Creative Assembly Business Practice Discussion Thread (Rome II)

[riskymonk]

No, as I explained quite clearly I am only interested in the single player game. The MP game cannot be considered a measure of quality for the strategy design as it by implication avoids the main quality issues of the AI and strategy design.

There are plenty of strategy games that would have withered on the vine long ago had it not been for the fact that they are useful as a combat platform for multi-player game play. Warcraft 3 for example survived for years just on the basis of its multiplayer value, but it doesn't mean it was necessarily a well designed strategy game.


Exactly....before I buy a strategy game I want to know that a lot of players have bought it and found it playable enough to invest the time and energy into completing it, preferably several times as different factions as evidence of its replay value.

If the vast majority of purchasers merely dabbled in it for a few hours, got bored or frustrated and threw it in the bin, then I'm not going to buy it.

As you say the achievement statistic's look a bit disappointing.

Auxilla - Only 83% of purchasers invested more than an hour in playing the game, suggesting that almost 1 purchaser in 5 realised they had wasted their money almost immediately.
Consul - Only 39% of purchasers have played for more than 100 turns. How long is the average single player campaign? (More than a 100 turns I suspect)
Evocatus - Only 23.5% of purchasers have completed more than 100 hours of gameplay.
Augustus! - Only 2.3% have played the game for more than 500 hours.
God of War! - Only 0.6% have played for more than 1,000 hours.

When compared to the 2,000+ hours I've spent playing Empire Totalwar these figures look trifling. I've played 853 hours on Shogun 2 so far, and thats after completing the SP campaign for every faction.

Campaigns Completed
Roma Invicta - Only 6.3% of purchasers have managed to complete a campaign playing Rome?
Strategist - Only 3.4% have completed a campaign on Hard difficulty.
Master Strategist - Only 1.7% of players have completed a campaign on Very Hard difficulty.

So, this suggests that upwards of 90% of players who have bought Rome 2 have never completed a single SP campaign. In fact, according to the stats only 10.8% even got as far as completing the Prologue Campaign.

How do these figures compare with Shogun 2 and Empire?

Well that's the tricky thing. I don't know if those achievement statistics are good or bad and to check I did look at shogun 2 but there were very few similar achievements between them. For all we know 50 hours could be the industry standard for time played on a game.

We shouldn't look at the "completed campaign" achievements because in every total war it's been a steamroll towards the end and most of us would prefer to start a new campaign than spend an hour of our lives doing something predictable and boring - moving army's and auto resolving. i think the mongol and timurid invasions of medieval 2 helped with the late game challenge tw games have trouble with but even that became predictable.

Don't rely on "completed" achievements to measure it's success as there's too many factors to take into consideration. If it's an fps shooter with a single player campaign then that's when we compare to measure a game or gaming franchises success.

What I don't like is how rome 2 is competing with games released in 2011 and 2012 in the top 10 steam charts. Fanboys look at the top 10 and think "well it can't be bad if it's in Top 10" I look at the charts and think "whys it not in the top 5".

A unique AAA title developed by a 20 year old publisher who committed to a 14 year series should be up there with other long standing successful series such as civ 5 IMO.

[wulfgar610]

No, he's not forgetting anything. You are, however, making stuff up just to avoid admitting a failure. When Sega says Rome II, they mean the game, not the DLCs. They sold 1.13 million of it just in USA and EU. Simple. 1.13 million different customers who bought the game. This is beyond pathetic now.

No, I'm not just making stuff because an unbiased source claims they have sold around half million a copies to date. Where as you people like quoting sources which are biased. When they claim "1.13 million copies", how do you know that doesn't include the DLC's copies sold? How do you know?
For example the producers of CIV 5 claim to have sold over 10 million copies, which wouldn't be surprising if they included all the additions to the game as separate copies, because in this case there an absolute multitude of additional content.

I don't have Civ 5 becuase what is the point of Civ 5 if you got Civ 4? Civ 5 is simply a dumbed down version of 4, so I can hardly see the point of updating.

