PoE - Sales figures STEAM

[zombo]

 

Hypothetically, if POE 2 doesn't require a kickstarter, they should start one anyways and gather $50,000.00 extra to use towards voice acting the ENTIRE game, every single line of dialogue.

Costs waaaay more than this, and makes game development MUCH more restrictive. Any dialogue changes require voice acting?

 

PoE isn't the game that's going to blow millions and millions of dollars on voice acting. I encourage you to get used to reading or find a different game.

 

True, but maybe it can be a stretch goal if they do a Kickstarter again. Reach a certain level above the minimum needed and voice acting gets expanded.

[Hurlshort]

I'm honestly surprised that it doesn't seem to be making the same sales splash as Divinity: Original Sin.  I figured that was the safe bet.  But maybe it is doing better than it seems, it is hard to tell without any confirmation from Obsidian.

[Volourn]

"They had a small staff"
 

Obsidian does not have a small staff and PE itself had more than a few people working on it. This myth that Obsidian is some 'small rinky dinky' company  is just that. A myth.

 

Also, as for sales:

 

Million or bust. PERIOD.

[abaris]

 

True, but maybe it can be a stretch goal if they do a Kickstarter again. Reach a certain level above the minimum needed and voice acting gets expanded.

 

 

I'd rather they expand on the reactiveness of the world.

 

I mean really, what is it these days that everything has to be cosmetic to be good? Voice acting is fine if there's money to burn, but right now no NPC gives a damn if you fight next to them in the street. You can murder your way through the inns without any consequences whatsoever.

 

Well, voice acting is pretty low on my to do list when I think about what could be done better.

Edited May 14, 2015 by abaris

[danielkx]

Voice acting should literally be at the bottom of the list for things that need to be in the sequel.

 

I would prefer, if there is any voice acting (which there will be) that it just be 1st line of that npc voiced then the rest unvoiced.

 

Save the money for everything else that has a much larger impact on the game.

 

As someone said above, if you feel like voice acting for npcs is that important to you and that having to read the majority of the lines is not fun, then the PoE franchise is probably not for you.

[Sven_]

 

Obsidian does not have a small staff and PE itself had more than a few people working on it. This myth that Obsidian is some 'small rinky dinky' company  is just that. A myth.

 

Also, as for sales:

 

Million or bust. PERIOD.

 

 

Obsidian are a comparably big developer considering their independent status. Hugely doubtful that a big number of those worked on PoE though, that is all throughout, full-time, exclusively. It's not viable. It's not even doable given the budget. I don't get the "million or bust" remark though, which might be a language barrier interfering. inXile are doing projects of largely comparable scale to PoE and according to Fargo could keep doing this for years if they sell 100,000 - 200,000 games. They wouldn't mind selling a million. But they certainly don't need to hit it or go bust, nor would they consider anything less a failure or anything - and if they would, that would be a huge failure in management and perception. There's not overly many PC exclusive titles that sell those numbers, not even all the Total War titles hit that. There aren't all that overly many titles that sell a million copies full-stop, thinking about it. Certainly not those being released for a single platform.

 

According to recent news, Alien:Isolation was considered a disappointment for Sega after selling reportedly 2.1 million copies across all the platforms it's been released on, which was at least 4 consoles and PC (though that doesn't mean the title didn't turn a profit either -- it's been one of their few, perhaps arguably the only "big" product in their last year's portfolio and despite all it's also been the one that shipped the most units). Naturally 1) independent companies such as inXile work very differently from the ground-up and 2) PoE never was considered Obsidian's current big project. It may have saved, or helped to save the company back in 2012, but considering there's 100+ people working there, it's fair to assume that other projects such as Armored Warfare utilizing fairly advanced tech saw more permanent man power and experience being allocated to them. The Stick Of Truth also shipped in 2014.

