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Jeff Ross - Days Gone has sold over 9 million units on PS4 and PC

back-pedal-bike.gif
 

skit_data

Member
Expected dev cycle: 4 years.
Reality: 6 years.

No wonder Sony weren’t very happy with it, that’s like 50% more dev time. Sounds like they stretched themselves way too thin with no clear sense of how big and long they wanted the game to be and ended up making too much content for its own good. Which in turn probably contributed to the game releasing in a sub optimal state in terms of glitches and bugs.
 
What's sad is Sony won't even brag about Days Gone sales. Why do we need to hear this from Jeff Ross instead?

They are a little too stuck up their own ass in terms of metacritic and woke metrics. Brag about your games that sell well even if the stupid critics didnt love it! The fans certainly did. That's who you should really care about.
 

JaksGhost

Member
What's sad is Sony won't even brag about Days Gone sales. Why do we need to hear this from Jeff Ross instead?

They are a little too stuck up their own ass in terms of metacritic and woke metrics. Brag about your games that sell well even if the stupid critics didnt love it! The fans certainly did. That's who you should really care about.
Jeff Ross doesn’t know the exact number either. He based that number off of two separate gaming sites.
 
Since i know these post are gonna be ignored..


Jeff Ross basically said his sales figures come from gamstat. That's a website that uses data from trophies...meaning the 8M counts psnow and PSPlus users that played the game and had nothing to do with sales. PC numbers are from steamspy. He had no access to insider data on this :messenger_tears_of_joy:
He also said it was Bend management that never pushed for a sequel with Sony. It wasn't Sony's fault because it wasn't proposed to them.

So many meltdowns on twitter and "fuck Sony" posts over nothing lmao
Jeff Ross and John Garvin are on Jaffe's stream. Jeff clarified his tweet a little. The way he seems to explain it, is that local management in Bend didn't want Days Gone 2. Apparently Bend management didn't even push the pitch to the higher levels of WWS to people like Hulst. Garvin and Ross also confirmed that Naughty Dog North support studio stuff from the Schreier article was over-exaggerated and wasn't that close to the truth. Apparently Bend sent team members to Sucker Punch to help on Ghost, and to Naughty Dog to help on projects. They said that this was standard practice in the industry. When a team is done with a project and doesn't have a lot of work on their hands, they get sent to other parts of the company to help. Ross and Garvin seem positive on Sony overall, especially when it came to creative freedom. Ross's main issue seems to be with management at Bend not pushing Days Gone. Just thought it's been pretty good context to the topic.

Edit* Garvin made the point that Sony doesn't really do the support studio structure, at least while he was there, they are more likely to just shutter the studio, then change their identity into a support team.
 
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What's sad is Sony won't even brag about Days Gone sales. Why do we need to hear this from Jeff Ross instead?

They are a little too stuck up their own ass in terms of metacritic and woke metrics. Brag about your games that sell well even if the stupid critics didnt love it! The fans certainly did. That's who you should really care about.

I think it's better to chase critical reception over sales personally. What sucks is the critical reception is becoming more and more agenda driven
 
What's sad is Sony won't even brag about Days Gone sales. Why do we need to hear this from Jeff Ross instead?

They are a little too stuck up their own ass in terms of metacritic and woke metrics. Brag about your games that sell well even if the stupid critics didnt love it! The fans certainly did. That's who you should really care about.
He used Gamestat for saying that Days Gone sold 8 millions but the game was given on the PS Plus so obviously it sold way less than that. He didn't have any access to the sales number of Days Gone.
Can we just stop and admit that Jason got this one right. Pretty much everything from this article has turned out to be true. TLOU remake, Bend working on a new IP, Bend unsuccessfully trying to pitch DG2.





This forum's hate boner for Jason is so silly. The guy gets stuff right more often than not. And he's literally the only one holding devs and publishers responsible. I dont care if hes a soyboy in real life. He's the only journalist doing his job in this industry.
Ross and Gavin said on the stream that was over-exaggerated and wasn't that close to the truth.
 

yurinka

Member
Expected dev cycle: 4 years.
Reality: 6 years.

No wonder Sony weren’t very happy with it, that’s like 50% more dev time. Sounds like they stretched themselves way too thin with no clear sense of how big and long they wanted the game to be and ended up making too much content for its own good. Which in turn probably contributed to the game releasing in a sub optimal state in terms of glitches and bugs.
They never said wasn't happy with it. The opposite, both said Sony was always very supportive with them and their ideas, even with the reviews. The ones who blocked the Days Gone 2 sequel were Bend Studio management. So people from their own studio, not Sony. Sony never got the Days Gone 2 pitch.

