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

[algroth]

What I'm curious about is what this number represents exactly regarding the sales thus far. Looking at the dividends per sales graph on the site, this would suggest Deadfire's sold less than 100k copies, but based on leaked Steam numbers back in July, it had up to that point sold 203k copies on that platform alone. So what gives?

[PIP-Clownboy]

What I'm curious about is what this number represents exactly regarding the sales thus far. Looking at the dividends per sales graph on the site, this would suggest Deadfire's sold less than 100k copies, but based on leaked Steam numbers back in July, it had up to that point sold 203k copies on that platform alone. So what gives?

 

Discount sales?

[house2fly]

That 203k apparently didn't represent sales but total numbers of people who have ever played the game on steam. If someone uses that account sharing thing to play, that counts as a player evcen though they didn't buy it. Same for someone who bought the game but got a refund- they're not a sale but they are still a player

[Ethics Gradient]

That 203k apparently didn't represent sales but total numbers of people who have ever played the game on steam. If someone uses that account sharing thing to play, that counts as a player evcen though they didn't buy it. Same for someone who bought the game but got a refund- they're not a sale but they are still a player

 

It also doesn't take into account backer pledges.  There were 33k backers on Fig plus some unknown number of slacker-backers via the Obsidian portal.

 

It would be nice if there were some better data, but the total number of post-release sales is something like:

(203k steam + ?k GOG) - (33k backers + ?k slacker-backers)

[warhaven]

The first round of dividends were just paid out.  Here are the results:

 

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

(this amount is gross of any tax withholding)

 

That's a 38.434% return on a bi-annual compound.  That's not too shabby, if you ask me.  Will have a better idea in six months.  I'll keep you all posted.

Edited November 10, 2018 by warhaven

[Ethics Gradient]

For those interested, a little bit of information regarding Fig and the recent Microsoft acquisitions:

Dear Investors,
As you may have seen, Microsoft has announced its intention to acquire inXile and Obsidian. We are thrilled for these two amazing studio partners of ours and for the Microsoft family. We are proud to worke with these two studios to help fund, develop and publish inXile’s Wasteland 3 and Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity II through Fig.co.
 
For those who invested in the Fig Game Shares for these games, nothing changes to your shares as a result of this transaction. If and when the acquisitions complete, the licensing contracts will continue to persist unchanged and we expect they will be transferred to Microsoft or kept with the studios, depending on how the acquisitions are structured. Our contracts with developers anticipate that studio acquisitions like these may occur. In addition, inXile has stated that the development of Wasteland 3 will continue after the acquisition. You can view short video messages from inXile’s Brian Fargo and the Obsidian team about the Microsoft acquisitions.
 
We look forward to continuing to work with Brian Fargo and Feargus Urquhart on our studio advisory board. We thank you for all for your support of Fig.co and for helping to make these studios and their games a success!

[Cartoons Plural]

this sales panic and speculation is entirely based on that reddit thread isnt it?

[warhaven]

Update for those of you interested in additional information about Deadfire's sale performance.  This was released in early May (sorry for the delay):

https://medium.com/playfig/fig-announces-positive-investor-returns-for-the-second-straight-year-81293466a9c1

From 8 May 2018 to 31 December 2018, Deadfire has recouped 32% of its investment.  They mention that the release of the turn-based-system provided a nice spike in sales, but those numbers aren't included in the 32%.  Also, console versions (PS, Xbox, and Switch) still haven't been released, so there's that to look forward to.  In the end, I'm confident we investors have nothing to worry about.

[Ethics Gradient]

The next round of Fig dividends are being disbursed:

$192.67  -  November 2018 
$125.35  -  May 2019 

That brings the dividends up to 32% as seen in the above Medium article.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Ethics Gradient

[xzar_monty]

Interesting to see how long the tail turns out to be. If I were to make a guess as to whether the investors will get their money back, I'd say no chance. But I would be happy to be wrong.

[Boeroer]

In this chart is not included:

Revenue since Turn Based Mode was introduced (apparently led to a solid spike in sales).

Upcoming console releases.

I'd say there's a pretty good chance.

[algroth]

This is curious to an extent. If the next round of disbursement is being issued for a figure up to and not including the release of TB, where exactly was the cut-off point established for the last round too? At this point the dividends are a good four months behind the present time, maybe more. So will we have to wait til' November to hear how things have gone with the most recent months, and assume that only covers revenue up to July?

Edit: Seems the first dividend covered sales up to September. If so, surely the above should be reflecting sales up until March? A bit odd.

Edited May 24, 2019 by algroth

[Mygaffer]

On 5/24/2019 at 5:55 AM, Boeroer said:

In this chart is not included:

Revenue since Turn Based Mode was introduced (apparently led to a solid spike in sales).

Upcoming console releases.

I'd say there's a pretty good chance.

The Fig shares never entitled investors to a return on console sales, only PC sales. And the final payout just happened, people who bought $1,000 Fig shares lost nearly half that money. I feel bad for those who bought several shares.

[Ethics Gradient]

4 hours ago, Mygaffer said:

The Fig shares never entitled investors to a return on console sales, only PC sales. And the final payout just happened, people who bought $1,000 Fig shares lost nearly half that money. I feel bad for those who bought several shares.

Yeah.  Fig is a pretty solid example of not investing any more than you can stand to completely lose.

I wonder what this will do for further Fig-backed games where it is assumed the "long tail" will make up for underperforming sales at release.

