Can CA recover from Rome 2 ?

[Tyso3]

And secondly in reply to guy who whined that that graph did not show unique users,

I never claimed it did, It simply highlights how many people are legally playing Rome at certain points. If by your estimation there are more people, they are either playing offline or have cracked copies. Because an 80000 Drop 4/5 of the amount of people playing the first day is SIGNIFICANT.

Thats like a football stadium having 1/5 of it full compared to full.

[pericles_plato]

CA doesn't need to recover. I like Rome 2. I have not switched back to any other Total War game yet.

[Tyso3]

This thread is about Creative Assembly Recovering, not Sega.


Sega will take probably 40-50% of the sales from All sold copies. They can afford to go back to this genre or move to another.


CA Cannon't, this is their genre and they have shafted it. Without the total war series, they are nothing.

[AnimaMea]

There are a huge number of problems with Rome 2, but people seem to forget how badly battles played out in Shogun 2 at release...quick battles dominated by rock/paper/scissors, made worse by the fact that the pike and shot warfare that dominated Japan was rendered obsolete by badly done pike walls and 'katana' samurai that didn't even exist historically. That said the ai was miles better, and I'm sure the reason it's stayed popular was because in a roundabout way it appeals to anime fans as well as tw players. Hopefully a few patches down the line and Rome will recover a bit

[wulfgar610]

'katana' samurai

I hate kantana samurai. The kantana was the samurai personal life preserver for everyday use. Not a battlefield weapon except as a last resort. The actual battlefield sword that seems to have only popular with a minority was an equivalent to the European Great swords with a 3 to 4 foot blade. But the majority used polearms or spears.

[pajomife]

Lets see the first DLC reception. For sure they lost 3/4 of possible buyers.

[BSGfan]

why should they the problems in TWR II are the same as in the launch of every TW game with the worse probably being ETW with a awefull AI
A,d the complains people are^posring are exactly the same as in all previous TW games

I remember the sometimes absolute moronic AI behaviour in both the first Total war shogun and its succesor total war medevial
castles didn't even had gates in their first game
and ETW was bad the worse in the whole series
and for Rome II there isn't much different as in the original Rome except a better looking map a revamped political system and the provincial system which are all a improvement on the original game

Navam transport and the battlefield AI could have done better true but are these in my opinion minor gmitches that makes this game horrible

[Condottiere 40K]

A colleague and I were discussing the game and the sudden inclusion of magic powers for units, and he made an interesting observation that RII may just be the testbed for Warhammer.

[HigoChumbo]

A colleague and I were discussing the game and the sudden inclusion of magic powers for units, and he made an interesting observation that RII may just be the testbed for Warhammer.

Well i do hope that the Warhammer game comes in a different engine, so there is little besides game concepts that they could try.

I just don't imagine a Warhammer game in Warscape, Warhammer is a totally different beast. I just hope they don't just make Medieval 2 with dragons and orcs...

[Huberto]

I honestly didn’t expect Rome 2 to be the disaster it is and for the reaction against it to be as hostile. CA did the same with Empire although I feel it was a better game although far from good but Napoleon and Shogun 2 where much better so Rome 2 came as a shock. I feel CA will recover although their reputation is badly damaged. I do feel however that if the next game is of a similar standard to Rome 2 on release it will spell the end of the Total war franchise . I hope CA learn from this and produce the games we want but I have a feeling they will do the same again and sadly that will be catastrophic for the Total war series. How much damage have CA done to their reputation? Do you fear for the future of Total war?

No doubt with R2TW CA did themselves some reputational damage. Yet commercially the game looks like a success although it may underachieve long term in sales. The follow up, if it comes, will not sell well. Just as NTW did not sell well because of the ETW fiasco.

To my mind the real question here is whether we even want Total War to continue, given the path it has chosen as seen with Rome II. They had their biggest budget ever and the produced a crap game. Even if TWR2 worked, who wants streamlined/console-ready TW cranked out every year?

It might be better for them to devote their energies to titles like Alien and Warhammer and their MMO and and spin off a studio that actually want to make historically authentic war games. Maybe there are staff at CA who would love to be part of that new company making games for the audience that actually cared about them.

