EA Podcast: Why More People Played Dead Space than Bought It

[Starlight]

EA's Glen Schofield, studio manager for the company's Dead Space team at Visceral Games, appeared on the second episode of EA's official http://www.ea.com/blog/ea-underground/ea-podcast-episode-2-interview-glen-schofield-gm-visceral-games/ to talk games, mention that Dead Space had co-op during some of its development cycle and explain the company's take on Dead Space's sales.

To quote: 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.

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.


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[red8316]

I thought it was a fantastic game, great horror / sci-fi genre. I bought it used for $30 just cause I can't go and get games at full price all the time. Online play isn't a big seller for me, quality of the game (story + graphics + gameplay) are my big selling points. Of course, online play is a bonus and a great option to have. I'm looking forward to Dead Space 2 and because I found the original so much fun, I am more inclined to buy the sequel at full price. That is, after I read a few reviews of the game

[semitope]

Now they have an acronym for that abomination of an idea/trend. PDLC?!? you will certainly get more out of DLC thats free and u better cram all you can into the game because i am not so sure having tons of addons on your system is such a convenient thing.

I pirated it on the PC and played it for a few minutes. Never caught me to buy it and online play is nearly essential for me to buy a game nowadays

[GotNoUsername]

I only needed 6-8h to beat it though, he is right it was good but a little too short.

[GZA1984]

Well Dead Space was a really good and well-made game... if you like horror. Not everyone likes the horror genre (and especially this game that scares the crap out of you). However I do like the horror genre ('till a certain point).

I was supposed to buy this game, but ended up not buying it, because after playing it at a friends house I figured out this was a bit too much for me I'm serious, I dropped the controller on the floor a few times thanks to its jump moments with lights off and volume pumped up high. This game is sick 'n twisted.

If they want more sales they need to follow Capcom (I hope not) with its Resident Evil series making it more interresting for non horror fans. They sold a lot of RE5 copies (while the game lost it's original Resident Evil feeling )