How have the investors in the $1,000 items done?

[Urthor]

Pretty sure releasing Tyranny in the same 30 timespan as Battlefield 1, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 was what really caused it to underperform.  It does have serious legs though, but if it had been delayed to January it'd have sold probably 100k more full priced copies I reckon

[gkathellar]

Pretty sure releasing Tyranny in the same 30 timespan as Battlefield 1, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 was what really caused it to underperform.  It does have serious legs though, but if it had been delayed to January it'd have sold probably 100k more full priced copies I reckon

 

I can see a logic to a November release, if you assume that the people playing those games are not the same people who are going to pick up Tyranny. November-December is where the money is, in general.

 

Not saying that's the right approach, mind, just that it Is An Approach.

[Purudaya]

 

I am also curious about it. I would like this game to do well since I do want more games like this to be made. And Tyranny already failed economically (even though I thought that story wise It was way better than POE). So I am a bit worried that this one doing badly will mean Obsidian wont consider this kind of games to be viable anymore.

 

Off topic: Tyranny is an underappreciated gem, despite the combat mechanics being worse that POE (Runs away to take cover）

 

Tyranny didn't fail economically. It didn't reach what Paradox expected it to sell at release. But 562k copies + GOG + whoever haven't even started the game yet is profitable for Paradox. The team wasn't huge and the game wasn't being worked on for years.

 

 

That's a pleasant surprise; the common narrative is that Tyranny was an unmitigated financial disaster.

 

If Tyranny managed to sell 560k over its lifespan (which is allegedly Deadfire's break even number) despite no marketing and no built-in following, then there's no reason to assume that Deadfire won't finish a modest success given the *partial* sales numbers we've seen from its first two months alone. Again, those numbers don't include GoG, backers, or the upcoming console sales that neither PoE1 or Tyranny benefitted from.

 

I think it's interesting that many (not all) of the people who are relentlessly adamant that Deadfire is underperforming also don't seem to be big fans of the game in the first place. Since none of us know what Obsidian's internal targets are and none of us are experts on the revenue side of the gaming industry, we should probably take any armchair claims of failure or success with a grain of salt. At the very least, people should consider searching the topic first before posting ill-informed comments on the state of the IP while having only a fraction of the information necessary to do so.

[warhaven]

Your kidding me. Is thay prospectus still up there or if anyone has a copy of it can they post a link.

 

Thats insane

 

Official link:  https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire/invest

[Guest]

Pretty sure releasing Tyranny in the same 30 timespan as Battlefield 1, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 was what really caused it to underperform. It does have serious legs though, but if it had been delayed to January it'd have sold probably 100k more full priced copies I reckon

Yeah, paradox admitted that they dropped the ball on marketing and release. They also said that they were pleased with Tyranny’s sales, having only been slightly below expectations

[the_dog_days]

 

Pretty sure releasing Tyranny in the same 30 timespan as Battlefield 1, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 was what really caused it to underperform. It does have serious legs though, but if it had been delayed to January it'd have sold probably 100k more full priced copies I reckon

Yeah, paradox admitted that they dropped the ball on marketing and release. They also said that they were pleased with Tyranny’s sales, having only been slightly below expectations

And then turned around and did the same thing for Battletech.

[Flouride]

 

 

Pretty sure releasing Tyranny in the same 30 timespan as Battlefield 1, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 was what really caused it to underperform. It does have serious legs though, but if it had been delayed to January it'd have sold probably 100k more full priced copies I reckon

Yeah, paradox admitted that they dropped the ball on marketing and release. They also said that they were pleased with Tyranny’s sales, having only been slightly below expectations

And then turned around and did the same thing for Battletech.

 

 

It's because they don't know how to market games that they just can't show being played endlessly on Twitch. Cities Skylines and Stellaris performed very well due to the heavy youtube/twitch marketing.

[Aleh1811]

 

I am also curious about it. I would like this game to do well since I do want more games like this to be made. And Tyranny already failed economically (even though I thought that story wise It was way better than POE). So I am a bit worried that this one doing badly will mean Obsidian wont consider this kind of games to be viable anymore.

 

Off topic: Tyranny is an underappreciated gem, despite the combat mechanics being worse that POE (Runs away to take cover）

 

Tyranny didn't fail economically. It didn't reach what Paradox expected it to sell at release. But 562k copies + GOG + whoever haven't even started the game yet is profitable for Paradox. The team wasn't huge and the game wasn't being worked on for years.

 

 

Great to hear that. Tyranny was fantastic RPG. I absolutely loved it. I think its very  underrated. The combat was really not as good the POE, because of the lack of friendly fire and having most abilities on a cool down, but the story and game structure were absolutely amazing. I just wish we got a game with the story and structure of Tyranny and the Combat and polish of POE. That would be amazing!

