While Electronic Arts dominated the top selling list with Spore and the Sims expansions, Stardock found itself with the 6th best selling PC game title of the year despite the fact that the game has no copy protection whatsoever. Stardock has been a long-time proponent of focusing on increasing sales by rewarding customers with free after release updates instead of using invasive DRM to fight piracy.
Stardock’s Galactic Civilizations series began this trend with Ironclad’s Sins of a Solar Empire continuing it. Sins of a Solar Empire recently saw a massive free update in the form of v1.1 this past November – 9 months after release and its first expansion pack, Entrenchment, just went into public beta.
Stardock’s next PC game, Demigod, developed by Gas Powered Games, has a March target release date and will also include no on disk copy protection.
Source: http://pc.ign.com/articles/936/936933p2.html
It's always been unbelievable to me how well the "Sims" games sell. I just don't get the appeal.
Way to go . Probably see Demigod on that list next year .
I think EA tapped into the female demographic hugely with the Sims. In fact, the only ones I know that play it are female. I still have the Original Sims(Yea, I bought into the hype at the time ). Biggest waste of money, only ever got about two hours out of it before I realized I was doing the things in it I play games to avoid doing
Exactly why I don't see the appeal of those games either I mean why go to a job and buy stuff for your house when you can lead a galactiv empire to dominence or steam off a tide of interdimensional alien invaders?
I heard that.
Too much Electronic Arts.
I have no idea who buys them. I can understand the initial appeal of the games, but how they continue to top the charts like this is really baffling. I don't think I know a single individual, except arguably my brother's girlfriend, who actively enjoys the games.
Well, their list isn't exactly representative without any indication as to what their source is. If they went by the NPDs (which is common procedure), they not only exclude large parts of the world, they also do not take online distribution into account at all. And that will skew those numbers quite a lot.
Providing a top sales chart without any linking to what their source is - that's bad form IGN.
Well i doubt the gaming media like IGN and Gamespot, are the pinnacle of investigative journalism.
Best non-MMO non-Will Wright [inspired] game of 2008!
Without Will Wright, EA would have probably lost what little credibility they still have left - there's no denying he's a great game designer (concept wise I mean - he didn't make Sims 2 he only did Sims 1) though I wish he would pick a better company to work for.
Actually he did, they got taken over by EA...
Anyway, the list looks like a David and Goliath match up. I hope to see SD on the list next year for a couple titles.
I only dabbled with the Sims 1, but have played a fair bit on the second one, and actually I really enjoyed it. It's a well crafted game, if a bit too easy. But once you've 'won' it a couple of times with stunningly attactive people, you can turn your attention to creating virtual losers and tormenting them with your capricious Exodus-inspired whims. I dunno, it's fun. Also I liked that I could seduce the single mother and then refuse to let her kids move in with us. Enjoy your childhood suckers.
I think I like the Sims 2 better than Spore in the long run: Spore lost it for me after a weekend, but did give me a few moments of grinning like an idiot joy in the process.
Neither are as fun as Sins mind, nor as fun as Demigod is shaping up to be. Congrats Stardock, and thanks again for consistently making games in genres that I love.
Where is WOW
It was recently released, maybe the sales numbers are not in yet.
I just went to EB games, i did not believe my eyes when i saw H&M Sims 2. I mean..of all the clothing brand they put out with the Sims, same with IKEA brand.
Now there are Creatures Parts for Spore for $19.99. I wonder what they are going to try to get people to buy next with Spore.
Skin and eye packs of course.
Well, obviously finding a really nice dress is a greater challenge! Not to mention arranging furniture so it's just right...
I'm pretty shocked Soulstorm did so well. Anyone who visted the forums after release would have quickly realized the expansion was of very inferior qualitity and buggy as hell compared to the last one. And it was $10 more (initially) than the last one. Don't get me wrong, I love Dark Crusade (with mods), but it's disappointing Relic didn't get punished more for getting lazy and contracting out all the work for their cash cow franchise.
I feel bad for the people who got suckered into the new MMOs though. You'd think people would know better than to buy an MMO in its first year by now. It takes at least a year to work out the bugs and poor design desicions in these games. But people seem to be forgiving when it comes to MMO quality. That, or it's denial about having to pay for playing a beta version.
I suppose some gamers are just poorly "educated" and unaware. Some want to support the particular MMO maker or franchise: they want to experience and influence the game early on - either to help make it greater or to have an upper hand on late comers - or they want to hand over their money to the developer's coffers early on because the MMO represents something special for them. Perhaps the value in MMO offerings is rather different from boxed (or downloadable non-subscription based) games so game reliability or balance are not deal-breakers.
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