Unofficial Sales Numbers - 1.2 million in the first 2 weeks?

bcbully

http://elderscrollsonline.info/news/number-of-subscribers-and-success-rate-of-elder-scrolls-online

Breaking down this 300,000 physical sales count, more than half or 170,000 was sold in North America, a third or 100,000 was sold in Europe with the remaining sold in other countries.

 

Then we need to add the digital sales, which could be as much as triple the physical sales.

VentureBeat cited a Lazard report that World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, sold around 700,000 physical copies from a total of 2.7 million copies sold. That’s nearly a 4:1 ratio, or digital sales almost tripling physical sales.

 

Applying this ratio to Elder Scrolls Online, the game could have sold 1.2 million copies for both digital and physical sales for the PC/Mac platform in the first two weeks. Digital sales will include the digital Standard Edition and digital Imperial Edition which are sold on the official website, Steam and other online distributors. That’s a great number that makes it a contender for the most popular MMORPG release this year.

 

And remember only the Elder Scrolls Online for PC/Mac has been release. The game will likely see another huge spike in sales in the summer months when the console versions for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One come out on June 30. With the end of school and summer vacation and players who may have held back on purchasing the game or have been waiting for the console versions will be grabbing a copy.

 

Topping Western charts

Elder Scrolls Online has sold well in the Western regions like United States and Europe.

VGChartz said Elder Scrolls Online was top-selling game in the United States at retail stores during its launch week, with sales more than double the number 2 contender, Titanfall. The MMORPG was also the top-selling game in Europe at retail stores in the same week, clinching number 1 in the biggest gaming markets of United Kingdom, Germany and France.

 

Looking deeper into the United Kingdom sales, the Elder Scrolls Online debuted at the number 1 spot of the individual formats chart tracked by UKIE, the country’s official agency for interactive games. It’s an impressive feat for a PC/Mac title, beating stiff competition from console releases like Titanfall and inFamous: Second Son.

 

Elder Scrolls Online also came in second in the all formats chart, just behind juggernaut soccer sports title FIFA 14, but ahead of popular shooters Call of Duty: Ghosts and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.

Purutzil

Please allow ESO to use its own propaganda and  number manipulated. You don't need to do it yourself. Attempting to use ANOTHER game as a basis of making a ratio on sales is just as valuable as if I were to make a baseless claim "It sold 1 million copies". Ratios won't hold up. Creating numbers to make a game look better (which btw, 1.2 million isn't very good for a big budget MMO) is NOT going to prove any point. I believe its considered a slipper slope falacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope) though someone correct me if I'm wrong. 

Zhiroc

I believe I read that the industry projectiion overall for 2014 is for a 60/40 split between digital and hard copies. Of course, just because the average is that doesn't mean that one game or another can't be wildly off that average in either direction.

However, basing a projection on a WoW expansion is probably not accurate--I'd say it would be very common for an existing subscriber, or even former subscriber, to buy an expansion digitally. Trying to use that ratio for an initial box sale is extremely iffy in my view.

Salute

Imo even if the sales are indeed over 1m in the first month its a huge fail for a TESO IP.  Even worse than that  is the retention which looks at least low, but anyway in the todays standards of 30%. So, if those are the sales numbers until now and the subs are about 400-500k after the free month, then this imo is a huge fail for a TESO IP. Good for an unknown game, but not for an IP like TESO.

bcbully

Since this article was made, over the course of 4 weeks ESO has sold another 60k hard copies.

Salute

Originally posted by bcbully
Since this article was made, over the course of 4 weeks ESO has sold another 60k hard copies.

So after first month its not even 1.5m sales, even if we take the optimistic side. My numbers are right then for the subs. Around 400-500k after free month is not even close to what they expected from a TESO IP.

Thorqemada

Imho the Initial purchase of a game has still strong box sales while expansions/dlc packs have further increased digital sales.

I guess that will change over the years and i have already switched fully to digital download.

Salute

Originally posted by Thorqemada

Imho the Initial purchase of a game has still strong box sales while expansions/dlc packs have further increased digital sales.

I guess that will change over the years and i have already switched fully to digital download.

 

For me depends the game. For games like D3 &  WoW expansions i go with box, for others i don't mind going for digital, but in general i prefer to buy boxes.

Lobotomist

Even 1.2 million is weak based on the massive PR money invested in the game and franchise popularity.

Nilden

Meh could be lower, could be higher. Still would like to see official numbers.

sgel

Oh come on.. this is just desperate OP

aSynchro

When a game is successfuly realeased, every company talk about sale numbers to win extra momentum: "1 million sold in 1 month !" "200 000 connections at the same time" "so many people so we had to add extra servers" etc.

If they claim nothing yet, they hadn't sold that much.

redgang1

I'm just thankful I've learned since the GW2 hype train and found a way to play this trash before I drop money on it

ButeoRegalis

Much TESO

Such sales

So money

Wow.

Mothanos

Any studio selling 1 million copy's in a few days or week is going to release that info as it gets reported as free advertisement and a milestone that this game is selling like delicious waffles.

Not making any statement of sold copy's after 6 or 7 weeks is an indication that it is not meeting its sales target or nothing to brag about.

We live in a simple world where if something is succesfull we wanne be part of it.
Or at least are motivated to check it out.
Specialy in the gameing industry where sales are the most importand thing a studio's works for.

More sales, more money, more succes.

Maybe they reached 1 million but lost 80% of their playerbase after the free month ?
Maybe they never reached 1 million but have 90% retention ?

its speculation, but looking at all other mmo's released in recent years and we see 1 pattern emerge, good sales good retention for 1 or 2 months then whoop massive dropoff.
Only WoW and Eve Online seem to be steady in this regard.

I think ESO might be happy to retain 20% / 30% of its playerbase in its current lackluster state of the game.

Accun

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/05/14/analysts-75-percent-of-us-core-gamers-prefer-physical-copies/

That newly released report would put the number at less than 500K. Considering Zenimax complete silence regarding box sales I belive that to be closer to the truth.

 

Pemmin

As much as i didn't like the direction zeni took with ESO, i wish it had sold better. The industry is just going to look at ESO and SWTOR as reasons to not make mmos with triple digit budgets. i wish we could get a veteran mmo development team with that kind of budget.... instead of these attempts by novice where the only thing going for them is the IP.

reeereee

I call BS, buying an expansion and buying a new mmo online are very different things.  Is there really no data out there on new title digital sales or did they just choose the one that would lead to the highest numbers? 

 

As others have said, if the numbers were over a million in the first month I think they would have said something.  It's possible they're holding back trying to get the largest number possible they start hyping the game for console release (whenever that will be.)  but I'm skeptical. 

Kyleran

If they sold 1M plus in two weeks they would be bragging about it. The fact they aren't speaks volumes more than any projections.

Scot

Hopefully those who think sales are so important they keep having to do threads about them will be happy for a millisecond!

This is why Zenimax has not given sales figures:

"ZeniMax Online Studios, which developed Elder Scrolls Online, is a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, the largest privately held video games company in North America. As part of a private company, the studio does not have to release a public report on Elder Scrolls Online sales unlike public companies like EA."

Alternatively you can pretend the chart data and so on does not exist, as I am sure some will.

JoeyMMO

I believe the MoP ratio shouldn't be the basis for extrapolation. IIRC MoP digital sales were heavily influenced by a combo deal with Diablo3. Extrapolating those numbers could be off by a whole lot. Maybe it's closer to 50/50, or 60/40 or 40/60.

If they release official numbers on sales and subs I'm sure we'll be able to see how they did. This is pure speculation, you could guess 500K based on those numbers. And that with 5 million players that registered for the ESO beta.

SWTOR had 2M in beta and sold around that number copies. I guess a whole lot of testers didn't like the game enough to buy (or even try) it.

Xiaoki

Lots of guesstimates, fuzzy math, bad comparison logic and VG Chartz?

Heh ...yeah.

You'd get a better idea of ESOs sales by reading tea leaves.

And thats not even what matters. Selling a million copies means nothing if subscriber retention is low.

Voiidiin

I think the bigger concern is if the game has sold so little why are they having such a hard time with the server architecture ?

Scheduled maint. twice a week, and generally maint. times 4+ hours. Don't even talk about if there is a patch going up on one of those days.... then were looking at 8 hours+.

I really think the megaserver was a terrible idea, Zeni needs to rethink it.

ohioastro

And the response to this thread proves why they have no reason to release numbers: the people desperate to label it as a failure will spin any number as a bad one.  At least this estimate has some basis to it, but for ESO I think that the ratio of digital to physical is substantially higher.  There were strong incentives for direct digital download (5 extra days of play, for example).

Herase

I would just say wait, from what i remember FFXIV released their info after their first major content update, which was 2 - 3 months? Not sure when ESO's one will be but i think it's best to see how things go after that.

Timzilla

I can confirm 1 sale, and it's the only one that matters.