Amnesia and piracy

Paulaner

Paulaner

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The indie developers at Frictional Games talk about the sales of beautiful Amnesia. I suggest you to read the sad part about piracy. It's a nice read on how story based single player indie games struggle to stay alive.

One Month after Amnesia's release
 
Bah, it's games like this that deserve to be bought.
If someone pirates indie/small developer games, they don't deserve to play them.
 
sad really
on the bright side, I plan on buying it soon
+1 sale
 
I only pirate retail games.

20101009024401capture.png


Joking. I don't pirate games.
lol, I actually do.
:|
66yuth.jpg
 
I bought this at from the devs at the inflated price rather than Steam so I certainly have nothing to feel guilty about this time. I've never even played past the archives. Great value for money there :D.
 
The people who pirated it wouldn't have bought it anyway..
 
Good read (apart from the broken englishes :p). I bought Amnesia and Minecraft and found I got my money's worth with both, but I can certainly see how Minecraft would pull ahead, especially in the long run. It's a bit disheartening to hear they're considering switching platform, but working on less than minimum wage - even for love of your craft - can't be ideal.

On a similar note, Recettear (that japanese indie game I posted about) released around the same time and achieved similar figures, meaning the translators are able to continue localizing games for western consumption. There was a bit of talk about a few blogs who covered the game, however, and how common it was in the comments for people to suggest the game wasn't worth it's asking price - often as a blatant excuse for pirating it. This is obviously down to nothing but snap judgements, as the main game racks up at least 20 hours, after which a bevy of other content is unlocked. I mean, I know pirating isn't 1:1 with missed sales, but the fact that people are using these wafer thin excuses would suggest that at least some of them are pirating because they don't feel like paying, not because they can't. Kind of makes it hard to defend the PC as a gaming platform, at times...
 
it's people like that that are killing PC gaming.

Alright i know pc gaming isn't dead and piracy isnt the only reason for the state some would say it is in but:

A) this game deserves great sales
B) publishers frequently shit all over pc gamers like we're the adopted red headed stepchild :|
 
I really liked this bold statement:

What we want to continue doing is to create single player games that try to evolve the way in which videogames tell stories and evoke emotions.
Click to expand...

It would be easy for an indie developer to shift to a multiplayer game like Minecraft and go for more money. But the guys at Frictional want to keep creating single-player story-driven experiences. Kudos to them.

Another option is to expand our horizons and try other platforms
Click to expand...

This is totally understandable. I'm ok with that, as long as the PC gaming experience is not dumbed down.
 
I'm glad they've made enough to be able to continue making more games like Amnesia but they really deserve more than that. It was really an amazing game, there's nothing quite so effective anywhere else in the horror genre. I got it on release and I still haven't finished it simply because it's so scary I need to take a break every few hours. No game, movie, or book has ever given me such a strong reaction that I actually had to stop for a while because of fear. It's the kind of horror game I've always wanted but never seemed to find until now. Hopefully the next game will get the kind of recognition it deserves.
 
MultiVaC said:
It's the kind of horror game I've always wanted but never seemed to find until now. Hopefully the next game will get the kind of recognition it deserves.
Click to expand...

They need a publisher, or a partnership with some kind of mainstream subject. In short, they need more money to invest and someone to take care of marketing and PR.
Valve is not a charity, but if they are looking for some more indie developers to support, the guys at Frictional might be the right ones. Plus, a Steam exclusive might help in solving the piracy problem.
 
Does no-one here think that if EA could pirate you, they would do it in a secound?
 
I played the demo for 10 minutes and about 7 of that the game doing annoying things with my camera view. My character going insane from being in the dark too long made no sense to me and was just a pain in the ass.

No sale.
 
True story, I'd never heard of this game before today, so not being far behind Minecraft in terms of brand recognition is a bit off. That's like saying EDF: Insect Armageddon isn't far behind CoD: Black Ops. I'd be more interested in their piracy comparisons based on a similar selling game, such as Recettear.
 
i would love to see Valve hire Frictional Games so damn bad. can you imagine what Frictional could do with Valve's resources? and i think Valve could also benefit from Frictional's experience with the horror genre. while Valve has left4dead, i'd hardly call l4d a horror game. it's much more of an action experience.
 
