The reason for fire emblems near cancellation and Awakening’s success

[Slumber]

4 minutes ago, Azure Sen said:

Can we let go of the "Radiant Dawn wasn't marketed well" myth too, at least when it comes to Japanese sales? It's patently untrue, and Radiant Dawn was a Japanese launch title for the Wii specifically meant to move units (source: this Nintendo Dream interview hosted on Serenes). Radiant Dawn simply did not appeal to Japanese tastes. Aside from Ike's recent popularity over there due to Smash, Tellius is still one of the least popular worlds among Japanese fans.

I wasn't talking about Japan, though? I was speaking pretty strictly on the western sales.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Slumber

[Azure Sen]

7 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I wasn't talking about Japan, though?

Talking about how the game wasn't marketed in the West is pointless, because sales in the West wouldn't have and probably didn't save it from being considered a flop. On top of that, we have no reliable sales data for Radiant Dawn in the West, so it's impossible to tell how true the statement of "it failed because they didn't market it" is.

[Slumber]

6 minutes ago, Azure Sen said:

Talking about how the game wasn't marketed in the West is pointless, because sales in the West wouldn't have and probably didn't save it from being considered a flop. On top of that, we have no reliable sales data for Radiant Dawn in the West, so it's impossible to tell how true the statement of "it failed because they didn't market it" is.

Haven't the US/Western sales been meeting or exceeding the Japanese sales ever since they brought the series overseas?

I don't see how talking about the US marketing is pointless if the games flopped in the west and Japan. The marketing was trash here.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Slumber

[Azure Sen]

12 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Haven't the US/Western sales been exceeding the Japanese sales ever since they brought the series overseas?

I don't see how talking about the US marketing is pointless if the games flopped in the west and Japan. The marketing was trash here.

Foreign markets rarely matter to companies as much as the home market does. To use a more familiar example, many big-budget Hollywood movies are considered flops despite making back their budgets and marketing costs overseas, sometimes bringing in triple or more the amount it cost to make the movie in the first place.

We have no evidence that Radiant Dawn did anything better or worse than serviceable in the West, because we have no reliable sales numbers. I have no idea why people assume it did.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Azure Sen

[Slumber]

11 minutes ago, Azure Sen said:

Foreign markets rarely matter to companies as much as the home market does. To use a more familiar example, many big-budget Hollywood movies are considered flops despite making back their budgets and marketing costs overseas, sometimes bringing in triple or more the amount it cost to make the movie in the first place.

We have no evidence that Radiant Dawn did anything better or worse than serviceable in the West, because we have no reliable sales number. I have no idea why people assume it did.

Gaming and movies are a lot different.

The Legend of Zelda, another Nintendo franchise, isn't THAT big of a deal in Japan. In the west, it's a damn near celebrated occasion when one comes out, and a Zelda game can pretty much sell entire consoles by itself in the west. Metroid is similar.

Sony sells their handhelds to Japan, but far more of their attention goes to appealing to western audiences on home consoles. There's a reason the PS Vita is likely going to be their last strictly handheld gaming device, even though it did well in Japan.

Platinum Games and From Software pretty much ONLY care about their western audiences. Capcom has Monster Hunter, but virtually all of their other franchises hinge on western crowds. Square's in a similar situation with Dragon Quest, where it's their big mainstay in Japan, while everything else(INCLUDING Final Fantasy) relies heavily on western audiences.

The only major Japanese developer/publisher I can think of that seems to put priority on the Japanese audience is Koei-Tecmo.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Slumber

[dragonlordsd]

19 hours ago, Hardin said:

Did you check on VGChartz? 

I did check on VGChartz, although now people are saying it's not as credible a resource.

VGChartz gave Path of Radiance as badly outselling Radiant Dawn, with Shadow Dragon a bit higher.

I believe it was 

POR: .58 mil

RD: .49 mil

SD: .61 mil

SMNN... never mind: .35

I think. If someone wants to double check, they can.

I'd like for everyone who posts claims to this thread trying to contradict me to post a source for their numbers.

That includes you @Azure Sen

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, just if you're going to say something is "patently untrue", I want to see the numbers.

Also, @Slumber is also right, most of the time. There are a few exceptions (like Sega) but Nintendo isn't one of them.

Edited December 15, 2017 by dragonlordsd

[Azure Sen]

17 hours ago, Slumber said:

Gaming and movies are a lot different.

In how they're made, yes. In how they companies that publish/produce them treat them as products? Not really. A product that does not do well in its home market is treated as a flop regardless of any money it made in foreign markets, unless special circumstances apply.

17 hours ago, Slumber said:

The Legend of Zelda, another Nintendo franchise, isn't THAT big of a deal in Japan. In the west, it's a damn near celebrated occasion when one comes out, and a Zelda game can pretty much sell entire consoles by itself in the west. Metroid is similar.

