Topic: Marvelous Loses Money on Wii Projects

[vudu]

Muramasa was supposed to hit Europe this week but got delayed.  Not sure when it's coming out but it shouldn't be too much longer.  ARF hasn't been localized to English yet and Valhalla Knights doesn't seem like it's going to be worth bringing to Europe based on the critical reception and initial sales.

[NWR_Lindy]

Correct, for some reason Marvelous did not disclose US numbers for Muramasa.

Also, two of the PSP games were visual novels, one was a remix of an existing game, and one was a sequel that re-used an existing engine.  All very cheap to make.  The Wii games were much more ambitious (and costly, apparently).

[ShyGuy]

I think the reason they didn't release US numbers is Ignition got the Muramasa publishing rights cheap for a flat rate (no residual?) so Ignition makes all the money off sales.

[Stratos]

Is that the same case with Rune Factory? Because XSeed had a hand in LKS and Valhalla Knights coming out in North America but Rune Factory is strangely absent. I am repeatedly bringing up this point because Marvelous has their name on the front of the box while XSeed's logo is relegated to the back. It may be similar to why Muramasa's NA numbers are not listed or it could be negligence in the article or even an attempt to mask the true facts since RF is reportedly having consistent and decent sales even now.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

If VK was never ported, they would've saved some money.

If XSEED had money, they might've marketed their games with substantial material.

Last I heard, RFF was a niche success despite the absence of marketing.

[King of Twitch]

Well, Niche did say "marketing is dead."

[Chozo Ghost]

Even though Little King Story is a great game and all, who exactly is the audience?

The play style is very similar to Pikmin. Anyone who liked Pikmin would probably like this as well. In fact, in some ways I thought it was even better than Pikmin. It is very unfortunate if people mistakenly believe the game is "kiddie" and then dismiss it without giving it a chance, but if that is the case why would they be Wii owners in the first place? Nintendo has long been criticized as being "kiddie", so anyone who owns a Wii you would think would be above that nonsense...

Anyway, has everyone on this forum done their part? I strongly recommend the game to anyone who likes Pikmin or Harvest Moon type stuff... if that happens to be you, then buy the game so that the sales figures imrprove. And be sure to tell your friends.

[broodwars]

"Done our part"?  Since when is it our job to do Marvelous' marketing for them?  If they don't want to put the funds into making sure that the general public knows about their game, as far as I'm concerned let them die.  Their list of titles hasn't exactly wowed me so far (especially Muramasa), outside of what I've heard of Little King Story.

[Ian Sane]

I don't have any of these games but Muramasa is the only one I've considered getting.  It had the unfortunate bad luck of coming out around the same time as the PS3 Slim, so I bought that and Muramasa has just sort of slipped through the cracks.  If I don't buy a game when it comes out then it just sort of falls into a "I'll get it when it's cheap" scenario.

Though this does create an obvious problem with Wii third party support.  They all just **** the bed so bad at first and dicked us around and it ruined the trust between Wii owners and them.  I'm not saying Marvelous did this but the whole situation is such that all third parties are lumped together.  For YEARS whenever I bitched on this board about the weak lineup of games on the Wii I was told to buy another console and a lot of the people on this board owned another console.  It was like that's how it works: if you're a core gamer you own a Wii for Nintendo's games and one of the other consoles to make up for the crappy Wii third party selection.

Now that I own a PS3, I don't pay as much attention to the Wii aside from Nintendo's own stuff.  Why pay attention to Wii third party efforts that SUCK 99% of the time when the PS3 is FULL of great third party games?  Once I bought that second console the Wii became my "Nintendo game console" and the PS3 is the focus for everything else.  And lots of core gamers have this setup.  I was told to go to this setup.  I complained that one shouldn't have to buy a second console and everyone brushed that off.  It's like you're either super die-hard Wii fan that's willing to give everything a chance or you're a jaded Wii owner that has found something else and the Wii grabs your attention only when something big comes out that you can't miss.

And Marvelous doesn't make those kinds of games that grab the attention of people that weren't paying attention already. If the Wii userbase has a lot of people that own another console, then it's just all the more harder for a third party to grab their attention and get the sale.  They turned us away with their crappy con-man bullshit and now they bitch because they can't grab our attention with decent but not extravagant games.

[Mop it up]

How much did LKS sell for? $40? so if they sold 130k world wide, the made over five million gross.

It was $50 but was soon discounted to $30, though I don't know if that was official or a retailer decision. I don't know if it's the one which was profitable because it seems it had a larger budget than the other two.

I convinced somebody to get Little King's Story so I guess you could say I "did my part".

[NWR_insanolord]

Ian, I'm very sure you'd like Little King's Story.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

PS3 is full of great 3rd party games.  Of course Ian doesn't truly know that cuz he hasn't tried them.

LKS is a great 3rd party game.  Ian won't know that cuz it's automatically part of the 99% Wii 3rd party crap he won't try.

[Chozo Ghost]

Ian, you will be missing out on a great game if you don't check out Little King's Story. You mentioned before you like Pikmin, and this game is very similar in some respects.

[MegaByte]

I hope they port Half-minute Hero to a Nintendo platform.

