• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Hogwarts Legacy’s first week digital sales in Europe were 56% higher than those of last year’s blockbuster fantasy game, Elden Ring

Spaceman292

Banned
Surely a sequel announcement will be made soon? :messenger_beaming:

They definitely did.

They went from this game




to this game in less than 6 years




What they've done is something i'd expect from a studio that has experience putting out AAA titles on a regular basis. It reminds me a lot of Skyrim/Witcher 3. Avalanche took everyone by surprise. Well done to them! I hope they get to do a sequel or at least another major open world RPG.

Honestly that Cars game looks radical
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
Wrath of the Lich Queen

harry potter GIF
 

Spyxos

Member
Yes, I could see it this week. Usually when big games come out there is a mountain of games whether it be Cod or Elden Ring. This time when I was in my local Saturn there was nothing and I had to ask a salesman where the Hogwarts Legacy was in the first place and there were only 3-4 games left and unfortunately all the packaging was broken. This all points to massive sales.
 

Raven117

Member
What they've done is something i'd expect from a studio that has experience putting out AAA titles on a regular basis. It reminds me a lot of Skyrim/Witcher 3. Avalanche took everyone by surprise. Well done to them! I hope they get to do a sequel or at least another major open world RPG.
Seeing a studio make the quantum leap in real time is always awesome to see (like CDProjeckRed did with Witcher 3).

That said....there is more to the story here. I wonder whether guys at Monolith Software (who did the Modor Games), helped Avalanche out as they had the open world experience (as both studios are owned by Warner Bros.).

It just...seems like such a big jump for Avalanche. At least with CDPR, Witcher 2 showed that they were heading in that direction. Avalanche came out of nowhere.
 
And that's only on ps5/series x/pc, incredible feat. One of my coworkers is waiting for april for the ps4 version, she didnt want to buy a ps5 yet. Once it's on all platforms, watch out
 
Last edited:

Rykan

Member
The people saying "well, it's Harry Potter so this was to be expected" or "duh, it's Harry Potter" don't seem to realise how unprecedented these numbers are, even for a popular franchise.

Even excellent Star Wars games aren't doing these kind of numbers, and the game isn't even out on all platforms yet. Hogwarts Legacy is exceeding even the most lofty of expectations.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
The people saying "well, it's Harry Potter so this was to be expected" or "duh, it's Harry Potter" don't seem to realise how unprecedented these numbers are, even for a popular franchise.

Even excellent Star Wars games aren't doing these kind of numbers, and the game isn't even out on all platforms yet. Hogwarts Legacy is exceeding even the most lofty of expectations.
Nah, people just forgot how massive IP Harry Potter is. HP is larger than SW.
 

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
Not surprising. HP is much more popular.

Nah, I greatly disagree.

This isn't the first Harry Potter game, just like the last Battlefront or Fallen Order were not the first Star Wars games, just like the last Spiderman wasn't the FIRST Spiderman game or something.

If the IP alone based on popularity was moving units for them, how come lots of those games flopped prior? How came Transformers the game not moving COD numbers? lol

So I've heard this theory before and I don't see much evidence to support it. I don't think Harry Potter got MORE popular, I believe we merely got a solid team for once putting out a very high quality product and the market is responding.

To merely make it seem as if its based on popularity of the IP, you'd have to explain all those other flops prior.

Recognizability doesn't always 100% translate into sales and people need to stop with that entire myth. Someone knows what Pac Man looks like all of the United States and all over the world, they coming out with a game this fall moving 100 million units at full price? KNOWING what something is has no relevance to if they feel its a quality product that they would want to play. We all here didn't just fucking hear of Harry Potter for the first time here or something, yet look at how hype we are for this game vs the last games.

Elden Ring last year was massive, for this game to be selling better in both physical and digital is completely nuts. Hats off and respect to the team for putting out a solid game, they conveyed their message, made a high quality game and the market responded positively. Something lessor in quality with the name "Harry Potter" was simply not going to be moving theses numbers.

We have history to show us that....
 
Last edited:

j.k.2021

Banned
Well for many years now people have been saying Harry Potter was on a decline. That JK Rowling had alienated the majority of the fanbase and it would never sell the same.

This proves all the haters wrong.
No decline at all.They can release a harry Potter tv show tomorrow and it will be one of the biggest things on tv.Spin-off movies didn't do great because well they were spin-offs.
 
Nah, I greatly disagree.

