Question for Matrix..

[wodin]

With all the talk recently about game design and some of us who are either dreaming about or actually developing I'm sure what would be interesting would be what has been your best selling game?

Obviously old ones may have sold more so taking everything into account what has been the best selling and most popular title so far. We don't need to know the figures just the name.

Another question you may not want to answer is what games have been well received and considered top titles in your stable but sale figures alone would be unlikely to keep some one in full time employment? I doubt this one can be answered, however it would show which genres or type of games know matter how great they are wouldn't be a good choice to develop if thats all you where going to make, This question stems form a comment from Arjuna who obviously makes a series very highly praised indeed but has by the sound of it suffered financial hardship.

All in all the first question I feel will be of help to us, and any other advice would be appreciated.

[IainMcNeil]

Obviously we cant give details but here are some of our most current popular games in no particular order:

Panzer Corps
War in the East
Battle Academy
Close Combat
Distant Worlds
Harpoon

Probably no surprises here.

[wodin]

Thanks Ian.

I had a feeling DW would probably outsell most other games here, purely down to is being a 4x space game which is a more mainstream genre. War in the East is a surprise. With the talk of monster games being a risky venture and all that. Harpoon is a surprise aswell. What with WITE being in the list I'd have imagined WitP to have overtaken Harpoon. Close Combat is a surprise aswell more due to the fact they are remakes than anything else. I do think the next CC game and then the new one will be pretty big hits though.

What about a top 5 in no particular order of best sellers all around that aren't just popular at the moment. Or will it be more or less the same as above?

[cpdeyoung]

I am surprised.

I would not have thought "Harpoon", a very big favorite of mine for many years, was a current hot seller.

So, you have at least one surprised customer.

Chuck

[Vincenzo_Beretta]

Harpoon - stray childishness aside [:)] - enjoys an excellent support by the community, which can be one of the reasons. I'm surprised not to see War in the Pacific AE in the list, though.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

Obviously we cant give details but here are some of our most current popular games in no particular order:

Bolded for emphasis. Iain's not claiming these are the top-sellers of all time, but only some of the most current popular games.

As a shameless plug, I'll note that TOAW 3 is still selling well after more than five years...[:)]

[wodin]

yeah really I wanted to know what the smash hits have been from the start or say over the last 7 years or so.

[Erik Rutins]

Iain's list was neither comprehensive nor exclusive, nor in any particular order and he only focused on the more recent releases. Drawing conclusions from it is frankly somewhat pointless.

Regards,

- Erik

[shunwick]

Edited by me because the post was negative, off topic, and certainly no fault of Matrix. Sorry about that.

Best wishes,
Steve

[rodney727]

Erik,
Why is it so double secret to release the number of units sold? I think most of us would like to know which games are most succesful for Matrix games. I realize that Matrix is a private owned company and not public owned and it would be different if I was asking what your yearly salary is. In a way I think of myself as a share holder in Matrix as I have spent Hundreds to invest in your company. If it's Matrix's policy not to do so just say so. A top ten or top twenty list would be nice.

[wodin]

+1 what he says....it is very useful info for would be developers. Not sure what the issue is in why the info isn't released. I can't see people not buying a game because it hasn't sold many copies, you buy what you like and soemtimes what you like isn't popular. It's also not to the detriment of the developers either as I'm sure we all realise that the hardcore wargames are going to be lucky in some cases to hit a 1000 sales. We also I'm sure know that any game thats sold in excess of 2000 units has done really well. Were not expecting huge sales figures.

It's just some here have considered dropping everything to become a wargame developer and I think seeing sales figures would be things into perspective, even if you don't mention the games but give us what you consider a reasonable amount of units sold.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

It is our policy to consider such information confidential, sorry. I'm happy to help with advice to anyone who is thinking of making games, but I can't release specific sales data.

Regards,

- Erik

[PizzaMan]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi guys,

It is our policy to consider such information confidential, sorry. I'm happy to help with advice to anyone who is thinking of making games, but I can't release specific sales data.

Regards,

- Erik

You have my full support. I was actually surprised there was even a response at all.

Try walking into any for profit retailer, and request their numbers. They will laugh in your face. Those numbers are property of the company. Not even the shareholders of a corporation would see those numbers, not to mention a customer. Having spent 25+ years in retail, every company I worked for would go to great lengths to discover/uncover intel on the competition, and sales data is closely guarded. It is the life blood of any company.

[wodin]

Erm..so how come big business have to release there profit over the year?

[doomtrader]

Actually the car manufacturers are sharing the data.

Also if you are a stockholder, most often you have got the rights to take a look into the books.

[invernomuto]

It could be useful to have not specific data but a "most popular" (based on sales) game list, maybe divided into "New releases" and "all time" or divided into categories (grognards, intermediate, novice).
It could be a useful buying guide for newcomers.
If I remember correctly, there's something similar in STEAM.

Bye.

[rodney727]

Doom,
I was applying that I felt like a stock holder because I have truly spent hundres at matrix games. Erik's statement that matrix games does not share or even list it's top selling games defies almost all logic. If logic determins reason why wouldn't matrix say what it's most successful games are.

[Lieste]

I think you might be confusing owning a license, with owning the software, and extending that to owning a share in a company because of the license to use the product...

Kind of like Ass-uming you own (part-of) the company Kimberly Clark because you use Andrex - except there you do actually own the right to use the paper for any (legal) purpose.

[Lieste]

I do think that there could be more transparency ~ but it doesn't bother me either way.

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: invernomuto

It could be useful to have not specific data but a "most popular" (based on sales) game list, maybe divided into "New releases" and "all time" or divided into categories (grognards, intermediate, novice).
It could be a useful buying guide for newcomers.
If I remember correctly, there's something similar in STEAM.

Bye.

It's not as a pointer for what to buy but more what sort of game does well if your thinking of becoming a developer. I>E you may want to make a certain wargame and stake lots of funds and time on it and then it turns out your estimation of sales was way to high. I want to make a game not for money but I want this certain game made. However if I was looking at it from a money or job perspective I probably would make something totally different.

As someone said figures didn't need to be discussed but a top 3 of recent and an all time top 3 would be a good pointer on what type of wargames may make you a living.