[Moriendor]

 

 

Pretty sure releasing Tyranny in the same 30 timespan as Battlefield 1, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 was what really caused it to underperform. It does have serious legs though, but if it had been delayed to January it'd have sold probably 100k more full priced copies I reckon

Yeah, paradox admitted that they dropped the ball on marketing and release. They also said that they were pleased with Tyranny’s sales, having only been slightly below expectations

And then turned around and did the same thing for Battletech.

 

 

Why? BattleTech was actually delayed from its original release window in 2017 to April of this year. I'd say that was a pretty good decision because that way the game did not drown in a sea of holiday releases like Tyranny plus it definitely needed the additional time (the release version was still pretty buggy in spite of the delays).

Also, I'm not sure what people are expecting in terms of marketing. TV ads? Cinema trailers? Ads on Broadway?

Let's be realistic. Paradox is a small publisher and a turn-based tactical mech combat game is rather niche. They focused their marketing on social media and streaming portals (YT, Twitch etc.) where it belongs to reach core gamers.

 

BattleTech sold really well for a relatively niche game. It was high up in the concurrent players charts on Steam for a couple of weeks after its release. Much higher numbers than Deadfire for sure. It took the #3 and #6 spot on Steam's top 10 charts in the week of its release, another week later it was still #6 (Deadfire only made it to 4th place once in the week of its release and never appeared in the top 10 again).

 

Besides, Harebrained were VERY happy with the reception and sales of BattleTech (quote below is from a KS update)...

 

 

 

Well - thanks to you, this is the success we hoped for. And many things are now possible! We're working with Paradox on a roadmap for the next year of BATTLETECH development. This will include regular bugfixing, quality-of-life improvements, and free Updates adding new features to the game. Here's a look at the next few months of that roadmap.

[Vitalis]

 

 

 

Pretty sure releasing Tyranny in the same 30 timespan as Battlefield 1, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 was what really caused it to underperform. It does have serious legs though, but if it had been delayed to January it'd have sold probably 100k more full priced copies I reckon

Yeah, paradox admitted that they dropped the ball on marketing and release. They also said that they were pleased with Tyranny’s sales, having only been slightly below expectations

And then turned around and did the same thing for Battletech.

Why? BattleTech was actually delayed from its original release window in 2017 to April of this year. I'd say that was a pretty good decision because that way the game did not drown in a sea of holiday releases like Tyranny plus it definitely needed the additional time (the release version was still pretty buggy in spite of the delays).

Also, I'm not sure what people are expecting in terms of marketing. TV ads? Cinema trailers? Ads on Broadway?

Let's be realistic. Paradox is a small publisher and a turn-based tactical mech combat game is rather niche. They focused their marketing on social media and streaming portals (YT, Twitch etc.) where it belongs to reach core gamers.

 

BattleTech sold really well for a relatively niche game. It was high up in the concurrent players charts on Steam for a couple of weeks after its release. Much higher numbers than Deadfire for sure. It took the #3 and #6 spot on Steam's top 10 charts in the week of its release, another week later it was still #6 (Deadfire only made it to 4th place once in the week of its release and never appeared in the top 10 again).

 

Besides, Harebrained were VERY happy with the reception and sales of BattleTech (quote below is from a KS update)...

Well - thanks to you, this is the success we hoped for. And many things are now possible! We're working with Paradox on a roadmap for the next year of BATTLETECH development. This will include regular bugfixing, quality-of-life improvements, and free Updates adding new features to the game. Here's a look at the next few months of that roadmap.

HBS was also purchased by Paradox.

[Boeroer]

I would like it if they licensed PoE to Subset Games and let them make a "Faster than Hylea" or "Into the Wheel". It would be the fusion of the games I like most these days. And it would be a win-win situation: Obsidian gets money for the license and Subset Games produces another game with few bugs, great gameplay, very little budget and rel. big sales numbers...

[Flouride]

 

Why? BattleTech was actually delayed from its original release window in 2017 to April of this year. I'd say that was a pretty good decision because that way the game did not drown in a sea of holiday releases like Tyranny plus it definitely needed the additional time (the release version was still pretty buggy in spite of the delays).

Also, I'm not sure what people are expecting in terms of marketing. TV ads? Cinema trailers? Ads on Broadway?

Let's be realistic. Paradox is a small publisher and a turn-based tactical mech combat game is rather niche. They focused their marketing on social media and streaming portals (YT, Twitch etc.) where it belongs to reach core gamers.

 

I don't think anyone is expecting tv/cinema ads. Having ads in gaming sites and magazines would be a start. Social media exposure wouldn't hurt either.

