Finally some sales evidence

[kanisatha]

The upcoming major patch for P:K, 1.2, is all about loading times, so hopefully that major issue will be resolved soon.

[the_dog_days]

Sorry for the micro-necro, but Steam top sellers list of 2018 is out. Deadfire made Bronze and no Pathfinder. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/winter2018bestof/

[Boeroer]

Rofl

[house2fly]

This thread popping back up reminded me, player counts doubled over Christmas/New Year. Don't know if that indicates a bump in sales, or just a bunch of role players being at a loose end for some reason

[protopersona]

This thread popping back up reminded me, player counts doubled over Christmas/New Year. Don't know if that indicates a bump in sales, or just a bunch of role players being at a loose end for some reason

Steam sales are a powerful thing.

 

"It was as if millions of wallets cried out in pain, and then were emptied."

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

Was thinking as well. People give/get steam vouchers for christmas. My brother and i pooled ours and we have like £120 of them. Aint spent them yet.

[Saito Hikari]

Sorry for the micro-necro, but Steam top sellers list of 2018 is out. Deadfire made Bronze and no Pathfinder. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/winter2018bestof/

 

One also has to consider that Deadfire was released a whole four and a half months earlier than Pathfinder, during the quietest month of the year while Pathfinder was released in the busiest month of the year.

 

I also bought Pathfinder on GOG, and I noticed GOG promoted Pathfinder for like 3 months before finally removing it from their front store. One can argue how much GOG actually matters, though.

 

Deadfire definitely got a bump over the winter, with people waiting for sales/all DLC to be released. Though it rather saddens me to know that PoE's status as a series is basically 'don't buy day 1, wait until the game is finished/wait for a sale', which is something that doesn't look good to developers/publishers. It seems cRPGs as a whole are sliding into that category, now that I think about it.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Saito Hikari

[the_dog_days]

 

Sorry for the micro-necro, but Steam top sellers list of 2018 is out. Deadfire made Bronze and no Pathfinder. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/winter2018bestof/

 

I also bought Pathfinder on GOG, and I noticed GOG promoted Pathfinder for like 3 months before finally removing it from their front store. One can argue how much GOG actually matters, though.

 

 

I own both on GOG. But this is STEAM top sellers. 

Edited January 6, 2019 by the_dog_days

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

Though it rather saddens me to know that PoE's status as a series is basically 'don't buy day 1, wait until the game is finished/wait for a sale', which is something that doesn't look good to developers/publishers. It seems cRPGs as a whole are sliding into that category, now that I think about it.

 

Is echo of - and improvement on - prior situation, where game was released utterly borked. then u prayed intelligent and generous community members fixed game via unofficial patches later. before widespread internet, u didnt even have that luxury.

 

would have been nice to see both deadfire and km up there. at least dos2's put some money in larians pockets.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I did look for Deadfire when they released their chart a few weeks ago. I didn't think the fig estimates were correct, and they weren't, top 100 sales on Steam. Obsidian still thinks it underperformed but a) the game was funded, b) they get the royalties, c) Steam gives more than retail used to at the height of this genre 20 years ago, and d) there's quite a bit of competition. Sales are almost certainly over 200K by now.

[injurai]

Sorry for the micro-necro, but Steam top sellers list of 2018 is out. Deadfire made Bronze and no Pathfinder. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/winter2018bestof/

 

Damn, congrats to Civilization VI. Looks like it might be making bank this year as well. Even V managed to come up in bronze last year.

[thelee]

 

Sorry for the micro-necro, but Steam top sellers list of 2018 is out. Deadfire made Bronze and no Pathfinder. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/winter2018bestof/

 

One also has to consider that Deadfire was released a whole four and a half months earlier than Pathfinder, during the quietest month of the year while Pathfinder was released in the busiest month of the year.

 

I also bought Pathfinder on GOG, and I noticed GOG promoted Pathfinder for like 3 months before finally removing it from their front store. One can argue how much GOG actually matters, though.