4-6 years is standard for a AAA open world game, specially a new IP, specially for a team that debuts on a new generation, and these guys didn't even mad a AAA for home console since I think the PS2, they did portable games before. Many games even take 7 or 8 years.

He used Gamestat for saying that Days Gone sold 8 millions but the game was given on the PS Plus so obviously it sold way less than that. He didn't have any access to the sales number of Days Gone.
He clarified that the 8M mark was from before the game was included in PS Plus or PS Collection.
 
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Hugare

Member
What a shitshow

1st: the guy piggybacking a GOT tweet about its sales performance to complain about his 2015 game (not even congratulating Sucker Punch or anything)

2nd: pulling sales numbers from his ass to build his narrative

3rd: making people believe that it was on Sony upper management that the sequel wasnt greenlit, then going on a stream to clarify that it wasnt the case.

You dont see Ready at Dawn being this bitter about their game being forgotten

Let it go, ffs
 
They never said wasn't happy with it. The opposite, both said Sony was always very supportive with them and their ideas, even with the reviews. The ones who blocked the Days Gone 2 sequel were Bend Studio management. So people from their own studio, not Sony. Sony never got the Days Gone 2 pitch.

4-6 years is standard for a AAA open world game, specially a new IP, specially for a team that debuts on a new generation, and these guys didn't even mad a AAA for home console since I think the PS2, they did portable games before. Many games even take 7 or 8 years.


He clarified that the 8M mark was from before the game was included in PS Plus or PS Collection.
Thank you for the information i messed that. Gamestat it's still not the best thing to talk about the sales of a game.
 

skit_data

Member
They never said wasn't happy with it. The opposite, both said Sony was always very supportive with them and their ideas, even with the reviews. The ones who blocked the Days Gone 2 sequel were Bend Studio management. So people from their own studio, not Sony. Sony never got the Days Gone 2 pitch.

4-6 years is standard for a AAA open world game, specially a new IP, specially for a team that debuts on a new generation, and these guys didn't even mad a AAA for home console since I think the PS2, they did portable games before. Many games even take 7 or 8 years.
True, they never said that Sony were unhappy about it. But it sounds like work place culture weren’t top notch when they mentioned 6 months wouldn’t made much of a difference and that would probably only made them stretch out the same amount of work over a longer time period. Internal management didn’t seem entirely happy and they all seemed really tired of working on the game.

I personally think they simply bited off quite a bit more than they could chew. Probably some lack of communcation, proper resource management and a lost sense of scope.
 
Expected dev cycle: 4 years.
Reality: 6 years.

No wonder Sony weren’t very happy with it, that’s like 50% more dev time. Sounds like they stretched themselves way too thin with no clear sense of how big and long they wanted the game to be and ended up making too much content for its own good. Which in turn probably contributed to the game releasing in a sub optimal state in terms of glitches and bugs.

Come on. They were a VITA studio before. What they did with Days Gone being the first AAA game they ever really worked on is super impressive imho.
 
Come on. They were a VITA studio before. What they did with Days Gone being the first AAA game they ever really worked on is super impressive imho.
Which is why they are making a new game.

I don’t think Sony is treating Bend like anything but a capable talented studio. Or else they’d be shut down
 
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skit_data

Member
Come on. They were a VITA studio before. What they did with Days Gone being the first AAA game they ever really worked on is super impressive imho.
It is impressive within that context but it doesn’t really live up to the standard of other AAA Playstation titles IMO. I would have 2 smaller, more focused games from them rather than Days Gone, but that’s just my opinion.

Edit: By smaller I mean Uncharted Lost Legacy small, still AAA but smaller.
 
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fersnake

Member
I'm 100% sure ppl talked shit to Sony for making another 3rd person adventure survival game and now the same ppl demand a sequel?
 

yurinka

Member
True, they never said that Sony were unhappy about it. But it sounds like work place culture weren’t top notch when they mentioned 6 months wouldn’t made much of a difference and that would probably only made them stretch out the same amount of work over a longer time period. Internal management didn’t seem entirely happy and they all seemed really tired of working on the game.

I personally think they simply bited off quite a bit more than they could chew. Probably some lack of communcation, proper resource management and a lost sense of scope.
He said Sony treated him well for the decades he was there and allowed them to do whatever they wanted, that were very supportive with their creative vision and that didn't have issues with budget or delay. The issue of these game directors was with their bosses inside Bend Studio.

