Dawson Smith, director of operations at Activision's headquarters in Santa Monica, just read a statistic about Activision's game releases during the last seven days of 2008, from December 25 to 31.

This data is not just a simple matter of sales and shipments, sales curves, daily growth or declines...... There are also player profiles that include user attributes such as age, gender, job, education, and even income class, which are quite detailed.

The larger and more professional game companies are, the more they will understand the importance of data, and they will spend a lot of manpower on it, or spend money to commission a trustworthy third-party data information company to conduct a comprehensive investigation.

In this matter, there is only a difference between whether to pay attention to it or not, and everyone can do it.

What is more difficult is how to extract effective information through analysis after obtaining the data.

The difference between excellent operators and general operators begins to be reflected.

The data can tell us where we are not doing well enough, there are omissions, as for how to improve, in which direction, and in what way to adjust, this is a later and more difficult thing.

Naturally, Smith was able to see a lot of things from it.

Before seeing this statistic, he really hasn't been in a good mood lately.

……

At the just-concluded VGA2008 year-end awards ceremony, Activision returned home without winning any awards.

The "Game of the Year" is Grand Theft Auto 4, which was undoubtedly considered a foregone conclusion before the awards, and for almost the entire year this year, the game has been the absolute king, saying that almost only because it was released in April.

The "Shooter of the Year" was given to the gigantic Gears of War 2 instead of Call of the Year 5: World War, which disappointed Smith a little.

Even sales weren't as good as others, with Gears of War 2 selling more than 3 million units in its first four weeks of release, while Call of Duty 5 sold only 1.88 million in its first month. You must know that the former is exclusive to XBOX360, while Activision's Call of Duty is still on all platforms!

Also in the competition for the "Best Multiplayer Co-op Game of the Year" was lost to Survival Journey, with Villefort's new franchise taking home the much-flattering "PC Game of the Year" award.

The "RPG Game of the Year" went to Besda's Fallout 3, an award that Activision itself had no idea about.

Activision didn't even get any technical awards, including graphics, sound effects, storytelling, dubbing, and even the best soundtrack album.

In short, nothing was found, and the whole process was watched.

It's annoying......

The second sad thing, in the last month of 08, due to various reasons such as poor management, project delays, exceeding budgets, and sales of exited projects did not meet expectations, Activision sold 3 studios around the world in one go.

New York-based anako Studios (main works "Arcadia Show" and "Assault Heroes" 1, 2)) was sold to Artificial Mind and Movement;

Swordfish Studios in Birmingham, England, sold to Codemasters (the main work "Colin McRae Rally" and its spin-off "Dust" series);

Massive Entertainment, which is far away in Sweden, was sold to Yubi, and after the deal was completed, Yubi seemed to plan to hand over the third installment of one of its well-known brands of the "Far Cry" series to them for development, which was very important, and I hope it will not give Activision a resounding slap in the face in the end.

Although the respective acquisitions were not negotiated in December, they were all completed in December, and now gamers all over the world know that Activision sold 3 studios in a month, as if it was unsustainable to sell its properties and was ready to run away at any time.

It's hard to ......

He is responsible for all these things, directly or indirectly, and the company's CEO Kodek is not very satisfied with his work in the past six months.

Also, the smoke of the Christmas war is gradually dissipating and the battle situation is gradually becoming clearer, and in this traditional game sales season, this year seems to be too calm, and even seems ...... Somewhat sluggish.

There is no debut masterpiece to save the market, and the overall sales are sluggish, except for the few that have been selling well, the newly listed games, even the new work of the original most promising big IP "Prince of Persia" series, also show a posture of sinking into the sand. According to its current decline rate, even if it is not a cliff estimate, it is almost the same, it is estimated that in the final world, the sales volume of the whole platform may still reach about 1.2 million, if the digital version can make some effort, and in two or three years, a wave of various discount promotions, 2 million is estimated to be barely reached.

It's a laugh out loud for other new series or indie games, but for Prince of Persia, it's clearly not enough for Yubi.

