3DO downfall - Might and Magic sold copies? Any connection?

[cori14]

Hey guys!

I recently played MM7 the first time, and MM6 a few years ago and I was a lifelong Heroes fan (besides H6 and 7... yuck), I started to wonder how many units did these games sold respectively (or as a whole). If anybody has info about this I would like to hear it, I heard about the Heroes franchise having sold 750.000 copies at the time of H3, but nothing else that's concrete however I tried searching.

I was wondering if Might & Magic and Heroes sales was connected to 3DO going bankrupt, I know 3DO made stupid decisions (with the console, making bad games etc) but NWC was making almost the same game for years (MM6-7-8), and Heroes 3 with the Chronicles. Did heroes games sold better than MM? I don't know I was just curious what are you guys thinking about this whole thing! Do you think any of this has correlation with 3DO's downfall or am I just talking out of my ass?

Thanks for your answers, if you have any

[Bandobras Took]

So far as I'm aware, 3do leaned heavily on NWC to produce crap in order to shore up their own faltering lines. That continued pressure drove JVC away and obviously didn't work, since the reduced quality, creativity, and innovation meant the things that NWC had become known for ceased to be there. The most heart-wrenching was MM9, which would have been not only fabulous but a few years ahead of its time had it been allowed to be finished.

[Tress]

I was wondering if Might & Magic and Heroes sales was connected to 3DO going bankrupt, I know 3DO made stupid decisions (with the console, making bad games etc) but NWC was making almost the same game for years (MM6-7-8), and Heroes 3 with the Chronicles. Did heroes games sold better than MM? I don't know I was just curious what are you guys thinking about this whole thing! Do you think any of this has correlation with 3DO's downfall or am I just talking out of my ass?

I am pretty sure it would be other way around. I think PC market, was relatively niche at the time, so even if MM9 would somehow be masterpiece, it would not be able to carry 3DO which had issues on alot more sides than pc market. For example their own throw at Ps1/2 failed miserably with their own console, which admittedly was ahead of its time on several ideas.
Also it went downward spiral since mm8 as you can easily see that games are rushed and quality drops. By mm9 game like that can in no way give even least competition to morrowind or W8, so there is no wonder it sold poorly.

According to this heroes series sold 1.5 milj altogether (i wonder if that includes RPG's or just heroes) which is alot even by nowadays standards , but anyway I believe strategy sold way better than RPG part of series, which in the end i doubt affected global picture of 3do in any way.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010425145 ... m_id=66067

[GrayFace]

I think PC market, was relatively niche at the time, so even if MM9 would somehow be masterpiece, it would not be able to carry 3DO which had issues on alot more sides than pc market.

It's always odd to me how small PC market is in US. It's the default platform here in Russia.

By mm9 game like that can in no way give even least competition to morrowind or W8, so there is no wonder it sold poorly.

Well, W8 isn't hard to compete against if only MM9 was properly finished. Morrowind is out of reach though.

[cori14]

I am pretty sure it would be other way around. I think PC market, was relatively niche at the time, so even if MM9 would somehow be masterpiece, it would not be able to carry 3DO which had issues on alot more sides than pc market. For example their own throw at Ps1/2 failed miserably with their own console, which admittedly was ahead of its time on several ideas.
Also it went downward spiral since mm8 as you can easily see that games are rushed and quality drops. By mm9 game like that can in no way give even least competition to morrowind or W8, so there is no wonder it sold poorly.

According to this heroes series sold 1.5 milj altogether (i wonder if that includes RPG's or just heroes) which is alot even by nowadays standards , but anyway I believe strategy sold way better than RPG part of series, which in the end i doubt affected global picture of 3do in any way.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010425145 ... m_id=66067

Sad to hear, I would really like to see how NWC would fare these days in the market. Blobber RPG's are dead, nobody makes them like NWC used to (realtime, open world etc), or the Heroes series.

It's always odd to me how small PC market is in US. It's the default platform here in Russia.

It is and was in the EU much more than in US. But I think the worldwide PC market was bigger than the console back in the day, consoles started to gain a lot of traction in the 2000s but again since the PS4/Xbox One PC gaming is big again, with a lot of online games like LoL, Dota, WoW, Fortnite etc.

[Tress]

Sad to hear, I would really like to see how NWC would fare these days in the market. Blobber RPG's are dead, nobody makes them like NWC used to (realtime, open world etc), or the Heroes series.