Sony sells their handhelds to Japan, but far more of their attention goes to appealing to western audiences on home consoles. There's a reason the PS Vita is likely going to be their last strictly handheld gaming device, even though it did well in Japan.

Platinum Games and From Software pretty much ONLY care about their western audiences. Capcom has Monster Hunter, but virtually all of their other franchises hinge on western crowds. Square's in a similar situation with Dragon Quest, where it's their big mainstay in Japan, while everything else(INCLUDING Final Fantasy) relies heavily on western audiences.

The only major Japanese developer/publisher I can think of that seems to put priority on the Japanese audience is Koei-Tecmo.

None of which really disproves my point? A lot of the companies, games and franchises you mentioned are popular in the West, but popularity in the West doesn't mean they appeal specifically to the West, which has to do with more than just sales, or that their continued existence is dependent on Western sales. Platinum is about the only accurate example you've listed of a company who appeals primarily to a Western audience, and Zelda is the same for series. Nor does that disprove the idea that Japanese companies care more about their home markets than overseas markets. And of course that's not taking into account that the Japanese game industry is bigger than the examples you've listed, population disparity, etc. etc.

To use a specific counter-point: If Western sales meant anything, then Okami would have never been considered one of the worst flops in gaming. To use a specific to FE counter-example, if Western sales mattered, than the series would have never would have nearly gotten the axe at all.

This has turned into such a tangent. Weren't we talking about Fire Emblem at some point?

6 hours ago, dragonlordsd said:

I did check on VGChartz, although now people are saying it's not as credible a resource.

VGChartz gave Path of Radiance as badly outselling Radiant Dawn, with Shadow Dragon a bit higher.

VGCharts by their own admission makes up a lot of their sales data.

As for my data, sales on the Japanese side come from Famitsu and thus are very easy to find with a simple internet search. Of the games we're discussing only Shadow Dragon has had sales data for its Western sales released by Nintendo, with them giving a number of approximately 250,000 Western sales.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Azure Sen

[Slumber]

45 minutes ago, Azure Sen said:

In how they're made, yes. In how they companies that publish/produce them treat them as products? Not really. A product that does not do well in its home market is treated as a flop regardless of any money it made in foreign markets, unless special circumstances apply.

None of which really disproves my point? A lot of the companies, games and franchises you mentioned are popular in the West, but popularity in the West doesn't mean they appeal specifically to the West, which has to do with more than just sales, or that their continued existence is dependent on Western sales. Platinum is about the only accurate example you've listed of a company who appeals primarily to a Western audience, and Zelda is the same for series. Nor does that disprove the idea that Japanese companies care more about their home markets than overseas markets. And of course that's not taking into account that the Japanese game industry is bigger than the examples you've listed, population disparity, etc. etc.

To use a specific counter-point: If Western sales meant anything, then Okami would have never been considered one of the worst flops in gaming. To use a specific to FE counter-example, if Western sales mattered, than the series would have never would have nearly gotten the axe at all.

This has turned into such a tangent. Weren't we talking about Fire Emblem at some point?

You said

18 hours ago, Azure Sen said:

Foreign markets rarely matter to companies as much as the home market does.

You've said nothing to argue against what I just said in this context. You've moved the goalpost from "Foreign markets rarely matter to companies as much as the home markets does" to "They don't make games to appeal to the west", which still doesn't line-up with all of the shit we know about major developers and how they make games, and is completely asinine to keep asserting.

And yeah, this has turned into a tangent, but it's a tangent YOU initiated. This is a thread about Fire Emblem failing prior to Awakening, with pretty much everyone agreeing "Yeah, the marketing in the west was trash and Japan didn't like the Tellius games", and you basically decided to chime in and say "The market point is a myth, the west doesn't matter", when it clearly does in the eyes of game developers/publishers, including Nintendo. Even if they care about the Japanese market more, that doesn't somehow invalidate the idea that the west doesn't have influence on how the series performs.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Slumber

[Water Mage]

Back on the subject of Awakening’s success, a lot of people will want to deny it, but the Waifu/Husbando thing played a huge part in Awakening’s successe. Because of people talking in the internet, about how “Lucina is my waifu” or “Chrom is my husband” caught the attention of other people, like, “who is this Lucina people keep calling their waifu?” or “who is this Tharja that people say is an overrated fanservice character?”. People kept hearing this sort of thing, made them curious about the game which led them to buy it. All the attention, both positive and negative, that the “Waifu/Husbando” thing brought to Awakening is an undeniable reason of Awakening’s success.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

One aspect of Awakening's success I tend to forget is while it was definitely a success right out of the gate, a lot of its sales came overtime. According to this, Awakening breached its 1 million sales figure in Nov. 2013. Keep in mind the game had been out in every region for at least half a year, so you'd think there wouldn't be much lingering interest for a tactics RPG. But one year later, the sales figure for Dec 2014 is 1.79. Whoa. It gets weird when Nintendo said, at the beginning of this year, that Awakening's total sales is 500,00 plus 1,400,00 overseas, so not many sales between 2015 and 2017. What could be the reason for about 40% of Awakening's lifetime sales happening in the year of 2014?

