Starmen.Net

<p><img class="picleft" src="http://starmen.net/reidman/cassamassina.png" alt="2,000...200,000...same thing." title="daaaaang matt dawg why u hatin" />Our friends at IGN do a weekly '<a href="http://wii.ign.com/articles/871/871734p1.html">Nintendo Voice Chat</a>' wherein they banter about random Nintendo stuff. During their Q&A section, they got on the subject of the ESRB rating for EB and had this to say:</p>

<ufo src="http://starmen.net/reidman/ign-nvc-may08.mp3" id="200000" />

<blockquote><p><b>Bozon:</b> "...these people who are doing these proposals to Nintendo and everyone's, you know, like saying 'bring it out bring it out bring it out', you guys better buy it, because this is gonna be it. Like if they bring it to Virtual Console and you guys don't buy it and it doesn't sell well, you can kiss it goodbye."</p>

<p><b>Casamassina:</b> "...I think you're gonna see how small the EarthBound demographic really is. It'll probably be like, you know, 2,000 people that are, that are like ridiculous message board posters, you know? They all post 200 messages a week on the game."</p></blockquote> <div class="hr"><hr /></div> <p>Apparently Bozon doesn't keep up with our efforts, but at least he was trying to be helpful. It's a shame that Casamassina underestimated us like that, though, because he's actually <a href="http://starmen.net/siteinfo/media.php#ign0302">helped us</a> <a href="http://starmen.net/siteinfo/media.php#ign0600">in the past</a>. We even sent him a copy of the <a href="http://starmen.net/ebanthology">EarthBound Anthology</a>, and while I'm sure he's not terribly embarrassed about not flipping through <em>the ultimate nerd book</em>, if he had he would know that the 2,000 estimate is a bit low. In fact, we've had <strong>200,000</strong> people come through here in the past 4 months or so. And that figure doesn't count the <a href="http://starmen.net/forum">forum</a> or the <a href="http://mother3.fobby.net">Fan Translation</a>.</p>

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://starmen.net/reidman/200k-visitors.png"><img src="http://starmen.net/reidman/200k-visitors-sm.png" alt="Starmen.Net: 200k unique, individual visitors over the course of about 4 months." title="Here comes crazy reid waving his charts again...I bet he's going to point out the spike 3 days after Brawl's release when 7,300 SSBB zombies finally pulled themselves away from their controllers long enough to look up Lucas... as if we haven't heard that story before. Here he comes...just don't make eye contact with him." /></a></div>

<p><a href="http://starmen.net/forum/?t=msg&th=46318">Continue reading for my thoughts about EB's potential performance on the VC and more.</a></p>

<p>Assuming that Nintendo finally releases the game, I think the sales will easily exceed their expectations. <a href="http://wii.ign.com/articles/838/838286p1.html">According to NCL</a>, there have been about 8 million downloads. Assuming that this is Japan-only (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Virtual_Console_games_%28Japan%29">about 300 titles</a>), that's about 25k downloads per game. Obviously there's a long tail and a high cliff to consider, so let's adjust it to...I dunno, 15k for the "average" (i.e. not Mario/Zelda/Metroid) game.</p>

<p>Given our traffic (and the fact that we don't, by a longshot, represent the entirety of the EarthBound fanbase), I think EB will easily pass 15k downloads from existing fans alone. And you can bet that those same fans will be gifting copies for their friends and plugging the game in every venue where people will listen to them.</p>

<p>Anyway, back to the IGN chat, I realize that Casamassina's drastic underestimation isn't malicious. In the future, though, it would be nice to get a little more respect from these guys whose job it is to be in touch with gamers. After all, you know what they say about underestimating us...</p>

<p>You can <a href="http://wii.ign.com/articles/871/871734p1.html">download the full 'Voice Chat' from IGN</a> or just <a href="http://starmen.net/reidman/ign-nvc-may08.mp3">download the clip here</a>. Here's the full transcript of their conversation about EB on VC, from 37:29 to 38:52. No author attributes because I'm not 100% who is who.</p>

