay.
UT3 has fantabulous gfx (so shiny in fact that the higher settings actually detract from the gameplay) but do depth and gameplay exactly the same as UT2004.
Playing the same game but with shinier gfx is boring, unless that game is something like UFO: Enemy Unknown which still has plenty of replayability but looks bloody awful in 256VGA.
I bought this game, thinking it would be awesome but the single player is boring and the online multiplayer is pretty average. I just think the whole aspect of the game is boring, the whole super fast gunning people down I found really difficult to get to grips with. Whereas today most first shooter games are about realism and real war and I find that alot more fun. For example games like COD4 you have take cover and get stealthy kills. The graphics are amazing on UT3 but i just really dislike the fast paced aspect of the game now. Sorry Epic.
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), even if i link my PC to the tv i end up using a gamepad for convienence. Then again, i much prefer arcadey games on consoles and FPS on my PC with headphones( for surround sound, but no background noise affecting gameplay ) and having the monitor right in front of me