[RABicle]

I was going to reply with something flippant like "there's only so much Harvest Moon we can take" but Marvellous really are a quality indy publisher and it's a shame tos ee them struggle.

[ThePerm]

The typical Nintendo fan really doesn't like it when 3rd parties complain about their lack of game sales. Out of the list of games that they developed only one sounded worth while to play.

Can you imagine in music if there was more then one format and the musical artist was bitching about how their songs didn't sell? Good things sell themselves. They have nothing to complain about. The Wii has a 56.69 million user base at 48.6% market share. If their products aren't going to sell on there, they aren't going to sell on another format either.

Every generation there is an acclaim or a midway who does this, they usually make too much product with not enough focus.

You obviously haven't played the games mentioned in this article. Save for Valhalla Knights (which was crap) and Arc Rise Fantasia (which hasn't been released in North America), they have released some good to great games on Wii. Muramasa has a fantastic art style and solid gameplay, and I have yet to hear anything bad about Little King's Story. So, the games' overall quality didn't affect sales.

What I will agree, however, is that they are very niche, and it's hard for them to compete for either audience. The hardcore audience is dominated by games like GTA, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Halo and such, while the casual side is head over heels in LOVE with the Wii series and similar third party games. In other words, a game like Muramasa is too obscure for the mainstream audience, and its too weird for its core audience.

Also, guys, while I agree that whining about poor sales and blaming the Wii will not create better sales, you have to remember that even the simplest of games can cost up to millions to produce. If a publisher doesn't see any return them can you blame them for being upset? It doesn't help that the world economy is still in the crapper.

I wasn't saying they were bad games, although I guess you could say I was weakly implying it. As far as marketing goes Little King Story was the one that i got interested in the most. What I am saying though is if you're not going to make games that sell themselves then your not going to have sales. Its a difficult thing to do if you don't have recognizable IPs, but usually brand recognition comes before IP recognition. I am a huge Zelda fan, but I hadn't played any Zelda games until Ocarina of time. A little marketing, and some mario/nintendo love led to Zelda love. Either the company is going to set all of its focus onto making one hit game that gets them brand recognition or they aren't going to have any hits at all. Both Square and Nintendo had these problems at first. Before Square made Final Fantasy they were a sorta shitty company that made lame titles. Nintendo was the same way with Radar Scope, and licensed Popeye games..until Donkey Kong they were nobody. All the games that Marvelous didn't sell well they shouldnt have wasted the resources on development, instead they should have focused that money on marketing. It is easy to criticize from the outside though. The World of Goo guys are probably making bank though.

[smallsharkbigbite]

What would you have had them do?  I may be wrong but marketing isn't effective as it used to be.  I don't listen to the radio, and I use a DVR to record all my shows, so I don't watch commercials.  I haven't seen a 360, PS3, or Wii ad in ages.  The only reason I know games exist is because I look for them on the internet.  It's easy to cherry pick and say they weren't advertised, but have niche games like this ever been advertised?  While they didn't sell great their high end probably wasn't much higher and you want them to throw $10M dollars into an ad campaign? 

It makes me sad actually.  Everytime a third company says this, I come on here and see everyone ripping on that company.  It didn't sell because a. advertising, b. port of PS3/360 game, c. niche game d. released too close to Nintendo game.  There's some truth to each one, but I rarely hear third parties complain about 360/PS3 games and this just means less support for the Wii going forward.  There are also two big problems plauging the Wii.  a.  There is a large portion of people that bought it only for Wii Sports and Wii Fit, and b. There is a large portion that also own a PS3/360 and would rather buy games for that.  Hope this doesn't mean Wii 2 (or whatever they call it) will have this dismal of support because Sony and Microsoft will have gimmicks ready for the next round.

[Halbred]

If Maramusa drops in price, I'll definately pick it up. The gameplay might be shallow, but the art direction blows my mind.

I think part of the problem with video games sales generally, and this probably affects 3rd parties the most, is that the consumer base knows that if they don't buy the game right away, it will drop in price--often radically--within a few months. This spreads out the game's tail, but means that initial payback is much less. Marvelous will make money on LKS and Maramusa, it'll just take a little while.

[that Baby guy]

I'm actually saying that in this case, they're development process must be broken and overly expensive, causing them to hemorrhage money, if those sales numbers didn't produce profits.

There's a difference.  Literally, I believe there's something seriously broken with the company for them to make this announcement with those numbers.  Muramasa, while fun to play, literally felt like an ambitious flash game.  There were about ten different random enemies, maybe fifteen.  In every area, art assets were reused.  Voice acting was used sparingly.  Fighting and battle mechanics weren't complicated.  There were several bosses, yes, but most were simple, and didn't have very complicated animations.  Maybe Muramasa is the game they profited from, but if it wasn't, I'm stating that their design process is definitely more expensive than it needs to be.  By far more expensive than it should be.

So in essence, in this case, I really feel like Marvelous is trying to blame the Wii's niche market in this, especially with their comparison to those PSP titles.  Given that I get that feeling, when I see strong numbers for low-budget niche games, I do grow a little irate.