Shink! Two newcomers, both from Awakening, and unlike previous Smash Bros. games, these guys come from a game you can download right now on your nintendo system. If you wanted to play Fire Emblem after Melee released, you couldn't. When Fire Emblem finally released in the west years later, you had already lost interest. And as for Ike's inclusion in Brawl, the Tellius games weren't getting any more shipments, so people that wanted to jump into fire emblem could only do so through second hand sales that Nintendo saw no money or evidence of.

Don't get me wrong though, Awakening clearly was the first in its series to breach 1 million sales. That much should prove it was successful on its own merits. But when we say Awakening "landed 2 million", we have to remember it wasn't without a little help from Smash marketing it.

[Strullemia]

On 16-12-2017 at 5:06 PM, Water Mage said:

Back on the subject of Awakening’s success, a lot of people will want to deny it, but the Waifu/Husbando thing played a huge part in Awakening’s successe. Because of people talking in the internet, about how “Lucina is my waifu” or “Chrom is my husband” caught the attention of other people, like, “who is this Lucina people keep calling their waifu?” or “who is this Tharja that people say is an overrated fanservice character?”. People kept hearing this sort of thing, made them curious about the game which led them to buy it. All the attention, both positive and negative, that the “Waifu/Husbando” thing brought to Awakening is an undeniable reason of Awakening’s success.

Came here to say something along these lines. As a matter of fact, when Awakening was released and people started loving it I never heard anything good about the story or gameplay around the parts of the internet I visited. You know what I heard? I heard about waifus and husbandos (mostly Chrom, Lucina, Tharja and Severa) and IS was lucky in a way because back then I was younger and I wanted to play JRPG just for the waifu romance so I bough FE:A just for that.

[arvilino]

On 15/12/2017 at 3:23 AM, Slumber said:

Haven't the US/Western sales been meeting or exceeding the Japanese sales ever since they brought the series overseas?

I don't see how talking about the US marketing is pointless if the games flopped in the west and Japan. The marketing was trash here.

Regarding the US marketing in the west Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn actually had a significant showing that no Fire Emblem game had(even Awakening didn't have). At E3 2007 while the Wii was burning hot and DS going and there was peak of interest in Nintendo, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn actually had it's reveal as a E3 trailer:

 

But it was to muted response outside of the Fire Emblem fan forums.(The 10 year old comments on the video speak a bit for how it was perceived, very few thought it looked good). On retrospective its no big surprise because there's nothing in the reveal that would get all but a few people interested in it if they didn't already like Fire Emblem. But if the trailer for a niche SRPG can't resonate with gamers at the biggest gaming event, was there any chance for it to get more casual gamers interested?

I think something people miss with Fire Emblem's recent success is that it just didn't get more marketing. They made changes in presentation(faster paced, more interesting animations even on weaker hardware, distinct map sprites rater than the ugly topdown 3d models) and features(Casual mode, exciting new mechanics like pair-up,dual attack, etc.) in order to make itself more marketable and gave more compelling reasons for people who didn't already like Fire Emblem to be excited by it.

Fire Emblem was unmarketable state by the time of Radiant Dawn and they struggled to gain more new players than they were losing(SD selling 100k more than RD purely due to Japan and notably Marth beng so popular there).  I think the Wii could have sold 200 million systems and I'd still bet Radiant Dawn would have been around the 500k range worldwide.

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by arvilino

[Pegasus Knight]

marketing and word of mouth... (and beautiful graphics)

 

At least this is how i got in the series...  i didnt even knew what Fire emblem was while i was searching for a new 3DS game to buy every article and youtube video about the best nitendo games of that year had FE awakening at the TOP... the trailer led me to download the demo which i found it interesting so i bought the game....

[Ottservia]

On 12/4/2017 at 1:43 PM, omegaxis1 said:

This guy made a video, and there's a lot of thought put into it. Check it out:

 

I actualy did watch that video that's what got me thinking about this whole thing in the first place

[Ottservia]

On 12/14/2017 at 8:59 PM, Jotari said:

I am more curious as to why the series was failing before Awakening. All the games released prior to it were decent games. Why didn't they sell above expectations (I don't think it's soemthing as frivolous as a lack of supports)? I believe the reason New Mystery wasn't localised had more to do with the DS being on it's way out rather than sales. Were people just getting tired with the series at that point?

Yeah I'm pretty much wondering this as well though it does make you wonder why tellius was so unpopular over in japan and is considered one of the best out here in western regions