Not with SIE America, not with PlayStation Studios, not with the CEO of SIE. They had nice words for hese ones. Their issue was with the studio manager of Bend Studio, who behaved badly with them redarding Days Gone early results, weren't transparent with them and ignored the DG2 pitch, never sent it to Sony. And other than that, seems both had separate personal issues with him not related to DG/DG2 themselves.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
What a shitshow

1st: the guy piggybacking a GOT tweet about its sales performance to complain about his 2015 game (not even congratulating Sucker Punch or anything)

2nd: pulling sales numbers from his ass to build his narrative

3rd: making people believe that it was on Sony upper management that the sequel wasnt greenlit, then going on a stream to clarify that it wasnt the case.

You dont see Ready at Dawn being this bitter about their game being forgotten

Let it go, ffs
lmao. Get a life. This guy knows more about what happened than you do.
 
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It is impressive within that context but it doesn’t really live up to the standard of other AAA Playstation titles IMO. I would have 2 smaller, more focused games from them rather than Days Gone, but that’s just my opinion.

Edit: By smaller I mean Uncharted Lost Legacy small, still AAA but smaller.

I dunno, I consider Days Gone at the same level as Horizon or Ghost. Maybe a tad below, but not far honestly. The atmosphere in Days Gone was really great.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
It is impressive within that context but it doesn’t really live up to the standard of other AAA Playstation titles IMO. I would have 2 smaller, more focused games from them rather than Days Gone, but that’s just my opinion.

Edit: By smaller I mean Uncharted Lost Legacy small, still AAA but smaller.
Not everything needs to be a GOTY contender. Not everyone becomes a GOTY darling on their first big AAA game either. How many AAA games did ND make before they finally hit it big with Uncharted? What about Sucker Punch? I remember how Infamous sold 170k in its first month. That was in 2009. They didnt start getting GOTY acclaim until 2020 and even then they were handily beaten by Naughty Dog.

Days Gone is a great game, flawed but a great base to build upon. It did several things worse than Sonys other big titles like GoW, Spiderman, and Horizon, but several things better. It is also leagues ahead of similar open world titles like Ass Creed, Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Far Cry and all the other zombie trash like World War Z and Dying Light. It has all the qualities of a Sony first party title. Great narrative, fantastic combat, and gorgeous visuals. It falters a bit early on with the narrative and voice acting, but you can tell they got better as they shot more stuff. The acting, the mocap, the directing and the writing all got progressively better as the game went on. By the end, I was hooked just like I was when I first played Horizon or Spiderman.

D7dMYDXXkAAgpvt


D7dMVTbW0AIr-Ga


D7dMIZOXsAAEYcr
 

kyliethicc

Member
Jeff Ross basically said his sales figures come from gamstat. That's a website that uses data from trophies...meaning the 8M counts psnow and PSPlus users that played the game and had nothing to do with sales. PC numbers are from steamspy. He had no access to insider data on this :messenger_tears_of_joy:
He also said it was Bend management that never pushed for a sequel with Sony. It wasn't Sony's fault because it wasn't proposed to them.

So many meltdowns on twitter and "fuck Sony" posts over nothing lmao
lol oh now that's hilarious if Jeff is just guessing
 

Nezzeroth

Member
It always felt Sony was ashamed of this game or something, they almost never gave sales numbers as opposed to their other IPs. It feels like metacritic is the number one priority, even above sales.

I remember Sony dropped the price quite soon with Days gone, so even if the number is similar to GoT, they definitely didn’t make as much money with it.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Expected dev cycle: 4 years.
Reality: 6 years.

No wonder Sony weren’t very happy with it, that’s like 50% more dev time. Sounds like they stretched themselves way too thin with no clear sense of how big and long they wanted the game to be and ended up making too much content for its own good. Which in turn probably contributed to the game releasing in a sub optimal state in terms of glitches and bugs.

Well how many Sony's games weren't delayed in the past years? It's pretty much a given now that their games don't hit the schedlue - GT7 - delayed, HFW - delayed, GoT - delayed, TLoU2 - delayed so many times people stopped counting, the examples go on and on.

Or maybe Sony intentionally announces too early launch dates to keep up the hype while knowing well the games are still years away, whereas DG was an actual real delay, dunno.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
lol oh now that's hilarious if Jeff is just guessing
His numbers might be from a wrong source but the game was a big success. Benji has access to psn sales and he said it was in the top ten best selling games of the year. It was also top 2 on NPD in both April and Matt of that year. The game sold very well.