While I do think there are things that a company like EA could do to produce more sales, I know with niche games that isn't always possible.  I know that these games were released in relatively open periods of time.  I know they couldn't spend much, or even any, on advertising.  I also know that no one with a PS3 or 360 would buy these games for $40, but maybe for $10 or even $15 as downloadable games.

And that's what bugs me.  Marvelous should know that, too.  What numbers were they expecting, exactly?  What was the budget of these games, so we can compare the development cost to the sales volume?  At a shareholders meeting, I'd be asking these questions, and I'm surprised they weren't answered.  Truthfully, I don't think these games could have been successful on any platform, if they weren't successful on the Wii, with those sales numbers.  That's assuming they were selling the same game on those other platforms.  If they were to sell a higher number of copies, the price would have to be lower, but I doubt they'd sell enough to make up the gap for the dropped price.

Like I've said repeatedly, with games like these, what kind of numbers do you expect?  I still believe they sold well, and that the number sold should have resulted in a profit.  The fact that they didn't make a profit is a testament to development costs, not poor numbers sold.

[ShyGuy]

The fact that they didn't make a profit is a testament to development costs, not poor numbers sold.

BOOM Headshot! Couldn't have said it better myself, this thread is over.

[Stratos]

I want to know if XSeed is making a profit off of these titles. LKS was a joint venture (along with Valhalla Knights I believe) but XSeed has voiced that they have been pleased with sales numbers for their Wii Games.

[KDR_11k]

AFAIK the rule of thumb is that you must sell 100k units for every million dollars you invested into the development.

I think part of the problem with video games sales generally, and this probably affects 3rd parties the most, is that the consumer base knows that if they don't buy the game right away, it will drop in price--often radically--within a few months.

There's a reason Iwata told people not to do pricedrops. I preordered NSMBWii from Amazon while all 360 games I bought were significantly below MSRP (most expensive was Brütal Legend at 55€, MSRP 70€, second was Prototype at 40€ and it goes down from there). That's in part because Nintendo also starts out with a saner price (40-50€ instead of 70) but also because you can be sure the price won't drop much.

[D_Average]

One promplem I rarely hear mentioned is finding an interesting Wii game at the store. There's just so much crap on the shelves making it tricky to know which titles may be any good. I don't even walk down the Wii aisles anymore to look for deals. Too much effort to sift through the mountain of titles.

[smallsharkbigbite]

AFAIK the rule of thumb is that you must sell 100k units for every million dollars you invested into the development.

Last I heard an average Wii game cost $10M.  It's tough to say what these games cost, but I think it's safe to say that nobody comes to market with a game (that's not Wiiware) and expects to sell only 100,000 especially with the Wii usesrbase at 50+ million and expanding at least 1+million a month.  This is a problem.  I know these are niche games, but unfortunately these are some of the better games to hit the Wii.

There's a reason Iwata told people not to do pricedrops. I preordered NSMBWii from Amazon while all 360 games I bought were significantly below MSRP (most expensive was Brütal Legend at 55€, MSRP 70€, second was Prototype at 40€ and it goes down from there). That's in part because Nintendo also starts out with a saner price (40-50€ instead of 70) but also because you can be sure the price won't drop much.

I think first it's a general problem in our economy right now.  Look at other retail items.  It's I won't buy this until Thanksgiving sales, or after Christmas sales, or until the government makes a program incentivizing me to purchase something.  And I think in general consumers are still scared to purchase, job cuts are still coming in the areas I live.  I think my job is secure but the more businesses our area loses even I wonder when my business won't make enough to support itself.  So their is a problem in the environment right now.

However, having said that, I think your argument is more for digital distribution than companies not to decrease prices.  Nintendo has clought in retail.  While Excite Trucks is nary to be found at retail, most stores with have a few copies of Galaxy or Twilight Princess at $50, because they know when people buy a Wii these two titles have a good chance of being picked up as well.  Most developers don't have that luxury.  Retail in general wants to see turnover if they are holding your products.  So if a developer like Marlvelous takes this stand they can expect fewer sales to retail because retail doesn't want to gamble on sales. 

It also doesn't mean a sale won't occur.  Retailers often hold unofficial sales to get gamers in.  And it's sure with the games mentioned at some point the retailer is just going to decide to dump their product at whatever price they can get for the copies because they see 20+ new releases a week, they like the cycle of games sell for 6 months and then dump.   

Digital games don't have this issue.  It cost a fee to run a server, but to add one game to a server to hold available for download costs almost nothing.  So if 5 years after release someone downloads LKS or whatever, it's almost all profit.  A retail wouldn't hold a game for 5 years (without it continually turning I.E. Galaxy) because it takes up space for them to be selling something else to their customer that will turn.

[Chozo Ghost]

One promplem I rarely hear mentioned is finding an interesting Wii game at the store. There's just so much crap on the shelves making it tricky to know which titles may be any good. I don't even walk down the Wii aisles anymore to look for deals. Too much effort to sift through the mountain of titles.

It helps a lot if you know what you're looking for before you even enter the store. You can go on various sites such as this one before hand and read reviews and hear what other players have to say, and then you can get a good idea of what titles are worth looking into.