DCEmulation

RSG did not mention the amount of units that were pressed, however it is safe to assume it has outsold Dux, Last Hope: Pink Bullets, and Wind & Water: Puzzle Battle.

We would like to congratulate RSG for their accomplishment and thank them for their continued commitment to the Dreamcast Scene.

We look forward for the announcement of their next release.

"The publisher already set a sale record of Indie Games on the Sega Dreamcast"

How could they possibly know that? They can certainly know if it outsold last hope or wind and water, but not Irides or Dux. AFAIK the Goat Store has never shared sales data.

I thought you would be more in the loop between the history of GOAT & RSG?
Also it is fairly obvious R4 has outsold Irides, as it got a lot more press and it sold out.

Furthermore Dux, Last Hope: Pink Bullets were all internationally distributed by RSG so they are well aware of the number of units pressed and sold.

What does this have to do with anything? AFAIK RSG isn't privvy to GOAT's sales records for FoF, Inhabitants, or Maqiupai. I've never read or been told anything that would support that info being shared between them.

So if a game gets more press it obviously sold more? You're reasoning doesn't prove anything. For all we know only 250 copies of R4 were pressed and 500 or Irides.

Yes, but the outlandish claim of being sure they've outsold other DC homebrew makes me wonder if they even looked at old numbers. Also, I thought that for those HuCast handled much on their own, then passed a certain number onto RSG to manage. Wasn't HuCast selling direct for some time?


Not only that, but they've only sold out themselves, which includes copies they've sold to other retaillers. Go to PlayAsia and you can still buy as many copies of R4 you want. This is a poor benchmark by all standards.

I never got around to picking this up, it actually looked pretty fun for 4 player split screen. I did get pink bullets. Sad that the standard edition sold out, as i planned to pick that up but looks like i'll have to shell out a couple of extra bucks (whenever I have a job again) to get the LE version.

I'd like to point out that my homebrew Dreamcast game sold out in just 2 minutes, after my wife and myself bought the only 2 copies I printed for a dollar. Not only is this the fastest sell-out of any commercial DC homebrew release ever, but it is also the fastest selling Dreamcast game ever made with 1 copy being sold every minute. It's hardly surprising though, as it's one of only a few games in history to get near-perfect scores from every single reviewer. In fact, the average score is much higher than R4.

Why turn positive news into a flame war? Give them benefit of the doubt and rejoice in a homebrew dreamcast game selling well.

I trust all your questions have been addressed.

Just to summarize for everyone else RSG (before it formally existed) marketed as well as did some graphical work for FOF, and Max Scharl name is in the credits, so they had access to sales figures.
RSG contacted developers of other Goat Publishing games to find out their sales figures furthermore RSG went to Play-Asia in Hong Kong and discussed Dreamcast sales in details therefore they have a solid idea of Dreamcast sales for the last few years.

The game doesn't have a Limited Edition, it has a Deluxe Edition.

Hey, sorry to dig up an old thread here, but to be clear:

No, Max does not have access to our sales figures. I'm rather certain that our developers aren't just going to him and telling how many copies of each game sold for a few different reasons. As for Feet of Fury sales figures, I'm *positive* that Max doesn't have access to our sales figures because his name is in the credits.

Also, remember -- Feet of Fury (and Inhabitants and Maqiupai) all went on sale through Play-Asia only recently. While I'm certain that brand new titles would outsell titles that were produced nearly a decade ago now, that doesn't mean anything for their initial sales.

I'm not going to stand up and make any bold statements about how many games we have or haven't sold, and we are going to continue to not release sales data, sorry. And, I'd be really skeptical of anyone that claims that a 2009 release sold more than releases done closer to the death of the system when the market was still huge and games were still coming out in Japan, a market that we definitely marketed and sold to.

I will say that we don't publish "homebrew" games, so if you want to say these are the best selling Dreamcast "homebrew" games, I'll say that's fine. The GOAT Store has always published independent, third party games.

Factory records always said Blue Monday by New Order was the highest selling 12" release of all time. They never had figures to back it up but didn't stop them from making the claim, infact it added to the legend that was Factory Recrods.

Declaring a run of any product as 'Sold Out' in itself garners attention from further potential sales of other runs of the product. I am not knocking RSG for this, it's just clever marketing on their part, the same principle has been used over and over by many other companies to boost further sales figures.


Their claims are most likely correct. Although most certainly a sales ploy on their part to begin with because the record was initially only released as a 12", I'm not altogether sure they expected such high supply and demand figures to follow. The first run sold out pretty much instantly, at least a dozen quick re-presses followed (again, only 12") with different sleeves and different notes on the plain central vinyl between the runout groove (prompting collectors to buy an alternative version). The reason why Factory Records never revealed their figures is because they didn't have to, they were indie and not part of the BPI at that time.