 

Deadfire definitely got a bump over the winter, with people waiting for sales/all DLC to be released. Though it rather saddens me to know that PoE's status as a series is basically 'don't buy day 1, wait until the game is finished/wait for a sale', which is something that doesn't look good to developers/publishers. It seems cRPGs as a whole are sliding into that category, now that I think about it.

 

 

It works the other way, too. Deadfire was released in a time where not many people are out looking for games, whereas Pathfinder gets released in advance of a heavy sales season. It's not like a movie released in December is going to do worse in same-year box office success than a movie released in February (the exact opposite in fact). Personally I just enjoy the schadenfreude of some people complaining about the bugginess and load times of Deadfire sucking it up and dealing with extreme bugginess and load times of Pathfinder.

 

GoG matters little. I know steam-haters and DRM-haters are going to looooove GoG super hard, but time and time again any objective data shows that GoG still has just a mere fraction of steam sales. Don't get me wrong, I want more viable competition to steam, but GoG ain't there yet (if ever, now that Epic is doing its own thing and has serious money backing it).

 

Anecdotally, Deadfire definitely seems to have gotten a bump over the winter. A couple friends who had been PoE1 backers and played it day one but had not backed or bought Deadfire actually did end up buying it over the holiday season. My own gamefaqs guide has gotten a bump in sustained usage over the past few weeks (is now actually my #2 guide in daily users). But yeah, this is why you want to have low-bug releases, because then people don't buy your game day 1, when it is arguably the most important time for your company's health that they buy. I think it also raises the question of Deadfire's model of updates, because the nature of the game and the nature of the updates arguably suppressed continual engagement (all the new magran's fires required you to start new games to take advantage of them; even though i loved the game i ended up putting it aside for a few weeks because i just got tired of trying to rush through the game to keep on top of the new challenges as they got released).

Edited January 7, 2019 by thelee

[thelee]

I did look for Deadfire when they released their chart a few weeks ago. I didn't think the fig estimates were correct, and they weren't, top 100 sales on Steam. Obsidian still thinks it underperformed but a) the game was funded, b) they get the royalties, c) Steam gives more than retail used to at the height of this genre 20 years ago, and d) there's quite a bit of competition. Sales are almost certainly over 200K by now.

 

sales-watchers like us should be on the lookout for the updated fig royalty checks this spring (should be every 6 months).

 

also, i don't know how you go from "fig estimates [weren't correct], top 100 sales on steam." top 100 is a fairly low bar, actually; sales rankings will tend to follow a power-curve law where #1 does extremely well, #2 does pretty well, #3 does well, etc and then you got a long tail of all other sales.

Edited January 7, 2019 by thelee

[AwesomeOcelot]

...top 100 is a fairly low bar...

That's a relative statement, and we're talking about the the 110K figure people got when they tried determine Deadfire sales through fig investor dividends incorrectly.

sales rankings will tend to follow a power-curve law where #1 does extremely well, #2 does pretty well, #3 does well, etc and then you got a long tail of all other sales.

It would be a long tail, but there's a lot of games that are behind Deadfire on that list. Games in the top 100 could sell 1/20 of the top game, sell within expectations, and still be on the head, Steam is a large platform. This is an annual list that includes every game on Steam, free to play games, cheap games, old games. Getting to #66 isn't bad.

[thelee]

 

...top 100 is a fairly low bar...

That's a relative statement, and we're talking about the the 110K figure people got when they tried determine Deadfire sales through fig investor dividends incorrectly.

 

110k is a perfectly valid lower bound, and it has almost no relation to whether or not a game is in steam top 100. Just because a game made it into the top 100 does not contradict fig estimates.

 

let's reiterate some things.

 

1. this is an objective fact: the fig dividends are paid out by a very specific formula based on gross revenue. There's nothing that anyone can do to futz with this number, or else it's a major SEC violation and we're talking criminal fraud. So we can assume under penalty of criminal prosecution that the fig dividends are paid out exactly as the original SEC filings specified.

