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Penny Arcade Game Sees Record Breaking Numbers
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."
The way the Kotaku article is worded - and it comes through on the summary is a bit confusing. Basically if the VGChartz esitmate is right they broke a record for earnings. They came in third for number of downloads- and that is what Gabe is talking about when he says "Given that our price point was double..." He means that he is happy they had the third most downloads since their game cost so much more than the others that came before it. He does not say anything about how much they made or make any comparisons regarding income to the other games. In a screencast they did for the game, he even jokes that due to the large initial cost of creating the game, they aren't making any money yet. You can see that video if you scroll to the bottom of this post.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I'll purchase it in a heartbeat.
The game is cool. I think it's cool, anyway. My mouse pointer disappears when I try getting back into the game from the Options menu, for some reason. And I'm not the only one.
Sigh. Maybe I'll actually play more than 10 minutes of it when the first patch is released.
I laughed, I rolled my eyes, I kicked mime and clown ass up and down the street. Could've blown it on booze and strippers but this was by far a better way of spending 5hrs of my life.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
http://www.duelinganalogs.com/comic/2008/05/22/million-dollar-arcade/
The game was amazingly done, and it has many qualities that would bring me to expect it to do well. Mainly:
-It is for more platforms that most mainstream games (Mac/Windows/Linux/Xbox360).
-The animated cutscenes were brilliantly done, especially how they used an animated version of the character you created at the start.
-The script was hilarious.
-The popularity of penny-arcade lent to easy advertising.
-It was only $20
Important data left out of summary... This record is for XBox Live Arcade downloads. Has nothing to do with actual total sales.
Love it, but buyer beware, if you don't have a High-def to hook up to (for the Xbox 360 version), the dialog is nigh unreadable. I don't have a high-definition TV, and I found myself squinting constantly to make out the dialog.
http://www.jasonisawesome.com
This is only for XBox Live Arcade, not a total sales record against all the platforms the game is available on.
$20 doesn't buy much booze, and we won't even talk about what kind of stripper you can get for $20.
Especially the goatse on the carpet in the bedroom.
...understands what makes a good game.
It's great that an indie game can be developed in a relatively short time with relatively small costs and released to a wide for a meaningful profit. Penny Arcade shouldn't just be proud of making a good and financially successful title; they also proved the viability of the business model.
Will their example inspire less visible developers to explore distribution? I hope so.
These are the XBOX LIVE ARCADE statistics.
RTFA
Seriously, it's a game where you can beat evil mimes to death with a rake. Who wouldn't pay $20 for that?
Just a heads up; if you're thinking about buying the PC version, it has an online activation based copy protection system, with a three activation limit, same as BioShock.
Seems a bit hypocritical coming from the PA guys, but just be aware it's there before you decide to spend your cash on it. I, for one, will sadly have to miss this one.
The game was amazingly done, and it has many qualities that would bring me to expect it to do well. Mainly:
-It is for more platforms that most mainstream games (Mac/Windows/Linux/Xbox360)...
I agree with the game being amazingly well done, and a lot of fun to play. But the reported figures are from one platform only (the 360) so they don't even really go so far as to show the benefits of the multi-platform release...
One thing it does go to show is that the value of the game lies in the artistry and storytelling, and since (in my opinion) the Penny Arcade guys are great at both it was a natural the game would be good - not to mention that as gamers they would know if the control scheme sucked and make them fix it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... you'd better live in one of those 11% of households that have an HDTV, or you'd better get used to squinting, because it's nearly unplayable on a standard TV. The text is unreadably small, and the whole game is letterboxed so everything is 25% smaller than it should be.
Really, is there any excuse for letterboxing a video game? It's not like there are boom mikes just off-screen that need to be covered up. The game doesn't have to be "modified from its original version" -- everything is generated on the fly anyway.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Really, is there any excuse for letterboxing a video game?
Yes, it's called visual style.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
- Creating an account at the game's website
- With an email address!
- And a real name!
- And a credit card number!
- And a billing address!
to get the game in the first place.It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Eh, $20 buys a enough booze for a good time if you're buying decent stuff, or a crapload of the cheap stuff. But then, I generally drink infrequently enough that buying a pint of spirits every few weeks is more than enough for me.
