Phoenixus_01

Well I went into that on the last page.... I did state specifically that was speculation... but.. there's reason to believe they already had some in reserve for the expansion pack.

Well that is up to you, I'm not here to split hairs with you... I'm making a reasonable estimate on copies sold. An stated so to you directly. And I'm pretty sure I'm SERIOUSLY underselling it.... given those are ONLY STEAM numbers not the other sales outside of STEAM. Likely the number is much higher than even I estimated.... I was pretty conservative. 18 Million dollars up to this point on a 4 million budget. Heck its more likely a good 20+ million on a 2.5 million budget. But either way... it proves everyone wrong that a game like this in this day and age isn't a moneymaker... its actually a really big moneymaker... Because the cost vs risk is incredibly low and the profit margin much higher than in other games.

Do you have a source for that? The best information I could find is steamspy, which says that there's approximately 377667 owners. I'm guessing about 50000 of them are probably backers. Well that's why I used the words approximately. None of us here know the real figures. All we can do is make estimates. I just gave a rough estimate based on what we currently know. At present... the STEAM sales are selling at approx 4000-6000 per day from what I could see in the charts at Steamspy. I estimated approximately 400,000 sales which is reasonable. I can definitely say... the estimate I gave is reasonably accurate. And again this is ONLY regarding STEAM sales... and doesn't even include CD/DVD sales or GOG. NOW i'll go into speculation... We know that Obsidian estimated their asking budget of 1.5 million to produce the game on Kickstarter.... they got almost 4 million. From what I can see in the Making of Video... its likely they never spent that full 4 million and the ACTUAL cost was probably in the 2 million range to make, because it sure doesn't look like they splurged... so the Cost vs Risk might even be smaller than I originally stated. So they've still got the leftovers to be able to guarantee an expansion pack too on top of that which is why they're already saying its in the works. The cost vs profit margin on this is HUGE. No matter how I look at it... this one has been an overwhelming success, an its only been what? A month and a half?

Well after looking at the Steam Figures, Pillars of Eternity has sold approx. 400,000 on JUST STEAM at present. At approximately $45 per copy... that's about 18 Million after ONE month. (for the record its up to 91,000 people playing at peak, going on the figures updated from the earlier posts on this thread) According to the information we have, the game had an initial budget of approx. 4 Million. That is an enormous gross with such a relatively small cost to produce already... and that's not including the sales for the rest of the year and ONLY includes STEAM sales, not other sales like CD/DVD sales. While I am certainly willing to believe both taxes, Paradox, and STEAM get their cut... there can be no doubt that cost vs risk for making one of these is extremely low. Obsidian can make as many of these as they want, because its small budget... and the sales are through the roof. Its really taking a very old school back to the small type production budget (compared to Console games) with the much larger profit margin (not profits, profit margin). Especially now that the code and mechanics are already in place... So yeah... overwhelming success and large profit margin, and highly likely we'll see a lot more of them.

They are bad. It's specific to the Elves too. I've been in the toolset and trying to find decent head models. These aren't just "WoTC" pics they're basing them on. Some of these, are just plain old bad modeling. I hadn't really looked through the range of faces until just recently when I needed to create a female elf NPC. The Human faces are decent, could use some better female ones, but nothing overly bad there but could use some additions. Half Orcs, very nice. Dwarves, also good. Halfling females are pretty good, just not much selection. Asimaar and Teifling are decent too. It is specific to the Elven females. The Elven Males, could use some touch up, but at least they really do resemble the WoTC drawings to a certain extent. The Elven Females though, are just bad modeling jobs.

And thats really what it comes down to and the reason people don't like them or won't play them. First of all they are dead ends, and there is no solution because there's no right ansswer. On top of that... half the time when you play those, there's too many people trying to shovel their own **** on you when you know damn well its not like that. Examples: Laborers are often just as greedy as the corporations they claim to fight against (Think labor unions helping to put car companies out of business when they can't compete with overseas companies, thus cutting their own throats over the same greed and losing everything). Non-religious atheists are often the same zealots as those they hate the most. (communist/socialist revolutions in various parts of the world stamping out various religions with the same ruthlessness as the inquisitions of the middle ages) Environmentalists out "saving the planet" often carelessly disregard and kill off entire rural communities and their living and hurt the common guy with their own zealousness and disregard. At the very least when corporations come in and put small business owners out, they provide an alternative means to earn a living. Many times you will find more outright hate filled racism in minority communities than you will in the majority communities that they claim to be oppressed by. Visit the poor communities, or better yet the Rez and you will see a lot of people with all kinds of opportunities to stand on their own two feet and pull themselves out, but instead, they'd rather drink themselves to death or get so high they kill themselves and blame everyone else for it. And even some of those that make it out and make their way, end up right back there sooner or later. They are locked in a cycle of poverty, but just as often it is their own doing, not because they don't have a way out. Curiously... these seem to be the least explored directions... in any storyline. Why is that? I suspect mostly don't want to see that they aren't really the "good guys" they think they are nor do they represent the "common person" the way they think they do. They're often just more of the same thing they are pointing fingers at.... just a different flavor. Either way, the real answer is that there isn't any solution to those things, and never really was. Because no one can truly save you from yourself except you. The only thing people can really do is provide the path or the alternative and encourage it... no one can walk that but you.