Finally some sales evidence

[PatrioticChief]

To be honest - I guess I can understand why Deadfire is presumably underperforming. (Although for an medium-sized indie developer 200k sale number is not the end of the world IMO. Still, I think Obsidian was unofficialy banking on a breaktrough in style of DO:S 2. Good luck with that, if that was the case.)

Honest question - what is Deadfire's main selling point? Is it a gripping story, deep companion interaction, innovative gameplay mechanics, open world? Beacuse it definately tries to do all of that - it just doesn't commit. In pretty much every aspect, this game is at best "good enough". And in heavily competitive nostalgia-based RPG market that's just not good enough. The PoE franchise brand is not strong enough to guarantee sales all by itself. And for me Deadfire really doesn't has any aspect of the game that you can point at and say - "this part is amazing/well done". Mechanically/combat-wise there are absolutely no innovations, this heavily-touted ship mechanic gets tedious rather fast, story-wise the game is unfocused and underdeveloped, writing is hit or miss, companion system/romance is superficial and unsatisfying, companions are run-on-the-mill and forgettable (incidentally, I had a kick out of reading a whole bunch of Steam reviews that pretty much went: "After 20 hours, I finally found a cool and memorable companion. Turns out she's a sidekick. Not recommended.", which is a *very* valid criticism IMO.) And "word-of-mouth" is a powerful tool. So, logically, why does the Random Joe with limited income would want to buy this game for 45 bucks? Especially the "free-thinker" one that doesn't treat a "pre-release" reviews as a gospel. The market is already oversaturated with "nostalgic" RPGs. If I didn't back this game myself for a ridiculous amount of money (out of strange loyalty to Obsidian, also I *really* wanted sea monsters and Ydwin realized ), I sadly probably wouldn't be interested in anything this game has to offer.

Again, I don't know much about marketing strategies, sales, and so on, so don't take this post too seriously. Those are just my random musings/observations based on opinions from me and a bunch of my friends.

 

You make some decent points. I am very satisfied with my investment in Deadfire and will likely have 3 full play through. But I don't see this competing as one of the greats. Of course I wasn't a massive fan of DI2 and that sold extremely well so maybe I am just out of touch. ^^

[InsaneCommander]

Its interesting to me about how I "imprinted" on the ruleset that I came up on. To me, D&D 2E/2.5E is perfectly clear and understandable, while wrt PoE, Im 10 pounds of stupid in a 5 pound bag. I just cant get it!

 

It's exactly how I feel. I only played IWD years after it was released and I had not played D&D for a long time. But I still could plan all of my characters with multiclass, dual class, etc. When I asked a friend about it, he said it would work just fine in the game.

[acbatchelor]

 

To Hit Armor Class 0 (zero)

 

It was used to determine hit / miss, back in the day.

Oh weird! So the chance to hit is subtracted by the armor class? That seems so backward to my brain.

 

Thank you for explanation!

 

 

That was my reaction when I learned the rules of golf. Why does the winner have the lowest score? Isn't that backwards? LOL

[Aotrs Commander]

Not vastly on-topic, but since we're discussing it... Me, I have no loyalty to AD&D as a set of rules - not only was it not the first RPG I played, it was a distant forth, behind Hero Quest (y'know, the board-game one - it counts, the way we played it), Rolemaster (there's a learning difficulty spike, especially when you're ten!) and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The couple of times I ran it, I house-ruled the crap out of it. Rolemaster or 3.x/PF are my preferences (and really only 3.x/PF heavily house-ruled, the computer adaptions of 3.x have never been very satisfactory, though I find them better than AD&D). I dropped AD&D the moment 3.0 came out and the books only come out when I want to have a quiet laugh or explain to people that yes, the AD&D psionics rules were, in fact, a thing that existed that was creating by an actual human being, though I have never thus far not had anyone I explained it to go "why even would you?" Because if you think Thac0 is arse-backwards, then you don't even want to know...

 

So, PoE having its own system was something of a plus for me.

[Vitalis]

 

 

I wouldn't necessarily count on Bethesda's future output frankly, given their latest efforts *sigh*.

Yeah, let's ignore direct statements from Todd Howard, the head of BGS, that Fallout 76 is a spin-off and their main titles were, are, and will be focused on singleplayer.

 

 

Indeed, let's instead blindly trust that the company that decides to come out with a multiplayer half a year after their "save player one" campaign isn't going to change it's mind on that. Especially if Fallout 76 turns out to make them a stupid amount of money, for what seems to be comparatively rather less work than they'd have needed for a single player game. They would hardly be the first traditionally single player gaming developer to make that switch. Besides, there is still also a difference between focused on single player and single player only; they might still end up throwing multiplayer elements into it as well, which would require compromises in the game design (eg. VATS and jet can't work as in Fallout 4 if there's potentially more than one player).

