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Sea of Thieves boasts highest debut for Rare game since NPD started tracking in 1995
- Thread starter Deleted member 278
- Start date
Congrats to my former favorite studio for the commercial success but their best game was released 20 years ago on June 29 and they have yet to top it.
The thing is, while Rare has always mostly focused on new things, they usually have a mixture of both new and old IPs every generation. The problem is that they haven't done that this gen, and it doesn't really look like they're going to or even care to. Except for Rare Replay, but that was a collection. And Killer Instinct wasn't even handled by them. I bet the new rumored Perfect Dark game won't be either.
Lile that "Game Pass is not available on PC"?
Yeah they need to fix those small errors.
Well done to you - but given that enough people bought the retail version for it to be at number 2, you're not representative of a significant number of people, unless there are a huge amount of those that did trial it first. No Man's sky was a runaway success and so was PUBG. It would be somewhat odd if publishers didn't look at those successes and pause for thought - why spend many millions polishing a game when you can send it out to market half baked, see who bites and then commit the remaining dev cash only if it's a success. It massively de-risks the rising costs of AAA development.
Kinect Sports Rivals and Sea Of Thieves are an old IP and a new IP.
Still playing it quite a bit, sometimes daily, but sometimes I pause for several days, because I have other things to play, and other things to do. But I do keep returning to it, mostly solo, and sometimes in co-op, and that's not going to stop now that weekly events are coming. I'm not normally a multiplayer type of person, the last multiplayer game that got me really hooked was the first Titanfall, but I'm finding Sea of Thieves a lot of fun, even though there are many things that could, and hopefully will be improved.
But they did. It's common knowledge that they're not interested in going back to their old IPs if they can't do something new with them, and that's completely in line with their legacy of constant innovation and reinvention. Besides, the series that their old fans want them to return to - without making any significant changes to them, of course - are now 15-20 years old.
Nice. Good to hear. I'm sorta struggling to reconcile the reviews and actual user experiences here tbh.
I matchmade in to a game with a random dude from the other side of the world last night and we spent almost three hours doing one quest that evolved into a massive pirate battle with three ships involved where we managed to lose our ship and still make it back with a new one in time to avenge our deaths and reclaim the loot that was rightfully ours. It was maybe my favourite gaming moment this year. I'm loving the game still.
Yes they did, you just didn't like it as it wasn't "Banjo Tooie but different yet fully the same". Or "Conker's exactly the same, yet also different.".
Rare never really got a fair chance, for goodness sake just after they were bought the rumours were already :"Nobody of old Rare still works there, most sticked with Nintendo! HAH, MS bought a shitty shell!". Even though back then that was far from the truth.
That I can aggree with, as I enjoy old Rare. But I am also at peace with the fact that, I was one of the only few buying their damn games. The rest was too busy screaming bloody murder about Grabbed by the Ghoulies being "childish!" and "this isn't old Nintendo Rare!". I really enjoyed GBtG. Was a fun little game with cute humour and styles :). But people just wanted "Banjo Tooie, the same but different! and it can't be different either! Also why aren't you still at Nintendo? HMMM!?", when RARE was at its pinnacle when thinking of new IPs like Blast Corps, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, and Conker's live and reloaded. All new Franchises at the time.
Now MS does need to "WORK THEIR IPS!", I mean it's not just rare, MS owns quite a few IPs they don't do anything with :(.
Did you guys use a mic? How is it playing with randoms? I don't feel like using a mic but will if 100% necessary.
It's great if you're jumping in a couple of times a week, if I were to play it every night then there's a real chance of getting burned out. I fire it up if I know I have a couple of hours to spare and it's still fantastic, stick on a podcast in the background and just sail around solo and try to relax.
I might play more often a few months from now when the updates have added more stuff but for now this is the best way to get round the limited number of things to do. I still love the base mechanics/gameplay, it just needs a bit more.
Gaming is much more front-loaded nowadays. Back in 97 sales happened over a longer period because there was simply less competition, less availability (digital helps a lot) and less preorders. Nowadays, sales normally collapse after two weeks. So just having the highest debut in whatever is not that surprising, if you look around you will see that being true for many current titles. It's all about keeping the momentum afterwards.
Kinect sports was 40 dollars, right? That hinders the revenue a bit compared to a $60 dollar title. Still impressive though.
Well any xbone digital purchase is also a pc purchase, it gets even mudier if a console owner purchase on the website and also plays on pc.
But I had no idea NPD was tracking the Ms store sales. Are they tracking all games or on a per game basis?
