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What is the benchmark for a successful game?
DeniZg
Member UncommonPosts: 697
How to measure whether the game succeeded or failed?
I see many games being touted as success or failure with no measurable benchmark to determine the truth.
Some games sell millions of copies and people still call them failures (COD or BF comes to mind), while some games are F2P or have small player base but are still marked as successful (e.g. Path of Exile, EVE).
Personally, I think that success of one game depends on 2 components. It depends whether the game is success (profitable) for a developer/publisher and also a success for a gamer that bought the game (getting his moneys worth).
If both of these components "click", we have a huge hit (e.g.WoW), otherwise, we see games being marked as failures all over the Internet.
What's your opinion?
Comments
Personally, the only time a game fails is when it closes its servers/ceases to exit.
Whether I like the game or not, or if the game is popular or not is irrelevant.
For MMO's this is easy. Just look at the post-release aftermath and you'll see whether the game is a success or a failure.
If development slows down to the point that the current revenue model is not feasible or if quick and rushed steps towards revenue model change are taken (e.g. P2P > F2P), the game is a failure to the investors. From there it is not a huge stretch to assume that the game will be a failure to the players too.
What comes afterwards may still be considered a success but unless we are talking about a completely different game (e.g. FFXIV 1.0 > FFXIV:ARR) the stigma of failure will be there forever, even if individual player impressions differ from the consensus at that point.
You never really know if a game made a profit unless the company comes right out and reports it, but if it's online year after year and reporting large amounts of money that's pretty much what success is. Arguing against that kind of points in the direction of blind hate.
The most important kind of success though is did you enjoy it. It means almost nothing to anyone else but without it the games actual success means very little to you.
The biggest problem we see here is people unable to understand that a game can be a success even though it failed to hook them. I guess it's a hard thing to accept that you're not always the majority, and that other people may actually like something you hated.
I agree: -
It depends how the company is funded, but generally for the company it is recouping development costs (plus interest on loans), returning a profit for their funders/ shareholders that is greater than the alternative 'safe' investments they could have made and/or having sufficient regular cashflow to cover operating costs plus profit. If it is crowd-funded then this changes and the company really has little incentive to do anything other than laugh all the way to the bank with any money they do make.
Player satisfaction really depends on the payback period. If all of the above will be satisfied by box sales then the game can be a steaming pile with a huge advertising budget. If the payback periods is two years after release whilst maintaining at least 250k subs then player satisfaction is far more important.
So short answer is, it depends.
Succesful or failure from player point of view? No benchmark. It is subjective opinion most often based on IF game does provided what it promised, does it provides what is expected of certain genre, if it is getting better (for game series), if it's broken, etc
Call of Duty which is still hugely financially succesful - it is considered failure by many PC players - because it not getting better, but it is offering same thing each year.
Battlefield 4 is financially succesful, but it is considered as a failure by some players (albeit less of failure than CoD) because of bugs and because EA still have not fixed Battefield long problems with hit registration and hitboxes and players finally had enough.
Titanfall is considered as failure by many players because of :fire and forget weapon, bad maps and most because there is mandatory AI bots in arena PVP FPS shooter - players don't play arena PVP to rely on AI Bots.
Battlefield Hardline is considered as failure because it is a reskin of Battlefield 4 with a 'twist', but it is sold as full priced separate game. IF it would be sold as BF4 expansion then it would be considered by players as succesful.
My opinion is that the games that boom and fade quickly in terms of active players are failures.
They clearly over promise and under deliver when they suck in many more players than they can keep around for more than a month.
They may be succesful in terms of making money and staying open for business. And they may actually be pretty decent games. But the players already got burned... Few will give them a second chance.
Games are aimed at different groups of people and are aimed to make money if different ways.. there is no one way to say a game is successful or not as they are all different.
Most of the times when ppl claim that some game fail it means it fail for them.
We dont know if games fail or not in general way, even those who lose alot of players after lunch, unless servers shutdown.
Imo fail or sucess depends of wich goal dev had when made the game, and about that we normally dont know.
We just imagine about it by looking to the cost of game development.
There would be a way if we could agree on a benchmark..
I see too many post like this all around the internet and I hear them too often in conversations.