This isn't the first Harry Potter game, just like the last Battlefront or Fallen Order were not the first Star Wars games, just like the last Spiderman wasn't the FIRST Spiderman game or something.

If the IP alone based on popularity was moving units for them, how come lots of those games flopped prior? How came Transformers the game not moving COD numbers? lol

So I've heard this theory before and I don't see much evidence to support it. I don't think Harry Potter got MORE popular, I believe we merely got a solid team for once putting out a very high quality product and the market is responding.

To merely make it seem as if its based on popularity of the IP, you'd have to explain all those other flops prior.

Recognizability doesn't always 100% translate into sales and people need to stop with that entire myth. Someone knows what Pac Man looks like all of the United States and all over the world, they coming out with a game this fall moving 100 million units at full price? KNOWING what something is has no relevance to if they feel its a quality product that they would want to play. We all here didn't just fucking hear of Harry Potter for the first time here or something, yet look at how hype we are for this game vs the last games.

Elden Ring last year was massive, for this game to be selling better in both physical and digital is completely nuts. Hats off and respect to the team for putting out a solid game, they conveyed their message, made a high quality game and the market responded positively. Something lessor in quality with the name "Harry Potter" was simply not going to be moving theses numbers.

We have history to show us that....
I would say it's a combination of both. Harry Potter is very much still an active player in pop culture for at least the past 20 years. I'd go so far as to say this is global, but this mostly applies to the west. As result, this title was in a situation that very few other games find themselves in.

Heck, this game had the huge potential to appeal to non-gamers and I would say they successfully capitalized on that. Paired with the fact that the game is extremely high quality and you have a winning formula to tap into an audience far larger than the typical gaming market share.

For example, my wife could care less about video games, but she was hyped as shit for this. I got her to watch all the marketing material as it came out so she's been on the hype train for months. Ended up buying two copies, PC for me and PS5 for her. I've seen so many people remark that this game is "practically a dream come true" so I can only imagine how psyched major Harry Potter fans are at this moment, with my wife among them.
 
I would say it's a combination of both.

Basically this.

Having a license helps. Making a good quality product with that license is even better.

The real trick though is figuring out what people like about the IP and making a quality product that leans into that. With Harry Potter, the main appeal was arguably Hogwarts. So making an open world RPG where you could explore it at your leisure was the right call.
 

Alebrije

Member
I was not interested on this game since do not like HP universe, but then one day saw a you tuber talking about the boicot and days later saw here the same topic. So I watched more videos of the gameplay and the game in general and it looked interesting specially because you do not play as HP since the game is set decades before. Regarding the boicot its bases were not solid, had a lack of critical thinking and abused attacking people that just wanted to enjoy the game.

So basically my guess is that for me and a lot of people the boicot put in the radar this game instead of create a bad idea about it, resulting in more sales than expected.
 
Last edited:

TonyK

Member
I dislike this type of comparisons that seems to minimize the success of other non related game, like the recent Forspoken sold more than HI-FI rush. I could understand that for games of the same franchise: COD MW2 sold more than COD Vanguard, for example. But what's the point of mention Elden Ring here?
 
I dislike this type of comparisons that seems to minimize the success of other non related game, like the recent Forspoken sold more than HI-FI rush. I could understand that for games of the same franchise: COD MW2 sold more than COD Vanguard, for example. But what's the point of mention Elden Ring here?
Because it was one of the best selling games of 2022, the highest rated game of 2022, and a similar genre as Hogwarts?
 
Not surprising. HP is much more popular. Most people, including non gamers, know what Harry Potter is. You could stop anyone in the street and they'll be more likely to recognise Harry Potter than From Software. I love From Software games but it's not even a fair comparison. You could have family members picking the game up for their kids/siblings/nieces/nephews/cousins because they think "Oh, lil Jimbob loves Harry Potter!"

Also, From Software games are "difficult" and that puts a lot of people off. Hogwarts Legacy is for everyone. There is bit of challenge but it's designed for young people to play.

More people recognise Garfield but it doesn't mean he would outsell elden ring
though he should
 
Happy for the development team. They really went for it and everyone seems to really joy the game.

I look forward to playing it at some point. I asked my wife to show me the world map and it was massive by the looks of it. The idea of exploring the forbidden forest really piques my interest. I bet there's some other dark/spooky areas, I love stuff like that.
 

Polo67

Member
I wonder if resetra will talk about the sales. They banned threads talking about the game but it seems like it's completely unavoidable given the popularity. It's going to show up in every sales thread for the rest of the year.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom