What is Success? (Uber Employee question)

I had sent this question to Scathis yesterday and I dont know if he doesnt have an answer, cannot confirm or deny an answer, or just didnt get my message, but here goes:

What is Uber considering a successful sales number? Meaning, how many units sold for you to consider this game a success? If you can't answer that for superstitious reasons, can you at least tell us what you look at to consider the game a success -- or is it just sales numbers and rating?

A great success is if we get cake.

That's a GREAT answer.

Is it hard to overstate your satisfaction?

Heh, I saw this and I was like "Where did he send me a message?! No PM, no tweet, no e-mail... uhhh.." and then I check my xbox messages. Aha!
Sorry, haven't been on my Xbox in a couple of nights so I didn't get it. You also can't listen to voice messages over the web, which is kinda lame.

So to answer your question. What is a Monday Night Combat success?

Well, there's a couple of parts.
Financially, it's enough units sold so we can keep doing what we love. If it allows me to stay employed and make our next game, score! If it's more than that well, that's just gravy.

Critically is what I care about. I want people to enjoy it. I spent two years of my life on this project and I hope people like it. I'm hoping for an 80+ Metacritic. (I, personally, have never been involved with a game all the way to ship that was less than an 82)

And finally, just shipping is kind of a success. So many games you start don't get finished. We finished this one and it's good. That's a success right there.

That's fair. Is there a number you're shooting for that you can talk about? Or do developers not sit with a # in mind?

All depends on who you ask.

Each of us have numbers... but I don't want to say, don't want to jinx it.

Perhaps if you surpass your number it can then be revealed

As soon as we know the sales numbers, I'll be happy to let everyone know how many copies we sold.

Unfortunately, I can't count, so anything more than 10 (or 20 with my shoes off) will be reported as a "bajillion".

X360A Topic

Sounds like it's going to be popular. Thank God. Only so many times I can shoot Scathis or XShadowStormX in the face before I get bored.

I would say if MNC reaches 1,000,000 sold in about 8-10 months that would be a success.

That's a 4% penetration based on 25mil Xbox live users.

Here are some previous sales numbers from other "hits":

Yeah I was going going by past game sales.

Battlefield is a well known title and was released on PC, PSN and XBLA so I didn't take it into account.

Castle Crashers took 10 months to reach 1,000,000 copies downloaded and it's been on the best sellers for a long time. I say if MNC can beat 8 months to get 1,000,000 then it's good.

25mill total accounts, I'm sure about 50% don't play online anymore.

Between August 11th (release) and August 15 (the next sunday) I expect near 150,000 sales. Because of Lara Croft and the blah blah blah coming out the next week on XBLA, I think the next biggest push for downloads will be in the beginning of September, when kids go back to college.

2.5 years? I hope you all get great sales on this game as it looks fantastic, shows how much effort you all put into your product.