Just because you dont see how it can be done, doesnt mean that it cant be done. And piping in with your defeatism is wasting everyones time.
I might (probably) not have the right answer for the OP. But atleast Im putting up a suggestion for what the answer could be. instead of shooting my mouth off to no purpose... unless you thought that your comment would shut everyone up and end the topic right there.
The question at hand has a definite answer.. it might even have several answers depending on what scale or definition we are looking at. Economic or popular success. Longevity, player retention, entertainment value or, like I suggested, if the game delivers what it promises.
Often the Devs (or marketing) will tell us something about what they hope their game will be.. Like Next Gen, New and innovative gameplay, wow killer. And we can definatly judge each of those claims.
It can get a bit murky at times though. Especially when the issue is clouded by personal tastes. In that case the personal viewpoint isnt so useful to judge success or failure. Then we have to pull back and see if there is some sort of consensus.
And even if the servers dont shut down, a game can still have failed to pay for the developement, it just brings in more than it costs to keep running, and it can have failed in all sorts of other ways.. But you could of course argue that a game is a success for as long as it is being played.
Is scraping by considered succeeding? I suppose it is by the dictionary definition, but in general we expect a bit more from a "success"
What do you need this benchmark for?
It is worthless for a player as 'success' or 'failure' from player/consumer point of view is subjective.
That kind of 'benchmark' is only good for game companies. Especially for PR departments.
I agree. I wrote the criteria above that make a game a success or failure and all of them are financial (yes including player satisfaction which has financial implications).
Whether you personally like a game or not has no bearing on whether it was a success or failure, particularly with the sort of discussions we have on this site.
Its successful if I'm having fun.
And I dont care if its a failure or not if I'm not having fun.
Your definition is from the viewpoint of an investor.
I'm not an investor.
As a gamer, obviously I dont give a rats behind if the investor thinks a product is a success, or not.
First of all, Sulaa. I was not the one to ask for a benchmark.
Second. The utility of a benchmark is secondary to the question of the posibility of having a benchmark.
But as to the utility of us having an objective benchmark. We could throw it in the face of all those that make posts about how they think this or that game is a failure and say; "see, its actually doing exactly what they set out to do, and so its a success" (or however we would end up judging success or failure).
My point is that it is possible to set a benchmark (as long as enough agree on it). And I was just fed up with people joining in on conversations to naysay for no good reason.
Am I eager to have such a benchmark? nah.. I can live without it. And as you point out it might not be of much use. But that doesnt mean we couldnt have one.
Here is some supposition on my part: -
Games that I consider to be a success: -
I will give two examples. The first is WOW, which is obviously a huge success. I think no further explanation is required for this game.
While it is too early to tell, initial reports seem to indicate that development costs will be recouped by early box sales for Destiny. As such it appears that this game will be a success.
Games that are somewhere in the middle: -
SWTOR is currently very successful in its F2P iteration.
However, funders and shareholders expect a return that is greater than the alternative 'safe' investment options they could have made and they expect it in a timely manner. I would imagine that the payback period for SWTOR (when the game first starts to earn profit), probably relied on X number of subscriptions for X number of months. Given the rocky first few months for SWTOR I am sure this game was a failure in that it probably did not generate an adequate and timely return for its funders/ shareholders.
However, the game has become a success since taking on a rather aggressive F2P monetization model.
I think ESO may well follow a similar trajectory since it also has a popular IP to rely on.
Games that I consider to be a failure: -
This does not necessarily include games that have shut down because they are no longer profitable. I would imagine that CoX was a huge success, hit all its targets and proved very profitable for NCSoft. Because the game later lost subscriptions and could not earn sufficient cashflow to cover operating costs in no way makes it a failure; it had already achieved its success.
However, there were other games that were shutdown that clearly were failures; APB (since acquired), Exteel etc.
And a game that appears to be in dire straits largely because all indications are that it is a long way from recouping its development costs is Wildstar.
This is success or failure. My personal opinions on the above games is irrelevant.
Then you are confusing the terms 'success and failure' with 'like and dislike'.
I think after Wow's runaway success a lot of MMO gamers have a unrealistic view on what is a success and what isn't. I'm sure a game like TOR for example may not have reached the potential that a lot of people had it pegged for. But it's been a profitable game that I don't see going away any time soon. That's a success. For some development studios having 10,000 players is enough for the game to be a success due to having smaller budgets and lower expectations.
