Tag Downloadable Content

Nintendo Switch eShop – UK Sales Charts (29/04/2018)

Sean Alexander 1 Comment

Is Football Manager still at the top? Did South Park make an impact as a new release? What indie games shot up in sales or otherwise? Let’s see…

Numbers in brackets 


 1: Football Manager Touch 2018 – £29.99
2: Stardew Valley (Up from 3rd) – £10.99
3: Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Up from 4th) – £19.99
4: Oxenfree (Down from 2nd) – £15.99
5: Rocket League (Up from 6th) – £15.04
6: Robonauts (80% OFF) (Up from 10th) – £2.69 (u+Usually £13.49)
7: Arcade Archives: Vs. Super Mario Bros. (Up from 8th) – £6.29
8: Sonic Mania (Up from 12th) – £15.99
9: Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (Down from 5th) – £22.49
10: Streets of Red (Down from 9th) – £6.29
11: Don’t Starve: Nintendo Switch Edition (Down from 7th) – £17.99
12: Celeste (Up from 13th) – £17.99
13: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Up from 14th) – £49.99
14: South Park: The Fractured But Whole (NEW) – £49.99
15: Adventure Pals (Down from 11th) – £10.79

 

 

So what can we gleam from this look into the UK eShop? Well…

Football Manager Touch 2018 has firmly cemented itself as a top seller, making up what will likely be the top 4 for a good while now alongside Rocket League, Stardew Valley and Minecraft. At least until FIFA (Maybe) comes out on the Switch this September.

Arcade Archives remains around the middle of the charts, further showing nostalgia sells, as does Sonic Mania right behind perhaps in preparation for the DLC this July.

Streets of Red maintains it’s place despite no longer being on sale, while Robonauts hugely benefits. Of course Shovel Knight and Don’t Starve continue to drop down, while Celeste and Adventure Pals maintain the lower ends of the charts, with Celeste being a recent return.

Most notable then, is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe maintains it’s position as the sole charting digital first party title, and the only new entry this week is a respectable 14th place for South Park, a full price release of a game from October on other platforms. Maybe this one will pick up steam?

 

And that’s it for this week, so what did we learn? Football Manager is a hit, Mario Kart sells, indies are living the dream and South Park at least charted. Expect Donkey Kong to top next week though as a notable new release.

Nintendo Switch eShop – UK Sales Charts (22/04/2018)

Sean Alexander

This week in the UK eShop sales charts we get to see just what is going on with Football Manager, if it can hold its top spot after rocketing up the charts, and what other indie and third-party releases are sticking around yet again!

 

Numbers in brackets are previous positions based on: 15/04/2018 (Unless they haven’t moved)


 1: Football Manager Touch 2018 (NEW) (Up from 3rd) – £29.99
2: Oxenfree (Up from 8th) – £15.99 
3: Stardew Valley (Up from 4th) – £10.99
4: Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Down from 2nd) – £19.99
5: Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (Up from 7th) – £22.49
6: Rocket League (Down from 1st) – £15.04
7: Don’t Starve: Nintendo Switch Edition (NEW) (Up from 13th) – £17.99
8: Arcade Archives: Vs. Super Mario Bros. (Down from 5th) – £6.29
9: Streets of Red (NEW) (20% OFF) – £5.03 (Usually £6.29)
10: Robonauts (80% OFF) (Up from not charting) – £2.69 (Usually £13.49)
11: Adventure Pals (NEW) – £10.79
12: Sonic Mania (Up from 14th) – £15.99
13: Celeste (Up from not charting) – £17.99
14: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Down from 11th) – £49.99
15: Kirby Star Allies (Down from 12th) – £49.99

 

So take aways for this week? A few things really. First, sales of Oxenfree and Shovel Knight have propelled up the charts to actually dismantle the usual three suspects of Rocket League, Minecraft and Stardew Valley.

Football Manager is very likely to remain a chart topper along with the usual three for some time now, especially at £30. Arcade Archives VS Super Mario Bros also continued to linger in the middle of the charts.

Don’t Starve seems to be selling really well, still climbing up to a respectable 7th. Streets of Red and Adventure Pals are the other new indie entries this week, one with a launch discount, locking themselves notable sales over other entries.

Celeste has also returned, as has Robonauts with a huge discount. UK gamers love cheap and cheerful after all.

More of note is the continued presence of Mario Kart as the evergreen digital first party release, as Kirby is about to fall from the charts entirely. Not surprising, but Mario Kart will also likely drop in the coming weeks with the release of Donkey Kong.

 

So that’s it for this week on the Switch eShop in the UK! Join us next Sunday when we see if Football Manager can remain on top. It probably can, it’s football. I said this last week too.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle Has A DLC Issue…

Sean Alexander

DLC isn’t a bad thing. Announcing how much DLC is in your game six months before launch…is.

 

So work this out. DLC can extend the life of a game and in the Fighting game sphere, it’s usually welcome.

So here comes BlazBlue, a series doing a cross over game with Persona and RWBY (For some reason I can’t understand) and it releases in six months, with a roster of 20 fighters.

Now if this was a newer fighting game without the huge stable of known fighting game characters under the wing of the developer, Arc System Works, that would be fine, but 20 feels a little light considering the pedigree of the studio.

