Why 2.5 million sales is significant

[Cryemore]

I've shared this information in replies to other posts, but decided that it warrants a discussion thread all it's own. So I'm just copying one of my replies and pasting it here.

This game likely already turned a profit.

Not many seem to realize it but this game was made by only 392 people.

392

This is incredibly efficient for a AAA game, smaller even than the teams for some AA releases.

For context, here are the staff sizes for several other recent games. Some of these numbers are absolutely ridiculous.

Diablo IV - 8,694
Starfield - 3,902
Spider-Man 2 - 3,582
Hogwarts Legacy - 3,429
FF7 Rebirth - 3077
Jedi Survivor - 2,682
GOW Ragnarok - 2,600
Redfall - 1,996. <-----------------------------------------

Even DD1, back when it released in 2012 had 616 staff.

People like to compare Helldivers 2 constantly because it's hot right now, but even that had 1220 staff.

Say what you will, this game will make studios and publishers stand up and take notice. The cost of making AAA games is out of control and completely unsustainable. Capcom just made a AAA game and sold 2.5 million copies within 11 days of release with a development team 4x-21x smaller than anything listed here.

Itsuno had to fight to make DD1 as Capcom thought it too much of a risk. The fact that the team for DD2 is significantly smaller than what DD1 had suggests that they still believe this to be true. The production budget for this game was likely very small compared to it's contemporaries.

Despite all of this they still delivered a fantastic game, albeit a flawed one.

EDIT: There seems to be some confusion. These numbers represent the actual number of individuals credited in the development of each respective game. That includes outsourced work. This represents everyone. From programmers, artists, concept artists etc. all the way to writers and localizers.

EDIT 2: The entire purpose of this post was to point out the fact that this game is likely already profitable. It was not, in any way shape or form designed to somehow disparage other games or brag about sales numbers. The entire point is thus: Capcom developed a triple-A game released in 2024 in such an efficient manner that it most likely became profitable very quickly.

The team was tiny for a AAA title, we can thus assume with a great amount of certainty that the actual production budget was also comparatively small.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by blackzephyers:

Originally posted by Sgt. Flaw:

I should've taken the 40 dollar game that was properly funded....there's a reason it's numero uno rn...enough of the dev shilling

Lets say this info more than makes me blacklist crapcom for good.

I actually agree. The shilling and bottling makes me not trust Capcom and I won’t buy their games in the future since I assume they’ll be of poor quality like DD2.

Capcom is god-tier by merit from Monster Hunter alone. Anything Dragon's Dogma is just a bonus. I'm sure Capcom will miss you.

[[-iD-]]

Originally posted by Cryemore:

Originally posted by blackzephyers:

I actually agree. The shilling and bottling makes me not trust Capcom and I won’t buy their games in the future since I assume they’ll be of poor quality like DD2.

Capcom is god-tier by merit from Monster Hunter alone. Anything Dragon's Dogma is just a bonus. I'm sure Capcom will miss you.

i feel the same but for me its RE. i hate monster hunter

[Ēarendel]

Originally posted by Cryemore:

Originally posted by Ēarendel:

OP, for the sake of comparison. How many people worked on Resident Evil 4, Street Fighter 6 or Devil May Cry 5?

RE4 - 1504
SF6 - 1828
DMC5 - 1222

If that is the case I'm disappointed in Capcom they didn't invest more into a fantasy game. The signs were there it's what the consumer market wants. Seems they're as always dipping toes in the water and sticking to Resident Evil and Street fighter, franchises which are arguably running out of steam.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by -iD-:

Originally posted by Cryemore:

Capcom is god-tier by merit from Monster Hunter alone. Anything Dragon's Dogma is just a bonus. I'm sure Capcom will miss you.

i feel the same but for me its RE. i hate monster hunter

I can understand that, everyone has different tastes. I haven't really played a resident evil since 2 I think, on the psx.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by Ēarendel:

Originally posted by Cryemore:

RE4 - 1504
SF6 - 1828
DMC5 - 1222

If that is the case I'm disappointed in Capcom they didn't invest more into a fantasy game. The signs were there it's what the consumer market wants. Seems they're as always dipping toes in the water and sticking to Resident Evil and Street fighter, franchises which are arguably running out of steam.

It's well known that Itsuno had to fight to get Dragon's Dogma, the original, developed. Capcom saw it as too much of a risk, and frankly a game of that style was way out of their wheelhouse.

It's obvious that they were rather risk-averse with this entry as well. Hopefully good sales numbers will convince them of the series' validity.

[[-iD-]]

Originally posted by Cryemore:

Originally posted by Ēarendel:

If that is the case I'm disappointed in Capcom they didn't invest more into a fantasy game. The signs were there it's what the consumer market wants. Seems they're as always dipping toes in the water and sticking to Resident Evil and Street fighter, franchises which are arguably running out of steam.

It's well known that Itsuno had to fight to get Dragon's Dogma, the original, developed. Capcom saw it as too much of a risk, and frankly a game of that style was way out of their wheelhouse.

It's obvious that they were rather risk-averse with this entry as well. Hopefully good sales numbers will convince them of the series' validity.

and the fact that the game was pretty much a failure in capcoms eyes (original dd1) since it sold less than expected for the first year means itsuno had to probably fight twice as hard to get half the staff for this game.

[Ēarendel]

Originally posted by Cryemore:

Originally posted by Ēarendel:

If that is the case I'm disappointed in Capcom they didn't invest more into a fantasy game. The signs were there it's what the consumer market wants. Seems they're as always dipping toes in the water and sticking to Resident Evil and Street fighter, franchises which are arguably running out of steam.