While i think Blue Monday did sell a lot, as far as 12" releases you can't say Elvis or the Beatles sold less. St Peppers would have way out sold Blue Monday. Cos they always said "release" not "single". As far as singles, yea it probably was the most sold 12" single.

They accually made a loss on the first release cos it cost them more to produce then what they sold it for. They thought there was no way a band coupld survive the death of their lead singer.

There are many misconceptions with regards to Factory Records, New Order, and Blue Monday, these have been fueled by both the band and record label for years - it all adds to the mysticism and mythical legend after all. A lot of these misconceptions stem from misquotes and 'teasers' from press interviews such as those featured in NME and other music news periodicals. The band themselves (New Order) in 1983 were apparently the first to officially declare Blue Monday as "probably the best selling 12" single", even though they (or Factory Records) have never released the sales figures to prove it. Considering that the single was such a big club hit and only available as 12", it's safe to say that in 1983 it was the best selling 12" single. Neither the band or Factory Records ever officially declared it the best selling 12" single (or 12") of all time.

The 'loss' by Factory Records can also be traced to a misquote, in one interview the actual statement was "a loss in profit". The initial pressing of the 12" was calculated for very small profit which was met, any extra profit from the sales was greatly diminished by the then elaborate 'Floppy Disc' style sleeve. Subsequent re-pressings made the 12" single and alternative sleeves cheaper to produce, which in turn increased the profit. The main reason the 'loss' has most likely become the norm is because the band didn't see any of the profit, they were big investors in a club at that time, which for years was consistently in debt.

Factory Records had no reservations with New Order, otherwise they would have dropped the band after the relatively poor sales and reviews of their debut album two years prior to the Blue Monday release. Had the members of the band continued to use the name Joy Division following the death of Ian Curtis that could have been a different story.

So now this is completely off-topic... or is it?

An independent label releases a limited run of a product with very small profit, the product becomes 'sold out', 'word of mouth' and subsequent re-presses with alternative artwork increases further sales, with the product itself becoming a collector's item.

Ring any commercial bells?.

Alright after a long email based discussion with RSG I can confirm to you that R4 is still the best selling game...

From what I remember reading back in the day was 5,000 units of Feet Of Fury were pressed and lower units for subseuent releases, and R4 has sold well over 5,000 units.

I have also mailed Dan, but for now it seems RSG's statement stands correct.

I also sent you an email, but here is some quick points:

1) Even if we might have done a run of 5000 copies of Feet of Fury or any of our games, who is to say that we didn't do a subsequent re-press of those titles?
2) Also, I can honestly say right now that the 5000 number isn't correct for how many of any of our games got released, so I don't know where that came from.
3) What independent third party is verifying any of these sales records?
4) According to the original post, the 2007 "Last Hope" release set the record for sales. Where are these numbers ever verified or mentioned?

The initial claim that we were contacted to give sales data is a lie. These new claims, where our statements were supposedly scoured first to come up with new stuff is a cover-up. I am happy that Max is happy with the sales of R4, but it won't change the fact that we act as a professional development house, and one which does not celebrate the number of games that we sell for niche products. Shenmue sold over 1,000,000 copies in North America alone, so the way I look at it is if we had a title that sold 10,000 copies, that would be 1% of the sales of a good selling game for the system in one country.

I'll say what I said to a couple people in emails -- if the market is really so great that a game released in 2009 / 2010 can sell more copies in just a few months than a game that was released in 2003, don't you think that releases would still be happening by development houses in Japan for titles? Also, with 5000 sales of earlier projects (apparently, Last Hope must have sold tons of copies too), why would Max right before the release of R4 have been claiming that if this release didn't sell well, he would have to be done with publishing on the Dreamcast. If Last Hope sold 5000 copies based on the statement that it was beleived to have been the best selling game before, at $50 per copy (I think that is right), that would mean that Last Hope grossed a quarter of a million dollars. What are the costs for this business if grossing over a quarter million dollars on one title for a dead platform isn't enough to keep you in business?

I'm totally fine with Max using this as a sales technique to ensure the continued sales of the Limited version or whatever, but I don't appreciate him lying about our sales numbers or contacting us in any way about them, or changing his story when I stated that we have not released our numbers. The GOAT Store, LLC has always prided itself on being a professional development house, and as such I congratulate him on selling however many copies as he has of each of the games that he has done.

You can all now conjecture as much as you like about the true sales numbers and whatnot. For the post from DCDayDreamer, I think you nailed a lot of the strategy in your last paragraph of what this was truly about. Which is totally fine, and a great strategy -- I just wish that it didn't have to include lies about my own company, or I would have just looked at the article and said, "Good for them."

Forwarded to RSG let's see if they comment on it.
Retraction Posted

I love me a cat eer.. corporate fight.

EDIT: Posted as Retraction on seperate topic

Merged to give Wind & Water some extra time on top of the the front page.

EDIT: Tried moving some things around but didn't work. Probably just wait a few days and repost this like you proposed via PM.

Thanks, I'm going to go ahead and post this now.