$20 stripper - if you're talking about a lap dance, then $20 ain't exactly an uncommon rate for your average place. If you're talking about actually sacking her, then yeah, I don't wanna see what you're gonna get for $20.
to support their anti-drm practices.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
It's amazing how people's morals crumble when a certain level of convenience is reached.
11% of households may own an HDTV but I would bet many pennies that the overlap between HDTV owners and Xbox 360 owners is much higher. Honestly, I know about 10 people who own 360s in real life and they all have HDTVs.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
How exactly does the visual style benefit from using less of the available screen?
Remember, this isn't a movie where there's One True Aspect Ratio and something must be lost to fit it on another screen. This stuff is rendered in real time.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Well, I looked up the stats, and I must say I'm shocked to find that two-thirds of Xbox 360s are connected to an HDTV. Still, that means they're pissing off 33% of their potential customers.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
How is your mother doing?
You'd think that guy who spend their time making fun of bad games would manage to not make one themselves.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Or click the option marked "Skip creating an Account and Just Buy The Game" (my wording, but it's there in the first phase of buying the game online.
I bought it. It's plenty of fun. Reminds me a bit of the old Ultima click-n-fight fun, but with much better story and graphics.
I'm glad that they're letting me transfer the key between my desktop and my laptop and my work computer. I'll gladly drop a few gold shekels for that.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Remember, this isn't a movie where there's One True Aspect Ratio
Stop digging now, before you come off looking any dumber.
I really liked the battle system. It's kind of a cross between Paper Mario's timing based mechanics and Final Fantasy's active time battle system.
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.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Nah, he's right. Forcing a game into letterbox mode is like a website that fixes text columns at 480 pixels in width. It might look fine if you're running the exact setup the designer wants you to run, but really it's just a deliberately added limitation. I'd consider it a usability flaw.
I don't have an HDTV, and probably won't get one in the near future. That's one of the reasons I got a Wii instead of a 360 (and the PS3 was a no-go from the start, of course). I wanted games that would definitely be playable at standard def. So there's probably some mutual reinforcement going on there, causing people to fall into the HDTV+360 cluster or the SDTV+Wii cluster. There's also the PS3+Monster Cable cluster, no doubt.
Yes, it was pretty damned good, but I still assert that Portal is the best $20 ever spent on a game.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
How exactly does the visual style benefit from using less of the available screen?
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This has been a problem with a few other games, notably Dead Rising which was a few years ago. I think Capcom patched it but it just seems odd that it's still happening. I agree that you shouldn't piss off any of your potential customers.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I just purchased it today... with a Xbox Live Points card from Target. Until Saturday, Target is selling $20 Point cards for $15. So, in essence, you can purchase Precipice for only $15 - 25% off!
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. You're right, I have seen a movie. What an astute deduction, good sir.
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. 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. Gee, maybe they should've thought about that when they were coming up with the design. But it's funny - this sort of thing doesn't seem to stop everyone else from designing games that work equally well on 4:3 and 16:9 screens. 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. Why would I buy a new TV that's smaller than the one I already have? That's a step down, not up; I'm not about to shrink everything else I watch just to make the Penny Arcade game more readable.
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. 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. You're right, it's not the first. It's the second. Carcassonne is also fairly unplayable on a standard TV, but (1) at least it's not letterboxed, and (2) it costs half as much as the P-A game. Every other game I've played manages to fill the entire screen and uses reasonably sized fonts.
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.
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Time spent playing per dollar is NOT the best way to measure a game's entertainment value.
If it were, then RPGs with scrooge-like experience awards forcing hours mindless of grinding would be the way to go.
So on the context and comfort scale, 4:3 wins out.
There is no winning. It's a different choice, and one they did not make. Sorry you can't understand that, but some of us do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
You can get a mickey for less than $20 and have about $7 left over. Which is enough for ... geometry wars?
... are purchase copies of low-budget games developed in relatively short time frames which were released by someone without a pre-existing audience of millions of rabid fans?
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/
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/
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.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Hot having an HDTV doesn't mean you don't have widescreen.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Why is it not available on the two currently fastest selling games consoles - the Wii and PS3?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
"The interface is pretty much designed around a controller, and not a keyboard and mouse."
Which is why I was extremely surprised to discover that on Windows/Mac/Linux, *gamepads are not supported* (I found this out by searching on the games support forum, but I don't have the link handy now). I've got a very functional Logitech USB gamepad, which I would *love* to use with Rainslick. Oh well. I'm cutting them some slack because they created a game which does run substantially the same on all 3 of the most popular PC OS'es, and I suspect that gamepad detection and event notification might not be easy to do cross-platform? (Not sure on that though, seems like cross-platform game engines/libraries/sdks would have this functionality available to the developers.)
Still, overall, it's a pretty decent game. Unfortunately, this game suffers from a problem that most games seem to have - demos that are very unimpressive. You don't get to anything good, really, until after the demo is over. Which means that people considering buying the game, who check out the demo, may very well be put off from buying it, very understandably.
Game developers/publishers need to think about creating demos that really "Wow" people right from the very first minute, and give people very interesting gameplay, even early in the game. Rainslick is sort RPG-like in it's system, where your characters gain levels, and new abilities. The problem is, RPG-like games typically don't demo very well, because at low levels, your character basically has no interesting abilities or attack chains, and at low levels, encounters are typically very boring with both the character and enemies being weak, slow, and utlimately, not very challenging (or in some games, overly-challenging because of the low level). The other issue is that, just frankly, the first area of the game (which is all you can access in the demo), is pretty boring (I mean, come on, it's a suburb; even if a suburb is stomped on by a giant robot, it's still boring), and you don't get much story or amusing dialog or characters during that first area.
The dialog and story do get a bit better, but my experience has been that the real draw of this game is a lot of the encounters with NPCs - the dialog and stories of the individual encounters, is much better than the over-arching story (at least, what I've seen of it so far; I haven't finished the game yet).
That's true, but I'd wager widescreen EDTV is even less common than HDTV. And I doubt most respondents to that survey would know the difference, or want to admit it: if I spent $2000 on a TV that only had 480 lines, I'd call it HD anyway just to sleep at night. ;)
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Perhaps it's just a PAL thing, but widescreen (16:9) SDTVs are pretty common over here (UK) and have been for a good few years - since before HDTV was anything but a toy for real AV enthusiasts. I don't have an HDTV receiver, but all new broadcast content I see is widescreen. Legacy 4:3 contents gets black bars at the edges. Do you people in NTSC land not get widescreen without an HDTV?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
I should add that I went digital before I went widescreen, so perhaps analogue transmissions aren't widescreen. All I know is when I plugged it in and picked 16:9 in the menu on my digital box the screen was usually full and I didn't lose anything from the top and bottom of the screen, so it isn't just zooming. Judging by the position of on-screen logos 4:3 viewers don't see the edges 16:9 viewers do. DVDs have been widescreen since day 1, 4:3 just throws some information away (either vertical resolution in letterbox or horizontal in pan&scan). My TV is an 8 year old CRT, given to me by my brother who upgraded to a widescreen SDTV plasma a few years ago. It didn't cost $2000 new.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
I think it is a PAL thing. There used to be 16:9 sets here that would only do 480p, but they never became mainstream. They were a cutting-edge product even then, so I'd expect any of the early adopters who bought one to have quickly moved on to HDTV when it became available. Today, I think it's easier to find a digital 4:3 TV than a non-HD 16:9 TV.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I don't recall progressive scan ones over here, but I'm no enthusiast. It's plain old interlaced PAL, just wider. Initially it was only any use for watching widescreen DVDs, but gradually satellite, cable and terrestrial digital provided widescreen content. Reading up, DVDs can be encoded either way and output either, with some loss of resolution if the encoding and your set didn't match. Thinking back I do recall DVDs here several years ago being released in both 4:3 and 16:9 formats. I think pretty much all DVDs here are encoded 16:9 now, with 4:3 viewers picking between letterbox and pan&scan and the player converting as required.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News