Creative Assembly Business Practice Discussion Thread (Attila)

[Huberto]

What are you talking about? TWR2 were HUGE, it was their biggest game. It managed 6 times the pre-orders of Shogun 2 and sold 1.13 million units in about half a year.

I'm just telling you what SEGA told their shareholders. Don't shoot the messenger I think they were hoping for 2 million. Brian Blessed and all that.

In terms of the 1.13 million, we know it was 800 K as of 9-30-14, so six months after that = 330,000.

[Totalheadache]

Drop the ball with Rome II? Rome II was a success, it was well reviewed and sold well (and continues to sell well). It is an exaggeration of this "hardcore fan" community that it was a disaster that has irreparably hurt the company. TW games have become more mainstream with each release and have therefore have become more and more of a success. Attila is not a make or break game.

Since when does x patches mean success?

And reviews...hahaha...dont tell me you believe things written by say Ign etc...hoho.

Wait you're joking. You have to be! Good one..got me..

To quote a famous sportsman "you cannot be serious"!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekQ_Ja02gTY

[craziii]

I think that a lot of people that were burned by Rome 2 won't buy Atilla.

you mean the 20 to 50 guys who were pissed off that the features they want aren't in the game? or the game was not made according to their tastes? lets be honest here, they don't matter one bit.

But, it never hurts to vote with your wallet. if you or anyone who truly dislikes rome 2, don't buy attila. it won't matter to ca financially, but it will to you.

Attila got all the UI fixes I wanted, I am buying I kinda wish ca would patch rome 2 vanilla with the new UI(just the UI, not asking for new skins or the new campaign map or the new textures, I know they cost money to produce) but that is just wishful thinking.

[stevehoos]

Drop the ball with Rome II? Rome II was a success, it was well reviewed and sold well (and continues to sell well). It is an exaggeration of this "hardcore fan" community that it was a disaster that has irreparably hurt the company. TW games have become more mainstream with each release and have therefore have become more and more of a success. Attila is not a make or break game.

OMG... LOL Some of you love BS so much I just can't even fathom it.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

you mean the 20 to 50 guys who were pissed off that the features they want aren't in the game? or the game was not made according to their tastes? lets be honest here, they don't matter one bit.

But, it never hurts to vote with your wallet. if you or anyone who truly dislikes rome 2, don't buy attila. it won't matter to ca financially, but it will to you.

Attila got all the UI fixes I wanted, I am buying I kinda wish ca would patch rome 2 vanilla with the new UI(just the UI, not asking for new skins or the new campaign map or the new textures, I know they cost money to produce) but that is just wishful thinking.

I have some more changes that CA needs to tick off before I'll consider buying Atilla.

[mav61]

They'll keep pumping them out and we'll keep buying them...but one thing i will say about CA they do fix their games, because if they didn't that would break them....

[The Noble Duke Of York]

No, Rome II sold well. CA patched the game and remained committed to improving it. Most fans were patient and a number of those who were not were won over by the patches. There remains a minority who are unhappy and will remain unhappy but they do not have the numbers to tip the scales for CA. Further "Alien" by all reports is a good game (I have zero interest in it) or will be a good game and will probably sell really well. I expect if it does CA will do more non-Total War games. I think this idea that they are hurting is pure fantasy some would like to indulge themselves in.

[Huberto]

No, Rome II sold well.

Even though SEGA said sales of new titles such as TWR2 were "weak."
The company. That. Owns. CA.
Whatever.

[mikea4]

Reading SEGA's corporate reports, it's clear TWR2 sales were disappointing.

For example, see page 20 of this presentation:
http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/p...e__final__.pdf



To answer the OP, no - Warhammer and Alien are far more make or break. Those are new titles, this is glorified DLC and can't be expected to sell well.

I disagree, if you look on page 21 of this presentation, you'll notice that Rome II was their best selling major title. with approximately 1,130,000 units sold. The next highest selling game was Football manager 2014 with 790,000 units sold. So I definitely don't think that Rome II counts as having disappointing sales.

So in this way, I do not think that Total War: Attila will be a make or break title because, based on the report Huberto posted, Creative Assembly's Rome 2 total war was the main money maker for Sega.

[Ataegina]

honestly what is the point of preaching the downfall of CA? what is the point of wishing them bad? don't you want more TW games? what do you win with such "douchebaggery" towards a game developer? really makes no sense............

[the_eye]

Even though SEGA said sales of new titles such as TWR2 were "weak."
The company. That. Owns. CA.
Whatever.

That's an interesting position to take. It's true that they described sales of new titles as weak, but that was across all platforms. I think it's more telling that of all the platforms they managed to beat their Q1 guidance (page 15) on only one - PC. EDIT: And that was from fewer SKUs than expected on PC too.

Platform	Guidance in Q1 (thousands of units)	Q4 Results (thousands of units)	Percentage of guidance
PS3	1,320	540	41
PS4	-	140	-
Wii	-	-	-
WiiU	950	320	34
Xbox360	690	-	-
Xbox One	-	-	-
NDS	-	-	-
3DS	980	780	80
PSP	200	160	80
PSV	650	330	51
PC	2,580	2,640	102
Catalogue etc.	4,240	3,790	90

[RogueLeader]

Any of you kids read Segas financial report last quarter and what they had to say about it, just google it. Some eyes may be opened a bit. Those of us who dabble in trading stocks are anxiously awaiting what happens for the third quarter. These game sales mean quite a bit at the moment for them.

