Total War: Rome II sales reach 800,000 copies

[Rittsy]

Well it's a PC exclusive turn-based/real-time strategy hybrid that has never reached any real mainstream appeal nor competitive interest, which despite having a new game or expansion to the series every year hasn't really evolved since the franchise began. 800,000 in the first two months is a significant number of sales based on development time and the size of the team.

A game like Star Craft II has done just over 5 million sales as of July 2013 even with it running international competitions. Games like Call of Duty usually swing between the 5-10 million mark despite being multi-platform, heavily advertised game with mainstream appeal. The point is for what it is, Rome II has done very well.

[Forward Observer]

Well it's a PC exclusive turn-based/real-time strategy hybrid that has never reached any real mainstream appeal nor competitive interest, which despite having a new game or expansion to the series every year hasn't really evolved since the franchise began. 800,000 in the first two months is a significant number of sales based on development time and the size of the team.

A game like Star Craft II has done just over 5 million sales as of July 2013 even with it running international competitions. Games like Call of Duty usually swing between the 5-10 million mark despite being multi-platform, heavily advertised game with mainstream appeal. The point is for what it is, Rome II has done very well.

Actually, it was 800k in only 1 month, but you are still spot on that this is decent for a TW game. Only Empire did slightly better with like 810k in the first few weeks.

Although there is no strict definition, I would never consider a total war game a triple A product. I'm sure Sega would like it to be otherwise, but it is still a niche game. To me triple A games are those that sell in the multi-million unit sales in just weeks-- stuff like the GTA games or the COD that you mention.

I can only assume that the reason Rome 2 did not eclipse Empire's launch was that Rome 2 is still basically a sequel while Empire was touted as something brand new with real 3D naval engagements for the first time---- plus it was set in a new period never covered before in a TW game.

However, I will lay 2 to 1 odds that the digital sales of Rome 2 were a larger percentage of the total 800k than Empire's digital sales were. One can do a Google search and find that Forbes reported that digital sales of PC games had surpassed hard copy sales by the end of 2010. At that time they were talking units and not dollars since the bulk of hard copy sales were for new games at full launch price, but several gaming industry reporting sites have since indicated that digital dollars surpassed hard copy dollars in 2012.

A lot of this is still educated guess work on the part of these journalists because as we all well know, the number one seller (Steam) of digital games does not release any sales figures. By the way, Wikipedia estimates that Steam has between 50 and 70% of the digital market. Once again this is educated guess work on their part, but it's the most concrete thing I could find.

As to the Sammy Sega financials, the Rome 2 figure for launch will likely be the last number you ever see from them. They have had this same type launch number report for both Shogun and Empire which were released between 3 and 4 weeks prior to their fiscal year end of March of their respective years (2009 and 2011)

After this, all sales of the TW games were simply aggregated with all of the other SKU that Sega carries. That is why nobody has ever really known how the individual TW games have done after launch.

I know this since I have been looking at their financials off and on since 2009. I have posted links to them numerous time here when these discussions would come up for the earlier games, but I can't locate any of those posts now---due to the limited search function at the site.

Cheers

[retarded_strong]

Well it's a PC exclusive turn-based/real-time strategy hybrid that has never reached any real mainstream appeal nor competitive interest, which despite having a new game or expansion to the series every year hasn't really evolved since the franchise began. 800,000 in the first two months is a significant number of sales based on development time and the size of the team.

A game like Star Craft II has done just over 5 million sales as of July 2013 even with it running international competitions. Games like Call of Duty usually swing between the 5-10 million mark despite being multi-platform, heavily advertised game with mainstream appeal. The point is for what it is, Rome II has done very well.

Well, you could argue that CA tried to make a game with more mainstream appeal with all the "streamlining" they did. I also don't think Sega would increase CA's budget by 40% (I'm starting to think that number was garbage or it all went to marketing) only to get the same number of sales as previous TW games. If you take that into consideration Rome 2 did mediocre, historically, because it sold less than Empire (in a month) and only a third better than Shogun 2.

Then again, if you look at Sega's recent sales forecasts it looks like they didn't expect much from Rome 2. It looks like Sega expected 400k, but got 800k. I'm pretty sure they intentionally underestimated the sales in their forecast, but Sega got more than they expected (the preorder bonuses and discounts sure did help, huh?). So, yes, in that respect Rome 2 looks like a financial success. Sega can also look forward to Christmas.