<blockquote><p>Q: Now that EarthBound has been ESRB rated in the US, do you have any idea why they took out the Brawl classics in the US? Is it actually going to hit here?</p>

<p>Uhh, the VC game is obviously coming here, right? It's been rated, so...</p>

<p>Yeah, I think it is. But there's also another one that's for some reason escaping me now. But there was one that was rated by the ESRB a long time ago and we still don't have it. So, uhh, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's coming out right away. Usually it means it's coming down the pipe, though, because obviously Nintendo's done something with it, you know, submitted it in, ESRB has said what the game...</p>

<p>Yeah, they definitely don't want to get hung up by the ESRB if they want to bring it out.</p>

<p>Right. That's what it really comes down to. So, I dunno, they probably took it out of brawl because they weren't, maybe, weren't sure that it was going to come out and then everybody's -ing about it so much that they're like 'wow, maybe we should just try our hand at it'. I'll tell you what, everybody that's freaking going crazy and making all these, uhh-</p>

<p>Conspiracy theories?</p>

<p>--well no, just these people who are doing these proposals to Nintendo and everyone's, you know, like saying 'bring it out bring it out bring it out', you guys better buy it, because this is gonna be it. Like if they bring it to Virtual Console and you guys don't buy it and it doesn't sell well, you can kiss it goodbye.</p>

<p>Well that's what happened with Elite Beat Agents. Like, everyone wanted Ouendan, and then it's like, so they brought it out as Elite Beat Agents and nobody bought it.</p>

<p>The thing is, 'everyone' -- 'everyone' is a quotable word because 'everyone' means this small demographic, and I think you're gonna see how small the EarthBound demographic really is. It'll probably be like, you know, 2,000 people that are, that are like ridiculous message board posters, you know? They all post 200 messages a week on the game.</p></blockquote>

Hmm interesting update. I hope they also take importing Mother into our consideration aswell, they could release them at the same time

Well that's what happened with Elite Beat Agents. Like, everyone wanted Ouendan, and then it's like, so they brought it out as Elite Beat Agents and nobody bought it.

Eh, I don't think that this is a very good comparison. Ouendan was really only known by a select group of people in the US (2000 people, perhaps), and most people didn't even hear about it until EBA came out. EBA is a game that you probably wouldn't buy on a whim. EarthBound, however, has been released in the US before, and the main character of the game has been in three of Nintendo's most popular games. People certainly know of EarthBound and Ness, so I can't imagine the sales being too low.

I bet he's just throwing some pessimism out in the wind Reid. Probably just to be pleasantly surprised. You should know all about this! :lol:

I completely agree that these guys are wrong but I think you guys are overestimating the amount of people that own Wiis and are willing to pay 8 bucks for EB. Do those 200,000 visitors and 11,000 downloaders all have Wiis? Thats something we dont know and is important, obviously.

Obviously the 200,000 visitors doesn't amount to much in terms of how much it will sell on VC. infact, sales figures will be completely distorted from how many people individually bought the game because plenty of starmen.net users will buy it multiple times for friends. I think this topic is just to prove how many fans EB has. Tho i think cassamassina was just talking about the vocal fans of earthbound when making that statement. Personally, i think Tomatos comment about the dirty patch for mother 3 is a better indication of sales then site visits.

I'm too lazy to check, but probably close to 20,000 now, if not over that.

2,000 fans? It sounds to me like not only is he misinformed, but also extremely condescending with his "estimate". Check your anthology that many of us here would kill to have, dude.

I want to think that the patch downloads are a good indication but it's kind of hard to go by something that people are getting for free. No disresepect to Tomato of course.

I really hope EB sells well on the VC because Bozon is right; if it doesn't sell, we'll probably never see it again in the States.