 

2. Given #1, one can conclude very accurately what the gross revenue is.

 

3. Given #2, one can guesstimate what the total number of unit sales based on average cost. This is where a lot of hand-waving kicks in because only Obsidian knows what the ASP (Average Selling Price) actually is. the low 100k that were tossed around earlier in the thread were based on high ASP, which was using Obsidian's own estimates for when they were selling fig shares and a lack of any noticable discounting. In practice, the ASP is much lower due to international sales (and it makes the original fig shares sales pitch a borderline scam IMO), which means sales are probably much higher due to the same gross revenue but lower per-unit revenue.

 

The only thing that definitively contradicts the original fig estimates is the fact that over the summer there was an actual data leak that listed very accurate active player numbers from steam (which various journalists were able to verify), which pegged Deadfire at ~200k. This includes backer copies and gift copies (some backers got extra copies), so does not represent actual sales, but is at least another (possibly more informed) data point vs the lower bound fig guesstimates of 110-125k. GoG continues to be at best a minor fraction of total sales. Though I'm not going to disagree with you that by now it likely has gross unit sales of >200k.

 

 

Games in the top 100 could sell 1/20 of the top game, sell within expectations, and still be on the head,

 

I don't know how closely you've been following this thread, but unofficial grousing from actual Obsidian people (notably JE Sawyer) has confirmed that Deadfire was really expected to be the BG2 to PoE1's BG, that is: be a huge success on top of a cult classic. The fact that they went with full VO (which is extremely expensive for launch and adds huge overhead costs to any future DLC) seems to underlie this assumption. There's a lot of shrugging and half-apologetic quotes from JE Sawyer on other forums (many linked here) talking about all the things they thought they were doing right with Deadfire and how nothing anyone has specified as a criticism can easily explain such a huge sales drop from PoE1 to Deadfire. I think it's pretty clear that Deadfire sales are low and missed expectations, but only Obsidian knows what it's impact on its financials are. But I think it's pretty clear given the fact that PoE1 had almost two years of patching and support whereas it's been less than a year and Deadfire is hitting end-of-life (see some threads where SChin has mentioned this and some twitch streams where devs mention a few more minor patches and content updates in 2019 and not much more past that) that however much love went into Deadfire the financials don't make sense to keep up the high ongoing support.

Edited January 7, 2019 by thelee

[AwesomeOcelot]

How many people, including the originator, was presenting the 110K as a lower bound in the forum that originated from, in these forums, or the numerous upvoted news articles on the subject? The way gross revenue was being calculated was wrong, it wasn't just that the estimates of ASP was wrong.

 

I've already stated it didn't meet Obsidian's expectations on this page, although their expectations were probably 500K-1m.

 

I haven't played the DLC yet, but I don't see it as much less than what PoE got. Also Deadfire needed a lot less patching and content, it's a bigger more polished game.

[Zoraptor]

 

 

...top 100 is a fairly low bar...

That's a relative statement, and we're talking about the the 110K figure people got when they tried determine Deadfire sales through fig investor dividends incorrectly.

 

110k is a perfectly valid lower bound, and it has almost no relation to whether or not a game is in steam top 100. Just because a game made it into the top 100 does not contradict fig estimates

 

No, it was 100% incorrectly calculated. To be specific about why it was wrong, the redditor who made the initial estimate did not read the Fig investor agreement and neither did any of the people (journos included, unsurprisingly) who quoted him. The correct minimum (using the same set of assumptions) is just under 160k- the figure they used was assumed to be inclusive of distributor cut when per the agreement all figures are after distributor cut. He'd removed the distributor cut a second time and the true figure was 10/7 higher than he'd calculated.

 

And on a slightly unrelated tack, Bronze award on Steam is top 100 sales: 12x Pt, 12x Au, 16x Ag, 59 x CuSn = 99 titles, which included Deadfire.