[vietanh797]

RTS game like TW have much smaller audience compare to kid's game like GTA or COD.

Asking for TW get multi million sale like those stupid games is asking for the impossible.
ps: I forgot to mention that COD and GTA is cross-platform while TW is a PC exclusive title

[wangrin]

Empire: Total War has reached the 810k copies sold during its firsts 4 months ("Financial Results" (in Japanese). Sega Sammy Holdings. Release : 13 May 2009. p. 7. Retrieved 11 September 2009.), not the first weeks.

[retarded_strong]

Empire: Total War has reached the 810k copies sold during its firsts 4 months ("Financial Results" (in Japanese). Sega Sammy Holdings. Release : 13 May 2009. p. 7. Retrieved 11 September 2009.), not the first weeks.

I can't read Japanese, but I know that report is for the year ended March 31, 2009 (it's in the URL, it's the year on the actual financial statements, and March 31 is the end of Sega's fiscal year). The report was released in May because it takes months to create and audit the financials in an annual report. Empire was released in early March so those sales are in a 4 week period.

[wangrin]

I can't read Japanese, but I know that report is for the year ended March 31, 2009 (it's in the URL, it's the year on the actual financial statements, and March 31 is the end of Sega's fiscal year). The report was released in May because it takes months to create and audit the financials in an annual report. Empire was released in early March so those sales are in a 4 week period.

Right, I've mistaken when trying to read the document.

So, if ETW has reached 810k in 4 weeks and R2TW in approximatively the same period, they are quite comparable in term of "success" (as well as bugs and other "fails").
Could be interesting to follow sale evolution.

It look like CA needed 2 games (NTW and S2TW) and a big communication effort (modding summit, communication with community, beta (FotS)) to try to regain some "trust/confidence" from the TWC community.

What is interesting is that ETW is still recording sale and the number of player seems to be similar to these still playing S2TW.
Only the future will tell us if R2TW will have the same destiny... or a better or worst one.

[Forward Observer]

Empire: Total War has reached the 810k copies sold during its firsts 4 months ("Financial Results" (in Japanese). Sega Sammy Holdings. Release : 13 May 2009. p. 7. Retrieved 11 September 2009.), not the first weeks.

I can't read Japanese and don't want to download a translator, but here is the report that I was referring to.

http://www.segasammy.co.jp/japanese/...okufinal_e.pdf


One would assume that it is the same report in English from the Sammy Sega English language website since it was also released on May 13th.

However, it is for their fiscal year end, which is March 31st, 2009. If you scroll down to the bottom you will see the figure of 810k listed for Empire

Empire launched on the 3rd or 4th of March according to what part of the world one lives in. Consequently those sales were quoted for 28 days or 4 weeks--not 4 months.

The date that the report was issued has nothing to do with the time frame that is covered in the report.

I worked for a major bank for the first 7 years of my work life and the last 3 of those I was a business loan manager and financial analyst.
Although I graduated from college with a liberal arts degree I went back and got the equivalent of an accounting major and completed about half required hours for my masters in accounting.

I can safely state that I've read more than my share of financial statements during that period and since.

Cheers

Oops, sorry!

retarded_strong beat me to the answer as I was composing my post.

[Dago Red]

I play my Empire based A Proper Empire: TI frequently, and am never online with steam when I do it.

If anything, they'll probably get more next time, given they gained a lot more fans then they lost.

HAHA! That's just drivel, take a look around the internet. Look at the damage control they're attempting. Look at the plummeting meta-critic score which all the totally uncritical fans pointed to as proof the game was good when it was so high. The user score, is bleeding out on the ground. Each week more people turn on a feature they thought was cool sounding until they played it, or people who are disgusted with the DLC practices right now. Some are getting disgusted with blind fanbois too who truly act more like CA plants than independently minded people with the crazy things they say. Its enough to turn you off a series.

Furthermore picking up a 10 fair weather friend fans who, move from the next hot game to the next, is not better than retaining 1 hardcore decade long fan that does free publicity for you and sticks with you through thick and thin, even working for free to improve your product. It might be nice in the short term, but in the longer term its what destroys companies.

[krisslanza]

I play my Empire based A Proper Empire: TI frequently, and am never online with steam when I do it.



