About one and a half month ago, gaming websites worldwide were shook with news of supposed poor early sales for both Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3. As you may recall, I had my doubts about the accuracy of the many exaggerated reports on this information. Later sales figures for the month of December already indicated a significant boost in sales figures for both games, but now it seems my suspicions have been officially and undeniably confirmed. Indeed it looks like the December hype of PC gaming death and poor sales figures was more than just a bit premature.

Perhaps the most interesting part is that the majority of major gaming sites have actually not picked up on this news, which refutes the stories they released in December. Are they ashamed, or are they actually out there playing their freshly bought copies of Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3? It looks like it might just be a bit of both, as Electronic Arts‘ recently announced that Crysis, a PC exclusive title, hit over one million sales worldwide. A very impressive feat in the most shooter-packed Christmas season ever, particularly for a highly demanding and PC-exclusive title like Crysis.

What’s also interesting is the implications of these statistics for the global picture of PC gaming and the validity of NPD Group statistics. If Crysis sold less than 80000 copies in it’s first three weeks according to the NPD Group, then this total sales number leaves us with a couple of interesting possibilities:

1. The NPD Group is an organization that no longer has the capability to properly indicate PC game sales in any way, shape or form. This is actually very likely to be accurate, as the NPD Group itself indicates they do not track online sales, digital download or specialist shop sales into their statistics. Let’s face it: how many PC gamers do you know who still buy their games offline? I can’t even think of one!
2. The United States is no longer the primary source of income - and sales - for PC game developers, even in mainstream genres like shooters. In light of the November statistics this also seems likely, as several European countries featured Crysis firmly in their top 10 game sales listings. And as Americans themselves should know quite well: PC games aren’t exactly easy to come by in the great US of A. Often being relegated to an obscure little corner in some megastore.
3. Digital downloads may well be underestimated as a medium for game sales. Crysis was offered by means of Electronic Arts‘ own digital download mechanics, and while we may not have actual statistics on how many games were sold by this method, one thing is certain: the NPD Group certainly didn’t track these copies!

Of course the most noticeable effect this announcement might have is that gaming sites might be a bit more conservative in their news reports next time. Ok, so that seems unlikely, but at least now everyone knows that NPD Group statistics are far from everything and certainly no indication of how well a PC game sells. Now if only there were some way to find out how many copies other great PC games like The Witcher or World in Conflict have sold…

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In all my time of gaming the only gaming platform other than a PC I ever owned was a GameBoy Pocket, nearly a decade ago. That finally changed last friday as I received a package, containing my new Nintendo DS Lite. That’s right, I’ve just gained todays most popular handheld gaming device - and so far it actually seems to be pretty cool. I’ve played some Brain Training and Tetris DS against my sister with download play, but lost rather convincingly at both (hey, she’s had it for over a year!). Other than that I’ve spent just about all of my, rather limited, NDS time on Bleach: The Blade of Fates which is a cool beat ‘em up game based on the popular anime that you’ve probably heard of/seen already anyway.

After seeing screenshots and videos on various gaming sites I was a bit worried for the visual quality, but after giving a couple of NDS games a go I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised. While the little handheld device certainly has it’s limitations, most of the developers seem to go for a very good stylish approach paired with smooth animations and drawn or even anime-like cutscenes, for a visual experience that’s actually not bad, not bad at all. What really caught me by surprise however was the sound. It’s surprisingly loud and there’s loads of it! It’s nothing like my old GameBoy Pocket with midi-sounds, but rather the games seem to feature full-on soundtracks and tons of voicework, especially so for Bleach.

As you might expect this means that The Game Drone will start featuring some Nintendo DS Lite action as well. PC gaming will remain my focus, as it’s still what I do and enjoy most, but you might see the occasional entry on something Nintendo sneak in between the rest. Oh yes, that picture of a DS you can see in this entry is indeed what my DS looks like. I’ve got the silver edition, which might not be as cool as cobalt-blue or Suzie’s crimson look, but has a sort of elegant style of it’s own. Although I really only got it because it was the only one available at the time…

Now where did I leave that DS?

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As you may know, Unreal Tournament 3 received a fair bit of negative publicity for it’s supposed poor sales and low activity during the month of December. Interestingly the activity of the UT3 community, particularly in the UT3 CTF Hosted Cup, seems to dispute this. The cup admins have received well over a dozen emails from teams who were too late to sign up and quite a few matches have already been played. Meanwhile a second coverage team has joined up and started covering division 1 matches with both shoutcasting and videostreams. They even made an awesome intro for their services!

While the cup has been progressing steadily, with an interesting upset when TRS beat fan favorite Sanctuary by 2-1 (1-0 Coret, 1-1 Reflection), modders have released the UT3 version of TAM, which has swiftly become popular in pickups. Subsequently Epic announced plans for a new beta patch to be released pretty much any day now, with a lengthy list of fixes. Hopefully they’ll also manage to squeeze in that all-important “console copy/paste” fix that everyone has been asking for before the final release is done. Now of course that’s all fine and dandy, but what about it’s poor sales and activity? Isn’t Unreal Tournament 3 doing extremely poorly?