[thelee]

 

 

 

...top 100 is a fairly low bar...

That's a relative statement, and we're talking about the the 110K figure people got when they tried determine Deadfire sales through fig investor dividends incorrectly.

 

110k is a perfectly valid lower bound, and it has almost no relation to whether or not a game is in steam top 100. Just because a game made it into the top 100 does not contradict fig estimates

 

No, it was 100% incorrectly calculated. To be specific about why it was wrong, the redditor who made the initial estimate did not read the Fig investor agreement and neither did any of the people (journos included, unsurprisingly) who quoted him. The correct minimum (using the same set of assumptions) is just under 160k- the figure they used was assumed to be inclusive of distributor cut when per the agreement all figures are after distributor cut. He'd removed the distributor cut a second time and the true figure was 10/7 higher than he'd calculated.

 

 

Ah, I see what you're saying, and you're right. I looked at SEC filings before and looking at them again they do have typos where they write "gross reciepts" and "gross sales revenue" interchangably, but for the actual part that matters (the actual dividend share formula) they are definitely clear on it being "gross receipts" (i.e. net of distributor's cut).

 

Side note: "glad" to see we live in an era where a lot of mid-tier and lower journalism is just resharing info from social media without fact checking.

Edited January 10, 2019 by thelee

[protopersona]

Side note: "glad" to see we live in an era where a lot of mid-tier and lower journalism is just resharing info from social media without fact checking.

 

Hell, real journalists from actual journalistic publications are guilty of that now. It's yellow journalism 2.0 since the subscription model has been screwed over thanks to the advent of the "free" internet.

[xzar_monty]

 

Side note: "glad" to see we live in an era where a lot of mid-tier and lower journalism is just resharing info from social media without fact checking.

 

Hell, real journalists from actual journalistic publications are guilty of that now. It's yellow journalism 2.0 since the subscription model has been screwed over thanks to the advent of the "free" internet.

 

 

The internet has already destroyed the music industry. The publishing industry is in dire straits because of the internet. Journalism is in a severe crisis because of the internet. That where we're at.

[Zoraptor]

 

Ah, I see what you're saying, and you're right. I looked at SEC filings before and looking at them again they do have typos where they write "gross reciepts" and "gross sales revenue" interchangably, but for the actual part that matters (the actual dividend share formula) they are definitely clear on it being "gross receipts" (i.e. net of distributor's cut).

 

 

The inconsistent wording is definitely confusing and I'm surprised it's there in a legal filing. I'd have preferred them to use nett for receipts after cut and gross for before cut but I'm not an accountant.

 

I don't have much problem with the guy who made the initial calculation being mistaken given most people are familiar with movie or game grosses that include the vendor fees and will thus automatically think that's the case when seeing figures. Journos definitely should have checked though, the agreement is a public filing and they are expected to have better knowledge than a random person on reddit and to be more authoritative sources.

[protopersona]

 

 

Ah, I see what you're saying, and you're right. I looked at SEC filings before and looking at them again they do have typos where they write "gross reciepts" and "gross sales revenue" interchangably, but for the actual part that matters (the actual dividend share formula) they are definitely clear on it being "gross receipts" (i.e. net of distributor's cut).

 

 

The inconsistent wording is definitely confusing and I'm surprised it's there in a legal filing. I'd have preferred them to use nett for receipts after cut and gross for before cut but I'm not an accountant.

 

I don't have much problem with the guy who made the initial calculation being mistaken given most people are familiar with movie or game grosses that include the vendor fees and will thus automatically think that's the case when seeing figures. Journos definitely should have checked though, the agreement is a public filing and they are expected to have better knowledge than a random person on reddit and to be more authoritative sources.

 

 

It's the age of 24/7 news cycles. You can't afford to wait for research or fact checking otherwise you won't be the first to gather all those clicks/views.

 

The internet has already destroyed the music industry. The publishing industry is in dire straits because of the internet. Journalism is in a severe crisis because of the internet. That where we're at.

