Oh boy. I know this is probably going to be an exercise in futility, but here goes.
Ryu Connor wrote:
I understand fine that's not where the issue is. Until you begin to critically think about the gaming market you will continue to not understand.
Need I point out the myriad of titles that were first run releses that were successfull?
Halo? Gears of War? Bioshock? Uncharted? Alan Wake? God of War? Dante's Inferno? Dead Space?
You don't need brand recognition to break into the video game market. My god, just look at Minecraft as an example of that.
It doesn't seem like you understand the definition of "risk," so here it is:
risk - exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous chance
When I said that Crytek is taking on additional risk by entering a new market, I didn't mean that there was no chance they can succeed there, just that they are introducing additional uncertainty compared to sticking to the market they're already established in. This isn't a bad thing, though. All companies have to take risks, and plenty of success stories come from taking risks. It's just not a sure thing.
All those examples you cite of successful first run releases in no way disprove my point, because for every one of those, there are dozens of titles that never sell more than a couple hundred thousand units. Wet, Section 8, Singularity, Mirror's Edge, Call of Juarez, Split Second, Blur, Vanquish, Dark Sector, Heavenly Sword, Enslaved, need I go on? Just look through a list of all the games released in a given year and you'll see a handful that are as successful as the multimillion sellers you're using as examples. So yes, releasing any game is risky, there's always a chance that you'll lose money on it, but publishers use the money they get from the blockbusters to fund all the rest and spread out the risk as best they can.
Ryu Connor wrote:Funny. You're arguing from a weak and inaccurate position and somehow I'm trolling you. Nay, sir. You are trolling yourself.
Again, Halo, Gears of War no longer exist on PC and make mad money. Alan Wake was slated to be on PC and dropped that support and.... wait for it... made money.
The PC market is not necessary to make money. I have an entire market worth of examples. You have.... well nothing.
It's a lot easier to knock down straw men than to actually argue against my points, isn't it? I never said the PC market is necessary to make money, just that the PC market is the only one that Crytek had any experience making money in. It's obviously possible for them to make money on consoles, even a lot more money than they were making on PC, but it's by no means a sure thing. And guess what, the sales numbers that Nexus 6 posted seem to back up my point. Adding up all three platforms, Crysis 2 has sold about 1.5 million copies so far, which is pretty good for a first time entry on consoles, but quite a ways off from the sales figures of Crysis 1. Hopefully their production costs were lower for this one, though, it should be enough for them to be profitable, at least.
As a side note, I find it kind of funny that you're using Alan Wake as a shining example of a new IP that can make money. That game just barely broke a million copies sold, which sounds fine, but it was in development for at least 5 years, and probably longer. Microsoft cut off development of the DLC for it early, and there hasn't been any hint of a sequel. There's no way that Alan Wake was profitable. Of course, it likely wouldn't have been profitable even if they had done the PC version, but that's neither here nor there.
You're spot on about Mass Effect 2, though. It wasn't perfect, but it improved on the first game in so many ways that I find it a little difficult to go back and play ME1 now.