Trying to figure what PoE2 sold less

[fireflame]

I read that to make an hypothetic third episode, developers needed to figure why the game was less successful .

My memories go back to 2014 when I read a PC gaming magazine that was mentioning upcoming crpgs. Basically, there was that vibe and expectation that Torment, Wastelend 2 and PoE would be the spiritual sons of Baldur, Fallout and Planescape. The revival of crpg was there, and big AAA publishers could be damned. PoE was quite successful and was acclaimed by critics and players. But  Poe2? The free exposure granted by the hype generated by journalists was not there.  Why? I don't know. There wasn't this "oh look rpgs are resurrecting" vibe?(though there are still many crpgs done on PC this is not what I mean). Maybe the piracy setting felt less appealing to players in an heroic fantasy setting? Pirates are liked in modern pop culture, but I see them more associated to family friendly products like Pirates of Caraibes or One Piece.

Then maybe some people had some complaints about lack of technical optimizations, unfixed bugs, maybe the way the game is balanced. Someone said that maybe soe players refer when game mechanics are less balanced and more "broken", but there are builds that favor power gaming. One flaw I found in this game is that the open world sort of weakens the main story a bit. The amount of side quests is welcome, but it comes at the cost of the main story. I had the same critic with Fallout 1 and 2. Fallout 1 has less content but a stronger atmosphere, while Fallout 2 has many many more quests but feel comedic and spread over a huge map, making the ain story less important. Maybe the art and the lore of PoE is less mainstream than Dungeons and Dragons, more complex because of politics and elaborated factions, and maybe that doesn't appea to all players.

I also wonder what is the average age of players.Maybe if the game appeals to "veterans" they have less time when aging, though I am sure some teenagers play PoE. Meanwhile Dungeon and dragon games might be a bit more simple, I feel characters are more defined by their races in Dungeons and Dragon games. Meanwhile when I played PoE, and while characters might be conerned about race, I cared less about races than about nations or factions.

 

[xzar_monty]

We've had plenty of these discussions on the forums already, and it appears that there is no definite answer to why Deadfire sold so badly.

However, one thing that seems fairly certain to me is that a substantial portion of the reason has to do with PoE, not Deadfire. Deadfire's sales were low right from the start, which means that a lot of people were not interested in the game in the first place. Maybe they opted for PoE because of the nostalgia, and then they realized they actually didn't like the game that much, so they didn't bother to even try Deadfire.

Deadfire got good reviews, so it's not as if the game was a failure in that sense. It seems more likely that the audience that was there for PoE was not there for Deadfire. Which, in my view, is a great shame, because Deadfire is a great game.

It is worth mentioning that buying a game and liking a game are two different things. For example, I think D:OS2 is rubbish. I played it for about two hours, realized it doesn't interest me at all and never went back. But in order to play it for those two hours, I had to buy it, which means that I am one of the people who contributed to its success, even if I think it's utter trash.

[thelee]

4 hours ago, fireflame said:

Then maybe some people had some complaints about lack of technical optimizations, unfixed bugs, maybe the way the game is balanced.

as @xzar_monty said, we've had this discussion a lot, but if you're really interested in opening this up again one thing i urge all participants in the discussion to do is simple: Any theory that applies to Deadfire should be consistent with other games.

 

For example: Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous are ridiculously un-optimized and buggy games, upon release and even now. However buggy people may have thought PoE or Deadfire are/were, they are nothing compared to P:K or WOTR. This is not fanboy-ism, the game for P:K was fundamentally broken against completion for a while, half a year in and major critical class functionality in WOTR is just completely missing, broken, or non-functional (and still you see advice on reddit/forums to make a hard save before proceeding into the last act because of bugs). They are ridiculously poorly balanced (though this is not totally Owlcat's fault, Pathfinder 1st ed is based on a now-decades-old system and pathfinder 1st ed did not do much to really fix all its shortcomings [in fact, added to it]). This has not stopped P:K/WOTR from being commercial successes.

 

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

However, one thing that seems fairly certain to me is that a substantial portion of the reason has to do with PoE, not Deadfire. Deadfire's sales were low right from the start, which means that a lot of people were not interested in the game in the first place.

To resurface some old data - JES mentioned that pre-sales for Deadfire exceeded PoE presales, but their general marketing study of consumer sentiment suggested overall less awareness of the product. Sales basically bottomed out after release.

 

4 hours ago, fireflame said:

The free exposure granted by the hype generated by journalists was not there.