[Katarack21]

 

All the information I've seen indicates that Deadfire is selling okay, about on par with where, say, D:OS 1 was at similar points post-release.

 

Indeed, going by Steam figures alone (and while Steam is the largest distributor by far it is not the only one), Deadfire is selling pretty much exactly as well as isometric, mechanically intricate CRPGs tend to sell in the same span of time if they're even moderate successes.

 

The game's been out for 3 months, people. That's nothing. Relax.

 

 

I am also curious about it. I would like this game to do well since I do want more games like this to be made. And Tyranny already failed economically (even though I thought that story wise It was way better than POE). So I am a bit worried that this one doing badly will mean Obsidian wont consider this kind of games to be viable anymore.

 

Off topic: Tyranny is an underappreciated gem, despite the combat mechanics being worse that POE (Runs away to take cover）

 

Tyranny didn't fail economically. It didn't reach what Paradox expected it to sell at release. But 562k copies + GOG + whoever haven't even started the game yet is profitable for Paradox. The team wasn't huge and the game wasn't being worked on for years.

 

And it was frankly pretty stupid of Paradox to have expectations as high as they did. Putting aside the question of whether it was any good, Tyranny combined awful marketing and a premise that put a lot of people (including me) off from the first.

 

Tyranny is an *amazing* game and a lot of that "****ty premise" concept can be laid at the "awful marketing" angle. They sold it as "be as evil as you want in a world where evil won" when it's actually "explore what evil and belief are and how they tie together, and what choices can be made while a member of an evil regime". None of that was Obsidians fault, I think it terribly impacted the sales.

[Tick]

I actually loved the sound of Tyranny's premise and got really excited when I heard Obsidian was the developer, but I heard about it at least a *year * after it came out. I was really surprised that I was so out of the loop. Maybe part of the problem was a lot of people just didn't know about it?

 

PoE1 sold 500k copies after 5 months as a PC only release (steam, backers, and GoG combined), PoE2 sold 220k after less than 2 months (that's not including backers or GoG) and is also about to release on consoles. Based on these numbers and the fact that the PoE series has had tremendous sales longevity so far (PoE1 went on to more than double its sales by around 18 months after release), there is no reason to assume that PoE2 isn't on track to meet Obsidian's internal targets. All of this has been discussed to DEATH.

 

In the most recent dev stream, narrative designer Alex Scokel was talking about future games in the PoE universe without the watcher as the main character - that's games, plural. If Deadfire was the bomb that players with some July 1st steam sales numbers say it was, we wouldn't be seeing Obsidian devs speculating genuinely and enthusiastically about the future of the IP.

 

Unless we hear differently from an actual game industry expert or someone from inside Obsidian (the way we eventually did with Tyranny), we should assume that things are going roughly as expected.

 

Thank you for the more grounded perspectives on this. I know a lot of these topics go crazy with speculation or hyperbole or whatnot, but it sometimes gets to me anyways.

[Vitalis]

I actually loved the sound of Tyranny's premise and got really excited when I heard Obsidian was the developer, but I heard about it at least a *year * after it came out. I was really surprised that I was so out of the loop. Maybe part of the problem was a lot of people just didn't know about it?

 

 

PoE1 sold 500k copies after 5 months as a PC only release (steam, backers, and GoG combined), PoE2 sold 220k after less than 2 months (that's not including backers or GoG) and is also about to release on consoles. Based on these numbers and the fact that the PoE series has had tremendous sales longevity so far (PoE1 went on to more than double its sales by around 18 months after release), there is no reason to assume that PoE2 isn't on track to meet Obsidian's internal targets. All of this has been discussed to DEATH.

 

In the most recent dev stream, narrative designer Alex Scokel was talking about future games in the PoE universe without the watcher as the main character - that's games, plural. If Deadfire was the bomb that players with some July 1st steam sales numbers say it was, we wouldn't be seeing Obsidian devs speculating genuinely and enthusiastically about the future of the IP.

 

Unless we hear differently from an actual game industry expert or someone from inside Obsidian (the way we eventually did with Tyranny), we should assume that things are going roughly as expected.

 

Thank you for the more grounded perspectives on this. I know a lot of these topics go crazy with speculation or hyperbole or whatnot, but it sometimes gets to me anyways.

I only knew about it because Paradox advertised it on their forums while I was checking a dev diary for one of their grand strategy games.

[Aleh1811]

Yes, Tyranny is not about being as evil as you want. You can play like that if you want to, but for most people is about either supporting an evil dictator in order to stop war as fast as possible and save the population from a constant state of conflict, or choosing to support a segment of the population that means well but will either just prolong the war locally and loose or just extend war to the rest of the territory. In that sense its really brilliant, since it forces you to make very difficult choices.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Aleh1811

[Ethics Gradient]

Computershare (holding company used for investment shares in PoE2) / Fig / Obsidian haven't yet released any sales data to investors.  Just have to wait and see.    Might not start seeing anything until the development cycle has completely finished and the game has been released on the consoles so that they have all revenue sources collated and accounted for.

