The sales thread

[Karkarov]

Having a low release peak and then very low concurrent users can hardly be taken as a good sign. Early interest in Deadfire seems weak.

That is probably because the game had more hype going in this time, and everyone and their brother is focusing on idiotic user reviews and internet BS than actually playing the game.  Even this forum had tons of idiotic posts in the weeks leading up to the game talking about "I will wait 3 months to buy the game because of no real good reason". 

 

I am sure the "Obsidian makes bugged games" stuff is also doing nothing to make the bugs in this game highly exaggerated.  I mean I still see people daily makes posts about the import bugs..... which were fixed in a patch that came mere days after release and has been available for quite some time.

 

Also no offense, I am sure Steam is the greatest thing ever and it determines all games success, but there are GoG copies too.  Like mine for example.  And it stayed top seller on GoG far longer.  You really count one, and ignore the other.  Actual real sales don't work that way.

 

Until Obsidian says something every thread like this is just doom and gloom nay sayers making things up.  That said, I seriously doubt this game cost 14 mil, if it did, that money was managed beyond poorly regardless of where it was made.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Actually, wait, nevermind, I've figured out the Steam Top Sellers thing.

 

Everything above Deadfire in the sales list either has multiplayer or is currently selling for less than $20 or both. 

[Slotharingia]

As I said in another post, the other day there were 2 items on the first page of Steam top sellers that were developer tools @ over 400 EUR each. I can't believe many people buy that, so it seems more or less meaninglesss. Also no 2 top seller last time I looked was some multiplayer with much worse reviews that Deadfire.

[gloomseeker]

Plus if you only take in consideration Steam sales you leave every other outlets out of the picture. Places like Green Man Gaming, the Humble Store, Win Game Store, Fanatical or Gamers Gate. 

 

And there is also GOG as well. 

[Dodo00d]

Plus if you only take in consideration Steam sales you leave every other outlets out of the picture. Places like Green Man Gaming, the Humble Store, Win Game Store, Fanatical or Gamers Gate. 

 

And there is also GOG as well. 

 

None of this matters because there are microbes compared to Steam.

[Dodo00d]

 

Until Obsidian says something every thread like this is just doom and gloom nay sayers making things up.  That said, I seriously doubt this game cost 14 mil, if it did, that money was managed beyond poorly regardless of where it was made.

 

You obviously know nothing about game development, 14mio is basicly nothing in the video game world. Obsidian has 170 employees that need to be payed each month.

[Masticator]

I seriously don't understand this game is broken comments. Call me a fanboy if you want. But I finished the game and quite enjoyed it. How can a broken game be finished?

 

And I still don't get what this memory leak is mentioned in the other closed thread. I haven't seen it. If anything my first load takes longer than subsequent loads, and the game gets faster for me. The biggest bug for me is crashes to desktop. But that hardly means the game is broken.

 

I think the game will sell well enough in the long run. As mentioned above, many people will wait before buying the game. Mainly because Obsidian has a reputation at this point. The sales will come. And people above discount the size of GOG which is ridiculous. GOG is huge right now. Many people trust GOG over Steam and I'm beginning to think I should abandon Steam for GOG.

 

For those still waiting, buy the game already. It's a damn good game. And sometimes it's fun playing a game while it's still buggy. I certainly did so with Fallout: New Vegas and I have no regrets doing it with that game either. I'd rather have fun now than wait until later.

[Mikeymoonshine]

 

 

The game wasn't broken, it had some annoying bugs but was completely stable for the vast majority of players. Witcher3 was broken on release, POE2 was also more or less broken on release, KCD was incredibly broken on release but all those games sold brilliantly.

 

Skyrim was incredibly buggy on release and still has some of it's vanilla bugs despite multiple dlc, re-releases and a special edition. That's pretty much the most successful well known rpg ever.

 

Obs really messed up with Kotor2 and Fallout New Vagas but the bugs in this game were about what you would expect in a large rpg on release. That still isn't good enough IMO but you can say that about so many games. I feel like it's the case that because of those two games now they are stuck with the reputation of releasing buggy games even when they aren't that buggy compared to what other much bigger developers release.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Amentep
Removed deleted posts from quote

[Liser]

I don't see how they could have spent more than 2 or 3 million on this game. It's a sequel in the same engine with a lot of re-used stuff (soundtrack is an obvious example). What would they have spent the money on? Does VA cost 10+ million?

Edited June 1, 2018 by Liser

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

And I still don't get what this memory leak is mentioned in the other closed thread. I haven't seen it. If anything my first load takes longer than subsequent loads, and the game gets faster for me. The biggest bug for me is crashes to desktop. But that hardly means the game is broken.