First off, their data collection method is completely dismissible. They're judging the amount of piracy off google results for "amnesia torrents" and such? Thats not even close to an accurate way of figuring out the numbers.

Secondly, they can't compare their game sales with that of Minecraft. They're in two completely different markets. Being a horror game, Amnesia is limited to a very small, ever shrinking niche market. Minecraft is a sandbox game, and as such has a much, much broader appeal and its obvious that it would sell better, if for no other reason than it has more potential customers. Amnesia simply doesn't have a large enough market to sell through word-of-mouth advertising like Minecraft does.

Thirdly, their analysis of media response to sales seems very ill-founded as well. Minecraft exploded on to the scene with people, not reviewers gushing about the game. And they seem to think that reviews constitute media coverage. While that may be true, its not in the way they seem to think it is. Getting good reviews is not advertising. Reviews don't mean jack shit to sales if nobody cares to look at it. People only read reviews about games they're already interested in. It doesn't work the other way around. Nobody (relative term here bros) goes onto gaming review sites and just reads miscellaneous reviews about games they've never heard of. Thus its irrational to expect reviews to garner new interest in the game. All reviews do is solidify or diminish interest in people who are already vested.

Minecraft's media attention has been a whole different kind. There are tons of editorial articles on it, most of which have been in response to Minecraft's unique and interesting success story. And all these articles merely introduce readers to the existence of Minecraft, which promotes more awareness in the reader when they come across word-of-mouth advertising. Given Minecraft's much larger market, and the incredible success story that comes with it, its actually not surprising that the relatively little media coverage has managed to penetrate so deeply into the consumer base.

Amnesia's level of success is what I expected of it. Unless they decide to dedicate much more of their budget to advertising, they can also expect their next game to sell in a similar capacity. Even if they do that though, their sales will never exceed the constraints put on them by the niche market they've chosen to serve. Expanding to more platforms expands their market, but just because they release a good game on XBox360 doesn't mean they're going to get Call of Duty sales. On PC, their market is "PC gamers interested in Horror games." On PC and Console, their market is "PC and Console gamers interested in horror games". As a niche product, they're "doomed" to niche product level sales.

And I'm not going to go over how the affects of piracy on game sales is always misrepresented, especially by developers/publishers. Piracy does hurt sales, but not by that much. Look up other threads on it here if you want to see discussions about it.


That said, I've bought all of Frictional Games' products, including Amnesia and they all scared my balls off. I have a negative quantity of balls now.
 
I'm glad to hear things are improving for them, they put out quality titles and it'd be a shame to see them go the opposite direction!

Though, I have to admit, I haven't managed to beat any of their games because they wind up scaring me shitless.:(
 
Word of mouth can take a while to have full effect I suppose.
 
Gargantou said:
I'm glad to hear things are improving for them, they put out quality titles and it'd be a shame to see them go the opposite direction!

Though, I have to admit, I haven't managed to beat any of their games because they wind up scaring me shitless.:(
Click to expand...

I have bought the game twice, once directly from Frictional and another from Steam. The first time I played it I got through the archives. I just loaded it up to play again, unlocked the wine cellar went in and chickened out and turned it off.
F*cking scarey game :(.

Glad they have had decent sales after all though but I do think they were to quick to deem the game a failure.
 
Well done for them on passing the 200K mark. Can't say I'd play it because that sort of game isn't my cup of tea (I still have Dead Space to play yet), but kudos never the less. Seems bizarre that it lost to Limbo in the best horror game catagory at IGN. I played Limbo at a friends house and although I really enjoyed it, I wouldn't class it as a horror game by any stretch of the imagination. Where as Amnesia, even just judging by the trailer, is one creepy frikken game...
 
Acepilotf14 said:
The people who pirated it wouldn't have bought it anyway..
Click to expand...

By and large, this.
There is some bleed here though. There are people that would have bought the game, but didn't because the downloaded it, and there are some people who pirated it and then bought the game. I'd say 80% of pirated copies were not lost sale.

