How much effect does brand/company reognition have on the sucess of a game?

[Chickat]

Say if Blizzard had released Guild wars 2 instead of anet. How much of an effect would that have had on the sales of the game? Remember that old bad game Two Worlds? If Bethesda had released it instead, would it have been much more successful and or received better scores?

[Valeron]

It certainly has an effect. Look at Diablo 3. I don't think it would have sold nearly as well if Blizzard wasn't the one making it.

[Pull My Finger]

Diablo 3 didn't sell because it said Blizzard, but because it said Diablo. Nonetheless, it's a good game.

There are very few companies that can really sell substantial numbers just by putting their name on the product. Blizzard and Nintendo are some of them.

[Valeron]

Diablo 3 didn't sell because it said Blizzard, but because it said Diablo. Nonetheless, it's a good game.

There's very few companies that can really sell substantial numbers just by putting their name on the product. Blizzard and Nintendo are some of them.

Right but I also know quite a few people who got Diablo 3 just because it was a Blizzard game (and subsequently were disappointed to find out what kind of game it is). But yes, Brand marketing is a gold mine for corporations. It is what they kill for, brand loyalty.

[Flaks]

I want to say Dishonored broke this mold but it had the Bethesda brand behind it.

[Boogums]

Right but I also know quite a few people who got Diablo 3 just because it was a Blizzard game (and subsequently were disappointed to find out what kind of game it is). But yes, Brand marketing is a gold mine for corporations. It is what they kill for, brand loyalty.

Doozerjun is right, while there are absolutely people who got D3 for Diablo, there are many people (myself included) who have never played a Diablo game before D3 and wouldn't have gotten it had it not said Blizzard on it.

[chazus]

Double Fine Adventure.

It didn't even exist and people threw like 5 million dollars at it.

[Sj]

I know people that refused to try or buy The Secret World just because it had an EA logo on it. It didn't even matter that EA was only the physical distributor and had nothing to do with the actual development process of the game.

[Boogums]

Double Fine Adventure.

It didn't even exist and people threw like 5 million dollars at it.

People threw money at it because it said "Double Fine."

[Edge-]

A lot. Brand recognition is fucking huge. That's why EA slapped the BioWare brand on Mythic and Victory studios, despite neither one having anything to do with BioWare. BW was a hot brand and the time, so the logic was that if people see the BW brand on something they'll be more interested.

As for your examples, I think GW2 would have absolutely seen higher if it had the Blizzard brand on it. Anet is pretty well respected and all, but Blizzard is much more widely known and has many more fans. It's one of the reasons D3 sold so many copies to people who'd never played the franchise before.

Two Worlds? It probably would have gotten better review scores too. Reviewers are fans, and unfortunately they are subject to their prejudices. The best example is D3 reviews vs. SimCity reviews. If you look at D3 reviews, there are rarely any points docked for the absolute disaster that launch was. People focused on the actual gameplay and while many mentioned the server issues, they gave Blizzard a pass. Fast forward to SimCity, and Maxis got absolutely slaughtered for their horrible launch. They were getting tanked left and right because servers were down. Why did D3 get away with it and not Maxis/EA? Because Blizzard is a much more loved brand than Maxis/EA (specifically the EA bit). The best example of this is Polygons reviews of D3 (10/10) and SimCity (Initially around a 9.5/10, then dropped to a 8/10, then to a 4/10).

Also, the fanbase of a game has a huge impact too. Fans cried and bemoaned good reviews of SimCity and it ended up with some of the scores getting dropped partially due to the popular sentiment amongst readers. But Eurogamer gives Uncharted 3 an 8.5/10 with some very legitimate and well thought out critiques? The reviewer starts to get death threats and the comments section absolutely flips its god damned shit.

TLDR: Yes and yes.

[chazus]

People threw money at it because it said "Double Fine."

And?

Did I misread the topic? Double Fine is the studio/brand. Brand recognition sold the product.

[Lazy Gecko]

This makes me think of when EA rebranded a bunch of their development studios as Bioware brands, then changed their minds and switched back. Wonder what brought that on.