It's well known that Itsuno had to fight to get Dragon's Dogma, the original, developed. Capcom saw it as too much of a risk, and frankly a game of that style was way out of their wheelhouse.

It's obvious that they were rather risk-averse with this entry as well. Hopefully good sales numbers will convince them of the series' validity.

It took them four devil may cry installments to take the series seriously imo, but one can only hope.

[L]

Originally posted by Ēarendel:

Seems they're as always dipping toes in the water and sticking to Resident Evil and Street fighter, franchises which are arguably running out of steam.

Running out of steam?

Resident Evil 4 Remake was easily Capcoms highest rated game within the past years, and on steam it happily sits on 84,000+ reviews at spectacular 97% rating.

RE2:R sold over 13 million units, and RE4:R has sold over 7 million+, and that game was just released last year right around this time.

Street Fighter is without a doubt **Capcom's Greatest Bread Winner of all time** and turned Capcom into the #1 gaming company in the early 90s.

From 1991-1993, SF2 was the #1 entertainment product in the entire world, surpassing all forms, including things like movies, music, etc, etc, while raking in billions per year, and 1993 was the weakest of those three years, and it still brought in 1.6 billion in revenue, which with inflation for today would be equivalent to 3.4 billion.

Not to mention it also ranks in the Top-10 as one of the highest grossing revenue game franchise series of all time.

However, you might say, but that was many years, or decades ago, true...so let's look at what Street Fighter 6 has done thus far...

Street Fighter 6 last year broke the Guinness Book of World Records with the Highest Live Tournament entry of all time with over 7,000+ players entering to compete in SF6 at Evolution 2023, and the previous record holder with the highest numbers for a live tournament entry before that? Not, surprised, Street Fighter 5 with over 5,000+ players which was achieved back in 2016.

Capcom is so confident with SF6 that they even implemented prior to it's release a $1,000,000 Prize pool for the winner of Capcom Cup alone, and another $1,000,000 throughout the year in prize pool money for the tournaments.

Oh yeah...they are doing this again in 2024, which shows how much confidence they have in SF6.

It is also the most played fighting game currently (Very Important), even despite the fact that Mortal Kombat 1 released after Street Fighter 6, and Tekken 8, which was just released this year, yet despite that, is still being outplayed by SF6 on average, and even on peak hours.

The game has already sold over 3 million+ copies within a 7 month period, and others may claim "that's not a lot."

However, remember that fighting games are a niche genre, and yet despite that, 3 million copies is insane in the current gaming world where everyone would rather play less execution heavy games like FPS, Mobas, rpgs, etc, etc.

Lastly, on this, unlike other series on the list that may and will lose viewership or attention (MH may be the only exception) through time, fighting games will continually get eyes because they are competitive.

Along with new patches or new systems that are implemented throughout it's lifespan which will change the game every year, so they can actually have greater longevity in terms of not at an extreme level, but steady revenue throughout the years.

I do agree upon your other part, that DD2 NEEDS more love, that 100% is true, and the 2.5 million sales proves that this game would have been even more successful had Capcom of just given the game more attention.

It didn't even have to be as high as SF6, or RE, or MH or whatever, if they would've given DD2 a crew of 800-1000, the game would have been 10x better than it is already right now.

I hope that with the 2.5 million copies sold, this kicks Capcom CEO's in the head that they need to give this series more love and respect.

Their are MANY of Capcom's franchises series that have been sitting in the darkness for far too long that need to be resurrected...

Onimusha
Dino Crisis
and my personal demand...**Breath of Fire**, My Goodness Capcom, Bring this RPG Back Already, I personally like the BoF series way more than even Dragon's Dogma.

[EpirusWarriorμολὼνλαβέ]

Onimusha also had historical backgrounds of genko and sengoku era beside japanese mythology
Yagyu clan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMRZzJDtACM

Oda clan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrozbJPn6oU




and i dont mean the western left political pseudo history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO30C5Hb6do

[crzyfsh123]

200 million revenue does mean, Capcom will invest more money in the game and the series.

[SkidaRu]

DDDA was a slow burn snowball on PC... Cult classic's take time to be appreciated.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Originally posted by Lockhart:

Dragon's Dogma is also a niche IP and, despite that, DD2 has sold relatively well.

FINAL FANTASY VII Remake was one of the most anticipated games of all time from a much bigger IP and it sold 3.5 million copies in it's first week, just a million more than DD2. It took them about 2 and a half years to reach 7 million copies sold.

FFVII Remake was platform exclusive for a good while.

[Ēarendel]

Originally posted by L:

Originally posted by Ēarendel:

Seems they're as always dipping toes in the water and sticking to Resident Evil and Street fighter, franchises which are arguably running out of steam.

Running out of steam?

*snip*

= Yes it is running out of steam, making a remake is simply reinventing the wheel and banking on past success and nostalgia. Where they go from RES4 will make or break the franchise

SF6 had initial success due to big marketing campaign, and new features like world tour and character creator. The game is already getting stale with its " cosmetics season passes" that nobody is interested in. But sure, one can argue that SF is their flagship franchise since the competition is quite thin for fighter games nowadays and it will always have some margin of success. But I'm glad we agree that they underappreciated the DD2 project.

[NewYears1978]

So they have a small team - great. Is that supposed to make me forgive them for releasing a game that is a broken mess full of useless MTX. If the studio is so small that's even more reason not to add that garbage as the sales alone should be plenty to pay people.

[Ēarendel]

Originally posted by NewYears1978:

So they have a small team - great. Is that supposed to make me forgive them for releasing a game that is a broken mess full of useless MTX. If the studio is so small that's even more reason not to add that garbage as the sales alone should be plenty to pay people.

The MTX is a Capcom policy for ALL their games, misguided criticism. Address it to the company itself not the game.