HAHA! That's just drivel, take a look around the internet. Look at the damage control they're attempting. Look at the plummeting meta-critic score which all the totally uncritical fans pointed to as proof the game was good when it was so high. The user score, is bleeding out on the ground. Each week more people turn on a feature they thought was cool sounding until they played it, or people who are disgusted with the DLC practices right now. Some are getting disgusted with blind fanbois too who truly act more like CA plants than independently minded people with the crazy things they say. Its enough to turn you off a series.

Furthermore picking up a 10 fair weather friend fans who, move from the next hot game to the next, is not better than retaining 1 hardcore decade long fan that does free publicity for you and sticks with you through thick and thin, even working for free to improve your product. It might be nice in the short term, but in the longer term its what destroys companies.

I admittedly don't have many friends who play Total War, but I actually got a friend to play it for the first time with Rome 2 and he likes it. The other two friends I have that have played Total War - probably longer then I - find Rome 2 to be great, and a welcome new title to the series. It's admittedly not a huge sample size, but who honestly has 100's or 1000's of friends to poll anyway?

And a "plummeting" score? It's gone down by like, 3 or 4 points in a month. If that's plummeting, I have no idea what a stock market is to you. Freefall? Crash?

Honestly all the Rome 2 haters are enough to turn someone off the series entirely.

[stackero]

I play my Empire based A Proper Empire: TI frequently, and am never online with steam when I do it.



HAHA! That's just drivel, take a look around the internet. Look at the damage control they're attempting. Look at the plummeting meta-critic score which all the totally uncritical fans pointed to as proof the game was good when it was so high. The user score, is bleeding out on the ground. Each week more people turn on a feature they thought was cool sounding until they played it, or people who are disgusted with the DLC practices right now. Some are getting disgusted with blind fanbois too who truly act more like CA plants than independently minded people with the crazy things they say. Its enough to turn you off a series.

Furthermore picking up a 10 fair weather friend fans who, move from the next hot game to the next, is not better than retaining 1 hardcore decade long fan that does free publicity for you and sticks with you through thick and thin, even working for free to improve your product. It might be nice in the short term, but in the longer term its what destroys companies.

Again, Dago Red keeping it real. rep ya when repl.

[chris10]

OT but since there was the mention of Cossacks it may be of interest to some that GOG sells Cossacks Anthology (European Wars, Art of War, Back to War)
in an DRM free package for 5.99 $ which can be straight installed into Win 7 and played without problems.
(I have the original on CD but couldnt play it for years as there were severe issues with videos, screen resolution, true colors and explorer.exe on newer PCs).
Re-Playing Cossacks right now...Rome 2 went to the shelf a while ago.

[Mahatma Gandhi]

I know this section gets a little more action then where I placed this elsewhere, but did anyone else see this?


Its not that 800k were sold, and I'm not sure how much "in the know" these guys are, but they're saying the next TW will the TW: Tudors

http://www.pcgamesn.com/totalwar/tot...0-copies-month

[VINC.XXIII]

the next TW will the TW: Tudors

http://www.pcgamesn.com/totalwar/tot...0-copies-month

interesting. And at least that period choice will avoid any issue with towers and rams, since its wasn't used anymore in late renaissance...they better to stop making game that focus on pre-gunpowder weapons seriously

And no flamming torches this time, please.

[DaciaJC]

Its not that 800k were sold, and I'm not sure how much "in the know" these guys are, but they're saying the next TW will the TW: Tudors

http://www.pcgamesn.com/totalwar/tot...0-copies-month

interesting. And at least that period choice will avoid any issue with towers and rams, since its wasn't used anymore in late renaissance...they better to stop making game that focus on pre-gunpowder weapons seriously

It's just a joke/speculation, mates.

[onmy6]

Yeah well it doesn't surprise me they sold that many, look at hype I bought it. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me

[RandyRhoads]

The 40% increase in marketing budget pays off after all.

[pajomife]

Lets see if they sell a similar numbers of dlcs.

[karamazovmm]

Lets see if they sell a similar numbers of dlcs.

according to the VG charts they sold 2 DLC so far

but anyone has seen a number on DLC? I never saw one

[Omnipotent-Q]

Expect a Total War: Tudor announcement in the coming months.

Expect more ridiculous speculative statements without any grain of sourcing to be spewed out by PC Games N in the coming months!