Quite a lot of people on this forums say that Bioware has a huge fanbase, Star Wars is a huge IP, EA is a huge publisher, etc... and some like to say that GW isn't as popular and GW2 is hardly known outside this forum. This always felt like a random assumption to me. Where are the facts? Looking at the actual numbers, GW is most likely just as big as Bioware games - and neither is THAT big either, unlike Bethesda. Or maybe I am wrong about this?

If some of the Bioware fans got more accurate numbers than me - post them!

Some notes:

- Tracked PC sales don't include all downloads. Of course, cracked versions aren't included either. So TOR's numbers should be significantly higher than previous Bioware games.

- GW numbers lack details - like, does the trilogy edition count as 1 game or 3 games? Also, it wasn't listed on the site for some reason.

GW1 sales: 7 million total (pc only, 3 games + 1 expansion)

rough estimate: ~2m sold per game, ~3-4m players bought 1 or more games.

How do EA Bioware numbers compare to that? Some numbers:

Mass Effect: 400k on PC (3m total) http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/16067/mass-effect/

Dragon Age: 400k on PC (4m total) http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/33504/dragon-age-origins/

Kotor: ~3m total?

Kotor 2: ~2m total?

More numbers for comparison:

Rift: 400k

Obliviion: 5m total

Fallout 3: 1m (7m)

Portal 2: 300k (2m)

Half-Life 2: 4m

GTA IV: 700k (17m)

Starcraft 2: 3m

Did any bioware game have any asian market translation?

i have no doubt of GW2 selling as much as the first game or more. 

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/04/22/mass-effect-sales-top-7-million/

No, sorry thats the series.. 1 and 2.

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

Quite a lot of people on this forums say that Bioware has a huge fanbase, Star Wars is a huge IP, EA is a huge publisher, etc... and some like to say that GW isn't as popular and GW2 is hardly known outside this forum. This always felt like a random assumption to me. Where are the facts? Looking at the actual numbers, GW is most likely just as big as Bioware games - and neither is THAT big either, unlike Bethesda. Or maybe I am wrong about this?

 

If some of the Bioware fans got more accurate numbers than me - post them!

Some notes:

- Tracked PC sales don't include all downloads. Of course, cracked versions aren't included either. So TOR's numbers should be significantly higher than previous Bioware games.

- GW numbers lack details - like, does the trilogy edition count as 1 game or 3 games? Also, it wasn't listed on the site for some reason.

 

GW1 sales: 7 million total (pc only, 3 games + 1 expansion)

rough estimate: ~2m sold per game, ~3-4m players bought 1 or more games.

 

How do EA Bioware numbers compare to that? Some numbers:

Mass Effect: 400k on PC (3m total) http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/16067/mass-effect/

Dragon Age: 400k on PC (4m total) http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/33504/dragon-age-origins/

Kotor: ~3m total?

Kotor 2: ~2m total?

 

More numbers for comparison:

Rift: 400k

Obliviion: 5m total

Fallout 3: 1m (7m)

Portal 2: 300k (2m)

Half-Life 2: 4m

GTA IV: 700k (17m)

Starcraft 2: 3m

A lot of these are apples and oranges. And I would like to see where you get 7 million copies of Guild Wars sold. And are you counting all of its expansions vs single games?

i'm pretty sure that even the lowest selling GW box outsold the highest selling Bioware game in the PC market. 

do people think that millions of xbox fanboys(the vast majority of Bioware game sales) are gonna sudenly hop into PC gaming, especially the MMORPG?

Originally posted by fony

i'm pretty sure that even the lowest selling GW box outsold the highest selling Bioware game in the PC market. 

 

do people think that millions of xbox fanboys(the vast majority of Bioware game sales) are gonna sudenly hop into PC gaming, especially the MMORPG?

I play Mass Effect and Dragon Age on the 360 and yet I still play MMOs. 

Your numbers are off by a bunch. Dragon Age sold over 2.5 million on xbox360 & over 1.3 million on the ps3. This is before you count any PC box sales or electronic sales. Mass Effect 2 is over 2.5 million on the xbox360 & over half a million on the PS3. Dragon Age had about 4.5 million total while Mass Effect 2 had around 3.5 million according to most estimates before DLC or bargin bin electronic downloads. 

Btw, VGchartz only tracks box sales not electronic ones. Thus, you see zero for Guild Wars on the site. Steam, Origin, Gamersgate, Impulse, etc. do not release their sales to the public. 

Edit: I own an xbox360, ps3, wii, and a Alienware box. I like to play Mass Effect & Dragon Age series on my 50" TV rather than my 27" monitor. I play MMOs on my PC because that is where they are.

Originally posted by ABRaquel

Originally posted by fony

i'm pretty sure that even the lowest selling GW box outsold the highest selling Bioware game in the PC market. 

 

do people think that millions of xbox fanboys(the vast majority of Bioware game sales) are gonna sudenly hop into PC gaming, especially the MMORPG?

I play Mass Effect and Dragon Age on the 360 and yet I still play MMOs. 

grats on being one of the minority. 

Originally posted by fony

i'm pretty sure that even the lowest selling GW box outsold the highest selling Bioware game in the PC market. 

 

do people think that millions of xbox fanboys(the vast majority of Bioware game sales) are gonna sudenly hop into PC gaming, especially the MMORPG?