Sales are all well and good but profit is what matters. 1,000,000 boxed game sales at a discount is not good. The sales figures look good but that is oft times misleading. Segas profit has been cut in half from what it was this quarter last year. Package game sales soft. Reason they said high cost of advertising.

Sometimes you have to read into what they dont say, that is telling.

Rome 2 was never mentioned.

We just had a 75% sale on steam why cause steam wanted it, no its to drive sales increase profit, those digital games in steam are not making money just sitting there that is telling for me what it says to me is Sega is going to have a weak quarter and they need cash\sales especially when Rome 2 was not even on sale if it would have been I would have figured their profit was okay and they just wanted to pad it to make it look better.

This doesnt at all mean I am correct its just how I am reading this part of their business.

[Aenima]

Drop the ball with Rome II? Rome II was a success, it was well reviewed and sold well (and continues to sell well). It is an exaggeration of this "hardcore fan" community that it was a disaster that has irreparably hurt the company. TW games have become more mainstream with each release and have therefore have become more and more of a success. Attila is not a make or break game.

This. As was pointed out, when Sega were talking about sales being weak they were talking about all platforms, so that would mean that good sales for R2 would be offset by sales of other games on other platforms (and even the same)

Rome 2 was the best-selling TW game to date. This isn't debatable, it's a fact. They said so themselves. Add to that the DLC that was sold off and how many people bought them and you've got CA rolling in dolla dolla bills, y'all.

[wulfgar610]

Will CA’s Attila be a “make or break game”, for them?
I was wondering if CA drops the ball on Attila similar to Rome II would they be able to bounce back.

Going by the figures Sega sold 800,000 of Rome2 at launch to a 3rd party distributor. According to vgchartz about 520,000 have been sold to Consumers in the first 12 months. My guess is although they'd like bigger sales, they still have a product that sells. They are still some distance from being "broken". Attila looks like a guaranteed sale of 600,000 to the 3rd party. After that they still got Warhammer total war and a heap of periods to deal with. They still got "the three kingdom's to do!

The simple fact is, CA has no real competition for what primarily a table top style wargame done on computer. CA pretty much scooped some other wannabe's on the market from Rome1 to Empire, nobody could compete with their graphics even though these other games had merit, they didn't have the broad appeal.

Looks like CA's Australian office was the victim of sales not being big enough and Sega.

[Ataegina]

my question is will it follow the same pattern as NTW and FoTS, being way more cheaper than the previous game?

[Huberto]

This. As was pointed out, when Sega were talking about sales being weak they were talking about all platforms, so that would mean that good sales for R2 would be offset by sales of other games on other platforms (and even the same)

No actually they were talking about new releases and specifically singled out TWR2 and Football manager.

I disagree, if you look on page 21 of this presentation, you'll notice that Rome II was their best selling major title. with approximately 1,130,000 units sold. The next highest selling game was Football manager 2014 with 790,000 units sold. So I definitely don't think that Rome II counts as having disappointing sales.

So in this way, I do not think that Total War: Attila will be a make or break title because, based on the report Huberto posted, Creative Assembly's Rome 2 total war was the main money maker for Sega.

It sold the most copies but how many did they project when they approved a 40% bigger budget? That's how you get disappointing results, when you plan for 1.5 - 2 million sales but you get 1.1 instead.

Just to be clear I don't think CA's going anywhere anytime soon. They'd need Warhammer and Alien to fail for that to happen.

[Tetrew]

Going by the figures Sega sold 800,000 of Rome2 at launch to a 3rd party distributor. According to vgchartz about 520,000 have been sold to Consumers in the first 12 months. My guess is although they'd like bigger sales, they still have a product that sells. They are still some distance from being "broken". Attila looks like a guaranteed sale of 600,000 to the 3rd party. After that they still got Warhammer total war and a heap of periods to deal with. They still got "the three kingdom's to do!

The simple fact is, CA has no real competition for what primarily a table top style wargame done on computer. CA pretty much scooped some other wannabe's on the market from Rome1 to Empire, nobody could compete with their graphics even though these other games had merit, they didn't have the broad appeal.

Looks like CA's Australian office was the victim of sales not being big enough and Sega.

Which is the most surprising fact. Of course development of TW like game most be a long and expensive trip...but still...we´ve got Witcher 3, Gothic, Skyrim and Dragon Age as major fantasy RPGs but there is no room for two political/battle historic strategies? I think the developers are just scared.

[Aenima]

No actually they were talking about new releases and specifically singled out TWR2 and Football manager.

Where are you getting this from? I looked at the link you showed http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/p...e__final__.pdf and all I could find of any signifiance talking about Rome 2 was it being in a table that showed the platform/release date/units sold.

Where do they single out Rome 2 and say it was a failure?

[Huberto]

Where are you getting this from? I looked at the link you showed http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/p...e__final__.pdf and all I could find of any signifiance talking about Rome 2 was it being in a table that showed the platform/release date/units sold.

Where do they single out Rome 2 and say it was a failure?

Sorry look at page 19 (SEGA's page, not the PDF reader page).

[LestaT]

=Where do they single out Rome 2 and say it was a failure?

Some people really wants to see CA fails because Rome 2 is not what they have expected. Just like some Metallica fans used to say that by releasing music video (One) and using Bob Rock as producer (Black Albulm) Metallica will fail since they become 'commercial'.