Finally some sales evidence

[rjshae]

It's very unfortunate that games with multiplayer significantly outsell single player only games. I can understand a little bit of a sales advantage for multiplayer, but these numbers seem to indicate a gigantic difference. I imagine this will mean that even small-to-medium sized RPG developers (Obsidian, inXile, etc.) will now move to multiplayer games and abandon creating single player only games.

 

It depends a lot on how difficult it is to break into that arena. The investment bar is high and not every game gets widely accepted, so for a smaller game company it's potentially a huge risk. They may need outside investment to make a go of it.

[Purudaya]

It's very unfortunate that games with multiplayer significantly outsell single player only games. I can understand a little bit of a sales advantage for multiplayer, but these numbers seem to indicate a gigantic difference. I imagine this will mean that even small-to-medium sized RPG developers (Obsidian, inXile, etc.) will now move to multiplayer games and abandon creating single player only games.

 

 

Not necessarily - multiplayer games have been selling better for a while now and even AAA single player games are still being made (just look at the Witcher 3). It's all about what the core audience wants from a given IP.

 

Sidenote: people really need to stop comparing sales from Deadfire to PoE1 or the Divinity series (double sidenote: if Divinity is the direction CRPGs are headed, the genre is well and truly ****ed). All that matters is Obsidian's internal targets and projections - direct narrative sequels generally see diminished returns and the devs likely anticipated that Deadfire would not be able to replicate the conditions surrounding PoE1 (the first major isometric CRPG produced in over a decade). PoE's sales numbers supposedly surprised Obsidian, so if their aim was to sell ~500k this time around they'll probably be fine by the end of the year if not already from GoG sales.

 

My understanding is that PoE3 is pretty much a lock. Besides, there's nothing like remastering and repackaging a trilogy to squeeze some extra juice out of an IP.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Purudaya

[anathanielh]

Well like i said DoTa is platinum and it is a game that sells for free

 

That means it costs nothing

 

So i dont think these figures are based on revenue

Free games can still make money through these things called M I C R O T R A N S A C T I O N S.

They may not sell copies, but they can still definitely contribute to revenue for Valve.

 

But if the top sellers list is determined by downloads, then I suppose it doesnt matter how much money is made by the games.

Edited July 7, 2018 by anathanielh

[Bill Gates' Son]

Valve is supposedly working on a replacement for Steam Spy, so we'll find out at some point.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/valve-working-on-more-accurate-replacement-for-steam-spys-sales-data/

 

Numbers have already been leaked.

 

 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/steam-data-leak-reveals-precise-player-count-for-thousands-of-games/

[no1fanboy]

Yeah someone has allready posted that

 

Deadfire has sold 203,000 on steam

[Purkake]

Yeah someone has allready posted that

 

Deadfire has sold 203,000 on steam

Yeah, not looking good, Pillars 1 has 6x that :/

[house2fly]

Yeah but it's been out 19x longer

[no1fanboy]

Of course pillars 1 has been out longer 

 

I think the point he is making is that 200,000 on steam after 2-3 months clearly aint good. Alot of those people would be backers too.

 

One way of seeing how it is trending its to wait 1 month and see how many extra sales they have done in that period then you would have some basis for determining long term sales number

 

Hopefully the Expansions and DLCS will stir interest and more sales will be generated

Edited July 8, 2018 by no1fanboy

[the_dog_days]

Do the steam sales include the backers? Because they bought the game not directly at steam, they just activated it after.

 

They do not.

[thelee]

One thing to keep in mind is that POE1 has a lower average sales price by now, thanks to discounting, sales, and such. So even though it has 6x sales of Deadfire so far, it is nowhere near 6x revenue. I feel like in the Fig campaign the numbers they were giving had something like 600k copies sold at 30USD average sale price (lower than MSRP due to promos and bundling and such). If they got to 1.2 million since, it has likely been through even more discounting and promotions, whereas Deadfire has been full MSRP so far.

 

So I wouldn't read too much into the raw sales numbers, though it is clear to me that Deadfire is doing less well than I personally would hope as a fan of the game and the studio.

 

Though what ultimately matters is if Deadfire makes enough money to pay the bills if not being a huge hit. I hope that the case. 200k @ 50$ (subtracting pre-paid backers but adding back in GOG sales and assuming they at least balance out) is 10m$ gross revenue, which may not be bad for an indie title, especially since some of the development cost was funded by fig money, some of which is investment that only needs to be paid out if they hit certain sales milestones so is not a too bad of a liability.

Edited July 8, 2018 by thelee

[Murp]

I was feeling pretty good about the steam chart thing before I saw this thread (which I should have expected)

 

Too much hardtack lowered morale I guess.

[rjshae]

PoE sold 500,000 units, including backers, after 5 months.

 

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pillars-of-eternity-reaches-new-sales-milestone/1100-6431677/

 

PoE2 has been out 2 months, with 200,000 (+33K backers) units sold on Steam. So... I don't see a reason to be negative at this point.

[no1fanboy]

PoE sold 500,000 units, including backers, after 5 months.

 

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pillars-of-eternity-reaches-new-sales-milestone/1100-6431677/

 

PoE2 has been out 2 months, with 200,000 (+33K backers) units sold on Steam. So... I don't see a reason to be negative at this point.

you forgot what they have sold on GOG

 

so probably another 50,000 (complete guess) on top of that

[no1fanboy]

they are giving away free copies of POE1 

 

They are doing this to generate more sales for deadfire obvisouly

 

anyway here is free copy if anyone wants one

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/07/03/amazon-prime-day-2018-best-deals-pc-games-hardware-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rockpapershotgun%2Fsteam+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%3A+Steam+RSS%29

[no1fanboy]

1

Edited July 8, 2018 by no1fanboy

[Tagaziel]

I imagine this will mean that even small-to-medium sized RPG developers (Obsidian, inXile, etc.) will now move to multiplayer games and abandon creating single player only games.