 

I'm hardly claiming that they definitely will shift their focus towards multiplayer, but I also wouldn't be too quick to believe they won't just because Todd Howard is saying so now. 

 

 

Perhaps we should remember that Todd Howard is a fan of removing features for every new feature added, and has been the death of innovation in all of the games he has produced, so chances are most of those features were removed anyways.  

 

https://youtu.be/46gaz6veVNQ?t=3372

 

That video is worth an hour of your time. 

[Tagaziel]

I'm hardly claiming that they definitely will shift their focus towards multiplayer, but I also wouldn't be too quick to believe they won't just because Todd Howard is saying so now.

Uh, it's a company that built its reputation on single-player games for over two decades. They specifically said F76 is a spin-off and their main games will be single player. I don't see any reason, at all, not to take Bethesda on their word.

[Melusina]

So, everybody's claiming POE2 flopped hard. True or not?

[Purudaya]

So, everybody's claiming POE2 flopped hard. True or not?

 

Not everybody, just a couple of armchair experts who like to quote Steam-only sales numbers from 1 month and 22 days after release while ignoring every other possible factor or point of comparison to PoE1 over the same period. My sense is that Deadfire is doing about as well or a little less than its predecessor, but that's not including the upcoming console release (which PoE1 didn't have). 

 

All that matters is Obsidian's internal targets. We'll probably know a little more after the ~5 month mark.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Purudaya

[Night Stalker]

Yeah, it is hard to judge, but it is certianly not a runaway success. It would be interersting saleswise to see what happens when each of the DLCs land (especially the last one). In this day and age with game libraries the steching into the sky, I think there will be a lot of people sitting on the sideline waiting for the complete/ultimate/whatever version of the game to go on a deep sale.

[aksrasjel]

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about economics - being a literature major, but I would assume that breaking even after let's say 6 months as was suggested, is not quite ideal. People need to eat and the game/product is not generating profit for 6 months + it supposedly consumes even more money and resources when trying to sustain it with patches and "FreeDLC". But again, I can be horribly wrong on that.
I am also curious about Deadfire's "legs". This game more than anything needs to rely on the word of mouth to get going - the franchise is not strong enough to sustain itself all on its own. Reviews were positive, yet infuriatingly vague. Game is "great", writing is "spectacular", open world is "amazing". We are not told why. 10/10. And from what I've noticed the overall opinion of the forums/social media ranges from "The game is good, but..." to "I was disappointed". And that does not inspire confidence from Random Joe with limited income who just wants to know what to think on this game.
So we'll see how it goes, I guess.

Edited July 16, 2018 by aksrasjel

[gkathellar]

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about economics - being a literature major, but I would assume that breaking even after let's say 6 months as was suggested, is not quite ideal. People need to eat and the game/product is not generating profit for 6 months + it supposedly consumes even more money and resources when trying to sustain it with patches and "FreeDLC". But again, I can be horribly wrong on that.

I am also curious about Deadfire's "legs". This game more than anything needs to rely on the word of mouth to get going - the franchise is not strong enough to sustain itself all on its own. Reviews were positive, yet infuriatingly vague. Game is "great", writing is "spectacular", open world is "amazing". We are not told why. 10/10. And from what I've noticed the overall opinion of the forums/social media ranges from "The game is good, but..." to "I was disappointed". And that does not inspire confidence from Random Joe with limited income who just wants to know what to think on this game.

So we'll see how it goes, I guess.

 

Bear in mind that this board is a giant pile of sampling bias.

[Achilles]

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about economics - being a literature major, but I would assume that breaking even after let's say 6 months as was suggested, is not quite ideal. People need to eat and the game/product is not generating profit for 6 months + it supposedly consumes even more money and resources when trying to sustain it with patches and "FreeDLC". But again, I can be horribly wrong on that.

I am also curious about Deadfire's "legs". This game more than anything needs to rely on the word of mouth to get going - the franchise is not strong enough to sustain itself all on its own. Reviews were positive, yet infuriatingly vague. Game is "great", writing is "spectacular", open world is "amazing". We are not told why. 10/10. And from what I've noticed the overall opinion of the forums/social media ranges from "The game is good, but..." to "I was disappointed". And that does not inspire confidence from Random Joe with limited income who just wants to know what to think on this game.

So we'll see how it goes, I guess.

Video games are not like movies, which need to make a significant portion of their money back on the opening weekend.

 

It’s also probably wise to level-set expectations between mid-size indie games (i.e. Deadfire) and AAA games (i.e. whatever the latest Call of Duty is). A triple-A game that only sells half a million units is a disaster. An indie game that sells half a million units is not. I think a lot of people lose their way in this conversation the moment that they forget this.

[kanisatha]

Yeah, it is hard to judge, but it is certianly not a runaway success. It would be interersting saleswise to see what happens when each of the DLCs land (especially the last one). In this day and age with game libraries the steching into the sky, I think there will be a lot of people sitting on the sideline waiting for the complete/ultimate/whatever version of the game to go on a deep sale.

I agree. If I had not been a backer of the game, then upon hearing that there were going to be three expansions/DLCs hitting in a few months, I would definitely have chosen to wait for some sort of "complete" edition of the game to buy later on. I think a lot of casual gamers like myself would opt to do that because unlike the hardcore gamers we don't feel any pressure to want to play a game as soon as it is released. We don't have that much time to play games, and there are a ton of games available to play. So waiting several months, even a year, to play a game is par for the course for casual gamers.

[kanisatha]

 

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about economics - being a literature major, but I would assume that breaking even after let's say 6 months as was suggested, is not quite ideal. People need to eat and the game/product is not generating profit for 6 months + it supposedly consumes even more money and resources when trying to sustain it with patches and "FreeDLC". But again, I can be horribly wrong on that.

I am also curious about Deadfire's "legs". This game more than anything needs to rely on the word of mouth to get going - the franchise is not strong enough to sustain itself all on its own. Reviews were positive, yet infuriatingly vague. Game is "great", writing is "spectacular", open world is "amazing". We are not told why. 10/10. And from what I've noticed the overall opinion of the forums/social media ranges from "The game is good, but..." to "I was disappointed". And that does not inspire confidence from Random Joe with limited income who just wants to know what to think on this game.

So we'll see how it goes, I guess.

 

Bear in mind that this board is a giant pile of sampling bias.

^Truth.

[Vaneglorious]

I dont know why you think based on revenue.

 

DOTA is number 1 and that game is free

 

And why are you trying so hard to complicate soemrhing that is so simple?

 

Its pretty easy. Its bronze so not in top 50

You realize that game has like a billion microtransactions, right...? Dota2 is a gold mine for Valve.

[Blovski]

 

ah thats ok i found it

 

its on that spreadsheet they provide

 

so 2003000 sales hey

 

its only been out for 2-3 months but still thats low 

 

wonder why not selling so good?

I'ts not hard to see that both this forum and reddit are filled with people disappointed in the game. And Obsidian, instead of holding its ground and focusing on minor changes and bug fixing, keeps overhauling it to try to cater to everyone. Completely randomly, not by releasing big changes with e.g. a DLC or an expansion pack. This is the result, and it's something I've said elsewhere some time ago: games like these are not meant to be balanced for months after the release, because it makes their sales suffer. I'm guessing if actual sales number don't convince them, nothing will.

 

Pillars got through this phase by being something fresh. cRPG genre was a wateland at that point and Pillars 1 filled it, so it sold pretty well despite the developer's approach. However, as you can see, you only get one chance to get away with this kind of design philosophy.

 

All I hope for at this point is that they manage to scrape enough to get POE3 going.

 

And that they finally create an MMO game, where they can go bonkers with all the balance they want!

 

I think ultimately it was unrealistic that they were going to replicate the numbers of Pillars 1 by doing the same thing. The momentum from the Kickstarter campaign was not something you can replicate and the market position of being the only real new RTWP CRPG was unique. The changes have hardly been overhauls - a few outliers have been addressed, a few things that weren't nearly good enough have been improved. I really doubt that balancing the games post-release is going to harm sales in any meaningful way. It's unfortunate that the game released with the balance not having been addressed more before release.

 

Ultimately I think Obsidian are still working out what a viable long-term business model for this kind of game looks like. Putting more focus on well-paced, traditional, compelling storytelling than metaphysics in my view is the thing that would make the biggest difference for reception.

[the_dog_days]

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about economics - being a literature major, but I would assume that breaking even after let's say 6 months as was suggested, is not quite ideal. People need to eat and the game/product is not generating profit for 6 months + it supposedly consumes even more money and resources when trying to sustain it with patches and "FreeDLC". But again, I can be horribly wrong on that.

I am also curious about Deadfire's "legs". This game more than anything needs to rely on the word of mouth to get going - the franchise is not strong enough to sustain itself all on its own. Reviews were positive, yet infuriatingly vague. Game is "great", writing is "spectacular", open world is "amazing". We are not told why. 10/10. And from what I've noticed the overall opinion of the forums/social media ranges from "The game is good, but..." to "I was disappointed". And that does not inspire confidence from Random Joe with limited income who just wants to know what to think on this game.

So we'll see how it goes, I guess.

Ninja Theory did a video on this same matter last year (its on youtube). They said games rarely go into the black within six months after release. Personally, I buy this if only because of holiday sells (retail, for example, relies on the holidays to bring in same thing like 90% of their annual revenue).

[Aleh1811]

To be honest, I would not be surprised if many people are waiting until all the expansion packs are out before buying this game. I am basically that kind of consumer, I buy only game of the year editions, not so much because of the price (although that helps), but I enjoy the idea of buying a game only when its complete.

