Sales figures?

[KingTocco]

Yes you are all correct it is not DIRECTLY your problem.

However, moving forward it could be a problem for you and each consumer that buys or is considering buying a basketball video game. I'm not really sure why people can't see this.

With more options and competition, it forces game developers to make a better game or get beat by competition. The Live team can say what they want, but those numbers are extremely ugly and it WILL hinder them moving forward if this continues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Junior Moe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mintsa

I agree. It's not your problem. But I think the point of this thread is that with sales this low the game might not continue. That's the unfortunate part. Live is finally starting to make some strides and getting back into the game. But if sales are that low (our problem or EA suits problem) the game might not continue.

True. But I would think that the team and EA foresaw this. The game sold like 150K last year, and that game was a disaster. That's probably the ceiling for this year even though it's a MUCH better game. They couldn't have been expecting too much this year. I imagine that that's why the developer was stressing Live 16, and 17 this year. It seemed odd and ominous to me at that time, but now it kind of makes sense.

[Junior Moe]

Quote: Originally Posted by StrictlyForBuckets

Yes you are all correct it is not DIRECTLY your problem. However, moving forward it could be a problem for you and each consumer that buys or is considering buying a basketball video game. I'm not really sure why people can't see this. With more options and competition, it forces game developers to make a better game or get beat by competition. The Live team can say what they want, but those numbers are extremely ugly and it WILL hinder them moving forward if this continues. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't really understand this line of thinking. Sure, I want competition. It's good for business. But if you cant make a go of it then that's on you. I won't support a product if I don't see the value I want in it. That goes for Live, 2K and everything else. I like Live, but it's not worth $60 to me because I'm a "franchise" guy. $30, yeah, I'm on it. It's a fun and easy pick up and play game that me and my buddies could spend hours playing and smack talking. The rest of the time I'm in MyLeague/MyGM mode. If 2K starts slipping I will drop them too. Yeah, it would suck because I love basketball. But there are other games out there worth my time and money that I could get into.

[King_B_Mack]

I don't think you can foresee selling a little over 10,000 units of a superior product when the first week sales of Live 14 were close to 20,000 if I'm remembering correctly. The Xbox One numbers are atrocious wow. 3,689


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[the_future420]

Quote: Originally Posted by Junior Moe

True. But I would think that the team and EA foresaw this. The game sold like 150K last year, and that game was a disaster. That's probably the ceiling for this year even though it's a MUCH better game. They couldn't have been expecting too much this year. I imagine that that's why the developer was stressing Live 16, and 17 this year. It seemed odd and ominous to me at that time, but now it kind of makes sense.

If what I bolded is true, then to be honest a bunch of people at EA need to be fired. Theres no reason that this game should sell less than last years game considering this game is better in pretty much every way. If that happens, it really falls directly on them and their failure to educate their potential consumers and increase the demand for their product. I would assume they would forecast at least a slight bump in revenues from 14 to 15.

Now most likely their business model for Live still forecasted a loss for Live 14 and 15, but in order for that type of business model to work, they will need to have substantial positive earnings forecasted in future years to offset the early losses. And it is still possible, and likely probable that they have forecasted higher earnings for Live 16 and later given their insistence that there will be a Live 16 and so on. I just find it absolutely remarkable that a company the size of EA would rollout a product line with such a low (read: zero) budget for marketing.

They can't be exclusively relying on word of mouth to generate interest for this game. Even though we live in an age where social media and other forms of organic marketing are becoming more and more prevalent and more cost effective, there probably still should have been a sizeable chunk of resources devoted to more typical forms of media marketing that we just haven't seen. As a person who works in finance, I would love to see the actual business model for the Live series and what they forecasted vs. actuals. Something just doesn't add up and it concerns me as a consumer given that this series holds so much promise.

[TheBadazz]

It wasn't bad marketing. It was no marketing. I haven't seen a commercial for it yet.

[JHedges2]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheBadazz

It wasn't bad marketing. It was no marketing. I haven't seen a commercial for it yet.

Likewise. I haven't either.

I have, however, seen countless commercials for Madden, FIFA, MLB The Show, and NBA 2K.

[King_B_Mack]

The closest thing to advertising I've seen them do to a broader audience is Joakim Noah's Facebook account posted a video of him in the game with a caption to pick up a copy. But that was one random post from like a week or two ago.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk