MWEB GameZone writes: "According to XSOLLA, the rise of mobile gaming, the free-to-play (F2P) market, Steam sales and ease of game development have all impacted the video game industry in a negative way. AAA developers seem to bear the brunt of the changes in the industry and this could lead to more studios closing down."
Game industry working conditions are improving, but occupational burnout still runs amok. Studios and workers have the power to slow it down.
Quite being abusive to the workers and hold management accountable.
The acclaimed open world action RPG is "underperforming" where its sales are concerned, according to industry analyst Daniel Ahmad.
“Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Has Reportedly Sold About Half of What FF7 Remake Did in the Same Timeframe”
Makes sense to me since the current PS5 base is about half of what the PS4 base was when FFVII Remake released.
There were about 113 million PS4’s in consumers hands worldwide in 2020 when FFVII Remake was released (towards the beginning of COVID lockdown no less).
PS5 sales currently sits at about half of that (50-something million. We are not in COVID lockdown so many people are not as bored as they were 4 years ago and not in a rush to buy every video game coming out at release. Some PS4 owners may not have upgraded to PS5 yet and therefore can’t buy the sequel yet. And, of course, some who played Remake just might not be interested in Rebirth.
It just seems pretty disingenuous for an analyst to ‘analyze’ a situation when there are so many mitigating and unequal factors involved.
Yes, this and also finishing part 1 of the Final Fantasy Remake trilogy weighs heavily on it too. There's always a huge percentage of gamers who never finish the games they purchase. It's not always due to lack of enjoyment, but also life priorities etc. But factor that into the knowledge that Rebirth is a straight continuation of the story, and enjoyment lies heavily on having finished the first, you can begin to understand why not as many players jumped in. But absolutely too, the lesser install base of the PS5 played a huge role!
I started the game when it came out, played about 2/3 of the way through and finished the rest in the last month before rebirth came out. There are just too many games and too much adulting to do.
It sold about half... with about half as many PS5s available as PS4 had when it launched in 2020. So... the tie ratio is about the same. As PS5s continue to sale it should eventually match Remake. It's a really good game.
I think there's going to be another wave of buyers that purchase the game once the third part of the trilogy is released, especially if they release it as a bundle.
"Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad said this 🙄"
That guy is director of research & insights at Niko Partners.
https://nikopartners.com/
But he shouldn´t be trusted according to some "trust me bro" N4G random. Smh
Obscure Observer, so by your logic, we should also trust Pachter? Come on, it's like you're not even trying any more.
@Obscure
"We cover China, Chinese Taipei, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam."
Yepp, very trusted and the biggest areas for videogame sales.
@raWfodog You'd think an analyst would catch these facts, but just goes to show what gaming analysts are made of. We've only in the last year moved to PS5 only games, in addition to the install base cross-gen has been around for years. There are a lot of PS4 players still over there. It's amazing when people compare things whilst isolating all the significant facts.
And Rebirth being a direct sequel is also valid: anecdotally, I've just started FF7 Remake a week ago and I'm loving it, on Chapter 8, but I'm obviously not going to buy Rebirth until I complete the story which will take time.
But it's hasn't sold as much the articles om Google stating bit so what if it hasn't the game is still great better than remake which tailed of in middle-of-the- game
Apologists always know what to say... 👍
Is it possible to squeeze in one more excuses for FF7 sales? Go for it!
@TheEroica Understand the meaning of the words you use or don't use them. An apologist argues in defense of something controversial or problematic. Pointing out relevant facts that an analysis or article did not take into account is constructive feedback and discussion. There are great movies, games and other forms of art that don't sell as expected, but later gain financial success.
Example? The Godfather Part 2 underperformed financially compared to its predecessor but is widely hailed as one of the greatest films and sequels of all time and is still influential to this day. And no, I'm not comparing Final Fantasy 7 to the Godfather, before you draw that strawman. There is one loose similarity however in that Rebirth is also overwhelmingly acclaimed and considered superior to the first.
Given the decision to split Final Fantasy VII into three separate games, of which Rebirth released exclusively for PS5 leaving the PS4 install base behind, and the final installment due in 2027, the sales performance is a bit more of a conversation than you're trying to make it out to be.
Didn't even mention price increases across the board for all games...this causes all people to be more picky and limit game purchases
Unfortunate but it's the reality of sequels. And I simply just don't hear much people talk about rebirth and even remake as these titles just seem too hard to get into with many newcomers and old fans that are upset with the many changes.
The games are really good and both acclaimed and Rebirth is even better than Remake with a 90+ metascore but if you don't want to 'hear' the praise... you probably wont.
It's kind of ridiculous how some people here are just making stuff up to explain the low sales. Just because you bought the game and you like it doesn't mean it sold better than it did. Same with FFXVI.