And I have to completely disagree with their comparison to Minecraft.
10x the sales? That's IT?! Lets see. Very small target audience for survival horror vs basically the entire internet connected human race over the age of 4. Gee, I wonder who will sell more copies.

I bought minecraft, and while I have a friend that has HIGHLY recommended Amnesia to me, I have not played it. Didn't buy it, didn't download it, flat out haven't played it. Why? Because survival horror games have ZERO appeal to me. None. Nada. I've played hundreds of video games going back to when I was 4 (That's 12 years of gaming folks!) and I just don't like that genre, and I'm not in the minority here. Survival horror is a niche market.
 
I wanted to buy it but didnt have money except for cash, so a friend of mine gifted it to me on steam so i bought him a 15 euro dinner.
 
Ravioli said:
i bought him a 15 euro dinner.
Click to expand...

Your friend is a fatass.

Shakermaker said:
That is awfully optimistic.
Click to expand...
Hard to say, but honestly, it doesn't sound that far-fetched. As I have said before, people download games they've never even heard of, just because they see it posted somewhere. A game I worked on had ~ a 40 to 1 piracy / sale rate. For every one sale, there was around 40 pirated downloads that we knew of. Considering nobody even knew the game existed, I can't imagine more than 20-30% of the pirates were like "aw snap! Finally this game is cracked, I've been wanting this forever and was about to buy it!" I don't think the notion that a huge majority of pirates are people who never would have bought it anyways is as unlikely as people think.
 
I am not saying that pirates won't buy games, just that the percentage A2597 mentions seems way to optimistic. My guestimation would be 10 percent of the people who downloaded it, actually bought the game.
 
Shakermaker said:
I am not saying that pirates won't buy games, just that the percentage A2597 mentions seems way to optimistic. My guestimation would be 10 percent of the people who downloaded it, actually bought the game.
Click to expand...
He did not say what you think he said.
 
I have no idea what Amnesia even is. I only hear people talk about it :eek:

I must have a case of explosive amnesia.

Does anyone in the room NOT have amnesia!?
 
Raziaar said:
I have no idea what Amnesia even is. I only hear people talk about it :eek:

I must have a case of explosive amnesia.
Click to expand...

I'll just go ahead and assume you are not a fan of horror games, and thus forgive you for your lack of knowledge.:p
 
That video is as obnoxious as it is over-acted.

@ Shaker: I think you're misinterpreting his post. Hes saying 80% of a game's pirates wouldn't have bought it anyways.
 
Krynn72 said:
That video is as obnoxious as it is over-acted.

@ Shaker: I think you're misinterpreting his post. Hes saying 80% of a game's pirates wouldn't have bought it anyways.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's not far off how I sound when I'm playing it, so there.
 
stemot said:
Actually, that's not far off how I sound when I'm playing it, so there.
Click to expand...

Then you and that guy really need to get a grip. It's only a game for **** sake...
 
I'm a gaming wuss too, but I don't make obnoxious noises like that when I get scared. I mean, jesus, I hope you're never in a situation where you need to hide from somebody. You'll freak out and start screaming and running in circles, while I, equally scared, would just cower in a dark corner quietly until its safe. I mean damn, if I was stalking somebody so I could kill them, and they started making noises like that, I'd have to torture them before killing them, just because of how annoying they were.
 
Krynn72 said:
I'm a gaming wuss too, but I don't make obnoxious noises like that when I get scared. I mean, jesus, I hope you're never in a situation where you need to hide from somebody. You'll freak out and start screaming and running in circles, while I, equally scared, would just cower in a dark corner quietly until its safe. I mean damn, if I was stalking somebody so I could kill them, and they started making noises like that, I'd have to torture them before killing them, just because of how annoying they were.
Click to expand...

I don't actually make noises that loud but I do panik the same as run around like a goon in game with my mouse view flying all over. Besides, In real life I'm normally the one doing the stalking.
 
I don't understand why I find those kinds of laughs attractive.

Moving on... Amnesia scares the *shit* out of me, but I refuse to play it improperly. Lights off, blinds down, door closed, house empty, headphones on. It's going to be a long three months, but dammit, I will finish a horror game for once.
 
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