Availability is key,  but so is convenience.  ME and ME2 weren't exactly the easiest games to run on PC,  and even more so,  some people just prefer to play some games on other platforms.

For example,  I played ME1 on the 360.  I have a PC,  but I bought ME1 on the 360.  I ended up playing ME2 on the PC though,  but a friend of mine who has an awesome PC also bought both ME games on the 360.  

KOTOR for example sold 250K in four days: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/starwarsknightsoftor/news/6072390/kotor-sets-xbox-sales-records    and yet, even now it still is a pretty good seller on the PC.  Whats the total sales of KOTOR 1 and 2?  No idea,  but I'd dare say its quite a bit.

Also,  the 3 packs Anet is selling,  is selling 3 total games,  that also includes when people buy games for discounts and all of that too.     If you take 4 BioWare titles,  or even just the ME titles and count all sales and DLC you'd have much more than just 7 million,  thats for sure.  

they should release TOR on Xbox 360.

Why do we care again?

Originally posted by fony

Originally posted by ABRaquel

Originally posted by fony

i'm pretty sure that even the lowest selling GW box outsold the highest selling Bioware game in the PC market. 

 

do people think that millions of xbox fanboys(the vast majority of Bioware game sales) are gonna sudenly hop into PC gaming, especially the MMORPG?

I play Mass Effect and Dragon Age on the 360 and yet I still play MMOs. 

grats on being one of the minority. 

There's a lot of people who play MMORPGs who own PS3s and XBOS360s and play games on both platforms in addition to having subscriptions to MMORPGs. Gamers typically game in a variety. I know more multiplatform gamers than I know single platform gamers. You're just trolling.

This is kind of distorted in comparison, since the way things are measured for a B2P game is different from a P2P game, for B2P game it's sales figures and for P2P there's sales and sub figures.

For example, if we'd translate the sales figures the way it was done for Gw and apply it to WoW, we might end up close to 100+ million game sales. Too strange? Not really, if you consider that concurrent player base has probably been around 200-300k after the first 2 years, yet the sales to individual separate persons over the years have approx been around 2 million, that's a 1 to 10 ratio, of people who actively play a game at the moment and the number of people who actually bought the game over the years.

The number of games sold is unknown for other MMO's, but even if the ratio would be 1 to 5 (which I doubt,  I don't see why it'd be higher for GW than for an EQ2 or LotrO etc) with expansions included the sales figures for other MMO's would easily rank in the 5 to 10 million plus too.

Regarding Rift, we know that the numbers are close to a million for the first 4 months, for Aion you're easily around 5 million in the past 3 years for the original game worldwide.Iirc GW sold something like 600k in the first half year or so (correction: 600k was probably at launch, after 5 months it reached 1 million).

As for another Tor vs GW2 debate, do we really need to have new ones of those every other day? I'm getting kid of tired and disgusted by the constant MMO game wars and epeen discussions where gamers feel the need to feel good about 'their' game by trashing other games. I'm certain that I'm not the only one, especially MMO gamers who're interested in playing both or more MMO games, and not just hung up on 1 game they need to adore above all others. Just saying

EotN sales would be the most legit since it's a typical expansion and not standalone. it probably has outsold the PC version of just about every bioware game. 

its not really fair to compare sales of an MMO to sales of a single player RPG

Avoid the obvious flaw in this arguement. It is obviously not about sales because:

7 million sold and probably 300k actually left playing the game!?!? Real pro dev there. My money is on Bioware with SWToR having more shelf life. After the shine of GW2 wears off sales will drastically slow down.

Originally posted by Ballista

Originally posted by fony

Originally posted by ABRaquel

Originally posted by fony

i'm pretty sure that even the lowest selling GW box outsold the highest selling Bioware game in the PC market. 

 

do people think that millions of xbox fanboys(the vast majority of Bioware game sales) are gonna sudenly hop into PC gaming, especially the MMORPG?

I play Mass Effect and Dragon Age on the 360 and yet I still play MMOs. 

grats on being one of the minority. 

There's a lot of people who play MMORPGs who own PS3s and XBOS360s and play games on both platforms in addition to having subscriptions to MMORPGs. Gamers typically game in a variety. I know more multiplatform gamers than I know single platform gamers. You're just trolling.

those people aren't neccessarily bioware/SW fanobys ready to give TOR 8 million sales though, you're just mad. i own every single bioware game ever made so far(tor will be the first i don't get), between the pc and consoles yet i am a gamer and will l not be getting TOR but GW2. i have played most MMO's as well since EQ. 

understand?

What i would really like to know is why do we still have these idiotic threads that pit TOR against GW2. People, it's not a competition. Both games are gonna sell well and have huge communities to boot. Can't we just for once, all be happy that there is variety of new games coming out that will appease different playstyles and settings that have hugely different IP's. It's ok, really, it's ok.

I have no problem believing that Guild Wars has sold 7+ million copies.  My wife and I both have two accounts with all chapters and the expansion on both accounts.  So does that count as 16 copies (three chapters plus the expansion four times) or four copies sold?  Either way it is four accounts.  I know of a few people that have upto 8 accounts with all three chapters plus the expansion on each account.

ArenaNet has never actually released solid traceable numbers for sales or the number of accounts that I know of.

I think you will find that each account consists of about 3 saies.  Which ends up being about 1.5 million accounts.