[xzar_monty]

10 hours ago, Ethics Gradient said:

Yeah.  Fig is a pretty solid example of not investing any more than you can stand to completely lose.

I wonder what this will do for further Fig-backed games where it is assumed the "long tail" will make up for underperforming sales at release.

The most reasonable standpoint for any kind of investment at all is to only invest money you can stand to completely lose.

But yes, this particular case is probably going to cause some concern. And doesn't this now rather definitely prove that Deadfire bombed in a big way? That's a shame, because it's a good game.

[Boeroer]

1 minute ago, xzar_monty said:

The most reasonable standpoint for any kind of investment at all is to only invest money you can stand to completely lose.

From a national economic point of view following that rule strictly would be fatal.

Even as a private person this is hard to follow - for example if you want to build a house or need to build up private pension.

So I wouldn't say "any kind of investment". There's a reason why there are forms of investment that are usually very safe (like government bonds): because people can't affort to lose that money.

If we are talking about "playing with money" in order to generate more returns: sound approach. Like with gambling.

[Boeroer]

15 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

But yes, this particular case is probably going to cause some concern. And doesn't this now rather definitely prove that Deadfire bombed in a big way? That's a shame, because it's a good game.

Some other games from fig.co returned a lot more than 100%, one even 300%. Of course deadfire was the biggest game and its failure will have a big impact on the reputation of fig investments I reckon. 

I don't know if it bombed in a big way. In Josh's post mortem talk he said somethiong along the lines of "was a disappointment compared to PoE - but not a disaster". But maybe I remember that incorrectly.

It is a great game but I have to say I still like PoE more. Why? Can't relly put a finger on it... PoE was more addictive to me for some reason. I had to uninstall it in order to let go - else I'd still do playthroughs with build idea no. 12436534645. Deadfire is still installed but I don't want to play it anymore.

[xzar_monty]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

From a national economic point of view following that rule strictly would be fatal.

Even as a private person this is hard to follow - for example if you want to build a house or need to build up private pension.

 Fair enough, my "any kind of investment" was too broad a statement, so your criticism is justified. I was talking about the kind of investment that a private person might want to make with what he regards as his "extra" money. The point still stands that ultimately there are no safe investments, although some (like the government bonds you mentioned) are a lot safer than others, so it stands to reason that when you invest in the sense I just defined, you must be able to take the hit of losing all that money.

There are many things that are reasonable from a private perspective but would prove disastrous for the economy as a whole if they became common practice (btw, I personally like this paradox). For instance, the economy would crash if everybody stopped borrowing money, even if not borrowing money is generally speaking, for an individual, a smarter idea than borrowing money. The economy would also crash if everybody wanted to empty their bank account and get all their money in cash, even if every individual is perfectly within their rights to do that (although I don't know about all countires).

I find that I have no opinion on the PoE vs. Deadfire question: I liked them both a lot, but I have no interest in playing either anymore (it really is extremely rare for me to do more than one playthrough of any game). I find that also have no opinion on the Deadfire vs. P:K question: I am currently playing P:K and enjoying it a great deal, although it has to be said that there are SO many things that could be a lot better -- let's just say that the "flaws", so to speak, were not this obvious in either PoE or Deadfire. They were both very solid, once the bugs were ironed out (which obviously took a lot longer than it should have -- I only did my Deadfire playthrough over a year after the game was out).

Edited August 4, 2019 by xzar_monty

[keriana]

On 8/3/2019 at 11:05 AM, Mygaffer said:

The Fig shares never entitled investors to a return on console sales, only PC sales. And the final payout just happened, people who bought $1,000 Fig shares lost nearly half that money. I feel bad for those who bought several shares.

Fig investment is such a scam.

[Boeroer]

It is not. As I said earlier there are several games on fig which did return much more than 100%. Here's a list from the end of 2018:

It's like most other investments: there are risks. Calling fig investments "a scam" is out of place.

[keriana]

The investors take on all the risk but have many limits on returns, including limits on what they receive returns on (no returns on console sales, etc.) and limits on how long they receive returns. Investors get no sales information, and Fig can sell their publishing rights and end returns at any time, even if the return is less than 100%. I consider it a scam, but at very least Fig is a very bad investment in general, even if a few games may see good returns.

 

 

Edited August 4, 2019 by keriana

[Boeroer]

5 out of 11 is "a few?"

It's a form of investment. The conditions are made clear. If you are lucky you can yield nice returns (look at Phoenix Point which runs until 2022 and already nearly doubled the investments before release - or Kingdoms and Castles which tripled them) and if you're not lucky you lose money (like with Deadfire). It's like trading shares or warrants. Of course the investor takes all the risk. He also takes all the returns if the game sells well.

If you really believe that it's a scam you should file a lawsuit.

 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Boeroer

[Mygaffer]

On 8/4/2019 at 12:25 PM, keriana said:

Fig investment is such a scam.

It's not a scam, it's just a huge risk.

[keriana]

16 hours ago, Mygaffer said:

It's not a scam, it's just a huge risk.

I consider Fig's business practices to be unethical. Going forward, I will be sticking to Kickstarter for backing games.

[bringingyouthefuture]

After reading the Fig campaign and how it worked I decided there was no way I was going to buy shares, I still donated to the campaign like it was a Kickstarter but the whole investor idea seemed really risky, too risky.  If you look at it as a way to donate to your favorite games, genre, etc, it is pretty awesome since you could potentially get a return.  As a model for investing to make money - maybe not so good.

Edited August 13, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture