RedRocketWestie

First off, I understand this was probably a nightmare to put together, so the following constructive criticism is offered with that in mind:

That was really long, and kind of confusing at points. You might consider taking some of the results with a grain of salt due to unwieldy question wording. For example, on one of the "how often" questions, the buttons skip from "once a month" to "several times a week." And in the genre question, there wasn't any turn-based strategy category. There was no entry for downloadable console games. And it was ambiguous what you meant by "full retail" vs. "downloadable" PC games. If it's a game I can get in a box, but I downloaded it, which is it?

I hope you get a chance to tune this up and trim the fat, too, because I wouldn't mind filling it out periodically if it weren't so long. And some of the stuff is time sensitive (last 6 months/next 6 months purchasing kind of depends on what's coming out).

@patrickklepek , you're not wrong in the assertion that games historically sell the most at release and then taper off, but there are some assumptions embedded in that observation that deserve examination. For instance, is it fair to look at release date as a sole factor in the shape of the sales graph, divorced from the PR cycle? That is to say, is the shape of the graph the same when the promotional slot comes 3 days later, or does the new ad give a sales bump?

Assuming there are two kinds of customers -- those who've heard of the game and already decided to buy it on release day, and those who hear about it through advertising and decide to buy it -- why should it necessarily matter that the ad came "late"? The first group is already sold, so the ad can only serve to remind them. If they forget on release day, it will still serve that purpose later. As far as the second group is concerned, the game was released when they heard about it. It's a digital product, so it's not like lukewarm sales could convince a retailer to pull shelf space, and it's not as though positive reviews disappeared during that time. Is the supposition that there's a significant number of people who look at an ad, read a positive review, then decide not to buy it only because the review was 3 days old? Again, I don't know what the shape of the graph looks like, but the vast majority of historical data comes from PR cycles that are synced with release, so it might be hard to know.

It seems more realistic to me that the decision by Microsoft to hold off on advertising the product is deliberate and shrewd. As you stated, they get guaranteed revenue from 3rd party ads. And in the meantime, they can gauge the eventual success of a promotion for a game by the number of sales it gets without advertising, as a proportion of total expected sales after they run the ad. I.e. "this game sold x copies on Friday based on hype alone. Our marginal return for additional sales if we advertise it can be expected to be y, which is greater than the revenue for selling that space to a movie ad." It saves them the lost revenue if the game is a flop despite advertising, and I can't think of a way it loses them significant sales if it's a success.

I don't have any of this data. You might. Microsoft definitely does. But if you're really worried about the way they're treating their marketplace, maybe it's worth digging a bit deeper.

Not that I'm surprised in the slightest, but maybe you could toss a duder a warning when one of your trailers is unadorned gameplay from a super creepy horror game? Not all of us are super into reliving specific childhood nightmares :P

I gave Dave the HOTAS and now he won't give it back! Argh!

@Enigma_2099 said:

Yes, because as we all know, it's voice acting that makes or breaks the game.

It very rarely makes the game, but it sure as hell can break it. In general, I enjoy high production values.

On the one hand, I love what they've done with the story in this game. I get extremely fatigued with the "mow down swaths of dudes" gameplay in most shooters, and certainly have conflicting feelings about what it says about our culture to put so little emphasis on it. So I do want to reward this game for punishing the choice to play such games (as weird as that sounds).

But the fact is, I don't choose to play these games. It's not "all my fault," so why would I buy a game just to make myself the bad guy? I feel like the impact is lessened if I'm playing it just because it treats my wanton murder with gravity. I'm still choosing to engage in the wanton murder, after all. So I won't be picking it up, but I'm glad it exists. I'm glad there are games out there that are targeted not just to gamers of adult age, but are actually trying to be more mature.

I don't get why people are so upset about this. It's a payment plan. Of course things cost more in the long run on a payment plan. Things cost more when you carry a balance on your credit card too, and people (unadvisedly) do that ALL THE TIME. Hell, there are plenty of people who can't even afford the yearly XBL Gold price up front, so they're stuck paying monthly. Yes, it's borderline unbelievable that people can't save up $60, but it happens. For some people, rightly or wrongly, it's more about cashflow than overall cost. If you don't think it's a good deal, don't buy it. But it's not some tremendous ripoff. It's $40 over two years above the regular price.

Battletag: Pushover#1985

Difficulty: All

Region: Americas

Class: Demon Hunter

I'm not sure what it is about this game that shields it from the 3rd-person-cover-based-shooter fatigue. I see nothing special about it except for the Star Wars license. Sure, the graphics look sharp, but not astoundingly better than any other AAA title. I just don't understand why Watch Dogs is disappointing for including 3rd person shooting, but this is super exciting.

Honestly, I don't even think it's fair to call it a "clone." I typically think of a clone as being on the same platform, or competing for the same customers. This is a completely different platform (which is better and worse for reasons that have already been stated), so it would reach a (potentially) completely different market.