 

 

 

The memory leak is a Unity problem and comes from having a lot of save games at once. It's a common problem in Unity based games, the new Battletech game has the exact same issue.

[Mikeymoonshine]

if we are going to assume a 14mill figure lets at least have a source for it? I also thinks it's excessive, we know they put some money into it but not how much from what I have seen.

[Masticator]

if we are going to assume a 14mill figure lets at least have a source for it? I also thinks it's excessive, we know they put some money into it but not how much from what I have seen.

 

I can believe it. Can you imagine what their payroll is? They live in one of the most expensive parts of the country. They have to pay their employees well enough so they aren't homeless.

 

They might be better off moving to a less expensive city. Like my city. It would be cool having them here. California is just getting too expensive to live for most people. I'd rather my hard earned dollars be spent on gaming content, rather than paying for housing costs in one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S.

[Mikeymoonshine]

 

if we are going to assume a 14mill figure lets at least have a source for it? I also thinks it's excessive, we know they put some money into it but not how much from what I have seen.

 

I can believe it. Can you imagine what their payroll is? They live in one of the most expensive parts of the country. They have to pay their employees well enough so they aren't homeless.

 

They might be better off moving to a less expensive city. Like my city. It would be cool having them here. California is just getting too expensive to live for most people. I'd rather my hard earned dollars be spent on gaming content, rather than paying for housing costs in one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S.

 

 

Not saying it's impossible it's just that I haven't seen anyone source it to anywhere.

[mazeltov]

Can't help that the launch price point is higher than it should be. There isn't $50 worth of game here. $50-55 for the base game and season pass would be more reasonable.

[wih]

I don't know guys... It seems to me that the people out there actually want to play Deadfire but are waiting because of the bugs or probably they want to play the game along with its DLCs. Meanwhile they are buying all kinds of other isometric RTWP games - it started with PoE, then Tyranny and now all the Infinity engine games are on sale and are on the first two or three pages of steam top sellers - Planescape, BG2, Icewind Dale...

[Mikeymoonshine]

 

It's not a broken game as there are many, many people who can play it. That doesn't mean that it's not broken for you personally, but as a whole, the game is not broken.

 

 

Exactly what I was trying to say among other things and if someone wants to present a counter argument i'm fine with that, I may even agree with them. Not interested in being called "fanboy" or responses to a small portion of a large comment that ignore most of what I said and twist a part of what I said into something else. Still I don't want to give the impression I am against being criticised because i didn't want to continue that discussion. Anyway sorry for contributing to derailment of this thread.

[Mikeymoonshine]

I don't know guys... It seems to me that the people out there actually want to play Deadfire but are waiting because of the bugs or probably they want to play the game along with its DLCs. Meanwhile they are buying all kinds of other isometric RTWP games - it started with PoE, then Tyranny and now all the Infinity engine games are on sale and are on the first two or three pages of steam top sellers - Planescape, BG2, Icewind Dale...

 

Yeah those games are all on sale atm, the enhanced IE games are all incredibly cheap. What interested me was for a while POE1 was higher on both steam and gog, that was also on sale though but not for as cheap as Tyranny or the IE games.

[Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell]

Can't help that the launch price point is higher than it should be. There isn't $50 worth of game here. $50-55 for the base game and season pass would be more reasonable.

 

My comments are my own and not more valuable then yours so not trying dis your opinion.

 

It is niche market so they trying make up by selling at bit more. Is it worth that much yeah if they can sort the bugs and add in good DLCs.

 

I rather pay bit more and have game I really want then stuck with most games that designed for mass market with notion of pleasing casual player bases.

 

That been said the second game has been toned down lot for casual players, if they tone down much more no I wouldn't pay the prices.

 

We also lucky they don't do microtransactions so cutting price would we start seeing microtransactions for things like rum runners pack?

[Dopsim]

It's not a broken game as there are many, many people who can play it. That doesn't mean that it's not broken for you personally, but as a whole, the game is not broken.

 

It's not a working game as there are many, many people who cant play it. That doesn't mean that it's broken for you personally, but as a whole, the game is broken. Edited June 2, 2018 by Amentep
Deleted posts removed from quotes

[Arranvin]

 

 

It's not a working game as there are many, many people who cant play it. That doesn't mean that it's broken for you personally, but as a whole, the game is broken.

