Funcome is to blame for this. They try baliming GW2 and WoW panda releases, but the fact is the they were greedy with TSW. Box fee, sub-fee, and cachshop? Seriously? Good luck with that. Oh wait, they already failed wth TSW.
The game will always hit solid competition, no matter when it launches. You can't blame that for the 200k sales... an appealing game will find a market whenever it hits the shelves.
In December, for example, I would be choosing FFXIV over it.
If they were expecting more than 200,000 people, then should have marketed it like a game of that stature. The only reason I even knew this game existed is because of this website. I think they would have done better by holding off the launch until October. It would have given them more time to test the game, eliminate the bugs and do a campaign around the Halloween season.
Of course no amount of marketing can eliminate the bad reputation that Funcom has with the MMO community, which I'm sure had an effect on sales. It's going to take a long time to reverse that.
After AOC, there were probably 500k players who were ´wait and see´. A lot of people felt burned by AOC and will never buy a Funcom game on launch day.
So you wait a month and see how things look before wasting $50. What did we learn? PvP is terrible, there isn´t a lot of content, and half the development team was fired (temporarily lol).
If not for AOC, this probably would havve sold closer to a million boxes. But because of AOC, you had 500k who will never touch another FC came, and 500K who won´t buy at launch.
Originally posted by fallenlords In typical Funcom fashion they are laying the blame at the door of NCSoft and Blizzard, for annoucing when they did.
GW2 and MoP would have impacted sales a lot. Just need to look at the number of people who said they held of purchasing, simply because GW2's launch was so near.
A wise move would have been to pushed TSW's launch back to (late) October. Which would have drawn people, after the hype of the other two. It would also have had its raid by then.
Not really.
The GW2 players would still say "Hey, I bought this GW2 MMO where I only had to pay for the box. Why do I have to pay a subscription fee on TSW?"
Comments
The game should have release in desember instead.
Soon when players get boored to play GW og WOW they will come back to TSW.
I dont like monthly fee, better to buy new mission thru ingame store.
nahhh, if I bored to GW2 or WoW : MoP. I will go to play PC offline game and console
Never have the idea to play TSW. this game is completely not my taste (unsubscribe in less a month)
Future? What future? They're going to cut their staff in half: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/29/the-secret-world-sells-200k-smaller-funcom-games-ahead
I knew it was going to be pretty bad but 50%? Ouch! And Funcom shares are back to where they were in 11/08.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
The game will always hit solid competition, no matter when it launches. You can't blame that for the 200k sales... an appealing game will find a market whenever it hits the shelves.
In December, for example, I would be choosing FFXIV over it.
I wouldn't count on that. Anyone who still plays WoW is most probably a die hard fan. And GW2 is anything but boring to play.
And as for competition - when the competition hurts you it means your product is inferior.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
If they were expecting more than 200,000 people, then should have marketed it like a game of that stature. The only reason I even knew this game existed is because of this website. I think they would have done better by holding off the launch until October. It would have given them more time to test the game, eliminate the bugs and do a campaign around the Halloween season.
Of course no amount of marketing can eliminate the bad reputation that Funcom has with the MMO community, which I'm sure had an effect on sales. It's going to take a long time to reverse that.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
After AOC, there were probably 500k players who were ´wait and see´. A lot of people felt burned by AOC and will never buy a Funcom game on launch day.
So you wait a month and see how things look before wasting $50. What did we learn? PvP is terrible, there isn´t a lot of content, and half the development team was fired (temporarily lol).
If not for AOC, this probably would havve sold closer to a million boxes. But because of AOC, you had 500k who will never touch another FC came, and 500K who won´t buy at launch.
Not really.
The GW2 players would still say "Hey, I bought this GW2 MMO where I only had to pay for the box. Why do I have to pay a subscription fee on TSW?"
Like me *waving hand in air* o/