[chazus]

I think GW2 would have absolutely seen higher if it had the Blizzard brand on it.

On the flip side, it also probably got hurt by NCsoft. People see NCSoft and cringe these days, regardless of actual product.

[Edge-]

People threw money at it because it said "Double Fine."

Ask for 400k, get 3.3M, then say you're out of money and that you'd need to cut the game by 75% to finish it with the funding you have. It still blows my damn mind.

[Sy]

one of the major publishers (i think it was ubisoft) recently stated that they flat out won't make a game if it isn't either part of a franchise or can be turned into the start of a new one. so that seems to be a huge selling factor.

company brand probably less so. the name blizzard is certainly a selling point, but i think it is the exception. i don't think there's any other developer/publisher name that carries that much weight. sure, bethesda is pretty popular and likely helps sales, but i doubt many people would buy a game for no other reason than it being from bethesda - whereas there certainly are many that would buy a game for no other reason than being of the elder scrolls or fallout franchises.

[Volitar]

Well I can tell you I don't buy any games with an EA logo slapped on the front.

Also I sort of got sucked into Diablo 3 because it was a Blizzard game (granted I got it for free seeing as I was playing WoW for a year anyway) but I would of got it because of all the type around D2 and me enjoying Blizzard games at the time.

so yeah brands do matter.

[Wilian]

Ask for 400k, get 3.3M, then say you're out of money and that you'd need to cut the game by 75% to finish it with the funding you have. It still blows my damn mind.

Yeah, that was incredibly stupid. It seems like they had no clue at all how to actually do the shit with that money, what with hiring something like 14 fucking artists for that project. Just wtf.

Luckily the projects I actually backed up seem to be on more level head with their projections and money usage. Eternity and Wasteland 2 seems to come along pretty well, along with Divinity.

On the topic of brand regocnition, it's sadly one of the most important factor for sales. Not sad only because it leaves good yet not so known titles to shadows, but it also attracts studios to pick up old good titles, shed most of that made those titles what they were and then launch is at "new visionary reboot". I can't think of any titles that succeeded with it, except maybe for Deus Ex:HR, but even that was a bit borderline.

[Vespian]

I actually see DIII as the main reason why GW2 wouldn't have sold so very well. We all expected Blizzard to only lose its edge in WoW, but DIII made clear that we were mistaken. And it is the main reason that all my future Blizzard games will;
- Not be pre-orders
- Not be insta-buys.

And that's a BIG change.

Maybe I'm the only one, but that's how I deal with names. Stay consistently great and I'll buy your games without looking. Mess up a few times and that ends.

And EA is a no-buy, obviously.

[Lazy Gecko]

company brand probably less so. the name blizzard is certainly a selling point, but i think it is the exception. i don't think there's any other developer/publisher name that carries that much weight. sure, bethesda is pretty popular and likely helps sales, but i doubt many people would buy a game for no other reason than it being from bethesda - whereas there certainly are many that would buy a game for no other reason than being of the elder scrolls or fallout franchises.

Blizzard has states on numerous occasions that they very much strive for their company name to be a seal of quality, and their name on the product alone should be enough to convince people to buy the game. In the case of Bethesda I think their brand name also has an insane amount of credibility. Fallout was very much an underdog PC title, until Fallout 3 came out of nowhere and introduced millions of people to the franchise. I think it's the same with Elder Scrolls as the prefix title doesn't have much word of mouth presence. People just call their games Oblivion or Skyrim. If it was another studio I almost doubt they would have gotten away with calling it Skyrim. They would probably have tried to call it Oblivion 2 or something, since numbers are a much more fool-proof way of selling franchise sequels.

[Wilian]

Fallout was very much an underdog PC title, until Fallout 3 came out of nowhere and introduced millions of people to the franchise.

Are we talking about the same Fallout franchice that was one of the most influential PC RPGs but also sold like hot cakes for it's time? Probably not because else that sentence makes no sense at all.