It sure is nice for rare to have a successful game (again), but it would be so much better if the game would deliver in terms of content and gameplay.
We did in that scenario. The games built-in text chat hot keys while using a controller are great though. I've had huge voyages with fandoms without using a mic. The text chat stuff is context dependent so it'll give you text options based what you holding ("i see a ship!", "there's something in the water!" If you're holding the telescope or "I've got the chest!" or "moving the chest!" If you're carrying treasure).
Also, if you ever wanna play with someone that will be patient and not insist on you using a mic, I'm in!
Well, there are a few things to consider here. First, Sea of Thieves has been in closed alpha and beta for a long time, and many people, including journalists, were able to experience the game before it launched. Remember that the preview impressions were mostly very positive, and everyone praised the game for being a lot of fun. Rare have said a few times that, as far as content goes, they're keeping a few surprises for the launch, but basically, what you see is what you get. I think the reality of that hit some reviewers only when the game finally launched, and the shock was responsible for some of the harsher criticisms. But beneath it all, nothing has changed - the game is still a lot of fun, warts and all.
The other thing to note is that many people are somehow under impression that the press totally buried Sea of Thieves (hence the ridiculous reactions to Edge's 7/10 review that, together with 8/10 for God of War, caused the thread to be closed), but that's not really the case. If you look at the reviews, the game has gotten a lot of 8s, a lot of 7s, and a lot of 6s, and the reviews that I've read have mostly been in agreement that the core of the game is great, but it's lacking in other areas. In my experience, 7 +/- 1 is a perfectly fair score for the game in its current state, and that's not so bad at all.
Are we not counting Kinect Sports games as "full titles" because of reasons? They were also the most successful games for Rare in a long time, especially the first one.
Awesome results and well deserved, Sea Of Thieves is truly special. By this point everyone knows the content is limited, but they have a great canvas of a gameplay and atmosphere that has no equals out there. I also feel this is Rare's best game so far in many ways.
Everyone I played it with dropped it and is waiting for new stuff.
Fun lasted for one week.
It depends on the publisher. Most publisher share digital sales, but some don't (like Nintendo and Bethesda).
I thought PC players hated the Windows store? That seems to be the general consensus around here anyway.
Some PC gamers seem to be willing to support the Windows Store anyway if they can't get a certain game anywhere else. I guess that's what Microsoft is counting on.
Sadly for him it has been renamed to the Microsoft Store quite a while ago.
Also helps that SoT has been smooth as silk and haven't heard much problems on it like other games. Seems like SoT helped GP as much as PC going forward.
It's pretty remarkable lol I don't share his specific hatred of it, but I respect his belief in it
I mean don't get me wrong, congrats to them (finally out of kinect hell) but isn't for a service based game more important how it does down the line? I know 6 people who all got it on launch, already planning to stream it and who's going to play with whom in a crew the next few weeks, all stopped playing 2 days after launch (They didn't go with gamepass, afaik). On Twitch right now it has roughly 1.500 viewers. I really hope they can bring some significant content fast enough.
And I still hope they bring Banjo back one day...
And I still hope they bring Banjo back one day...
Do we have any solid numbers?
I don't know if Rare's best selling game was under 100K or 100 million. Don't we need numbers for context and congratulations?
I don't know if Rare's best selling game was under 100K or 100 million. Don't we need numbers for context and congratulations?
To be honest I'm not a real person, I'm actually an AI ;)
Thanks m8. Just defending the open nature of PC gaming against any attempt to lock it down or turn it into console gaming.
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You did it again. If you look at facts... The industry is telling you this isn't true. Simple as that. The majority of successful games released are not half baked.
I haven't had any issue with the store. Sorry to hear you haven't shared similar success.
Have you reached out to MS support to see if they can address your issues? It may be an unknown user-error.
As you can read in this thread, my issues aren't related to error messages at all. And yes, I've reached out to Microsoft several times already.
I think Ge0force finds it very disappointing that the Sea of Thieves launch (not the betas..) went quite smoothly on PC. ;)
You think rares best selling game could be under 100k? Huh? Bizarre statement, bud
I've only used the windows store twice. First time was for tomb raider which worked out well for me because of a bug in the exchange rate that allowed me to buy the game for under $10 right after it released. The second time was for the sot beta and that was a disaster. I was one of the many who could not get in after pre-ordering the game. So for me the store has been hit or miss
That SoT beta thing was not a store issue btw. Rare responded on that and took full blame for it. They screwed up they said regarding the Black Dog pack thing.
User Warned: Drive-by post.
Congrats to Rare on collectively disappointing the largest group of fans at launch that they've ever managed!