What makes you think that? There's precisely zero reason for either to abandon single-player games.

[SonicMage117]

I said it before and I'll say it again, being in the top-sellers means nothing when no other big name games came out during the window that was even in the top sellers.

 

One could argue that since it was on sale during the Summer Sale (not too long after release) that sales were poor.

 

You're literally better off gauging Steam sales by looking at the most common achievements.

[anameforobsidian]

Ninjad by a lot.  I should read.

Edited July 8, 2018 by anameforobsidian

[anameforobsidian]

Since Deadfire hasn't had a wide range of sales it's even easier to see how much it made. 171k people bought it new or barely discounted on steam.  Steam takes it's 30%.  So in revenue it got at least ($42.5*171k*.7) - (whatever they paid to critical role).  So that's $5m in revenue not counting critical role or taxes.  If no copies were bought during the sale, that goes up to $6M.  You can add that to $4.4m from Fig.

Edited July 8, 2018 by anameforobsidian

[kanisatha]

 

I imagine this will mean that even small-to-medium sized RPG developers (Obsidian, inXile, etc.) will now move to multiplayer games and abandon creating single player only games.

What makes you think that? There's precisely zero reason for either to abandon single-player games.

Except for the "not making enough money from it" reason. If you do a quick Google search you'll come across quite a number of articles from the past year or so with direct quotes from game developer company executives saying there's not enough money to be made from single player games anymore. inXile itself has said (in a recent Brian Fargo interview) that their next new game (after Wasteland 3) will be multiplayer (and consoles) focused.

[Michael_Galt]

 

 

I imagine this will mean that even small-to-medium sized RPG developers (Obsidian, inXile, etc.) will now move to multiplayer games and abandon creating single player only games.

What makes you think that? There's precisely zero reason for either to abandon single-player games.

Except for the "not making enough money from it" reason. If you do a quick Google search you'll come across quite a number of articles from the past year or so with direct quotes from game developer company executives saying there's not enough money to be made from single player games anymore. inXile itself has said (in a recent Brian Fargo interview) that their next new game (after Wasteland 3) will be multiplayer (and consoles) focused.

 

 

Dislike.  I mean, I hardly play videogames anymore, since I only play cRPGs... but, sounds like Cyberpunk 2077 and Wasteland 3 might be some of the last games I play (admittedly, I think that will be to "go out on a high note").  Hopefully Obsidian doesn't cave to that pressure, and can still be economically viable doing great single player cRPGs.

[Tagaziel]

Except for the "not making enough money from it" reason. If you do a quick Google search you'll come across quite a number of articles from the past year or so with direct quotes from game developer company executives saying there's not enough money to be made from single player games anymore. inXile itself has said (in a recent Brian Fargo interview) that their next new game (after Wasteland 3) will be multiplayer (and consoles) focused.

They've been saying that since the late nineties and yet we still have singleplayer games. Hell, Witcher, PoE1, Wasteland 2, Fallout 4 (the ENTIRE Bethesda catalogue now and in the future*), HBS' catalogue (Battletech has an MP component, but it doesn't take priority over the robust main campaign), Total War series, Paradox games... That claim doesn't survive confrontation with reality.

 

It's understandable that games that don't require you to dive into deep lore and riveting stories are more popular than those that do. Some games focus on the gameplay experience and that's perfectly fine. They have much bigger audiences specifically because they're easy to pick up, enjoy, and then drop when you need to do something else. This was the case for, what, two decades now?

 

Despite that we still get quality SP games. In the same way that burger joints did not wipe out regular restaurants, MP won't wipe out SP.

[Loren Tyr]

I wouldn't necessarily count on Bethesda's future output frankly, given their latest efforts *sigh*. But indeed Fallout 4 is a clear example that there's plenty of interest in single player games. And in general, the whole notion that single player games will die out because there would be no money in it seems deeply implausible. I can certainly see how (specific types of) multiplayer game are probably much easier to make in many respects, and have the whole microtransaction / subscription / etc. array of post-purchase monetization options going for them.

 

That can certainly be very tempting for many developers. But the more that get tempted to do that, the less profitable that is likely to become (and/or the less reliable it will be as an investment), because there will be more games and developers competing for the same, ultimately limited, pool of players (and their limited time and money to sink into gaming). While at the same time, it would result in increasingly less competition in the single player market, in turn making that a more profitable and reliable investment. Obviously there is all sorts of developments in gaming trends over time, and an ebb and flow of popularity of different kinds of game. But for a particular genre to just die out, especially something as general as "single-player", for purely economic reasons alone I just can't see that happening. I mean, even the isometric cRPG genre once thought thoroughly dead and buried has been resurrected, and that is far more niche than 'single player'. 

[no1fanboy]

I said it before and I'll say it again, being in the top-sellers means nothing when no other big name games came out during the window that was even in the top sellers.

 

One could argue that since it was on sale during the Summer Sale (not too long after release) that sales were poor.

 

You're literally better off gauging Steam sales by looking at the most common achievements.

Kingdom come deliverance made platinum and it was released at the same time

[Boeroer]

There is a market for single player games. If it's smaller than the market for multiplayer games then perhaps produce less expensive single player games, eh?