One of my pet theories is that Urquhart forcing Deadfire to be funded on Fig was a major business error. To me, a lot of factors point to a failure of marketing. Small indie studies do not have the ability to dominate airwaves like AAA games can. Kickstarter gives you some level of "free" advertisement (in addition to having better mindshare with journalists who want to pay attention to things). Fig - what's that? P:K and WOTR were both Kickstarter projects (on top of being based on a relatively familiar IP, which also probably helps games like them and hurts Deadfire with a less known IP). PoE was a kickstarter project and basically bankrolled Deadfire development. Yet there have been people who've come to these forums who loved PoE and had no idea that Deadfire was a thing that existed. I don't think this singlehandedly explains the drop in sales, but probably contributes to a significant part of it. (The fig funding mechanism also encourages people to be "investors" [lol], which means a significant fraction of people end up having no actual buy-in to the game itself and are just there gambling, which I also suspect hurts emotional investment/word-of-mouth.)

edit: maybe also publisher choice. Tyranny had no pre-existing IP, no kickstarter, and yet at similar points in their run Tyranny had outsold Deadfire 2x. Apparently to Paradox it was still a disappointment (I think they were expecting 1m+ sales, not 500k), but it seems to me that maybe Paradox might have carried Tyranny better than Versus Evil carried Deadfire. I mean, frankly, I've heard of Paradox outside of Tyranny. I've never heard of Versus Evil. Allegedly (according to some Chris Avellone-related gossip), Urquhart also burned some bridges with Paradox, which may have contributed to going with a different, possibly-weaker publisher.

Edited January 5, 2022 by thelee

[xzar_monty]

Ah, yes, so there were perhaps two problems: potential consumers uninterested in Deadfire (because of PoE) and potential consumers unaware of Deadfire (because of a number of factors). Not a good starting ponit, that.

[curryinahurry]

Sorry for the long post, read at your own peril:

I’m going to offer a slightly different explanation than others as to why Deadfire didn’t perform well in sales.  My explanation has nothing to do with the actual quality of either POE 1 or 2.  Rather, it has to do with why people who purchased the first game (over 1.5 mm) were discouraged from buying the second (about half as many). 

When Obsidian announced POE on Kicksarter in2012, it’s pitch was for a nostalgic redo of the old Infinity Engine games updated with modern technology.  This implied not just a D&D style system of combat and classes, but great writing, a familiar fantasy setting, isometric/ 2d graphics, and well developed NPC’s amongst other things.  When the game was released, with the exception of a few loud dissenters, (who basically wanted a carbon copy of BG 2, The game was overwhelmingly well received. 

The game was not without it’s issues however, and Obsidian attempted to address many of them in the development of Deadfire.  This is where I think the problems really began with POE 2.  In attempting to address the varying complaints with the first game, the developers began making so many alterations to the mechanics, that the second game had a very different gameplay.  Deadfire also had a very different setting (Age of Sail vs. Standard Fantasy, albeit more renaissance than medieval), very different implied tone, and the de-leveling of your protagonist all the way back to Level 1.  For a game based, at least partly, on nostalgia, these changes were probably not received well, or at least with serious trepidation by the folks who shelled out money for POE. When the game came out and complaints arose about the game being ‘too easy’ and ‘not a challenge’, that probably only made the situation worse.

I work in the design world, often with hotel companies and other entities that are very protective of their brands and the standards around how they want their products being shown to the consumer.  In essence, Obsidian went off-brand with Deadfire.  They tinkered so much with what they had established in the first game, that the second game resembled something so different, that much of their fan based decided to give it a pass. As I mentioned, not really about good or bad (although certain things like marketing, going to FIG, etc. probably didn’t help), just different.

[Elric Galad]

My own personal theory is that the niche market was saturated when PoE2 came out. (this theory doesn't exclude Marking failure, I pretty much agree with @thelee on that).

Old school CRPGs are a niche for rather older players who have tons of things to do other than CRPG.

When PoE2 came out, I wasn't done playing PoE1. So I waited a bit.

I could buy Disco Elysium and Tyranny only on the last Black Friday simply because I wasn't done with PoE2, despite actually wanting to play them since release (and I won't even be able to play Tyranny soon).

It should be emphasized that PoE2 sales weren't so bad. But they were slow. I think the sale temporal curve from PoE2 is rather uncommon. This kind of games have long sale tails, but as far as I understand, PoE2 also had a fat tail even for this kind of game : the later sales were disproportionnaly high compared to initial sales.

[thelee]

11 hours ago, curryinahurry said:

Sorry for the long post, read at your own peril:

I’m going to offer a slightly different explanation than others as to why Deadfire didn’t perform well in sales.  My explanation has nothing to do with the actual quality of either POE 1 or 2.  Rather, it has to do with why people who purchased the first game (over 1.5 mm) were discouraged from buying the second (about half as many). 