 

I think the music industry is gonna be fine, artists have been making most of their money on live performances and going independent for a long time now. The recording companies and radio networks might be in trouble but oh well. I think it's a similar situation in the publishing industry.

 

The goals haven't changed, just the methods for reaching customers and marketing your product has. Companies have been slow to catch up and still insist on keeping the old profit margins in a world that increasingly can't afford to pay them.

Edited January 11, 2019 by protopersona

[BrokenMask]

Honestly bit confused why consumers in some circles(pretty sure that doesn't happen with food products or such at least, it seems to mostly happen with entertainment) really pay attention to how well product sells?

Like is it case of wanting validation of "Everyone else bought it too!" or is it case of worrying "If it doesn't sell well enough, we won't see more products like it!"?

 

Edit: Oh hey Pathfinder got mentioned! Well its bit unrelated to topic but my thoughts on it:

The release version did REALLY really bad job of explaining how kingdom mechanics work. On this second playthrough after patches which added tutorials to explain how this works, its been easy on normal difficulty to manage it so that kingdom never goes under "stable" condition(its only been "stable" and "serene" in this playthrough, compared to my first playthrough where I got it to "unrest" after chapter 2 started and never got out of it until chapter 4 where it finally reached "ruined" and it was game over) and I've completed pretty much all kingdom projects by end of act 5 and am just maxing out every kingdom rank to 10 currently.

 

Pathfinder does also good job at feeling like a "pure rpg adventure" if that makes sense. Like, its not trying to be philosophical, deep or meaningful, its trying to tell fun story. Sure every companion learns a life lesson and game is surprisingly brutal and cynical(let troll kids go for example when you are on quest to kill their father, they return half the game later to avenge their father ) but without starting to feel like its too dark if that makes sense? It also does good job of feeling like choices in earlier chapters show up or get referenced. Like in some games choices in games are purely about "what is gonna be in end game slides" rather than what happens later in game.

 

I think I need to rephrase that to make it bit clearer: I don't mean story of Kingmaker is particularly light hearted, I mean that good fun story comes with fun moments, tragic moments and everything between. It doesn't ever really weigh down on you, but I think it was fresh experience compared to most of "kickstater renaissance crpgs" storywise. I mean, I still like both Pillars, Torment Tides of Numenera and even Wasteland 2,(I never finished divinity 1 since it was co op game and I haven't played second game yet beyond starter island(because I wanted to finish the divinity 1 co-op run with friend) though I did like the gameplay mechanics in both and that you could play as characters you otherwise recruit to your party in second one. I do however feel like Divinity 1 is too heavy on side of comedy, second one seems to be better about that), but I feel like all three of them are pretty heavy story wise. Like, they don't just want to entertain you, it feels like they want to replicate experience of either Fallout or Planescape Torment if that makes sense?

Edited January 15, 2019 by BrokenMask

[daven]

Honestly bit confused why consumers in some circles(pretty sure that doesn't happen with food products or such at least, it seems to mostly happen with entertainment) really pay attention to how well product sells?

Like is it case of wanting validation of "Everyone else bought it too!" or is it case of worrying "If it doesn't sell well enough, we won't see more products like it!"?

Probably.

 

But there are also people who prefer things that sell LESS as it's not as mainstream or whatever.

[BrokenMask]

 

Honestly bit confused why consumers in some circles(pretty sure that doesn't happen with food products or such at least, it seems to mostly happen with entertainment) really pay attention to how well product sells?

Like is it case of wanting validation of "Everyone else bought it too!" or is it case of worrying "If it doesn't sell well enough, we won't see more products like it!"?

Probably.

 

But there are also people who prefer things that sell LESS as it's not as mainstream or whatever.

 

 

Well yeah, but let's face it, hipsters specifically care less about thing selling well and more about "how many new people arrive to discus the thing". They prefer things that have small old circle discussing the thing forever without new folk entering.