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Now with the release date revealed to be June, Arc System Works has made an error in revealing the DLC plans at this stage, 6 months prior to launch.

Now in the industry that isn’t a good sign. I’ve talked about this before, but the idea of announcing DLC so far in advance indicates that it was planned to nickel and dime the player early in development, and given the heavy re-use of assets, it does feel like a cash grab.

By all accounts it seems the game was designed around the DLC. What is perhaps even more egregious is that it has been revealed that 20 characters will be in the DLC.

Half of the roster for the game is DLC people. We find this out months in advance, and it was clearly planned from the start.

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This is perhaps one of the most irritating examples of aggressive monetisation in a game. Half of the final roster is planned DLC far in advance and made known to the player.

The asset re-use is one thing. The limited roster for such a wide-reaching crossover is another. I have to wonder what appeal this game truly has outside of appealing to these fans.

Then again, it’s not micro transactions, it’s not lootboxes, but it feels somehow worse. DLC abuse is seriously an issue, and the only thing that would put this issue down in history is some Marvel Vs Capcom 3 levels of scum, with the fighters being on the disc/cartridge/download, and you pay to unlock them.

Sometimes I wonder if the industry will do DLC right. It can truly extend the life of a game, and done right can provide great value and expansions to a game. This is just cutting part out and selling it back to the player.

 

Imagine if Super Smash Bros launched with half of it’s 58 character roster behind DLC. You’d be fuming.

 

 

Thanks for reading this admittedly short article. There isnt much you can add to this kind of thing I’m afraid. It’s indefensible. As always give a share and like on social media, and I will see you next time! Happy Gaming!

Sonic Forces Has Some Dire DLC…

Sean Alexander

I never thought I would write the following words: Super Sonic is DLC.

 

Okay, so before we go in to this, we need context on both Super Sonic, and Sanic.

Sanic is a meme. Honestly I would love to just leave it there and have it expunged from the game entirely, but the series has decided to embrace the crudely drawn MS Paint rendition of Sonic, dubbed “Sanic”, in ways that move beyond just the TV Show as a reference (Alongside the fan-fiction of all things) and a nod in LEGO Dimensions.

whys

Sanic is available, for free, in all copies of the game, as a t-shirt design for your custom character. Okay, at least it’s free. I mean I would honestly prefer it if the series was a little more….delicate? about being self-aware, rather than just opening the door and saying “Yes, all this mockery online is entirely just”. We all know how the mockery of a fan base can actually impact people mentally, it’s not a very smart thing to do, just let folks enjoy what they enjoy, you know?

I think there is a fine balance between being self-aware and poking fun, and straight up embracing what was a joke meant to demean the franchise and it’s titles (Because many have been lacklustre prior to 2010, and a couple since) feels like…almost giving up. Like the series has no integrity anymore. On one hand yes, nice joke, and in some loose ways it does fit the avatar creation side of things.

On the other hand, you put a reference to a meme used to demean the franchise…in Sonic Forces. 

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This is a game that is hardly “Good”, instead treading the fine line of mediocre to plain boring, it has obvious development problems, clear instances of things being scrapped and restarted, insanely short levels and not very fulfilling gameplay, and what do they do? Put some DLC in the game used to mock the franchise. Did they actually not see how amazingly self-fulfilling that is?

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But anyway, on to Super Sonic. This little feature has been a part of the games since 1992 in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, usually as a reward for certain tasks, like clearing the Special Stages, or for the unlockable final boss throughout the mid-2000s.

Super Sonic did return to fully playable status in 2010 with Sonic 4 and Sonic Colours (The first time ever in 3D), and this has remained the case for Generations, Lost World, and Mania. Super Sonic has been there as a reward for completing the game, or certain milestones.

So Sonic Forces came along and in the PC version they found inaccessible (Though later accessed and fully playable not long after the game came out) code for Super Sonic. It’s in the game, fully playable. I assumed it was just dummied out. I wish it was.

So again, for 25 years Super Sonic has been a part of the franchise as your reward. An in-game thing meant to reward you (Or beat up a final boss in some cases). In Sonic Forces however, it’s in the game, but you can’t access it. Unless you pay up for some DLC of course.

sonic2

Yes, for the first time ever, this feature of the series for over two decades, is now on-disc DLC. I am absolutely dumbfounded and also surprised. It’s free for around a month, but as of late January, cough up some dough for Super Sonic.

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This is honestly a problem that goes further than the Sanic DLC, as this is removal of a series staple and put behind on-disc paywalls. It’s very egregious, and frankly one thing it does have in common with the Sanic DLC is the feeling that it’s just rubbing salt in the wound.

We had it so good, heck Sonic Mania was months ago, and this game comes along, from the team that brought us Colours and Generations, two highly loved games, and it falls flat in so many ways. To rub it in how unfinished the game feels, we get to wear a mockery of the series made official, and pay up for things that used to be standard.

 

At the same time though, as we have talked about here before many times, this feels like it is becoming the norm. Things you used to be able to just do are now locked behind cash, and the games mock you in the same way trolls on the internet do.

I don’t know what is worse really: Seeing Super Sonic become on-disc DLC, or having to see a meme people have almost weaponised in a game so utterly mediocre it surpasses parody and enters the realm of “Oh we know”.

 

I guess we can rest easy knowing Mania 2 will be a thing?