I wouldn’t call Pearl Abyss an unknown developer, at least not in the mmo scene.
Comment on Crimson Desert sales top five million
Goodeye8@piefed.social 21 hours agoBut where’s the marketing? Where’s the established franchise to coast upon? Where’s the developer reputation to guarantee sales? Pearl Abyss is a pretty much unknown developer, Crimson desert is a new IP and the only marketing I’ve seen is essentially word of mouth. For a game to organically sell 5 million units is a pretty big deal.
Jax@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Goodeye8@piefed.social 17 hours ago
Just because the space Sim crowd knows who Frontier Developments is doesn’t mean the rest of the gaming space knows who they are. Pearl abyss may be known in the niche they were in before but they’ve made a game with mainstream appeal and for many people Pearl Abyss is a name they’re hearing for the first time.
Jax@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
Yet if you’d said Elite Dangerous it would be much more recognizeable, just like BDO is with Pearl Abyss.
Plus, Pearl Abyss has been working to get people to play their game for quite some time — Shroud played it for a bit and I know some other popular mmo streamers played it. All of this to say, Crimson Desert’s success is not wild — and using Marathon as a metric is just the worst thing you could do because Pearl Abyss hasn’t been shitting themselves reputation-wise.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 10 hours ago
My point is that if you took a normie gamer and asked them who Pearl Abyss is they wouldn’t know just like they wouldn’t know who Frontier Developments is. They might know if you mention BDO or ED but that’s not the same as asking who the studio is. If you ask who Bungie is they will know.
The comparison to Marathon was explicitly to debunk the idea that you can sell 5 million units simply by doing marketing. That was the extent of the comparison. But to bring it back to my point here, the reason we’re even talking about Marathon is because of Bungie. If Pearl Abyss had made Marathon we wouldn’t be talking about it because nobody would be giving a shit about a failed extraction shooter. People gave Marathon a chance because it’s made by Bungie. Some people bought Marathon only because they believed Bungie is going to pull out another banger.
64bithero@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Speaking of lack of marketing did anyone else think was an MMO ? For a long time I thought it was a sequel to Black Desert or a big expansion. I just found out a few months ago it’s a single player game
thethrilloftime69@feddit.online 16 hours ago
My YouTube feed has a million videos on this game. Every major media outlet has done multiple videos on this game and the bugs and the launch. I’m pretty plugged into the games industry and I hadn’t heard of it until it launched but since then it has gotten a ton of press and I doubt it’s just “word of mouth”.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 20 hours ago
They did a pretty significant marketing push on Twitch for Crimson Desert, but in financial terms I don’t know if that is all that expensive, and certainly not in relation to 5 million copies sold.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
I actually just assume marketing to sell 5m copies. As I don’t consume social media or YouTube I have no idea.
But even if that sounds impressive then, it’s still no index for quality IMHO. Buuuut consideting that it’s already released and reviews look good my point is worthless here.
As it uses denuvo I haven’t checked myself yet. When they remove it it’s an instant purchase.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 20 hours ago
Marketing doesn’t guarantee 5 million sales. Just look at Marathon. Insane marketing push for a game made by a beloved studio sold only 1.2 million units. And the marketing was excellent, clearly better than the game itself. This is a piece of art.
Jax@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
Well, Marathon is a supremely bad example as Bungie has been doing everything they can to make the people who have supported them throughout Destiny hate them.
absquatulate@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Word of mouth my ass. Heard absolutely nothing about this game for years and then suddenly a few weeks before launch ( and even now) reddit and youtube absolutely exploded in “can’t wait for this!” and “this is the greatest game ever!” posts. To me that smells of astroturfing. I don’t doubt it’s a good game and might pick it up when/if they drop denuvo, but it was definitely not “organic”
Goodeye8@piefed.social 7 hours ago
You can argue everything before launch wasn’t organic if you want to, I don’t care enough to argue over your cynicism, but post-launch it has been organic. If the game was a steaming pile of shit none of the before release “astroturfing” would matter a month after release, the game would have a player count nosedive like Highguard and it would be what people consider “a dead game”. But it’s not having that nose-dive, it has a fairly small decay considering last sunday peak playercount was almost the same as the first peak after launch. Furthermore the reviews have gone from mixed at launch to very positive. Those things don’t happen when the hype is manufactured.
People aren’t making Youtube videos on Crimson Desert combos or puzzle solving videos or why you should engage with the camp management system or etc because Pearl Abyss is paying them, the videos get made because people want to make those videos and talk about the game. You don’t get a RDR2 artist glazing the water simulation (which BTW is a video I very much recommend watching because it’s a nerd nerding out about nerdy things and IMO those are always the best videos) unless there’s something to glaze, Pearl Abyss isn’t going to pay their competition to glaze them.
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 7 hours ago
It’s totally astroturfed. I never heard of this game until two days before release, and most comments about it are “it’s good if you ignore the story and gameplay”.