 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
rofif rofif lol Just saw the creative directors talk about the survival horror element and making the game hard on Jaffe's stream. The game director wanted to make it hard. I mean think about it, how many open world games are hard?
But it’s not hard. It’s tedious
 

tassletine

Member
Days Gone shines on PS5. The only real negative is pacing, which is pretty abysmal and a big problem. It's far too long.
The game smacks of interference from higher ups though, the intro being especially bad, and that fits in with what we are reading here.

The horde mechanic is unique and really really fun, genuinely intimidating and brutal on higher difficulty settings. I would definitely buy the sequel as I loved that part and presume they would expand on that.
A lot of thought had gone into the story and mechanics, and for a first effort into the open world genre, the developers were trying some new things and really seemed to care.

The game was lazily reviewed and it didn't deserve half the shit it got. Deacon was a doofus though.
 

kyliethicc

Member
His numbers might be from a wrong source but the game was a big success. Benji has access to psn sales and he said it was in the top ten best selling games of the year. It was also top 2 on NPD in both April and Matt of that year. The game sold very well.



Oh for sure it sold well.

Also its funny how people assumed Ross was shit talking Ryan/Layden/Hulst for Days Gone 2 pitch being killed. Nope lol.

Turns out none of them were the issue. Was not Ryan's fault, nor Layden, nor Hulst. Was the people at Bend themselves who didn't want to make a sequel. The producers & managers, So Ross pitched an open world Resistance game, but they said nah. Then they said maybe we should reboot Syphon Filter? But Ross said nah. Then they settled on a new Uncharted, and then Ross quit. Bend killed the Uncharted game and began a new IP.

Meanwhile a bunch of Bend devs had nothing to do so they worked with Sucker Punch and Naughty Dog to help on their various projects.

Basically for like 12-18 months after Days Gone shipped, Ross and the studio managers fought about what to do next and eventually he quit. As Ross said, Layden was great and he barely even knows Hulst and Ryan. None of them were involved or to blame. Was an internal local issue at Bend Studio itself.
 

sncvsrtoip

Member
I dunno, I consider Days Gone at the same level as Horizon or Ghost. Maybe a tad below, but not far honestly. The atmosphere in Days Gone was really great.
I consider Days Gone way above horizon 1(npc way better one of the reason) and even above ghost (which I also like but narrative and main character was lacking for me). Understand argument it took 2 years more than should but ghost was also made similar time as infamous was 2014 and got 2020
 
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SSfox

Member
What's sad is Sony won't even brag about Days Gone sales. Why do we need to hear this from Jeff Ross instead?

They are a little too stuck up their own ass in terms of metacritic and woke metrics. Brag about your games that sell well even if the stupid critics didnt love it! The fans certainly did. That's who you should really care about.
image.jpeg
 
What's sad is Sony won't even brag about Days Gone sales. Why do we need to hear this from Jeff Ross instead?

They are a little too stuck up their own ass in terms of metacritic and woke metrics. Brag about your games that sell well even if the stupid critics didnt love it! The fans certainly did. That's who you should really care about.
There's nothing to brag about these sales. This topic title is outdated. The game never sold 9M copies. He mixed sales with free players from PSPlus and PSNow to get to that 9M. You can literally play this game for free right now if you got a PSPlus account lmao
 

SSfox

Member
Awesome masterpiece, and one of the best story from Sony WWS, now thinking about it it's my second favorite when it comes to Story after the untouchable God Of War.


Yesterday i checked my DG gallery that i platinum back then, stunning game as always, here some caps from my Days Gone Gallery:

FIdbkb9X0AMzyRB
FIdbla3WQAQuL0B
FIdbmV9XEAEtQBq
FIdbnTEXwAIIoi9
FIdbnTEXwAIIoi9
FIdbxxHXsAUwHOn
FIdby20WUAU79K2
FIdb0ljWUAQE3Cq
FIdcKpTWQAEyuF6
FIdcLkBWYAQIe1H
FIdcMK_WUAA5TQn
FIdcNgKXEAAH04y
FIdcdBzWQAQva4j
FIdcdwTX0AQjvwy
FIdcepCXIAEoR3K
FIdcfsJWQAcn4sG
FIdbOQFWQAI1LyP
FIdbPEhXIAEmNRF
FIdbQBvWYAAx0ol
FIdbQ89XwAAUBi4
 
Check out the Ken Levine thread. Entire forum jumped down his throat and dismissed the article. This time he didnt even rely on anonymous sources, and had actual designers and directors on record and everyone was acting like Jason made it all up.