Mother 3 has always been wishful thinking, in concerns to the sales of Earthbound on the VC.

As I see it, as long as Earthbound sells more than the current least-bought VC game, it'll show Nintendo that it was worth putting on there. That's all we can really ask for; Nintendo's recognition that there is a market for games like EB.

This whole thing just really shows ignorance on Matt's part. I've never been one to say IGN was a bad review site, because I've actually depending on them a lot for news and stuff, and Matt normally, if not always, covers the Nintendo stuff and generally does a good job at pointing out strengths and weaknesses, but he obviously had no idea what he was talking about here.

Ignoring the information provided about unique visitors and things like that, there's still a lot of evidence that this site alone has a huge amount of followers and you know there has to be even more out there that don't visit this site.

I mean, this site alone is proof. It's recognized by several higher-ups in Nintendo, including Miyamoto and Reggie, the site has raised thousands of dollars for different things, we've actually tied up all of Nintendo's phone lines, sent them mountains of fanart... the list goes on and on.

Plus, I think the fact that Matt generalized the "demographic" by using this site as an example is just stupid. I mean, we're talking 200,000+ people HERE that are obsessive about the game. That's not the "demographic". There's going to be plenty of people who will buy it and enjoy it but not be into the fandom nearly as much as many of us here are. I'm sure there will also be people who purchase it and don't even like it.

I guess I kind of went on a rant there, but it's just amazing to me that someone could make such a stupid comment and be paid for their knowledge about Nintendo and it's fans.

EDIT: I just noticed one more thing that angered me. He talks about EBA and how people wanted that to come to the US and then no one bought it.

Well, EBA is quite a bit different. For one, it was a DS game, we're talking about a VC game. A game that requires no work to be done. Just put it on the servers and lets us have it.

Another thing is that Nintendo completely butchered EBA. Ouedan was a completely different game than EBA. It stands to reason that fans of Ouedan wouldn't like EBA.

It'd pretty much be like if they released EarthBound on the VC and it was Final Fantasy. I mean, it's the same genre, but that doesn't mean it's the same game.

Man, what Casamassina said was just like a punch to the stomach for me. i literally cringed when I read that. But like many people here said, he's just plain wrong. I mean, if my friends don't purchase the game on the VC then I'll buy it for them.

For every person who does not buy EarthBound on the VC, we're going to buy two.

Including myself I know four people who're going to buy the game of their own volition, and one person I'll be gifting it to.

So even if (even though he's wrong,) there were only '2,000 crazed fans' here posting, there's still a network of EB lovers that webs outside of the site.

Let alone all the people who played it back in the day but don't keep up with video game news anymore who'll flip on their Wii's and see EB on the VC and go HEY I 'MEMBER THAT! And all the die-hard classic gamers who have always wanted to play the game but never found an official venue.

...And all the people who'll be just plain curious because we talk about it so much. And, hell, if all those sales are enough for the top 10 most-sales, then we'll also have to include all the random people who end up really curious about why this weird RPG is in the top 10 and...

Anyway, don't know where this ridiculous idea that the size of a fan base is 100% measurable by communities like this. I remember when I used to hang out on some Smash boards, and I mentioned to some folks the possibility that there could be really big Smash fans that played the game daily but never gave a flying fish for visiting the forums or going to tourneys. Then they pelted me with feces.

Falcon24 wrote on Tue, 06 May 2008 14:35

Cutting edge gaming "journalism" at its finest

I think we need to be a little careful in our estimations based on certain numbers as well though. I don't really think things like unique visitors to the site and how many people signed up for the e-mail announcement can give an accurate prediction towards how many people will buy the game when it comes out. I think things such as downloads of the menu patch and imports of M3 provide more information than those others. Why? Well I think it's the "ease" factor. Some people might stumble over to SM.net after playing Brawl or after becoming curious about something EB related. They could stay for a few minutes and then never return again. How about someone who liked EB and heard about some translation project, they sign up for the e-mail, then pretty much forget about the whole thing until the day they get that e-mail. Can we really count on these people to spend money and purchase the game? Some yes, but probably not as much as many of you are predicting.