 

And to expand on that a little, investors aren't sitting on some secret stash of information.  When dividends start being distributed (which hasn't happened yet, nor was it expected so soon), it might be possible to draw some logical inferences about sales, but that's about it.  There was no promised access to raw data.

 

In the year since the fundraising campaign, there have been approximately three investor-only emails amounting to:

1. Thanks for your investment

2. Deadfire release?  Much hype!

3. Don't forget to set up a Computershare account

 

If anything, wait a few months and check out the filings for other Fig investments.  As a high-profile release for Fig, Deadfire sales will probably be referenced in other campaigns.

[warhaven]

 

Computershare (holding company used for investment shares in PoE2) / Fig / Obsidian haven't yet released any sales data to investors.  Just have to wait and see.    Might not start seeing anything until the development cycle has completely finished and the game has been released on the consoles so that they have all revenue sources collated and accounted for.

 

And to expand on that a little, investors aren't sitting on some secret stash of information.  When dividends start being distributed (which hasn't happened yet, nor was it expected so soon), it might be possible to draw some logical inferences about sales, but that's about it.  There was no promised access to raw data.

 

In the year since the fundraising campaign, there have been approximately three investor-only emails amounting to:

1. Thanks for your investment

2. Deadfire release?  Much hype!

3. Don't forget to set up a Computershare account

 

If anything, wait a few months and check out the filings for other Fig investments.  As a high-profile release for Fig, Deadfire sales will probably be referenced in other campaigns.

 

 

I had asked Fig shortly before the campaign ended if there would be a way for investors to track sales.  This was their response:

 

 

 

Hi [name],

 

Thanks for reaching out! We will be reporting returns numbers for holders of Fig Game Shares - Pillars of Eternity II on a regular basis which will be included in our SEC filings and annual reports. The disclosure of any granular sales data will most likely be left up to Obsidian. 

Cheers,

Fig

[Ethics Gradient]

I had asked Fig shortly before the campaign ended if there would be a way for investors to track sales.  This was their response:

Hi [name],

 

Thanks for reaching out! We will be reporting returns numbers for holders of Fig Game Shares - Pillars of Eternity II on a regular basis which will be included in our SEC filings and annual reports. The disclosure of any granular sales data will most likely be left up to Obsidian. 

Cheers,

Fig

 

 

Cool, it will be interesting to see the numbers once the come in.

 

I guess I just wanted to clarify that there is no secret handshake or conference call that others may be missing out on.  Sales data that Fig is required to report to investors is, by necessity, public information.  Any further granularity remains up to Obsidian's discretion.  We're just at a point where there's no news, because nothing has been released so far.  

 

Whenever the release of any significant info happens, it will probably be posted on the forums within minutes.

[warhaven]

Hey Everybody,

 

To those of you who are curious about us investors, I just received an email from FIG.  We'll finally be getting some numbers in soon:

 

 

Dear Shareholder,

 

This notification is being sent to you for two reasons:

 

The first reason is to inform you that Fig Publishing Inc. (FIG) will be paying a dividend to shareholders of Fig Game Shares - Pillars of Eternity II in November 2018. You should receive a notification from Fig in the coming weeks regarding the expected size of the dividend payment.

 

The second reason is to let you know that your dividend payment will be mailed to you in the form of a check to the address registered to your account.

 

<additional banking stuff in the email, but this is the important bit>

 

I'll keep you all reprised of the details as I get them.

Edited October 31, 2018 by warhaven

[Ethics Gradient]

The first dividend has been announced.  Here's the details:

 

Dear Investors,

We are excited to announce that the first round of dividends for holders of Fig Game Shares - Pillars of Eternity II will be paid out this month! This covers revenue received through calendar Q3 2018. The next set of dividends are scheduled to be issued in May of 2019.
 
November 2018 dividends per share: $192.67

[TT1]

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA

[AndreaColombo]

So, how much was one share again?

 

EDIT: It was 1,000 USD.

Edited November 6, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[XEternalXDreamsX]

I was thinking about funding the next project for Pillars of Eternity regardless of the share price. To help fund the game and get returns on it isn't that bad. Of course, the end product has to feel rewarding (good) to feel worth it, imo.

 

To add, I seriously want to have some kind in-game creation to live on in the game.

Edited November 7, 2018 by XEternalXDreamsX

[house2fly]

while the rewards for normal kickstarter backing are clearly worth less than the money you kick in, at least you don't get a receipt telling you precisely how much less