Crysis selling 86,633 copies, UT3 only selling 33,995

[fuzzbunny]

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...=8352&Itemid=2

please limit your bashing

[CarbonFire]

No bashing needed.

Those are worrisome figures to be sure, but not entirely unexpected. Crysis probably only even runs on maybe 5-10% of the gaming PCs out there, so it has an extreme limitation in that regard. UT3 also has high requirements, but it can scale better than Crysis can, so it can accommodate a larger audience. Problem is, the rather poor handling of the demo meant many of the people initially looking to purchase the game were put off.

The real issue is that Epic has been treating the market almost exactly like they have in the past, except the market is entirely different than it was 4 years ago. Back then, there weren't as many gaming options, and FPS gamers were practically a captive audience on the PC. Now most gamers are on the console, so you no longer have that captive audience. I'm sure theres fun to be had in UT3, and I keep toying with the idea of purchasing it even though I already play TF2 and COD4 regularly. But the wall of mediocrity surrounding UT3 constantly reminds me that its a game that hasn't arrived yet, no matter what the "release date" says.

All those numbers do for me is reinforce my deepest concerns about this medium we all enjoy. As gaming leaves the basement of niche past-time for the limelight of cultural prominence, the need for bigger and better "experiences" increases. This forces a push from innovation to commoditization in order to recoup a return on the significant investment studios must incur. The PC has always been about bleeding edge, while consoles have more or less been about status quo and the lowest common denominator. We've seen a steady push AWAY from PC development, and this trend will continue until the market runs dry of demand. Innovation just cannot win in this environment; no matter how beautiful the game is, our how fun or innovative, there just isn't enough of a market to sustain those astronomical production costs. Consoles have become "good enough" for a large portion of the gaming population, which means few will bother to keep pace with the PC upgrade race.

Exhibit A: Call of Duty 4.
A popular PC FPS (as well as on consoles), the shift has gone almost entirely towards the console ports of the game. I don't have exact sales figues for the PC side, but I do know that at any given time, there are only about 20,000 or so people playing the PC version of COD4 online. To contrast, over 2 MILLION copies of COD4 were sold on the 360 and PS3, and I'm sure quite a few more people will be going that way as well. If I were to guess, I'd say the PS3 version of UT3 will outpace the PC version by a wide margin, but we'll have to wait until January to find that out.

The writing is on the wall, and I don't like what it says

[fuzzbunny]

well put


I dont have gears of wars figures but, im pretty sure they dwarf ut3's release. As you already stated, the well of PC FPS might be drying.

[Fluffy]

This story has been doing the rounds on a lot of forums. Funny how many people read it as 34K UT3 sales total so far and say stuff like 'well if 34K people got it why are only 1K ever playing'. In reality that was just US sales and just for a few days at the end of November. Total global sales are going to be far far higher than that by now and still there are only those 1K people playing on a good night. Yeah things are even worse than people think they are. The game may not be selling as many units as midway and epic would like but it is selling and people are not playing it.

COD4 goes to 30K+ people playing at peak weekend time for PC and has pretty much the same system requirements as UT3 does. It's knocked BF2 off the next most popular game after CS games slot proving a new game with high required specs can have an impact. Lots of people still play PC games and even the small niche of PC games that is FPS games gets a lot of players. It's just that UT3 never gets more than 0.3% of those people. PC gaming isn't dead but UT3 very nearly is.

COD 4 has 30 times the PC player base UT3 does without anything like 30 times the sales. I've not got the game so I can only assume that's because for most folks it's more fun. I've decided to get it for Christmas and find out for myself

[Grisu]

Still prefer UT3 over CoD4's sripted mini-levels.

[Ghost_Rain]

I like both to be honest

[WalkinTarget]

Wow, what really shocks me is the list here:

http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/

The game at #4 is a game I only recently gave up on playing, and that was because it didn't like Vista and dual core chips, but after almost 5 freakin' 'YEARS, Enemy Territory is STILL at #4 !!!!

I imagine that if I wouldn't have upgraded, I might still be playing ET. I still think that game had some more life left on the Lair, but the regulars had moved on to servers running custom maps, so things fell apart soon after.

[Premonition]

Theres the hardware and software sales chart for nov.

[juneau]

I like both to be honest

Me too.

[random_id]

Wow, what really shocks me is the list here:

http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/

The game at #4 is a game I only recently gave up on playing, and that was because it didn't like Vista and dual core chips, but after almost 5 freakin' 'YEARS, Enemy Territory is STILL at #4 !!!!

I imagine that if I wouldn't have upgraded, I might still be playing ET. I still think that game had some more life left on the Lair, but the regulars had moved on to servers running custom maps, so things fell apart soon after.

I don't see anything shocking - a well-made games can stay popular for a long, long times :P Something which I doubt will ever happen with UT3 :P

[Karson]

Wow, what really shocks me is the list here:

http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/

The game at #4 is a game I only recently gave up on playing, and that was because it didn't like Vista and dual core chips, but after almost 5 freakin' 'YEARS, Enemy Territory is STILL at #4 !!!!

I imagine that if I wouldn't have upgraded, I might still be playing ET. I still think that game had some more life left on the Lair, but the regulars had moved on to servers running custom maps, so things fell apart soon after.

I don't see anything shocking - a well-made games can stay popular for a long, long times :P Something which I doubt will ever happen with UT3 :P

The same server stats show UT2k4 being 8th ranked in terms of players worldwide, with 4800 players online right now.

What a classic! /sniff