Well, that's the thing about credibility, SlimySnake SlimySnake , when you give people a reason to question yours once (and Jason has multiple times in his reporting), you lose it altogether for everything you do thereafter and it's super hard to regain again.

That's not people being unfair, that's things working the way they are supposed to work. Now if only society treated its politicians the same way.
 

lucius

Member
He just telling the truth, game was great imo after some updates. Sony made a mistake letting both leads leave not trying harder to work things out. But some reviewers seemed to want to target this game for some reason, yet so many new games release now that need a bunch of fixes yet are given benefit of doubt for an update coming.
 

SSfox

Member
He just telling the truth, game was great imo after some updates. Sony made a mistake letting both leads leave not trying harder to work things out. But some reviewers seemed to want to target this game for some reason, yet so many new games release now that need a bunch of fixes yet are given benefit of doubt for an update coming.
So much this, and even before Days Gone there were games that were way more buggy like TW3 or Skyrim to name just those, i played both games way after release and as much i loved those i was shock that there were still some hardcore bugs on those (examples: Can't complete a side quest or main quest, the only way to fix it is to load a way back 1 hour or so save and pray the bug won't happen again), i played DG a bit after release and outside of some pop up that occure sometimes nothing hardcore when it comes to bugs, and after there was Cyberpunk and GTA remaster to name just those again that has some of the ugliest bugs ever, but for some reasons the lowtier press went hardcore on Days Gone on which bugs were way less horrible than the other games i named, and Days Gone was fixed also quite soon compare to the other games. There was undeniably some bias here without the doubt.
 
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TLZ

Banned
He just telling the truth, game was great imo after some updates. Sony made a mistake letting both leads leave not trying harder to work things out. But some reviewers seemed to want to target this game for some reason, yet so many new games release now that need a bunch of fixes yet are given benefit of doubt for an update coming.
Maybe game was too pro alpha male or anti sjw. Duno.
 

JaksGhost

Member
He just telling the truth, game was great imo after some updates. Sony made a mistake letting both leads leave not trying harder to work things out. But some reviewers seemed to want to target this game for some reason, yet so many new games release now that need a bunch of fixes yet are given benefit of doubt for an update coming.
That’s the thing Sony DID try to step in and offer help/training and he flat out refused. Neither one blames Sony but themselves for being poor managers. One had a huge ego that caused problems between the old and new staff at Bend.
 

Brock2621

Member
Man these guys were really not given a calm, critical reflection internally. Sony didn’t seem to believe in it at all. Sad days
 

yurinka

Member
Man these guys were really not given a calm, critical reflection internally. Sony didn’t seem to believe in it at all. Sad days
They said Sony always treated them well and have been very supportive. Their issue wasn't with Sony, was with the boss of Bend Studio.

There's nothing to brag about these sales. This topic title is outdated. The game never sold 9M copies. He mixed sales with free players from PSPlus and PSNow to get to that 9M. You can literally play this game for free right now if you got a PSPlus account lmao
GameStat reported data until the release of PS5 (november 2020, aprox when he left). DG was included in PS Collection and PS Plus later. I see it wa added to PS Now in October, around month before. PS Now had 2 millions and something subs back then, so a part of them could have played it back then. Let's say between 1 or 2M of these over 9M are from PS Now (and still generate revenue, even if less than an unit sold). Still means great sales.

The >9M units don't include game sales in PS4 and PS5 since November 2020, players from PS Plus/PS Plus Collection. P.S.: PS Plus and Collection also generates revenue.

Pretty likely now the game should be at almost 9-10M copies sold + players from PS Plus/Now/Collectin.
 
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GameStat reported data until the release of PS5 (november 2020, aprox when he left). DG was included in PS Collection and PS Plus later. I see it wa added to PS Now in October, around month before. PS Now had 2 millions and something subs back then, so a part of them could have played it back then. Let's say between 1 or 2M of these over 9M are from PS Now (and still generate revenue, even if less than an unit sold). Still means great sales.

The >9M units don't include game sales in PS4 and PS5 since November 2020, players from PS Plus/PS Plus Collection. P.S.: PS Plus and Collection also generates revenue.

Pretty likely now the game should be at almost 9-10M copies sold + players from PS Plus/Now/Collectin.
Gamestat also doesn't take into consideration every time someone borrowed Days Gone, secondary market or the number of different accounts per console that played it. There's way too many variables and Gamestat wasn't that reliable. He knows as much as we do with or without PSNow and plus numbers.
 
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