Company of Heroes 2 is another case. VG claims 220,000. Sega claims 680,000 which wouldn't be surprising if the multitude of DLC's is included.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...iness-rebounds

Sega's gaming business rebounds

Brendan Sinclair Fri 09 May 2014 2:57pm GMT / 10:57am EDT / 7:57am PDT


Full-year game revenues up 19 percent; Total War: Rome II sells 1.13 million copies

Sega may be most closely associated with Sonic the Hedgehog, but the publisher doesn't rely on its console platformer mascot like it used to. Parent company Sega Sammy Holdings reported its full-year financial results today, with a turnaround for the gaming business led by a pair of PC titles.
Total War: Rome II was the company's best-selling game for the year, with 1.13 million copies sold, followed by Football Manager 2014 and its 790,000 copies sold. The worldwide Wii U and 3DS release of Sonic: Lost World was third, with 710,000 copies sold. The top five was rounded out by THQ bankruptcy acquisition Company of Heroes 2 (680,000 sold) and the Japanese launch of Yakuza: Ishin for PS3 and PS4 (390,000 sold).

[PointOfViewGun]

No, I'm not just making stuff because an unbiased source claims they have sold around half million a copies to date. Where as you people like quoting sources which are biased. When they claim "1.13 million copies", how do you know that doesn't include the DLC's copies sold? How do you know?
For example the producers of CIV 5 claim to have sold over 10 million copies, which wouldn't be surprising if they included all the additions to the game as separate copies, because in this case there an absolute multitude of additional content.

I don't have Civ 5 becuase what is the point of Civ 5 if you got Civ 4? Civ 5 is simply a dumbed down version of 4, so I can hardly see the point of updating.

Company of Heroes 2 is another case. VG claims 220,000. Sega claims 680,000 which wouldn't be surprising if the multitude of DLC's is included.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...iness-rebounds

You did make it up when you claimed that the sales numbers of the game includes DLC sales as well. How do I know this? Well, your own source shows this. DLCs are not copies of the game. The game itself makes up the copies of the game. I don't know how to explain this in simpler terms to you.

vgchartz is not an unbiased source. It's hardly a source of sales figures. It has no credibility. Company reports from a company like Sega, which is publicly-traded, has credibility and legal liability.

[wulfgar610]

You did make it up when you claimed that the sales numbers of the game includes DLC sales as well. How do I know this? Well, your own source shows this. DLCs are not copies of the game. The game itself makes up the copies of the game. I don't know how to explain this in simpler terms to you.

vgchartz is not an unbiased source. It's hardly a source of sales figures. It has no credibility. Company reports from a company like Sega, which is publicly-traded, has credibility and legal liability.

That's your opinion, but what will be Sega's game when they want to give figures on sales. It's in their interest that perceived sales are the highest possible. Investor interest is very high on the agenda with these companies. People investing in their company is their day to day bread and butter. If shareholders deserted the company they would be bust overnight.

I'll stick with the objective observer. When VG says half a million copies of the main game, that's the bet I'll put my money on rather than paid shills.

[PointOfViewGun]

That's your opinion, but what will be Sega's game when they want to give figures on sales. It's in their interest that perceived sales are the highest possible. Investor interest is very high on the agenda with these companies. People investing in their company is their day to day bread and butter. If shareholders deserted the company they would be bust overnight.

I'll stick with the objective observer. When VG says half a million copies of the main game, that's the bet I'll put my money on rather than paid shills.

You can't dismiss facts by merely saying that they're my opinion. You're not sticking with an objective observer and you're still making stuff up. You're calling the people who wrote the reports from Sega that provide the sales figures as paid shills which implies that they're being paid to lie. I'm sure you don't have the slightest evidence to prove that.

You're practically denying he sun's existence while staring at it. Keep it up.

[Huberto]

Well, first of all, it was your report that you incorrectly labeled as 2014 annual report which you failed to link to. Now, you're simply making stuff up once again about what was said on it. The number given is for USA and EU market, not for the whole planet.

So they exclude reporting sales to Japan in disclosing sales for a major title? Why would they do that?

Maybe TW games aren't SOLD in Japan?

What about other regions, such as Australia, NZ, Middle East, South America, China, India, South East Asia, Africa?

Look here at SEGA's forecast:

For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2015, estimated total volume of packaged software
sales is 12,780 thousand copies, including 4,540 thousand copies in the U.S., 4,890 thousand in Europe and 3,340
thousand in Japan

Add 'em up 4540+4890+3340 = 12,770
So outside of the U.S, Europe and Japan, SEGA estimates only having 10,000 units of packaged game software sold.

It's the exact same for FY 2014 (thousands): 8,730

Japan 2,150 + Europe 3,770 + US 2800 = 8,720
So we still have the missing 10,000

So...I guess what you're trying to say...is that the total number of sales of TWR2 should include all that extra 10 K on top of the 1.13 million units of TWR2 reported? 1.14 million that is.
http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/library/settlement.do?year=2014

The thing about financial statements is that you need to actually read and understand them before you go spouting off.

