I never quantified anything, you are the one who brought a number into this, but we are a niche industry. Shooters and Action games are a pretty dominant earmark of Western gaming, that’s something you can’t contest, but just for the sake of it:
We have Halo 5, which is actually the seventh game in this long running series. If you were to ask a random person on the street with any interest in gaming at all, do you think they would know what Halo is? Chances are high that they would, so when something new along this avenue is in the development pipeline, it makes sense to pull out the big hitting stuff to tell people. Halo 5 alone has sold 4.75 physical units worldwide (and I hate to use this site but it’s the only thing with verifiable results at the moment) not including digital sales as MS doesn’t seem to ever release those records. Given that we have Halo 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ODST, and Reach (not in that order), and they constantly put out new versions all the time, it’s a safe bet the TV adverts will reach someone who was picked up and played one of these previous iterations and even the more recent one.
Gears has five games to its legacy, Gears of War 1, 2, 3, Judgement, and 4, with the most recent one having 2.69 million physical units sold (and is underrepresented by digital sales as those numbers are NOT disclosed). Gears 3 had 6.21 million physical units moved, Gears 2 has 6.75 million physical units, and Gears 1 has almost 6 million. Chances are with this kind of longevity and numbers, some with any interest in gaming has heard the name “Gears of War” before and can tell you what it is on the spot.
These are both LONG established franchises on this console brand, but one not exclusive to MS.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, probably the biggest of the series on Xbox ALONE was 14.8 million physical units moved. This one is proven a known household name at this point, as there’s almost no one who couldn’t tell you what this is unless they have lived under a rock.
Because these names are the BIGGEST hitters they have as exclusives, and are practically gimmies. Phil Spencer even said in one interview that it’s so obviously they have Gears and Halo projects going on that there wasn’t much point to have anything regarding them at E3 2017. The TV adverts do their job with those just fine.
But ask someone from the CoD crowd, “what is Killer Instinct?” Do you think they could have a defined answer, without googling it first? If common sense is your dictating logic like you say here:
Then common sense will also tell you the most likely answer is no, they couldn’t. It’s like the Macintosh 1984 commercial to an extent where people will have no likely idea what you are advertising and will most likely forget shortly thereafter because there’s not much established name recognition. You’re just shoving a bunch of shiny imagery at people. Unfortunately TV adverts only really work once a brand is established, since at that point people already have exposure to that brand or product and feel safe in investing in it again after already having made previous investment in the past with a clear sense of what this next iteration will improve upon (hopefully).
Now go to the tourney scene, CEO, Combo Breaker, EVO, etc. You have people with the HIGHEST LIKELY exposure who could tell you what KI is without googling it first. You have the Smashers, the KoF crowd, the SFV players (who might feel a little jaded at Capcom), what I hope will the be incoming crowd for Dragonball FighterZ (a man can hope), these crowds who are fighting game players, these are your best group to advertise in the hopes of a sale.
The real reason I wanted you to quote tourney numbers is in the context that you put it, you make sound like KI is dying, and you’re trying to justify what I honestly feel was a very weak argument with your only evidence being “look up those entry numbers and you’ll know I’m right!” I’m not going to quote them because that’s neither my side of the argument to make, nor do I even know where to find those. Someone like @Infilament or @STORM179 would probably know better than I where to find those statistics.
In my experience, common sense actually isn’t very common. But this logic is a slippery slope in itself that eventually leads to “we don’t need facts, our gut feeling is all we need.” If gut feeling is all we needed then KI would probably be rated M with MK style brutality, Jago would build 1 stock of meter on all moves, be positive on all moves including DP, and Fulgore would get his sky eye laser back, and TJ would probably have his launch properties on Tremor back.
Facts are necessary and numbers are too. These metrics give perspective that allows for clearer hindsight to reflect upon and make change and adapt.
That may be true, but if the advertisement never reaches the people you want it to, what good does it do? It matters where and how, and that’s why the tournament scene is far more important at the moment. Until then, it’s a cost without a real return. “Help offered when not needed, is usually no help at all.”
It’s also an impossible task to prove a negative.
I’m done now, if you still don’t agree then that’s fine, we can agree to disagree and I’ll be glad to leave it at that, but I can’t let something like “we don’t need numbers or proof” go without HEAVY disagreement. That’s a statement that’s had extreme impact in a political manner that I don’t even want to get into on these forums, but I do want it known, yes, facts matter, numbers matter, proof matters. So when you mention something like tournament numbers, please be sure to state them.
Also, Keits is doing a runthrough of the character in a few minutes on twitch. So there’s one thing down.
… you dont go giving away season 3 for free (or in this case season 3.5) when people have just brought it with hard earned cash lol thats no protecting a loyal fanbases interests.
i mean if that works better?