When Obsidian announced POE on Kicksarter in2012, it’s pitch was for a nostalgic redo of the old Infinity Engine games updated with modern technology.  This implied not just a D&D style system of combat and classes, but great writing, a familiar fantasy setting, isometric/ 2d graphics, and well developed NPC’s amongst other things.  When the game was released, with the exception of a few loud dissenters, (who basically wanted a carbon copy of BG 2, The game was overwhelmingly well received. 

The game was not without it’s issues however, and Obsidian attempted to address many of them in the development of Deadfire.  This is where I think the problems really began with POE 2.  In attempting to address the varying complaints with the first game, the developers began making so many alterations to the mechanics, that the second game had a very different gameplay.  Deadfire also had a very different setting (Age of Sail vs. Standard Fantasy, albeit more renaissance than medieval), very different implied tone, and the de-leveling of your protagonist all the way back to Level 1.  For a game based, at least partly, on nostalgia, these changes were probably not received well, or at least with serious trepidation by the folks who shelled out money for POE. When the game came out and complaints arose about the game being ‘too easy’ and ‘not a challenge’, that probably only made the situation worse.

I work in the design world, often with hotel companies and other entities that are very protective of their brands and the standards around how they want their products being shown to the consumer.  In essence, Obsidian went off-brand with Deadfire.  They tinkered so much with what they had established in the first game, that the second game resembled something so different, that much of their fan based decided to give it a pass. As I mentioned, not really about good or bad (although certain things like marketing, going to FIG, etc. probably didn’t help), just different.

This is an interesting and more convincing reframing of some old grouches. What puzzles me though, is that Tyranny outsold Deadfire for quite a while along comparable timelines, and Tyranny is wildly different from the typical CRPG nostalgia path. What do you think might account for the difference?

[curryinahurry]

I think it goes back to expectations.  Tyranny was a new IP in a new setting.  So the field for establishing the game's identity was fairly wide.  Deadfire not only had expectations to carry forward form the first game, it also was carrying the nostalgia (to some extent) from the old Infinity Engine games.  So POE having established the expectation, or Brand Identity for what a game in this series should be like, the next title had less wiggle room if it wanted to be considered a legitimate successor.  

And to clarify, I think that expectations fall into 2 buckets; one is in the feel of the game (this is where setting and tone matter the most), the other is learning curve related; how much time do you want to spend learning how to play the game in some optimal way so that it is not frustrating.  In a game like Tyranny, the first is open and the second, at least psychologically for the player, is to be expected.  In a game like Deadfire, both were largely established in the first game (at least for those who enjoy more standard fantasy settings) so changing the setting can be jarring and re-learning how to play effectively can be off-putting to anyone who enjoyed the first game.

Edited January 6, 2022 by curryinahurry

[Boeroer]

For what it's worth: due to its long breath, Deadfire broke even and then made money for some time now - so according to Josh Sawyer it wasn't so bad after all. But the first disappointment after release and the following months must have been immense. You put all your energy and enthusiasm into a game and then it seems to bomb while competitors sell well. That must be really draining - and maybe lets you doubt that you actually know what you're doing. No wonder Josh didn't want to touch similar games for some time. 

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

For what it's worth: due to its long breath, Deadfire broke even and then made money for some time now - so according to Josh Sawyer it wasn't so bad after all. But the first disappointment after release and the following months must have been immense. You put all your energy and enthusiasm into a game and then it seems to bomb while competitors sell well. That must be really draining - and maybe lets you doubt that you actually know what you're doing. No wonder Josh didn't want to touch similar games for some time. 

 

That's why I said that an unusual shape of sale curve is something to consider.

But we don't have full data. 

Poor Josh. He led what I consider a Masterpiece, didn't loose money (we're not speaking about Heaven's Gate or PS:T here) and still suffer from it.

In a synthesis, I still believe that something about Marketing / calendar failed completely, but the game was still too good to actually fail.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Game with the second most hours I ever put into a game. 

My favorite game is maybe still FTL, but I put a ton more hours into Pillars and Deadfire each. 

 

[curryinahurry]

Regardless of what Josh Sawyer might say about breaking even, I'm sure he and Obsidian ownership view Deadfire as a huge disappointment.  Three years to recoup investment on a game who's predecessor was profitable after 3 months is ugly.  

[Boeroer]

Yes, but you have to keep in mind that the budget of Deadfire was a lot higher than that of PoE. So in order to be profitable like PoE, Deadfire would have needed to sell significantly more copies during those 3 months. Late Full VO alone may have shifted the break-even-point by several months. 