[PointOfViewGun]

So they exclude reporting sales to Japan in disclosing sales for a major title? Why would they do that?
Maybe TW games aren't SOLD in Japan?
What about other regions, such as Australia, NZ, Middle East, South America, China, India, South East Asia, Africa?
Look here at SEGA's forecast:
Add 'em up 4540+4890+3340 = 12,770
So outside of the U.S, Europe and Japan, SEGA estimates only having 10,000 units of packaged game software sold.
It's the exact same for FY 2014 (thousands): 8,730
Japan 2,150 + Europe 3,770 + US 2800 = 8,720
So we still have the missing 10,000
So...I guess what you're trying to say...is that the total number of sales of TWR2 should include all that extra 10 K on top of the 1.13 million units of TWR2 reported? 1.14 million that is.
http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/library/settlement.do?year=2014
The thing about financial statements is that you need to actually read and understand them before you go spouting off.

Well, I haven't been the one who have been consistently reading official documents of a company wrong.

It's hard to spot what your endgame is here. You're trying to argue against reports that explicitly give the 1.13 million number for for USA and EU. This means that Japan numbers are excluded. So, if we went by the numbers you give there is still roughly 370 thousand units missing from Japan. That puts the number up to 1.5 million units sold, still excluding South America, Asia, Africa and Australia.

The reports are likely only created for regions Sega is listed as trade-able, hence the exclusion of other regions from these numbers. I really hope that you're not claiming that Sega only sold 10 thousand units of all Sega games in the entire South America, Asia, Africa and Australia market.

[Huberto]

Well, I haven't been the one who have been consistently reading official documents of a company wrong.

It's hard to spot what your endgame is here. You're trying to argue against reports that explicitly give the 1.13 million number for for USA and EU. This means that Japan numbers are excluded. So, if we went by the numbers you give there is still roughly 370 thousand units missing from Japan. That puts the number up to 1.5 million units sold, still excluding South America, Asia, Africa and Australia.

The reports are likely only created for regions Sega is listed as trade-able, hence the exclusion of other regions from these numbers. I really hope that you're not claiming that Sega only sold 10 thousand units of all Sega games in the entire South America, Asia, Africa and Australia market.

Actually you have been reading them wrong since you've repeatedly claimed that TWR2 sold 1.13 million copies in Europe and the U.S. You still don't seem to understand that the Japanese numbers aren't excluded from TWR2 sales, they don't exist.

The reports are likely only created for regions Sega is listed as trade-able, hence the exclusion of other regions from these numbers. I really hope that you're not claiming that Sega only sold 10 thousand units of all Sega games in the entire South America, Asia, Africa and Australia market.

This is quasi word salad nonsense -- show us one global corporation that excludes reporting sales data because one cannot buy shares of said corporation's stock in those regions. How would people be able to value the business if there were unreported sales? In other words, keep shuckin' and jivin'

[PointOfViewGun]

Actually you have been reading them wrong since you've repeatedly claimed that TWR2 sold 1.13 million copies in Europe and the U.S. You still don't seem to understand that the Japanese numbers aren't excluded from TWR2 sales, they don't exist.

This is quasi word salad nonsense -- show us one global corporation that excludes reporting sales data because one cannot buy shares of said corporation's stock in those regions. How would people be able to value the business if there were unreported sales? In other words, keep shuckin' and jivin'

You can't really claim I'm reading something wrong and the only explanation you can come up with is through making stuff up. Are you seriously suggesting that the game is not sold in Japan? Rome II sold on Amazon Japan...

The whole point of a public company report is to give information on the company to public shareholders. Why would a company make such data public when there is no public owner?

Looks like you're trying to turn an epic fail but it's not really working. No wonder you're avoiding addressing most of my points.

[texoman81]

wow i can't believe the argument about sales is STILL going on, some people can not be forced to see the plain truth and i realized i was wasting my time a long time ago. I've posted the most definitive sources you could hope for in the gaming industry and its had no effect. I got better things to do.

[Huberto]

You can't really claim I'm reading something wrong and the only explanation you can come up with is through making stuff up. Are you seriously suggesting that the game is not sold in Japan? Rome II sold on Amazon Japan...

The whole point of a public company report is to give information on the company to public shareholders. Why would a company make such data public when there is no public owner?