For me its cause now that i know it releases on pc.. id rather play it with mods on my pc than my ps5
well, according to some other reports, it had 2.1 mio. players in the first week.
so, who to believe now.
It's safe to say if it sold that Square would of made a sales milestone announcement like they did with past FF entries or other IPs in general. They did a FF16 sales update within 2 weeks after it launched for instance.
there is no way this game hasnt already sold more than remake.
there doesnt need to be an announcement for everything, especially not if they released several updates amd the ultimania.
people are too obsessed with sales
I think there’s a reason we haven’t seen a celebratory tweet from Square on the sales. It came out on Feb. 29th and it’s Apr. 13th right now… that ain’t a good sign. I think this one can reach 3 mill at some point but will be behind Remake, which when it comes to business, that ain’t good.
Josh Sawyer tweets: "I believe burnout has already replaced crunch as the primary hazard of the game industry. Managers are setting teams up to fail and devs are getting ground up as collateral damage. I have suffered from burnout myself. It's no joke. Thanks to @thewritegame and @Eeoor for the talk.
As with crunch, it's likely that managers may acknowledge creating the circumstances leading to burnout but will not take the necessary steps to change them. It's important that devs continue to talk to and support each other and to apply pressure until change is effected."
I always just see "steam sale" and buy, but never thought about how it all affects the developers.
Great for us consumers but i would hate to see some of my favorite studios close.
If budgets are increasing, then devs need to think about why that is the case. This is not an issue for consumers to worry about.
The cost of games is an interesting debate...
Here's the thing I have never been able to fully get my head around...
To produce a PC game costs X
To produce a console game costs X plus License fee to manufacturer
For YEARS PC games have had higher resolution, higher quality textures, and generally require at least as much effort, if not more effort, to produce than a console game (as PC devs need to account for differing hardware set ups - such as AMD vs Nvidia).
Yet, PC games have always been cheaper than console games. If the price difference was simply the licensing fee being passed on to the consumer that's OK. But the leap from PS3/360 to PS4/XB1 has seen a significant increase in prices.
What is the real justification for the increase? Most devs are now using multi-purpose game engines that scale between platforms (some even scale from high end PC down to mobile); and in general the PS4 and XB1 are much more 'PC like' in architecture compared to the PS3 and a PC for example - so cross platform releases / ports should be quicker (and time = money).
So a dev may need more texture artists, modellers and some types of roles - but in other areas they may need less people.
The other part of the debate is how people's expectations are changing. We are going through a period of change with F2P and low entry price for mobile games - some of which are pretty high quality. But what i think is that the pricing model will start to converge between platforms.
We are already seeing more games on mobile costing upwards of £10 - £20, and I think this trend will continue. There will come a point where the F2P market will be saturated and the business model will shift again.
Also, you could also view mobile gaming as a good gateway to console / PC gaming. Just look at the sales of PS4, and even XB1 - they are higher than last gen - with a limited library of games, the hardware is still flying off the shelves.
Those people are going to want to buy games for their new consoles.
Finally - there's the risk versus reward aspect. Publishers are not stupid - Ubi, EA, and Activision do massive amounts of market research. they have a good idea of what will sell, and in what volume, and what the market currently wants. If a Publisher is green-lighting games with budgets that are not going to return on investment. And spending millions marketing bad games. That is their problem / fault.
There have been numerous reports for the last 6 years about how developing games or making games is the cheapest its ever been. So I don't believe for one minute the current pricing model is hurting devs or publishers in anyway. I agree with what someone else said whether the games are costing more to produce isn't a consumer problem or one we should worry about all we need to worry about is the quality of the game and keeping the cost to us down.
"Even if you release an amazing game with dozens of hours of content and think that it's worth a $50 price tag, the market may not agree with you. Many developers don't have the savings to wait for profit over a course of years due to sales."
So lets go back to business and marketing 101...
If there is no market for a $50 game...
Maybe STOP making huge development costing games that you have to charge $50 for. Maybe you cut your team down, take longer than a year to develop and release at what the MARKET can sustain. If you cant then why are you in business anymore?
I mean really all this article is saying is that large studios aren't adapting to the market and want to do things like they have always done regardless of supply and demand, new technology, easier development. You cant say with products like Unity its easier to develop and also say people are spending more to develop.
Another glazed over fact is the video game industry is a multibillion dollar industry and they make it sound like it was anywhere near that back in the early 90's. The model they are using is wrong and they are suffering from being too big to control in a volatile market.
I believe in a free market system if you cant compete you change or close down. That is what businesses do. People make it sound like people have a "Right" to have overgrown bad business models, and its the markets fault.
Businesses cater to the market, the market doesn't cater to business.
Last point if an industry has more money being spent on games but somehow its again costing developers more to develop with a larger industry and easier tools, then again your business model is wrong. Never blame the market for shifting, that happens with EVERYTHING.
Adapt and overcome.