A friend sent this link on Crysis’ release sales. Of note:
Crysis sold just 86,633 units last month, following its release on November 13.
Those disappointing numbers don’t surprise me. I’m surprised so many people expected so much more, but I’ve been ranting on skyrocketing system-spec requirements for quite some time. Sometimes it seems that developers are saying “we expect to capture 10% of our market- the 10% that has uber video cards” instead of saying “we expect to capture 10% of the 10% that have uber video cards” and thus getting some rather ambitious projections.
Sure, the numbers are disappointing. The game’s got rather solid reviews, I’m told (my gaming rig won’t support it, so I haven’t paid very close attention) and you’d like to see a success for something that so many people have poured so much blood, sweat, and tears into to work out.
I’m just not sure if the real business agenda was riding on sales of the game. I mean- someone with much more business savvy than me should be guiding things there… if I was concerned over the platform requirements, someone else should have been… unless there are other reasons to put yourself so far on the bleeding edge that you get cut.
Like Licensing
Crytek always planned to license their engine- a platform that DOES seem to be living up to the hype. Based on the reviews, they’ve got a VERY solid product for that market. Crysis may not sell many boxes, but its an excellent technology demonstrator. By the time those licenses are ready for release, the market will have matured to more closely meet the required system specs.
Crysis might fail to meet the market numbercount but still succeed in establishing the engine in the forefront of DirectX10 engines.
