7 ms·
I think in general Total War and its genre is relatively niche. While almost everybody is up for a bit of cartoony racing.
by CactusRocket 1y ago
I think in general Total War and its genre is relatively niche. While almost everybody is up for a bit of cartoony racing.
- Ekaros 1y agoOn other hand TW Warhammer III sold surprisingly well to me. I would have expected it to be much more niche...
- ls612 1y agoThere’s no fucking way they would have spent so much money on three WH titles and a fuckton of DLC to make an absolutely colossal RTS game if it was niche. Total War Warhammer single handedly saved WH Fantasy with how well it sold.
- furyofantares 1y agoI tbink it's easy to underestimate this - everyone seems surprised when I tell them Mario Kart 8 is the 5th best selling game of all time.
- andrepd 1y agoWell it's been continuously sold for over a decade now, and bundled with the Switch.
- mook 1y agoFamitsu (a Japanese magazine) has top ten sales of console games in Japan every week. Until the Switch 2 launch, Mario Kart 8 was there nearly every week.
- furyofantares 1y agoIt's bundled due to the success of the game and not the other way around: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44338584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44338584
- stavros 1y agoWhat's the list?!
- astura 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam...
- k__ 1y agoInteresting that most of the best selling games aren't sequels.
- dijit 1y agoIt’s more interesting to me that so many are. It’s rare for any product to have more success in later invocations than the first edition, that is where the narrative is fresh and strong- and even in the event sequels are stronger, they tend to increase sales of the first season/movie/etc; because people want the whole experience.
- k__ 1y agoAren't sequels always touted as safe bets?
- dijit 1y agoYeah but only because there will be a reactivation of x% of people. I think the margin is usually 70%~ but depends a lot I guess. You can safely bet that >50% of people who enjoyed seeing/playing the first of something would be interested in the second.
- lolinder 1y agoVideo games I feel like reverse this general trend, though. Unless they have a major story component (and sometimes even if they do) many games get iteratively 'better' (better for the purposes of making sales if not of making original fans happy) for various reasons: improvements to the core game loop, polish that makes the game more appealing to new audiences, and most importantly graphics. Story-based content is what struggles with sequels because it's really hard to both capture the feeling of the original sufficiently to satisfy existing fans while also telling a new story that's interesting in its own right. Being derivative without being too derivative.
- soulofmischief 1y agoWii Sports enjoyed a similar status, as it was also bundled with a console. I don't think console bundles are necessarily a fair way to count video game sales.
- furyofantares 1y agoMario Kart was not originally bundled with the Switch and the Switch has never been exclusively bundled with Mario Kart. You've always been able to buy a Switch by itself or bundled with other games - Mario Kart was not even the first bundle. It was like the 8th or something - two years after release, and has been re-issued every Black Friday since, but there have been numerous other bundles since as well.
- ninetyninenine 1y agoRTSs aren’t popular anymore. Took me by surprise too.
- Nasrudith 1y agoPC games are relatively niche compared to console gaming for one. And RTSes tend to be heavily PC biased from the control schemes. Although these days you should be able to keyboard and mouse to a console due to being USB or Bluetooth connected anyway, using it on a couch without a desk would be awkward.