Pretty much after wizardry 8 there isnt any to name of . MMX was ok but its not really a full game, it was rather call back like grimrock. Fortuantelly there is plenty of good RPG in past years and there should be some really good ones coming out soon, which was serious problem in 2002- 2010. Basically i can only name Vampire masquerade as only decent RPG (and even that was buggy as hell) in decade. Even Bethesda RPG's were sort of sub par (sorry if anyone like oblivion or F3 but those games are nowhere as good)

It is and was in the EU much more than in US. But I think the worldwide PC market was bigger than the console back in the day, consoles started to gain a lot of traction in the 2000s but again since the PS4/Xbox One PC gaming is big again, with a lot of online games like LoL, Dota, WoW, Fortnite etc.

Actually interesting topic to look into, but again i believe gaming was more pro -console back then even before first xbox (which was curse on PC gaming I.E deusex 2 / thief 3 level size), but as you can also see, morrowinds success can be partially attributed that it was shaped to be console friendly so that played good part into it.

[jorgamesh]

According to this press release Might and magic series (including spin offs) sold well over 4 million units before M&M 8 release
https://web.archive.org/web/20000412083 ... 3do_1.html

[cori14]

According to this press release Might and magic series (including spin offs) sold well over 4 million units before M&M 8 release
https://web.archive.org/web/20000412083 ... 3do_1.html

Thank you for this! Back in the day 4 million was not something to scoff at.

Pretty much after wizardry 8 there isnt any to name of . MMX was ok but its not really a full game, it was rather call back like grimrock. Fortuantelly there is plenty of good RPG in past years and there should be some really good ones coming out soon, which was serious problem in 2002- 2010. Basically i can only name Vampire masquerade as only decent RPG (and even that was buggy as hell) in decade. Even Bethesda RPG's were sort of sub par (sorry if anyone like oblivion or F3 but those games are nowhere as good)

Yeah tried Grimrock and MMX too, liked both but these are tile based and I think the free form style of MM6-7-8 is much better. There's Underworld Ascendant but it's only a dungeon crawler and it's pretty bad reading the reviews so really nothing out there

[Tress]

Thank you for this! Back in the day 4 million was not something to scoff at.

This is including old mm's as well as HOMM which objectively is one of most landmark games on PC specially during that time. I guess good portion is homm1/2 which was before NWC was affiliated with 3do. Also including some console titles (warriors/crusaders) which objectively wernt too good.
I guess issues started at time mm8 / chronicles started to come out . Both branches of mm scream of low budget, with Homm4/mm9 being most notable. Fortunately homm4 were kinda salvaged specially with fan input and had its fan base but there is little redeeming quality for mm9. Still i cant find any data on exact games sold, as they only mention overall franchise, but logically and judging by enormous fan base of homm3 i would suspect that majority was strategy game, though objecitvely developing them is also much higher commitment, specially taking into account low amount of changes between games. THis is more evident that fan based projects like CC and other can with very limited resources reskin and re theme game even considering that there is nowhere as availiable tools as TES series have.
That being said I still dont believe that no kind of screw-up NWC might have , even if they would produce 0 value, would give serious dent on big publisher 3do was. I think issues were mainly due to general wrong policy of game development across the board as well as their own issues with 3do console. NWC just got caught in bad company.

[jorgamesh]

According to this press release Heroes series sold 1.5 million units by the end of 1999 so it is safe to say majority of 4 million units is still from main Might&Magic series.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010425145 ... m_id=66067

As first five games in the series sold a million according to CGW magazine issue march 1994.

upload

combined sales of Mandate Heaven and For Blood and Honor should be over a million units.

[Tress]

combined sales of Mandate Heaven and For Blood and Honor should be over a million units.

Sounds about plausible. Considering we are operating with highly extrapolated numbers, there can be serious margins of error in this calculation , but I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't be that far off. Still need to consider other console and not spinoffs which also fall under mm brand. So we can sort of guess that there is ~1 milj non-homm non-retro mm sold. Even extremely poorly received game (for example blood 2 which i still kinda liked back then) sells at least 100k . lets skip 300-350 k towards spinoffs specially considering they were on consoles , which i guess were good sellers back then.
We are left with some ~400 k copies on each of MM6-7 . Which as i understand is not bad number ,but nowhere spectacular, and certainly not close to 4 milj to bestsellers Elder scrolls was, just a couple years later, or BG 1 which sold 1 Milj by 1999, and this is considering that mm6-7 was pinnacle of MM games, and MM8 already showed cracks and thus was more coldly received.