Do you realise that some people experiencing bugs that prevent them from playing doesn't make it broken for everyone? It's not a single exclusive state. Plenty of people have finished the game and the sidequest. They couldn't have done that if it was inherently broken. The game is buggy and needs work, aye. But that doesn't make it broken. And labelling people who disagree with you 'fanboys' comes across as very childish and trying to deflect attention from the weakness of your argument. If you can't debate without resorting to insults then you've already lost.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Amentep
Deleted posts removed from quotes

[Karkarov]

You obviously know nothing about game development, 14mio is basicly nothing in the video game world. Obsidian has 170 employees that need to be payed each month.

You obviously know nothing about running a business of any kind.  14 million dollars effectively managed can go a VERY long way.  Meanwhile, if Obsidian's only source of income while developing Deadfire was ..... Deadfire budget, well they would be out of business right now, or have a ton less than 170 employees.

 

Meanwhile you all do realize Eternity 1 had less than 7 million budget right?  How much do you think they paid critical role exactly?  Do you really think a game QA makes over 6 figures in orange county?

[Moriendor]

Yeah, it's not like all of those 170 employees worked on Deadifre. In fact, if you look at the credits then the core Deadifre team was actually quite small. They made the game on established tech with most of their in-house tools from PoE 1 and Tyranny development already in good shape to establish a good workflow and content output. The only major new gameplay element was the ship travel via map.

 

I'd also like to see a credible source for $14 million. It does seem very doubtful. After the much less popular Fig campaign (number of pledges) and the reception of PoE 1 (and later on Tyranny) they must have anticipated a lower level of interest than PoE 1. It'd make zero sense to double the budget.

 

Looking at the rather small core team they dedicated to Deadfire, it looks to me more like they chose a conservative approach. It seems to me that they were able to "save" money through the established tech, ready-to-go tools etc. and put some or all of that towards VO. My guess is that the budget was about the same or even slightly below the first game's $7 million.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Moriendor

[Purudaya]

 

 

 

 

It's not a broken game as there are many, many people who can play it. That doesn't mean that it's not broken for you personally, but as a whole, the game is not broken.

 

It's not a working game as there are many, many people who cant play it. That doesn't mean that it's broken for you personally, but as a whole, the game is broken.

Every single PC game that has been released in the past 20 years (possibly ever) has had customers that couldn't run it. Go to any developer forum at release and you'll see various thread variations of "Can't run the game!" with people trying to help.

 

The percentage of players who can't run the game is what speaks to problems of optimization/QA. I would probably guess that that percentage is higher for Obsidian games at release than for other developers, but unless you have some data showing an inordinate amount vs. the whole (Mac users were patched in the hotfix), then "broken" is hyperbole. It's not broken for me, for most of the users on these forums, and (as far as I've read) a single reviewer. I'm sorry you're having a negative experience and your perspective is valuable, but the relentless aggression really isn't necessary for making your case.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Amentep
Deleted posts removed from quotes

[flamesium]

 

Having a low release peak and then very low concurrent users can hardly be taken as a good sign. Early interest in Deadfire seems weak.

 

That is probably because the game had more hype going in this time, and everyone and their brother is focusing on idiotic user reviews and internet BS than actually playing the game.  Even this forum had tons of idiotic posts in the weeks leading up to the game talking about "I will wait 3 months to buy the game because of no real good reason". 

 

I am sure the "Obsidian makes bugged games" stuff is also doing nothing to make the bugs in this game highly exaggerated.  I mean I still see people daily makes posts about the import bugs..... which were fixed in a patch that came mere days after release and has been available for quite some time.

Also no offense, I am sure Steam is the greatest thing ever and it determines all games success, but there are GoG copies too.  Like mine for example.  And it stayed top seller on GoG far longer.  You really count one, and ignore the other.  Actual real sales don't work that way.

Until Obsidian says something every thread like this is just doom and gloom nay sayers making things up.  That said, I seriously doubt this game cost 14 mil, if it did, that money was managed beyond poorly regardless of where it was made.

The game had a lower release peak because it had more hype is one theory I suppose. Sounds nonsensical to me. Overwhelmingly more likely that is has a significantly lower release peak because it’s sold significantly fewer copies. But then I am trying to analyse the limited available data objectively, not search for farfetched reasons to ignore it in order to blindly defend a predetermined position.

 

I would consider similar data for GoG if it were available. I’m aware of no reason to assume there’s been a big shift from Steam to GoG however, so if it’s down on one it’s probably down on the other. Sure, it’s not impossible that it’s struggling on Steam while being wildly successful on GoG, but it’s far from likely.

[Amentep]

I've cleaned up the thread. Please contain the debate to what people say not the people themselves