[curryinahurry]

Not sure if you were around during the initial run (pre-development through early 2016) for POE, but within a few months of release, Paradox announced that the game had sold over 500k units and a few months after that, that they were past 700k.  It's likely that Obsidian set their breakeven for a number like 700k for Deadfire, thinking that; worst case scenario, a 9 month period.  In business, you set your budget on your expected results, so even something like full v.o. was likely a contingency early on.  To this day, Deadfire hasn't sold much more than half of what POE1 has done (a bit more than 1.5mm units).  No investor or publisher would back a deal that took 3 years plus to recoup. 

That is why there is almost no chance of a POE3 unless Avowed is a hit. And even then, it will likely be overhauled in terms of both mechanics and looks.  Paradox stepped away from 2d isometric rpgs after Tyranny because they felt the nostalgia wave had been fed.  

[Boeroer]

That doesn't really affect what I said (Deadfire needed more sales than PoE to make the same kind of profit) - but yes, I'm pretty sure Obsidian looked at PoE's numbers and planned accordingly while believing they could repeat and even increase sales numbers.

The budget was higher to begin with, Obsidian reportedly looked at D:OS I --> D:OS II and suspected a similar raise in sales - and then one of the most expensive additions to Deadfire (Full VO) was decided very late in the development process (which made an expensive thing even more expensive) because Feargus felt it had to be done and it would pay off. 

I think even if Deadfire would have sold as many copies as PoE it would still have been viewed as disappointment. 

And then it didn't even achieve that. That must have felt like a punch in the stomach...

So no wonder PoE3 wasn't really a thing. 

But I heard at least some rumors among some leading devs that they would like to do a PoE3 (or just a party-based CRPG in Eora that's not really a 3rd installment). The only way I can see that happen is when it's done as a smaller project and maybe in the scope of Game Pass. Josh himself said recently that smaller, faster projects may be a way to go. So... fingers crossed.

 

Edited January 7, 2022 by Boeroer

[curryinahurry]

I'm sorry if it came across as I was trying to refute your post, I was not. I was just trying to explain the expectations of how Obsidian would have set expectations to both themselves and to Versus Evil, their publisher from whom they would have been fronted millions of dollars to complete the game.  The 700k (plus or minus) baseline would have likely been disappointing, but would have been a break even for the money they borrowed, anything more would have been profit for both sides. I would seriously doubt that Obsidian expected an uptick in sales tantamount to D:OS 2; that game had loads of features built in to increase interest and longevity (co-op, pvp, modability).  The 2d rpg concept was always going to be a niche, nostalgia based concept based on how they started it off. That is why Deadfire ran into trouble. No disagreement on any of your other points either, it's just that in a forum setting, as fans, we forget that this is a business.

As to your other point, I'm wondering how being owned by Microsoft will affect scope of projects in the Eora sphere. I think they did a great job with world building and certainly Avowed attests to that, so more projects are likely.  I'm just wondering how different a new party based  game might be different from the 2d games we have now. I don't think Microsoft will care much about scope or scale if Avowed proves successful.  Although smaller games like modules could be very cool.

[Boeroer]

No worries!

I'm generally in favor of shorter games (so much stuff to do besides playing games when you have a job, family & kids and stuff like that).

I like replayability (of all sorts) though. 

My hope is that Microsoft wants/needs more small(ish) games for its Game Pass program - which could be a chance for small but enthusiastic teams. Josh is currently working on a small projekt. Since they let him do it (while also being Obsidian's Studio Design Director) I guess Microsoft deems such things worthwhile?

Edited January 9, 2022 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

15 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I'm generally on favor of shorter games (so much stuff to do besides playing games when you have a job, family & kids and stuff like that).

I like replayability (of all sorts) though.

I'm generally not in favor of shorter games (despite also having all that stuff you mention). I also don't really care for replayability. What I mainly enjoy in cRPGS is a really good story that takes me for a ride. And replayability is not a factor for me because of my emphasis on story: once I know the story, much of the magic is gone, except if the game is really good, I do tend to do another run with different NPCs, if I feel I missed out on something big in that department.

I wrote this simply to emphasize what a marvelous success Deadfire was simply as a game. At least some of our interests are quite different, yet we both enjoyed Deadfire an awful lot, it's one of our favorite games ever.

[Boeroer]

I felt the same until some years ago. For example I didn't replay games like the Infitiny Engine ones a lot because after I experienced the story I wasn't too motivated to replay the game.

