Unigine OilRush Barely Does 800 Sales To Date

[Shining Arcanine]

Phoronix: Unigine OilRush Barely Does 800 Sales To Date

While OilRush is the first Linux game using the Unigine Engine and it features impressive graphics (a second look), the pre-orders continue to be well below Unigine Corp's expectations and certainly what we would have expected as well...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTE5NQ

I was waiting for them to release a demo before I decided to commit to buying it.

[urfe]

Or they could distribute a version with the cfg fixed so there are no crashes. Or they could tell me the forums even exist. At no point in the whole purchase & download process did I receive anything telling me how to provide feedback.

I received this e-mail today:

Dear subscribers,

We have launched the official forum for OilRush:
http://www.oilrush-game.com/forum/

Pre-order user should use the same credentials they received for Unigine
Online Store (store.unigine.com) in order to get into the special group
with extended access.

Please contact oilrush-support@unigine.com if you have any problems.

You should have it in your Inbox, eventually check the spam folder.

[laaapin]

Or they could distribute a version with the cfg fixed so there are no crashes. Or they could tell me the forums even exist. At no point in the whole purchase & download process did I receive anything telling me how to provide feedback.

Me neither, but I got to their website and subscribed to their forum.
Just as i would do for every product I buy...

[NiBu]

According to their forum, they are considering distributing the game through steam, but no date given...

Is this a joke? There is no steam and maybe there will never be Steam for Linux. Almost one year after http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...uncement&num=1 there is only one official statement http://www.blogsdna.com/11891/its-of...g-to-linux.htm
It's very sad, but it's true!

[tacco]

The best way to promote a game is free demo.

[sabriah]

Preordering is done for those games which have had a long hype preceding it, and made by companies with a seriously good track record. Here is a perspective (from http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story...By-2to1.html):

Electronic Arts officer Rich Hilleman has told a conference in the UK that portable gaming hardware now outnumbers consoles by 2 to 1. Noting the success of the DS, PSP and iPhone, Hilleman slammed the price of producing console games has rocketed, with marketing costing up to three times more than the development of a title. The EA chief also said although the firm makes $35 on a $60 video game, it needs to sell 1.1 million copes to break even.

Marketing costs three times more than the development...

And, even so there is no guarantee at all. Look at the list here, for example: http://www.metacritic.com/browse/gam...view=condensed

Which of these were profitable? Hard to tell, but my guess is that the highest rated stood a fair chance of surviving initial hype for a sustained commercial success.

Actual sale number can be found here http://www.vgchartz.com/

The preorders for America are here http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders.php

There is only 1 pc game in the top 20 list, Diablo III.

The top ten list of preorders include long time hits (i.e. sequels) Pokémon, Dragon Age II, Gears of War 3, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Metal Fight Beyblade, Mortal Kombat, Diablo III.

I think it is a bit naive to expect more from Oil Rush, now. The competition is fierce and the established guys are spending serious money on advertisement.

The only chance I can see Oil Rush has now is to polish the game into perfection before an actual launch. Too many bugs and glitches and the harsh critics at www.metacritic.com will sink the game, immediately, with no turning back; I have never heard of a computer game given a second chance.

If it gets good reviews I will buy too! But, preorder today? No. I wouldn't preorder Duke Nukem either, even if it is said to come out on May 3rd 2011 (http://www.dukenukemforever.com). Yes, and note that Duke Nukem was NOT on the top 20 preorder chart at http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders.php!

[Larian]

Normally I think people give Michael a lot of unnecessary flak here, but this time I feel a need to raise an objection. Why should I buy Oil Rush? Why should I pre-order it as I've done with Minecraft? Am I supposed to feel like dirt for not throwing money at this game?

Frankly the game, while pretty, simply does not interest me. I applaud the work the Unigine folks have done to be sure. Of course I want the Unigine folks to succeed with their engine. However I just don't do RTS. I don't like the genre. They could have done 80,000 sales to date and I still wouldn't buy it. They could even put tits on it and I wouldn't buy it.

This is not a matter of me supporting Linux. If half-done, uninteresting, buggy games are what I'm being asked to spend money on so it will encourage others to come to the platform, I ask you what others you're talking about. Do we want the platform to be known as a haven for substandard developers to release things that can't gain traction elsewhere? Are we so starved and pathetic for games that we'll buy anything with a penguin on it whether we want it or not to artificially inflate sales numbers? I hope not. It's not my fault this game isn't a hit, and I'm under no obligation to make it one. Imagine for a second that we DO break out our wallets and hemorrhage money to make this game a hit, bad as it is (buggy, crashes all the time, uninteresting gameplay). Developers just might smell money and "me too" because that's what they think we want. And then we'll have GAMES! ...ones that we don't really like.

So here's my proposal to the developers and flamers: You make good games for Linux (i.e. Minecraft, Humble Indie Bundle), and I'll give you my money for them. Make quality games in the genres that I like and I'll throw cash at you. But don't, whatever you do, presume to guilt trip me for not buying something I don't want.

[binstream]

Or they could distribute a version with the cfg fixed so there are no crashes. Or they could tell me the forums even exist. At no point in the whole purchase & download process did I receive anything telling me how to provide feedback.

I'm sorry about the late/lack of notification: we are still settling our CRM system.

We have shared the preliminary January build just to provide some idea on the game performance and visuals. It's far from being completed and we already have much more stable version, which will be available for pre-order users in 1-2 weeks.

Anyway, if you aren't satisfied with your pre-order, you can make a refund and we'll return 100% of your money.

[d2kx]

Digital distribution for Games in 2011 = Steam

I wouldn't draw any conclusions about sales until it is released and avaible on Steam.

[Ard Righ]

I have to say, for the people who I have talked to who might be interested in giving this game some testing and play time, they are put off by the lack of a demo to download.

Pre-order is OK if you're established franchise or developer. In this case people have zero idea of quality, and lack of a demo will not help.

Telling people to pay $20 to get the demo? That's not going to entice people.

I do have some sympathy for the great work put into building the engine, and I hope the licensing sales of the engine cover development costs. This is how id software make most of their money these days.

I plan to try the game, but I have no reference if the game runs on anything other than ATI Catalyst drivers on Linux. I use the open source Radeon driver.

Where's the supported driver page?