No wonder you're avoiding addressing most of my points.

"why would a company make..data public when there is no public owner." You need to explain your "points" because they sound like gibberish made up to sound like you know what you're talking about.

I don't know how SEGA counts sales by region but I'm 100% sure they don't exclude sales in their financial reporting. Besides being unlawful it would also be stupid. But that's still your actual argument. It's beyond human capacity to address something that lacking in sense.

[PointOfViewGun]

I don't know how SEGA counts sales by region but I'm 100% sure they don't exclude sales. Besides being unlawful it would also be stupid. But that's your actual argument. Just wow.

You being sure they don't exclude regions from sales numbers doesn't explain the idiocy of your previous arguments that somehow a figure clearly labeled as being only from USA and EU also includes rest of the world.

[Huberto]

You being sure they don't exclude regions from sales numbers doesn't explain the idiocy of your previous arguments that somehow a figure clearly labeled as being only from USA and EU also includes rest of the world.

Actually if you go back and read your source carefully you'll find other sales figures for other titles in the very same section that include Japan, EU and USA. Those are the only three geographic regions SEGA ever mentions. Now, why would SEGA report sales for some games in all three geographic regions and only report sales for TWR2 in two geographic region? Could it be that they want the public to only know some sales (but not all sales) of certain titles in order to let Setekh win an argument on the internet? Given that such selective disclosure would probably violate US and Japanese securities laws, I doubt it very much.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

I do know Shogun 2 is sold in Japan.

[karamazovmm]

I do know Shogun 2 is sold in Japan.

I do know all TW games are sold in japan

[Huberto]

Are you claiming that Rome II is not sold in Japan?

"With USA and EU regions in mind" doesn't mean anything other than what I told you it meant at the outset of this discussion.

[Didz]

Well that's the tricky thing. I don't know if those achievement statistics are good or bad and to check I did look at shogun 2 but there were very few similar achievements between them. For all we know 50 hours could be the industry standard for time played on a game.

Well I can only compare these figures with my own time played on TW games.

Hours played to date
Empire = 2,799 hours (but I'm currently in the middle of another Ottoman Campaign game.)
Shogun 2 = 853 hours (that includes all three expansions and a number of co-op campaigns)
Napoleon = 392 hours (my least favourite of the three, due to its limited scope and historical inaccuracy.)

I was going to ask how to get hold of the global stats for gameplay but I think I've literally just worked it out so I might see if I can do some direct comparisons. I would have thought that most achievement lists would include some common stats such as hours played and campaigns completed, so it should be possible to make a comparison, and might be enlightening.

We shouldn't look at the "completed campaign" achievements because in every total war it's been a steamroll towards the end and most of us would prefer to start a new campaign than spend an hour of our lives doing something predictable and boring - moving army's and auto resolving. i think the mongol and timurid invasions of medieval 2 helped with the late game challenge tw games have trouble with but even that became predictable.

Actually thats precisely why it's important and why I would consider it a measure of the quality of the game. A good strategy game design should retain the players interest to the end, if it doesn't as you suggest is the case with most TW games then that is an indication of poor design, and a reason not to buy it. Hence my interest in how many players actually complete full campaigns.

Don't rely on "completed" achievements to measure it's success as there's too many factors to take into consideration. If it's an fps shooter with a single player campaign then that's when we compare to measure a game or gaming franchises success.

Well we are not talking about FPS games, so it's a mute point. If one was was evaluating an FPS one would first have to decide what factors determine its quality and replay value. But its obvious that a well designed strategy game should engage the players interest from Turn 1 to final campaign victory. If it doesn't then there is something wrong with the design. If as you say the players are becoming bored by the middle of a campaign and walking away then clearly there is something wrong.

So, the fact that such a small percentage of players are actually finishing even one campaign of Rome 2 is worrying. It either means that the vast majority of purchasers are just using it as a PvP combat platform and not playing the strategy game at all, or the game is so badly designed that most players get bored and walk away before finishing a single play through. What I would have expected to see is close to 100% of players completing at least one campaign on an easy level, and then a drop off of players completing campaigns at the higher difficulty settings.

It will be interesting to see if this pattern appears for other TW games, or whether we are looking at a franchise wide design failure.

[riskymonk]

Well I can only compare these figures with my own time played on TW games.

Hours played to date
Empire = 2,799 hours (but I'm currently in the middle of another Ottoman Campaign game.)
Shogun 2 = 853 hours (that includes all three expansions and a number of co-op campaigns)
Napoleon = 392 hours (my least favourite of the three, due to its limited scope and historical inaccuracy.)