This period of market contraction is not just a matter of Yubi, Activision only released a game "The Origin of Everything" last week, which also did not meet Smith's expectations.

For a large company like Activision, the production and distribution of a game is certainly not based on personal subjective considerations, although as the director of operations, he does like the game "The Origin of Everything" very much, and this project is also very much promoted by him.

But within the company, it has also received the support of many other members of the operation department, and it cannot be said that it is praised, and there are no bad reviews, but most people have shown that they are optimistic about the game.

He was still quite confident.

After the Qingyu Network joined in the publicity, the two sides negotiated to increase the original publicity budget of 3 million US dollars to 5 million US dollars, and the global scope, in the first month, each bear half of it.

"The Origin of Everything" should have sold at least 250,000 copies in the first week to meet the Activision team's expectations, and even Smith personally hoped to get a surprise that exceeded expectations, but in the end it only reached 203,000 copies.

It might be a good result if it's an exclusive, or a single region, but it's the world's three largest game markets that are available simultaneously, spanning PC, PS3, XBOX360, and ii, and "only" selling for $25.

The pressure on Smith was really a bit high.

He didn't contact Ye Shenxi this week, on the one hand, he didn't want to put pressure on the other party, he believed in Ye Shenxi's ability, and he didn't plan to express his opinion on the update and optimization of the subsequent version, and left it to Qingyu Network to make his own decisions.

On the other hand, he is more afraid of putting pressure on himself.

A little worried, Ye Shenxi also revealed anxiety, nervousness, and even panic. He has seen a lot of people, and many emotions can't be hidden from him.

Just like Ye Shenxi's calmness when they met for the first time, and his confidence in the game itself, he could see that it was sincere, and there was no element of performance.

If Ye Shenxi didn't think that "The Origin of All Things" could be turned around at this time, it would really be a worse thing.

Fortunately, this data made Smith almost feel relieved.

Statistically, NeoGAF, one of the world's largest game discussion communities, was sampled in the last week, and the game "The Origin of Everything" was mentioned a total of 5,600 times on the website during the week.

In more detail, the first day was not high, only 150 times, but then it expanded rapidly every day at a very strong rate, with a daily increase of more than 50%.

What kind of concept is this, "Prince of Persia: Rebirth" reached 1,300 times on the first day of release, and then increased by different magnitudes for two consecutive days, with more than 2,000 mentions in a single day.

But from the fourth day, this number began to decline, and now in more than 20 days, it has dropped to more than 600 per day.

These are two completely different trends, and you don't even need to do professional calculations to see that the enthusiasm of players and the popularity of the topic, one is declining, and the other is still accumulating.

In addition to the professional gaming community, the spread of Origin of Everything on social media is even more gratifying, even amazing.

The users of professional gaming forums are usually hardcore gamers, a core group, and a limited number. And those netizens in the general sense who are active on various social platforms are the real huge potential groups, not to mention that the game "The Origin of Everything" itself should be aimed at this group of pan-users, which is consistent with them.

According to this data, yesterday, January 1, on Twitter, the New Year's tweet of the official account of "The Origin of Everything" was retweeted more than 7,300 times in one day, and the number of likes exceeded 20,000.

Please, it's a New Year's Day, there is so much news happening all over the world, countless entertainment stars, business elites, national idols and even political dignitaries on this website will send New Year's wishes, and this blessing tweet of "The Origin of Everything" ranked in the TOP200 yesterday in terms of the number of likes.

It's almost impossible to do it with a simple game, not even at the level of "Grand Theft Auto 4", not with a version update, not with an expansion release, or even with a sequel announced or a new release, unless it's social news like the "hot coffee" incident, banned by major retailers, and taken to court by consumers.

But "The Origin of Everything" does just that.

This is not exactly the love of the game or the recognition of the company by netizens, but can almost be summed up in the hunting and exploration of a new and interesting thing.

That tweet, or rather the image, is still spreading all over the internet.

How many likes and retweets can be turned into sales?

Smith believes there should be a lot of people who are buying the game or on their way to the game store.