Now, people who go through the trouble that Tomato already stated, by using the menu patch, to play M3 or went through the hassle and the money to import a game in other language, well I think these people are much more likely to purchase the game. You must remember that not everyone is as big a fan of EarthBound as the people on this site.

Luckily the odds are slightly in our favor this time as it's quite easy, and fairly cheap, to purchase games on the VC. I think this will help the sales as it doesn't require all that much effort to obtain the game. So, while I do believe that EB will probably be successful on the VC, I think many people are overestimating what the figures might look like based on faulty evidence.

This is exactly why I never listen to their podcasts.. thing. The last one I've listened to, some hands on impression of Brawl, made me cringe, and I swore I'd never listen to another one again.

Now IGN's a great site and all, but I hate it when game critics start pulling estimations out of their asses.

I can't see how EBA is relevant in the least. I didn't see the Agents in all three installations of one of Nintendo's best-selling series as a main character. Look at any Super Smash Bros. forum, EVERYONE knows who Ness is and that he's from a quirky cult-hit game called EarthBound. I've seen tons of people say they've never played EB but want to try it to see what all the fuss is about when it comes out on the VC. Oh, and by the way,

For every copy of EarthBound you don't buy, I'm going to buy three.

Casamassina wrote on Whenever it was he said that...

"...I think you're gonna see how small the EarthBound demographic really is. It'll probably be like, you know, 2,000 people that are, that are like ridiculous message board posters, you know? They all post 200 messages a week on the game."

...

I HAVE FURY!!!

Pretty ridiculous really.

Could you imagine though... EarthBound selling 200,000 times on the Virtual Console? That's over $1,600,000! You can bet everything you own we would see Mother 3 localized faster than you can blink. Nintendo may not be kind to their fans, but they know money when they see it. I'm not breaking any news to anyone here, but if it does get released it's got to be our duty to really get the word out tenfold and get people buying it. I've already let all of my friends with Wiis know about it and you can rest assured that I won't rest until it's downloaded by all of them, lol.

[Edit]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but I just noticed the person who posted above me mentioned EarthBound in the news. The day or the day after the ESRB rating I saw G4 mention the EarthBound rating on a news ticker during Attack of the Show. That's sorta kinda news almost... a bit.

oh dangit matt

gosh dangit

Casamassina trying to inform Nintendo that it will not sell well.

Matt Casamassina needs to think before he speaks. He is really turning into quite a egotistical jerk. he is not Nintendo friendly, I hope he gets fired.

Hey I doubt Nintendo care about what sells on the VC, I mean look at the list, there is some titles which just CAN'T sells more than five downloads. They sold their soul for hardware sales that's all.

I never liked Casmassina. Oh well. We already know he's wrong

Who takes IGN seriously anyway.

To clarify, I'm not trying to seriously suggest that 200,000 fans are going to download the game, or even that all 200k visitors are fans. I just wanted to provide some juxtaposition to that ridiculously low estimate.

And no need for personal attacks! We don't need to slander him any more than we need him to slander us, heh.

2000...Scuse me sir but you are SO VERY WRONG.Check your digits.Have you even done the research?Look at the site visits even...And besides Nintendo America in the past advertised Earthbound the wrong way."This games stinks..."What kinda message this gives?Also with everyone being interested in Ness for being in all the SSB games,I think it will spark something

[/endwhatIwouldsaytotheguys]

Now for here...

Yeah once I get that e-mail from nintendo that it's released,I'm gonna be spamming the chats I go to:"GO BUY EARTHBOUND ON VIRTUAL CONSOLE IF YOU HAVE A WII.DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS EPIC RPG"

Same goes for Mother...even if it's just Japanese like that American delayed release,I'll still download it.