I was going to ask how to get hold of the global stats for gameplay but I think I've literally just worked it out so I might see if I can do some direct comparisons. I would have thought that most achievement lists would include some common stats such as hours played and campaigns completed, so it should be possible to make a comparison, and might be enlightening.


Actually thats precisely why it's important and why I would consider it a measure of the quality of the game. A good strategy game design should retain the players interest to the end, if it doesn't as you suggest is the case with most TW games then that is an indication of poor design, and a reason not to buy it. Hence my interest in how many players actually complete full campaigns.


Well we are not talking about FPS games, so it's a mute point. If one was was evaluating an FPS one would first have to decide what factors determine its quality and replay value. But its obvious that a well designed strategy game should engage the players interest from Turn 1 to final campaign victory. If it doesn't then there is something wrong with the design. If as you say the players are becoming bored by the middle of a campaign and walking away then clearly there is something wrong.

So, the fact that such a small percentage of players are actually finishing even one campaign of Rome 2 is worrying. It either means that the vast majority of purchasers are just using it as a PvP combat platform and not playing the strategy game at all, or the game is so badly designed that most players get bored and walk away before finishing a single play through. What I would have expected to see is close to 100% of players completing at least one campaign on an easy level, and then a drop off of players completing campaigns at the higher difficulty settings.

It will be interesting to see if this pattern appears for other TW games, or whether we are looking at a franchise wide design failure.

I don't believe completed campaigns should be an indication a strategy games success because these games take weeks maybe even months to get through one campaign. Rome 2s patches has made people restart so that's also another reason why they shouldn't be compared so early and civ 5s similar achievements don't seem to be much better than rome 2s yet people are buying into that series like it's the holy grail.

3 of the "beat the game on... difficulty level" achievements are between 14% and 15%. Another one is 22%. While that's better than rome 2 it's not much of a difference really. Completed campaign stats on strategy games are misleading when determining a games success.

You said that a good strategy game should hold the players interest to the end but I think that was more of an opinion as there's no statistics to support this.

Close to 100% on easy level? What are you smoking. I'd be very surprised to find any game that had that statistic. If there is one then please let me know as it must be one worth looking into.

[PointOfViewGun]

"With USA and EU regions in mind" doesn't mean anything other than what I told you it meant at the outset of this discussion.

You did claim that Rome II sales in Japan was non-existent. Did you not? This is what you said earlier:

You still don't seem to understand that the Japanese numbers aren't excluded from TWR2 sales, they don't exist.

[Didz]

I don't believe completed campaigns should be an indication a strategy games success because these games take weeks maybe even months to get through one campaign.

Which is why the game design needs to be clever enough to hold the players attention. If the game becomes boring after a few hours into a campaign then it clearly hasn't been properly designed.

Rome 2s patches has made people restart so that's also another reason why they shouldn't be compared so early and civ 5s similar achievements don't seem to be much better than rome 2s yet people are buying into that series like it's the holy grail.

I don't think you can use one failure as an excuse for another. The fact that Rome 2 needed to be so heavily patched after release is, in and of itself, a failure. But I don't see that as an excise for the fact that so few players have found it engaging enough to play it long to the end of even one campaign.

3 of the "beat the game on... difficulty level" achievements are between 14% and 15%. Another one is 22%. While that's better than rome 2 it's not much of a difference really. Completed campaign stats on strategy games are misleading when determining a games success.

That's interesting.

I must admit I've been working most of today so I haven't had a chance to do the analysis myself. However, in my opinion there is a big difference between 14% and 6.3%, at least enough to make me cautious about spending my money.

You said that a good strategy game should hold the players interest to the end but I think that was more of an opinion as there's no statistics to support this.

Yes, thats my opinion. Just as most of the discussion on this thread is based upon opinion including yours.

I take the view that if one is designing a strategy game, one ought to be doing so with the goal of persuading players to play it. Not just for a couple of hours, but right the way through to the end, and preferably several times. To do otherwise will eventually only serve to gain you a reputation as a supplier of poor quality strategy games that nobody wants to play.

Close to 100% on easy level? What are you smoking. I'd be very surprised to find any game that had that statistic. If there is one then please let me know as it must be one worth looking into.

That would be the ideal. Though I accept your doubts about the likelihood that any strategy game has ever been that good. But I live in hope.