That doesn't necessarily mean that gamers won't be inevitably disappointed with a lot of successful titles because they don't match up to the players expectations of them. Nor does it mean they will live up to the publisher or developers expectations. But to me, if a game is still around with a healthy player base a couple years after it's launched it has been a success.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
The ability wheel of The secret world, the pvp of DAoC, the pve of ffxi (harsh punishment for failure), the crafting system of FFXIV, combined with crafted gear being the highest gear possible (like in ffxi , crafted mats drops off bosses). Sandbox non combat activities (like farming in Archeage) . Dungeons and world bosses (competitive pve), dynamic events that actually change the storyline (keep the lore mongers interested)
I think that'll cover everyone's tastes.
A MMOgame success if it bring enough profit to make next MMOgame.
If the profit not enough to make next MMOgame , it not success.
If the MMOgame don't make any profit , it fail.
I use "don't make any profit" and not "closed" because there are many reason that make a MMOGame close.
It may not fail to make money , but still get close.
Successful MMOgame = game that bring profit enough to make next game with same or larger size than the first
Still i unsure about "failed" case , you can mask a game "success" or not "success", but "failed" relate to many facts .
That's why when people say "failed" , i always ask them "failed to what ?"
I think you're right, there is actually plenty of performance indicators that can be taken into consideration. There COULD be objective benchmarks, but the problem is that they all revolve around data that the public will never have access to.
The data that you're looking for is probably within the strategic plan for the game. This includes things like what the target market is, what the market size is, what chunk of that market you think you can capture (smallest, mid, largest), how much revenue you plan on making (lowest, mid, highest), year-over-year growth expectations, etc., etc.
These are all, actually, really good performance indicators and can actually be boiled right down to a very simple rating system. The problem is that the information is varied. It's not like a graphics card. With Graphics cards we can have a common "yard stick" like ESO framerate. The problem is that, with games, something can be wildly successful with a small audience of dedicated players, and the company can view that game as a great success. If we used WoW as the yard stick, everything would be a failure in comparison. In order to create key performance indicators, you need to have an idea of what the expectations even are. And we'll simply never have that. So people generally use subjective material to support their claims.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Surely that basically comes down to a metacritic score.
I think people are using the terms success and failure in entirely the wrong context here. If a game fails it fails due to financial reasons, i.e. the game failed to recoup development costs, earn a profit or earn sufficient regular cashflow to cover operating costs (yes these are related to customer satisfaction in some cases).
A game does not fail because a performance indicator shows it got a medium on the likeability-of-the-last-ten-people-you-grouped-with chart.
No, not at all, when I was talking about performance indicators I was talking about internal performance indicators. That's why there's rarely publicly-available information that makes sense for a performance indicator.
I agree with you entirely, it has nothing to do with reviews. A game could score 1/10 and actually be a success in the mind of the developer. If it cost them 10K to make, then chances are they'll recover their costs, even with a horrible game. However, what are their expectations? Do they expect to make 20K? 50K? 100K? 1 Million? Whatever they decide on would ultimately be the greatest measure of success for that game, but it's an ever-changing target.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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But it isn't. Funders, investors, shareholders expect a return, and when it is a risky proposition such as a game they will expect the return to be higher than the alternative safe investments they could have made.
In order to attract said investors there will be a detailed business plan which will show detailed programmes and projections of... well everything. There will be a payback period for the initial investment, this may anticipate 500k boxsales before it occurs or retaining 100k subscribers for a period of 6 months before it occurs. But whatever it says it will show a return on the investment of X amount after Y period of time so that it can be measured against alternative investments and to enable some basic financial planning.
This is why I said in an above post that I would imagine that SWTOR after its initial release was a failure, I would be surprised if it hit those targets, but since going F2P it appears to have become a success.
However, more important for the continued success of a game is that cashflow covers the operating costs, a situation that will be hugely exacerbated if there are outstanding loans/ debts etc from the initial development.
Here is something to think about which I dont think many of you have.
Game A = 200 developers + large Add budget
Game B = 2 developers + no add budget
Clearly game B doesnt have to gross or net NEARLY as much money for their game to be successful for those two developers.