The Total War of CA/SEGA is moribund. Losing interest, fast.

[Shaun]

There is nothing to recover from. Rome 2 sold extremely well. Gamers are notoriously bad at keeping to their promises of boycott and will likely buy CA's next release even if it's as crappy as Rome 2.

[Huberto]

For the near future of TWR2

- DLC will not sell as well as Shogun 2's.
- "Main game" sales, i.e. steam sales of R2TW won't do as well going forward as they would have if Rome II wasn't a crap game.

For the next TW game (if there is one):

The "buzz" will not be as good. Reviewers will be cautious about praising it. Casual followers of TW won't buy it or will hesitate to buy. There won't be nearly as many pre-orders.

Add it all up and it equals commercial damage.

It's hard to maintain growth after two major release disasters in five years. CA/SEGA is moving in a different direction anyway. One thing TWR2 tells us is that staff was going through the motions during development. Burned out? Bored? It's one or the other.

[stackero]

There is nothing to recover from. Rome 2 sold extremely well. Gamers are notoriously bad at keeping to their promises of boycott and will likely buy CA's next release even if it's as crappy as Rome 2.

By the gods and all that's holy. I pray you're wrong. But I suspect there will still be a group who preorders. Next time though there will be less preorders than CA would've hoped for.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I am just wondering but how much money did they make off of Rome 2.

[LiquitHQ]

I believe that they had around 80000 pre orders, maybe less maybe a little more I cant find any exact number.

Lets say that all that pre-ordered paid 54 euros that will make 4.320000 euros in total on the pre orders alone, but the exact number would be higher as they will probably sold more at the day of release and also after release.

Anyway do not count my calculations as exact but they will give you a good direction of what they earned with the tittle thus far.

best of regards

[gaunty14]

edit: nevermind.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I'm guessing that CA made over 6 million on release day and pre-orders of Rome 2.

[PointOfViewGun]

I'm guessing that CA made over 6 million on release day and pre-orders of Rome 2.

They made at least about $7 million. The first day had a peak number of players over 118 thousand. That's at least 118 thousand games sold the first day and the lowest price was $60. Given that there were Special and Collector's Edition with higher prices and that most likely many more games that were sold but was not either played at the same time as those 118 thousand people, they made well over that $7 million. My guess is $14 million.

EDIT: Had to revise my estimations as I read the number wrong for a second.

[wangrin]

The first day had a peak number of players over 180 thousand.

According to steamgraph, first day peak was about 118 240 players.
S2TW peak at release was about 38 817 players (20/03/2011).
I'm sorry, but I do not have stats for NTW and ETW.

What is possible to say is that R2TW selling could, at least, represent approximatively 120 000 * 60 = 7 200 000$
But don't forget that Valve deduct its part on Steam sales and other distributors too.
So, in the hypothesis of a 20% part for distributor, this could represent approximatively 5 760 000$.
In a hypothesis of a 40% par for distributors, this would then represent 4 320 000$.
So, an amount about 6 000 000$ is plausible at launch.

Of course, steamgraph data are not the same than real selling statistics, but it is interesting as "a rough estimate".
But, if it is representative of "first days" selling (R2TW could be considered as a "success" by CA if only considering how much sale they have done), it can not be representative of "long term" ones.


Considering R2TW in the context of "corporate image", it can be hardly called a success, at a point that CA had to express public excuses.
This failed launch with an unfinished game (and dumbed down features, but this is a personal opinion here) could have a deep impact on the trust from player to CA, and this is something that can be quite hard to regain.
Don't forget that Empire: Total War still suffer from a bad reputation, as well as warscape engine, something that I consider as unjust because if this engine is more complex, it is quite moddable now, even if some problems still remains, such as models_naval tables and ship models or campaign map for ETW/NTW.
Some "failures" are hard to forget and forgive.

So, now, all the question is about the impact on this "failed launch" on future selling, games as well as DLC.

[PointOfViewGun]

According to steamgraph, first day peak was about 118 240 players.

Sorry, my bad.