Armchair theories on why POE2 didn't sell super well

[Bleak]

7 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Where would your analysis be?

As for BG3, turn-based combat is enough to put me off it completely. Also, the interface doesn't look inviting, and the way the dialogue is handled simply looks poor to me (too much like D:OS2, which also wasn't enjoyable at all). I'm not even going to give it a go.

If all post history is kept, you should find something if you are curious. I agree about the dialog... at least from what we've seen so far. But I will definitely give it a go since, even though I would have preferred an authentic BG sequel, I liked DOS2.

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, Bleak said:

Feedback ought to be "feelings". 

Sure. But this is not the "Feedback about Deadfire" thread. 

You can express your feelings about a game and it's totally fine. 

You can theorize about why Deadfire didn't sell well. Which is also fine. 

But you shouldn't explain the low sales numbers of Deadfire with your feelings alone. 

Your feelings can be a starting point - then you could check if many other players expressed the same feelings. Or if their feelings, when assumed a lot of people share them, even can have an impact on the sales numbers in the first place (e.g. some feelings might only emerge while deep in the game - but it's already bought then). If you find something that fits then theory and feelings might align.

But even this first step gets omitted so frequently that one really has to ask if people just can't distinguish between personal feelings/opinions and objective analysis/theorizing.

It often sounds like "Well it is super obvious why Deadfire didn't sell well: because I didn't like it".

 

[xzar_monty]

22 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

But you shouldn't explain the low sales numbers of Deadfire with your feelings alone.

Here's a short and simple example of how and why feelings shouldn't be used as a judge.

I think D:OS2 is essentially rubbish. I quit playing it after a couple of hours. However, my feelings don't matter at all, because the fact that I purchased the game means that I contributed to its success. My purchase matters, not my feelings.

So, the important question is why so many potential buyers did not purchase Deadfire in the first place. How they feel about the game matters a lot less.

[kanisatha]

22 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I think D:OS2 is essentially rubbish. I quit playing it after a couple of hours. However, my feelings don't matter at all, because the fact that I purchased the game means that I contributed to its success. My purchase matters, not my feelings.

Hehe. It's exactly why I did not buy D:OS2 at all, and won't even at a bargain price, because then I contribute to it being lauded based on its sales numbers. But BG3 has me very torn. On the one hand I think the game sucks and I don't want to contribute to its success even in a tiny way. On the other hand it is a BG game, and I love that franchise. It's a good thing the game is spending so much time in EA, because as a principle I won't buy an EA game and by the time it gets fully released I may be over my feelings of it being a BG game.

[Ophiuchus]

Late to the game on this one, but I feel Obsidian marketed too much to Pillars 1 fans and could've spent more time highlighting Deadfire's advancements - like imagine a multi-class trailer that shows prospective players the difference between a Fighter and Swashbuckler to get them excited for the system. To get into these details, you'd have to have watched the Twitch streams or been part of the beta. Perhaps this was Obsidian just getting swept up into this new era of gaming where the pre-order customer is the beta tester.

[rockmassif]

On 5/8/2021 at 7:13 PM, xzar_monty said:

I think D:OS2 is essentially rubbish. I quit playing it after a couple of hours. However, my feelings don't matter at all, because the fact that I purchased the game means that I contributed to its success. My purchase matters, not my feelings.

I personally loved D:OS2 but I kinda agree with the sentiment. It's the purchase that counts, but also word of mouth is always good. If you feel bad about a game you're naturally more inclined to not recommend it to anybody, at least talk in a manner that underlines the faults but not the good stuff.

Anybody here right now knew what they were getting when they first bought POE1 but a lot of people didn't. So even though the reviews are high and it's highly praised, a lot of people who bought it ended up regretting it. So for those people, buying Deadfire wasn't even an option, they didn't even consider it. I'm sure we all have Whatsapp groups, Steam/Discord friends here. From my point of view, pretty much half of the people who purchased the game ended up not playing for various reasons while the other half has multiple hundreds of hours in it.

Also the big part of D:OS2's massive success was its ability to allow up to 4 man co-op gameplay. It's obviously not the scope of POE, but pretty much any time I suggest it to someone first question I get is related to multiplayer/co-op.

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, rockmassif said:

Also the big part of D:OS2's massive success was its ability to allow up to 4 man co-op gameplay. It's obviously not the scope of POE, but pretty much any time I suggest it to someone first question I get is related to multiplayer/co-op.

I believe this is a big thing nowadays. 

[kanisatha]

9 hours ago, rockmassif said:

Also the big part of D:OS2's massive success was its ability to allow up to 4 man co-op gameplay. It's obviously not the scope of POE, but pretty much any time I suggest it to someone first question I get is related to multiplayer/co-op.

Fans of TB combat are always trying to claim that is what drove D:OS2 sales, but I have never bought that argument. ^This here is, in my view, the true reason for D:OS2's sales success: co-op play. And this reason, then, also says the quality of the game, in those ways we've thought of quality in cRPGs in the past such as story, writing, characters, branching dialogue, etc., don't matter that much because they don't matter that much when playing co-op. What matter in co-op games is fun action-y things you can do within the game such as push walls down, set the ground on fire, tag-team up on your enemies, etc., which are exactly the kinds of things the D:OS games give to players.