Did Dreamfall sell well?
 

Well I remmenber seeing that the devs said that in the case Dreamfall won't sell well, there won't be a sequel. I have been holding off buying the Longest Journey and Dreamfall, since it would suck playing these games and never having a sequel. So by now, I'd like to know how well dreamfall did so far?

Dreamfall is getting a sequel. It's already been announced - although it will be released in episodic chapters. You can read Adventure Gamers coverage of Dreamfall Chapters here. Ragnar Tornquist (the creator of TLJ/DF) has a blog where he's answered some questions about the project, but be careful of spoilers. (Especially if you haven't played the first two games in the series.)

No I haven't. I have been holding off, cause I really don't like getting unto a game and then being cut off all of a sudden by a cliffhanger who will last a couple years...

Is the Cliffhanger from dreamfall as big as "OMG it's torture, I need to kill someone!!" or more like "Wow really nice, can't wait for the sequel."

A bit of both actually. TLJ has a satisfying, self-contained conclusion that Dreamfall builds upon... Dreamfall is a little bit different, though. DF's main arc comes to a conclusion - but there's side stories left open and major loose ends. I thought the core mystery of Dreamfall wrapped up nicely, but it will definately leave you wanting more...

Damn it lol, I dunno what to do. The game is tempting to get and it's readilly available at the Funcom shop, but at the same time I prefer to play it all at the same time >_<

You know you want to play them. ;)

I don't know if Dreamfall sold well. But I do know that the first game, The Longest Journey did get sold at a full price at 2 years after it was released. Dreamfall was released in April 2006, I think?. In dec. 2006 or jan. 2007, I saw it in the bargain bins for about 20USD or so. You do the math here.

Either this is a symptom of the times e.g. people buy games, play them, and move on to the next game (they probably didn't do this as much in 1999-2000) or it is a symbol of Dreamfall not selling that well at full price.

Yes, Dreamfall is getting a sequel - in episodic chapters. However, remember that Dreamfall (at least in Europe) had Starforce on it - to prevent -ahem- people from making copies of it. (not a recommendation, though).

My guess is that Ragner and Funcom thinks that by selling off Dreamfall in episodic chapters for say 9.95 USD pr. chapter, they can hinder pirating of the game. And in order to do that, each downloaded chapter probably will follow the same :pan: scheme that Bioshock did. You need to have internet connection to activate the game, but not to play the game.

I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think that this will hinder or prevent people from doing something to pirate (e.g. make illegal copies of the game - still not a recommendation, though) the game. I'm saying this beacuse it doesn't seemed to have the 'bad guys' to pirate Bioshock (not recommendation, though). The only people this activation-online thing annoy and irritate is the
customers who buy the game legit & legally.

What happens then, if Funcom 10 years from now suddenly decided to close its doors and shut downs alle their servers for activating the game? I still play games from 8-10 years ago. Or what happens if Funcom suddenly is bought by say Ubisoft, and Ubisoft shuts down all Funcom's websites - just like Ubisoft did with Microîds and Still-Life?

Imagine to have had to activate Still Life or Post Mortem. And then today, when you wanted to play these games again, you couldn't? Just because the cativations servers were gone. It's not that hard to imagine. NCSoft did exactly this with the servers for Auto Assault. Apparently, this online game did not bring in enough revenue to the people behind NCSoft (or the publishers).

So yes, this can happen. Let's just not hope that Funcom does this - ever :)

I recommend playing TLJ, if you don't play Dreamfall you won't be missing out much. As said, TLJ doesn't have a cliffhanger ending.

I am not sure about exact numbers, but at least Dreamfall sold better on the PC than on the XBOX. Because of the high amount of sales of the PC version, it made up for what they lost on the sales on the XBOX.

At least this is what the annual report from Q2-2007 for Funcom says:

"Funcom revenues in Q2, 2007 were TUSD 1,593
down from TUSD 4,611 in Q2, 2006 which were highly
influenced by the launch of Dreamfall: The Longes
Journey."

I agree with Wormsie, at least play TLJ, it doesn't end with a "oh my god what happens next" cliff hanger, and is so long that by the time you finish the first episode of Dreamfall chapters is out already.. :P

(TLJ is my favourite game, I've played it three times now)

The ending of TLJ does not seem to have been made with a sequel in mind. It is nicely concluded. The main thing that made you want a sequel was that it was such a enjoyable experience that you simply wanted another one.

Yeah thanks, I'll pick up the first game at the Funcom shop for 14.99.

I think that it didn´t sell much well and that is reason for unusual format of it´s yet-to-be sequel.

Isn't it due to Funcom's piracyphobia?

Funcom blame piracy for their low sales, but I don't really believe them.
I think the reason it didn't sell so well as they hoped, is the horrific fighting system..
It got from rave reviews to negative reviews over the net, and might have made quite a few people hesitant to buy, and it also removed the game from TLJ's fans. (and a demo didn't come out, which turned even more away from it, and probably added to the piracy)

When TLJ came out they marketed it specifically as a game where you use your head to solve the puzzles, and that was the reason I wanted to try it. Dreamfall has gone away from that label. Here in Norway Dreamfall has sold rather well actually. Not amazing, but everyone knows of it, and most of the big time gamers and game shop employees have tried it, and I've even heard them recommend it sometimes.

Yes, essentially but I think that "piracyphobia" was in this case supported even more by low sales so they came up with tactics to evade both piracy and distribution.

By the way, what does "Dreamfall (didn't) sell well" mean, exactly? Does anyone have numbers? (I'm not trying to make a point, I'm just curious)

Oh, and why is it so difficult to get this kind of information? I mean, sales figures (or something equivalent) have been available from the book, TV, film and music industries for ages, so why is the video game industry keeping it a big secret?

-ehm-

sales figures for books, movies etc. are trade secrets too - at least here in Denmark, where I live. Only if a book or movie is big hit will the publishers release info on how well a book did on the market.

I don't understand it either. It is a matter of public information, I think.

Anyway, Funcom's financial records for the year 2006 should prove some clues as to how many units of Dreamfall were sold. However, as I've described above Dremfall became a bargain bin item less than a year after it was released, and that wasn't because of illegal copying.

It was because of the horrible fighting and stealth element being implemented in the game. It also meant that Zoë could die. April couldn't die in TLJ which was (and is) one of the selling points for my when I decided to buy TLJ back in 1999 or 2000. I also liked that you should use your head to figure TLJ out as well as the description of the two worlds intermixing and intertwining into each other.

In Dreamfall, it seems that for some odd reason :rolleyes: Ragnar & Funcon wanted to expand on to people who liked stealth and fighting (beat 'em up) games. Unfortunately, neither the stealth nor the fighting elements were really done as well as the horrid :angry: control scheme meant that I simply couldn't figure out how to use the controls.

Dreamfall was clearly a game made for young males from 21+ or 25+, not a game that targeted the core of the adventure game market, guys and gals over 45+ or so.

And that's why it did sell slowly, I think...

45+?! What are you basing that estimate on?

EDIT: While on the topic, I would recommend to anyone interested in buying Dreamfall or The Longest Journey to purchase the GAME.co.uk release of the Collector's Edition.

I think that stealth was actually quite fun sometimes. Fighting however was truly terrible.