[wih]

To be honest, I would not be surprised if many people are waiting until all the expansion packs are out before buying this game. I am basically that kind of consumer, I buy only game of the year editions, not so much because of the price (although that helps), but I enjoy the idea of buying a game only when its complete.

 

I guess this phenomenon is additionally reinforced by the fact that CRPG lovers also need to finish their playthroughs of Wasteland 2 / PoE1 / Tyranny / DoS 1-2 / Tides of Numenera, etc. It makes sense that they are not in a hurry to buy Deadfire.

Edited July 17, 2018 by wih

[Tick]

 

To be honest, I would not be surprised if many people are waiting until all the expansion packs are out before buying this game. I am basically that kind of consumer, I buy only game of the year editions, not so much because of the price (although that helps), but I enjoy the idea of buying a game only when its complete.

 

I guess this phenomenon is additionally reinforced by the fact that CRPG lovers also need to finish their playthroughs of Wasteland 2 / PoE1 / Tyranny / DoS 1-2 / Tides of Numenera, etc. It makes sense that they are not in hurry to buy Deadfire.

 

 

Very anecdotal, but I actually do know someone that feels this way.   They like the game series but not so much that they have to buy it right now, so they're thinking they'll probably wait until the DLC's are out.  

 

Obviously, they might still not buy it at that point, but I think that's a legitimate mentality.

[MrMoe]

These games also take a lot of time. One playthru is easily 50 hours.

 

Then the DLC are coming, completing the game. Now you have to play it again for all the content, another 50+ hours.

Not everyone has that much time to play and replay their favorite games.

[Voodoo]

I bought PoE2 and season pass, started it a little to see how it fares against PoE 1, but stopped and now I'm waiting until all DLCs are available and the game is (virtually) fully patched.

This is from experience with PoE 1, where playing 1.06 without White March and playing 3.07 + White March were very different things.

 

Thus, calculating success of PoE based on number of concurrent players on Steam, number of unlocked achievements and similar, is not reliable.

[ThacoBell]

 

 

ah thats ok i found it

 

its on that spreadsheet they provide

 

so 2003000 sales hey

 

its only been out for 2-3 months but still thats low 

 

wonder why not selling so good?

I'ts not hard to see that both this forum and reddit are filled with people disappointed in the game. And Obsidian, instead of holding its ground and focusing on minor changes and bug fixing, keeps overhauling it to try to cater to everyone. Completely randomly, not by releasing big changes with e.g. a DLC or an expansion pack. This is the result, and it's something I've said elsewhere some time ago: games like these are not meant to be balanced for months after the release, because it makes their sales suffer. I'm guessing if actual sales number don't convince them, nothing will.

 

Pillars got through this phase by being something fresh. cRPG genre was a wateland at that point and Pillars 1 filled it, so it sold pretty well despite the developer's approach. However, as you can see, you only get one chance to get away with this kind of design philosophy.

 

All I hope for at this point is that they manage to scrape enough to get POE3 going.

 

And that they finally create an MMO game, where they can go bonkers with all the balance they want!

 

I think ultimately it was unrealistic that they were going to replicate the numbers of Pillars 1 by doing the same thing. The momentum from the Kickstarter campaign was not something you can replicate and the market position of being the only real new RTWP CRPG was unique. The changes have hardly been overhauls - a few outliers have been addressed, a few things that weren't nearly good enough have been improved. I really doubt that balancing the games post-release is going to harm sales in any meaningful way. It's unfortunate that the game released with the balance not having been addressed more before release.

 

Ultimately I think Obsidian are still working out what a viable long-term business model for this kind of game looks like. Putting more focus on well-paced, traditional, compelling storytelling than metaphysics in my view is the thing that would make the biggest difference for reception.

 

Remember that PoE1 went through a very similar patch cycle. PoE1 as it is now is very different than what was initially released.

[xzar_monty]

Precisely. Playing PoE1 approximately a year after it came out was a good experience.

 

I do own PoE2, but I've spent about two hours on it and will wait for at least the first DLC before actually playing it.

 

I suppose it's debatable whether developing games like this is good for the company or not. I certainly can't prove anything either way.

[lpro]

I anticipate another playthrough at +1 year once all the DLC is out. A wiser player w/ less surplus time would probably have known to buy it one year out -- I did that for POE1 and it was a blast. no way am I going to play it all through again just for the minor DLC in August --I wanted full, real expansions like virtually everybody polled early in the process.

There's nothing surprising about BG2 sales since it has regularly retailed for $5 on Gog and Steam. Even POE1 got new legs thanks to sales and hype from game one, and it was still selling for $30. I //am// surprised that NWN:EE has sold well since it was always a trash single player experience without full party control.

Edited July 17, 2018 by lpro