Is NTW being Ignored in the Media

It seems to me that amidst all the recent game releases (SC2 beta, SupCom2, Bad Company 2, ME2) NTW is not getting a lot of press coverage. This concerns me because I really think it's one of the best RTS games to come out this year and I want CA to do well in sales.

Can you speculate on reasons why, is it a legacy of ETW's release, or has it received the same coverage as other previous TW titles.

SEGA


I wish it does well in sales to.

SEGA didn't spend the necessary money to market it this time around.

Originally Posted by Abspara

SEGA didn't spend the necessary money to market it this time around.

Exactly.

According to Steam it's #2 and #4 (Imperial and Regular version respectively) on this week's top selling games, so this provides some hope.

http://store.steampowered.com/feeds/...topsellers.xml

Maybe the series has enough brand recognition to not need a lot of hype.

Originally Posted by micromegas

According to Steam it's #2 and #4 on this week's top selling games, so this provides some hope.

!!!! Thats great news indeed.

Its what happens after the last game. CA lost alot of customers from that and people dont want the same mistake.

Originally Posted by micromegas

According to Steam it's #2 and #4 (Imperial and Regular version respectively) on this week's top selling games, so this provides some hope.

http://store.steampowered.com/feeds/...topsellers.xml

Maybe the series has enough brand recognition to not need a lot of hype.

Well, if you're measuring by ETW, Napoleon is doing fairly poorly. Of course, CA may not have expected NTW to do as well as Empire.

There are all kinds of stats that bear this out, but just take a look at the difference in the number of daily unique visitors TWC got in March of last year vs so far this year:



That's 33% more at the peak for ETW.

This is really remarkable, too. NTW only averages about 20% more player at peak times than does Empire. A new game should double or treble the number of its year-old predecessor:



There are a bunch more data that show the same sorts of trends. If the goal was to repeat ETW's success, it's looking as though CA has failed miserably.

This shows that what the OP is saying is largely true. Look at the bottom graph. It shows the relative number of news stories about each game. You'll see NTW isn't getting nearly as much press:



But also look at how many fewer people are doing searches for NTW.

Empire was a massive leap in terms of graphics and gameplay. I would assume a number of people think its Empire 2.0 so there isn't as much buzz, excitement, or whatever you want to call it. Besides, a number of people in this forum have publicly declared they wouldn't play NTW very much until it was modded, and since there are more ETW owners than NTW owners in the world, I'm really not surprised that NTW isn't blowing its older sister out of the water.

Does anybody know a ballpark figure of what the development costs were for Napoleon? I just hope they make a profit so they keep making these.

Narrower scope, narrower audience.

Originally Posted by greybuscat

Empire was a massive leap in terms of graphics and gameplay. I would assume a number of people think its Empire 2.0 so there isn't as much buzz, excitement, or whatever you want to call it. Besides, a number of people in this forum have publicly declared they wouldn't play NTW very much until it was modded, and since there are more ETW owners than NTW owners in the world, I'm really not surprised that NTW isn't blowing its older sister out of the water.

Does anybody know a ballpark figure of what the development costs were for Napoleon? I just hope they make a profit so they keep making these.

It's hard to imagine that they won't make a profit. If NTW took 20% of the time it took to develop Empire, and sells 50% as many titles, they've done pretty darn well seems like. That would give them a Rate of Return 250% greater than ETW.

Originally Posted by Lord Faucon

Narrower scope, narrower audience.

What's funny, though, is that when you read Kieran's posts from a month ago, he was talking like they were going to broaden their audience with Napoleon. He bluntly said that the community here wasn't as important to CA as it used to be because of that fact.

Originally Posted by erasmus777

*Snip all the charts and data

What happens if CA is viewing NTW as an expansion pack marketed as a full game to get more sales? Do we have any charts to compare the success or failure of NTW with the performance of M2TW:Kingdoms ?

Originally Posted by erasmus777

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Well, if you're measuring by ETW, Napoleon is doing fairly poorly. Of course, CA may not have expected NTW to do as well as Empire.

There are all kinds of stats that bear this out, but just take a look at the difference in the number of daily unique visitors TWC got in March of last year vs so far this year:



That's 33% more at the peak for ETW.

This is really remarkable, too. NTW only averages about 20% more player at peak times than does Empire. A new game should double or treble the number of its year-old predecessor:



There are a bunch more data that show the same sorts of trends. If the goal was to repeat ETW's success, it's looking as though CA has failed miserably.

This shows that what the OP is saying is largely true. Look at the bottom graph. It shows the relative number of news stories about each game. You'll see NTW isn't getting nearly as much press:



But also look at how many fewer people are doing searches for NTW.

Ohhh look its the chart man again

Thanks for the info,s i now have to do some math.

Originally Posted by erasmus777

This is really remarkable, too. NTW only averages about 20% more player at peak times than does Empire. A new game should double or treble the number of its year-old predecessor:



.There are a bunch more data that show the same sorts of trends. If the goal was to repeat ETW's success, it's looking as though CA has failed miserably.

The other thing that I just figured out last night is that Americans are not buying NTW in as large numbers as Europeans. I started to post something about this, but couldn't think of a way to do it that wouldn't invite a freak out a la "American casual gamers like easy AI".

Anyway, I live on the East Coast of the US, which is the most densely populated bit. I've been noticing that the ETW players are always higher when I check in the evenings (as above) even though NTW shows more players at its daily peak. It finally it occurred to me the reason why: our Euro friends are asleep. That means that the coveted US market simply hasn't bought the game in as large numbers as ETW.

That may also explain why the English language media has been so quiet about NTW--the Americans aren't that interested.

What! You mean you have to pay the market to give attention to a game! I hope you don't mean those honourable games reviewers.... they get paid by the magazine company to review the game not the advertisement money? Oh say its not sooo.!

Holy crap. Nice research there, Erasmus.

I think that people got disappointed by ETW (even reviewers). What's paradoxical is that NTW apparently even though is better than ETW is getting lower ratings than it. So basically reviewers are saying: we overestimated ETW so now we are being more critic to NTW.

Originally Posted by Centurion Legio IX Hispana

I think that people got disappointed by ETW (even reviewers). What's paradoxical is that NTW apparently even though is better than ETW is getting lower ratings than it. So basically reviewers are saying: we overestimated ETW so now we are being more critic to NTW.

Well ETW was highly anticipated at the time... We all remember the extreme hype and expectations on this forum before March -09 right? Then the game came out, the bug reports started flowing and whatnot. Still alot of people with Nvidia cards can´t play ETW... I am guessing that they lost alot of players on that fact. I am guessing that those players didn´t rush out to buy NTW

Just going by people i know there's considerably less interest in NTW than in Empire. Not because of era (most of them dig the Sharpe books) but because of dissapointment with Empire. Even the few who liked Empire haven't bought it yet.

I think that had this been a proper expansion rather than an expandalone and the improvements had been shared with ETW then more people would have bought it.

For all the people saying it's good: better than ETW doesn't mean good for me. AI is improved and the campaign map stuff is pretty decent but the battles are too arcadey to be fun. A long and boring march together followed by something from the imagination of a sugar hopped teen who'd been watching star wars rather than waterloo.

I completely agree with what seems to be the two main themes here. SEGA did not promote it very well, making me think they did not have a lot of confidence the game either. Second, the time period. It was more of the same, kind of like Rome and Barbarian Invasion.

With the rough start for Empire, Napoleon would have to be a super-extraordinary gameplay to do well. I don't pick up that kind of buzz, from reading around. I think it is a good game, so far as I have played, but not a great one. Just barely getting into it though, so there is still hope.

Thanks,