Well… looking at todays overview of NPD sales statistics for the month of December: that does not appear to be the case. In November both Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 struggled to make the top 20, now Crysis is firmly in 7th place and UT3 ranks in at a decent 15th. Both seem to indicate much better sales in December than the month before and in light of Mark Rein’s recent comment that UT3 is selling quite decently for an Unreal Tournament game - seems to indicate that my initial assumption was correct: the press made a big deal out of something quite ordinary. Hopefully Unreal Tournament 3 will continue to pick up higher sale figures, because while it may not be the most well-polished game, it’s definitely the best multiplayer shooter right now and the polish will come eventually!

Now then, it’s time to get back to playing. We have a cup match tomorrow!

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You may have noticed that the sidebar has grown yet again, with a list of links to the VG Media Network blogs! This VG Media Network is a gathering of video-gaming bloggers who will be working together to improve the quality and popularity of their blogs - and as you may have guessed: The Game Drone just joined up! All of these blogs are related to video games some way or another and each seems to have it’s own take on the business, so you’d do well to give them all a look.

Of course I’m not going to leave it at that, so let’s take a quick look at each participant, shall we?

• Consolation Prize is a blog that covers modern day console platforms and the games that are released for them. This is all done by QuizzicalDemon, who guides you through the world of Nintendo DS’s, Xbox 360’s and PlayStation’s with his twenty-plus years of console gaming experience.
• Daniel Primed is Daniel’s blog on gaming in general. His blog offers well written entries on just about anything retro. As such you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything PC in there, but there’s plenty for console - and retro in general - fans!
• Draining Souls does not actually drain your soul - at least, I hope not. Rather, it’s a blog about draining souls… with a Warlock, in the game World of Warcraft, which I’m sure you’ve heard of by now (if not: welcome to the year 2008, I hope your extended stay in the 20th century was comfortable). Even if you’re not much of a WoW fan - like me - blogger Adrenis still provides a wealth of good reading.
• Girls Don’t Game offers the perspective of five gaming girls on the world of video games, both PC and console. You’re going to find a multitude of varying entries there, which are bound to be of interest. As you may know, I’ve already had a link up to these girls for a while - after all: it’s a blog well-worth checking out!
• Hunter’s Mark is another World of Warcraft blog which offers an amazing amount of content for Hunter players, ranging from guides to comics and whatnot else. Blogger and Night Elf Hunter Lassirra provides a steady stream of new quality content, that even non-Hunter players will appreciate.
• Press the Buttons is an all-purpose gaming blog by Mario-fan MattG, which covers just about anything gaming in pretty much every possible way.
• Tank Hard! rounds out the list of World of Warcraft blogs in the VG Media Networks, offering plenty of content for any tank currently residing in Azeroth. Want to improve your game, or just read stories about the experiences of like minded individuals? This blog has it.
• The Server is Down takes a good look at anything online gaming, which means you’ll find plenty of Massively Multiplayer Online gaming content here! If you’re looking for opinions, information or visuals on any recent MMO, chances are this blog has it.
• Write the Game covers gaming from an unusual perspective: trying to help you understand games. The process of development, the history and future of gaming are all topics you’re going to come across here. This interesting blog is hosted by K. Peney, with assistance from the occasional guest writer.

That’s the extent of the VG Media Network for now. So go on, give them a look - and see which one takes your fancy! I’m certain there will be something there for any kind of gamer!

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That’s right: I finally received copies of The Settlers 6: Rise of an Empire and Supreme Commander, along with Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance for good measure! Last weekend I already got a chance to try out Supreme Commander for a bit and it’s definitely still as good as I remember from the demo, except now I can play it all maxed out with proper framerates! It’s awesome to see hundreds of units go at it on a giant battlefield - and the singleplayer campaign isn’t half bad either.

As for Settlers 6… I’ve installed it, but haven’t played it yet. I might get a multiplayer game in this weekend with Killer397 if we’re bored (he has it as well now). Hopefully it won’t be too disappointing and the combat will turn out to be at least semi-decent in this full version, because the demo kinda disappointed there. Ah well, even if it’s no fun in combat - I can always build some cool cities and watch my settlers go about whatever they do when settling new lands. That’s the main appeal of a Settlers game anyway.

However, for now it looks like I’ll mostly be sticking to Unreal Tournament 3, because the CTF Hosted Cup has started this week. While my clan DooZer doesn’t have any matches this week, we do have a match for ladder supremacy lined up for tomorrow and it can’t hurt to practice a bit, seeing as we’re in the 1st division up against some of the best clans in the scene. So for now I guess Supreme Commander and The Settlers 6 will have to be put on the backburner, alongside all those other games from 2007 (and before). Oh boy, I have a lot of catching up to do…

PS: Yay, I’m actively blogging again! And yes, you’ll be seeing a “best of 2007″-ish post soon enough, but it probably won’t be anything like you’ve seen on other blogs/sites

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