Twice As Many People Played Dead Space As Bought It
Used games have been a hot topic for a while now. Many believe that used games are nothing more than an excuse by retailers to boost profit margins. And it’s widely known that developers have lost a lot of money over used games, with overall sales figures taking a big hit. But now, Visceral Games has revealed something regarding used games in relation to their title that will shock the gaming community.
EA’s Glen Schofield, also studio manager for the the Dead Space team at Visceral Games, has revealed some surprising new data. According to Schofield, twice as many people have played Dead Space as bought it. What we mean by that is despite selling approximately 1.5 million copies, over 3 million unique users have played the game according to data collected from 360 and PS3 owners who have logged online. Those who never take their consoles online are impossible to count. Schofield explains it in more detail:
“We looked at how many we sold. We also looked at — we didn’t have online which is one of the big features that you need to have to kind of keep it in the house a little bit longer these days. But then we also did studies on sort of how many unique users there were on the PSN network and Xbox Live. And realized, you know what, there’s over three million people that have played Dead Space.
Maybe we’ve only sold 1.5 million or whatever the number is. But there’s something there because that means that, ok, there were a lot of used sales. So there’s a lot of people when I go out and talk to [them]… it seems that everybody has played it or heard about it or whatever.”
The number of used copies of Dead Space may be due to limited replayability, as the title had no multiplayer or co-operative mode. One of the hosts for EA’s official podcast asked the question if adding online was key. Schofield responded with the following:
“I think it’s bang for the buck is really what we’re looking at right now these days and going: ‘OK, we came out at 60 bucks and so did some of these other games that had online that maybe people could play for 50 hours, right? Or they had tons and tons of PDLC [paid downloadable content] so they could play it for 40, 50 hours again. Or we were up against Fallout, which was a 50-hour game to begin with. So, we didn’t look at it and say we have to have online. What we said we’ve got to be bang for the buck. Some people could get through our game in 10 hours or so, so we learned.”
Do you believe if Dead Space had either co-op or multiplayer, that new sales would have been much higher than used sales? Let us know in the comment section below.
[Source]
11 Responses to “Twice As Many People Played Dead Space As Bought It”
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July 7th, 2009 at 10:29 AM
co op would have added another option..
i liked the game the way it is. Its a good experience and the surround sound effects are awesome..i think developers sometimes rush out a multiplayer making the story mode suffer.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:00 AM
I think co-op is way more important that online multiplayer. No one makes fun games to play on the couch with your friends anymore. I just got Burn Zombie Burn and I’m loving it, it’s a blast with friends. And I only keep World At War for Local splitscreen and Nazi Zombies, but they really should have made the game playable for 4 players locally, but hey- Activision made it right?
July 7th, 2009 at 11:09 AM
No this is a EA game. If it was for nazivision, id tell everyone I know to boycott
July 7th, 2009 at 11:52 AM
@Cutoffslim,
Guess you’re gonna boycott Mirror’s Edge as well, yet another awesome EA game. =P
July 7th, 2009 at 1:26 PM
lol i see my Natzivision name stuck
July 7th, 2009 at 2:05 PM
if a game is sold twice, but your company only profits from 1 sale, what the heck did you expect?
economic noobs…
if the DLC is good, and the online rocks, people won’t sell their copy (as fast)
July 7th, 2009 at 2:14 PM
I bought it the day it came out, and I still have it. “Replayability,” the term itself, is overused these days. If a game is enjoyable to you, then it has replay value. Nothing can automatically give a game replay value if the game sucks to begin with, not online play, not unlockables, not anything. I think too many people today are only interested in “hits” today, and with anything else, they just play it to beat it and get rid of it.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:23 PM
personally im not going to complain about online or co op being added to a game… they are both pluses in my book. i really enjoyed dead space and looking forward to dead space 2 wether theres online or not.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:08 PM
Maybe because many 360 owners got POed and modded their systems. Now they play their games for free. I did not see many used copied of this game out there.
Another reason may be the dreaded word game companies hate….families. Yes those evil people who buy a game but more than one ID in the house plays the game (3 different USERS played Dead Space on my PS3). I know MS controls this by not allowing more than one game ID play a downloaded game even though it is the same console. So if you didn’t buy it with YOUR ID then you can’t play it. Meanwhile those fools at Sony let everyone on the console play with only one purchase.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:42 PM
@John Draisey you should re read what I typed and think before your fingers hit the keys. I beat Dead Space twice!!!! And @shadowjin yeah son, that was a nice one there, I’m spreadin it to whoever I know out here. Love your comments my guy!!!!!! KING PLAYSTATION REIGNS!!!!!!
July 7th, 2009 at 6:01 PM
Just shows that people bought it used or ppirated the game.