Nowadays I enjoy roguelikes or other games that allow for a rel. short while of entertainment - ones that you can start up rel. quickly, play a bit, save, play futher later without the need to fully "immerse" yourself into a deep story etc. I still like games with a good story obviously, but I need to make time for a "proper" playthrough then - and that can't happen too many times a week unfortunately. Smaller games that still focus on a good story (but maybe less hours - or which are more episodic) might be better suited for me. Can't excactly say because there aren't that many games of that kind - but I really enjoyed Deadfire's DLCs which are kind of smaller CRPGs compared to Deadfire.

With PoE and Deadfire the major reason why I kept playing them was (besides DLCs which lets you return to a game) this forum: when I discuss mechanics, builds, stories over and over again the chances are much higher that I get an itch to play the game again based on some cool stuff you read here. Or I get asked a question, fire up the game to double-check - and keep playing.  Without any engagement with the community I'm sure I hadn't played both games multiple times. 

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I'm generally not in favor of shorter games (despite also having all that stuff you mention). I also don't really care for replayability. What I mainly enjoy in cRPGS is a really good story that takes me for a ride. And replayability is not a factor for me because of my emphasis on story: once I know the story, much of the magic is gone, except if the game is really good, I do tend to do another run with different NPCs, if I feel I missed out on something big in that department.

This is 100% the same with me. :)

[thelee]

On 1/7/2022 at 11:42 AM, curryinahurry said:

To this day, Deadfire hasn't sold much more than half of what POE1 has done (a bit more than 1.5mm units).  No investor or publisher would back a deal that took 3 years plus to recoup. 

to that point, fig backers never recouped their money. when MSFT bought OBS, fig backers got a tiny bit of a final payout as they were basically bought out, but they never got to see the long tail of sales drips that eventually put Deadfire into the black.

[thelee]

On 1/7/2022 at 11:42 AM, curryinahurry said:

That is why there is almost no chance of a POE3 unless Avowed is a hit. And even then, it will likely be overhauled in terms of both mechanics and looks.  Paradox stepped away from 2d isometric rpgs after Tyranny because they felt the nostalgia wave had been fed.  

i feel like there's still a market out there for "isometric" party-based CRPGs, but maybe it's extremely superficial: WOTR & Wasteland 3 [both "nostalgia"-esque continuations] are in full 3D. 2D 

[Helz]

On 1/7/2022 at 12:42 PM, curryinahurry said:

To this day, Deadfire hasn't sold much more than half of what POE1 has done (a bit more than 1.5mm units).  No investor or publisher would back a deal that took 3 years plus to recoup. 

Hence the use of crowd funding to make the games that no publisher would touch. If you can manage to keep the lights on and pay 100s of highly trained professionals to make art for 3-5 years, it's a success. These games are evergreen, just like the ones they've emulated. They'll keep selling and its all profit.

 

1 hour ago, thelee said:

i feel like there's still a market out there for "isometric" party-based CRPGs, but maybe it's extremely superficial: WOTR & Wasteland 3 [both "nostalgia"-esque continuations] are in full 3D.

I'll keep buying them and it has nothing to do with nostalgia. I enjoy the tactical nature of these games. I love RPGs and controlling a whole party is just more of a good thing. Obsidian made the best looking party-based RPGs ever and they used 2D backgrounds to do it. The previous best looking ones were also done in 2D. 3D is easier to produce so I'm not surprised that most of the other companies riding the wave went with it, but they're ugly/plastic/mundane 'not as nice' in comparison.

edit: Too harsh

Edited January 10, 2022 by Helz

[Elric Galad]

And remember Disco Elysium also got a lot of spotlight with good looking isometric 2D. 3D artistic costs are superior, it's not only the engine. So if it has no gameplay interest, you're better making better looking 2D.

[curryinahurry]

1 hour ago, Helz said:

Hence the use of crowd funding to make the games that no publisher would touch. If you can manage to keep the lights on and pay 100s of highly trained professionals to make art for 3-5 years, it's a success. These games are evergreen, just like the ones they've emulated. They'll keep selling and its all profit.

Let's  say it takes a team of 15 people to design a game 3 years to complete that game at a budget of 4 mm dollars that a company raises via crowd funding.  If that game sells enough units in the first 3 months of release to break even, then everything beyond that point is indeed gravy.  But if it takes another 3 years for the game to break even, then you have the carrying costs of the 15 people who were employed to make the game, unless they were all fired after the game was released or moved to another game in development.  That is likely at bigger firms like Obsidian but maybe not at smaller outfits which really need  crowdfunding the most.  Either way, slow returns on funding point to a not terribly popular concept that will likely, eventually collapse.  You hypothesis probably works for firms that develop a niche in designing games at a much smaller scale (500k-1mm in crowdfunding) with a very loyal base.