 

Might be that the number of such projects will go down in the future though. 2013/4 in particular saw a very high number of "classic" CRPGs coming out, in particular compared to the ten years before in which there was barely anything available in comparison. A lot of those are attracting similar crowds. And whilst PoE was probably the most anticipated so far, it also came last, Torment not counting. It's already quite a different market compared to when say Baldur's Gate or Fallout were initially released (both after a period of much dry and nothing), and the D&D license carried significant weight back then. Also nobody really continues pursuing expansion packs for games which are considered flops.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Sven_

[Prime-Mover]

"They had a small staff"

 

Obsidian does not have a small staff and PE itself had more than a few people working on it. This myth that Obsidian is some 'small rinky dinky' company  is just that. A myth.

 

Also, as for sales:

 

Million or bust. PERIOD.

Sure Obsidian is a fairly large company, but this was sort of a side-project, and not some big company-wide production. According to the documentary (if I recall, or maybe it was a written interview), they said that around ten people were working on it. That's pretty small, and underscores the point you are responding to.

[smithereen]

I'm honestly surprised that it doesn't seem to be making the same sales splash as Divinity: Original Sin.  I figured that was the safe bet.  But maybe it is doing better than it seems, it is hard to tell without any confirmation from Obsidian.

 

I believe Gamespot gave Original Sin "PC Game of the Year," which can't have hurt it's sales. It was also deeply discounted for quite a while.

 

Unfortunately for Obsidian Wild Hunt seems like it will have this year's awards cycle locked up.

[player1]

Voice acting should literally be at the bottom of the list for things that need to be in the sequel.

 

 

I would prefer if some budget goes to the making NPC portraits.

 

I was quite surprised that so many NPCs are partially voiced, but only companions and main baddy have character portraits.

 

As rule of thumb, if NPC has voiced lines, it must have portrait too.

[abaris]

 

I believe Gamespot gave Original Sin "PC Game of the Year," which can't have hurt it's sales. It was also deeply discounted for quite a while.

 

 

 

Yeah, and look what they do with it. They just announced to make a so called enhanced edition, multiplatform and fully voiced with full controller support.

 

I don't get it, they're successful doing a kickstarter and catering to a specific audience and once that's done, they take the mainstream road like everybody else instead of building on their success.

[lord_wc]

 

 

I believe Gamespot gave Original Sin "PC Game of the Year," which can't have hurt it's sales. It was also deeply discounted for quite a while.

 

 

 

Yeah, and look what they do with it. They just announced to make a so called enhanced edition, multiplatform and fully voiced with full controller support.

 

I don't get it, they're successful doing a kickstarter and catering to a specific audience and once that's done, they take the mainstream road like everybody else instead of building on their success.

 

Because their product is about as good as it can get. And DOS sales got 'boosted' by simply the quality of the game - PoE falls short in that department. 

I also don't get that hate towards porting on consoles. Does it hurt you in any way? Why shouldn't console players play with that game? Also EE will be a free upgrade for anyone owning the game - how is that a bad thing?

[redneckdevil]

Design the game for PC first and foremost, then put it anywhere u want and I'll be okay with that. Hell in looking forward to playing wasteland 2 on my ps4 whenever they release it. Is dOS going on consoles as well too? If so hell yeah.

[Varana]

Money is the root of all evil.

Consoles bring in lots of money.

Therefore...

 

j/k

[abaris]

 

Does it hurt you in any way? Why shouldn't console players play with that game? Also EE will be a free upgrade for anyone owning the game - how is that a bad thing?

 

Ultimately it does hurt PC players, if the game is developed with consoles as the primary medium. It's really simple: Consoles offer less options. The controllers have only so many buttons. So when Bioware, the most prmoinent example, made the turnaround, the result were abysmal ports with PC as an afterthought.

 

And that's not even getting started on different clientels that require the catering to the lowest common denominator to save on development costs.

[Shevek]

Ya, consolization concerns have hurt ui and gameplay for over a decade. Let them screw up some other genre. Im sick and tired consolized ui's, consolized gameplay and consolized stories. Let the 13 year olds play their crap on their crappy cheap gaming boxes. Leave the pcs for us adults who dont want that garbage.

[eRe4s3r]

 

 

I believe Gamespot gave Original Sin "PC Game of the Year," which can't have hurt it's sales. It was also deeply discounted for quite a while.

 

 

 

Yeah, and look what they do with it. They just announced to make a so called enhanced edition, multiplatform and fully voiced with full controller support.

 

I don't get it, they're successful doing a kickstarter and catering to a specific audience and once that's done, they take the mainstream road like everybody else instead of building on their success.

 

 

The Enhanced Edition was a side-project which fixes (supposedly) a lot of the complaints from D:OS that would not have been possible to just patch, as fixing them would have changed the base game so substantially that it's essentially a different game They are working on 2 unannounced RPG's too. So this enhanced edition is more like a bonus.

[Phoenixus_01]

Well after looking at the Steam Figures,

 

Pillars of Eternity has sold approx. 400,000 on JUST STEAM at present. At approximately $45 per copy... that's about 18 Million after ONE month. (for the record its up to 91,000 people playing at peak, going on the figures updated from the earlier posts on this thread)

 

According to the information we have, the game had an initial budget of approx. 4 Million.

 

That is an enormous gross with such a relatively small cost to produce already... and that's not including the sales for the rest of the year and ONLY includes STEAM sales, not other sales like CD/DVD sales.

 

While I am certainly willing to believe both taxes, Paradox, and STEAM get their cut... there can be no doubt that cost vs risk for making one of these is extremely low.

 

Obsidian can make as many of these as they want, because its small budget... and the sales are through the roof.

 

Its really taking a very old school back to the small type production budget (compared to Console games) with the much larger profit margin (not profits, profit margin). Especially now that the code and mechanics are already in place...

 

So yeah... overwhelming success and large profit margin, and highly likely we'll see a lot more of them.  

[the streaker]

Awesome. Any indication of GOG sales? I hope these games are successful enough that they can keep making more. The engine doesn't even need to hange, all you need is a good story, interesting locations and interesting characters.

[abaris]

I really wish them the best of luck and sales to support their decision. A good product should sell, so that the producer produces more on the same quality lines.

[Marky]

Well after looking at the Steam Figures,

 

Pillars of Eternity has sold approx. 400,000 on JUST STEAM at present.

 

Do you have a source for that? The best information I could find is steamspy, which says that there's approximately 377667 owners. I'm guessing about 50000 of them are probably backers.

[samm]

Awesome. Any indication of GOG sales?

Just that it's currently at place 5 (Hero) and 16 (Champion) of gog's charts - no absolute numbers.

[Phoenixus_01]

 

Well after looking at the Steam Figures,

 

Pillars of Eternity has sold approx. 400,000 on JUST STEAM at present.

 

Do you have a source for that? The best information I could find is steamspy, which says that there's approximately 377667 owners. I'm guessing about 50000 of them are probably backers.

 

 

Well that's why I used the words approximately. None of us here know the real figures.

 

All we can do is make estimates. I just gave a rough estimate based on what we currently know. At present... the STEAM sales are selling at approx 4000-6000 per day from what I could see in the charts at Steamspy. I estimated approximately 400,000 sales which is reasonable.

 

I can definitely say... the estimate I gave is reasonably accurate.

 

And again this is ONLY regarding STEAM sales... and doesn't even include CD/DVD sales or GOG.

 

NOW i'll go into speculation...

We know that Obsidian estimated their asking budget of 1.5 million to produce the game on Kickstarter.... they got almost 4 million. From what I can see in the Making of Video... its likely they never spent that full 4 million and the ACTUAL cost was probably in the 2 million range to make, because it sure doesn't look like they splurged... so the Cost vs Risk might even be smaller than I originally stated. So they've still got the leftovers to be able to guarantee an expansion pack too on top of that which is why they're already saying its in the works.

 

The cost vs profit margin on this is HUGE.

 

No matter how I look at it... this one has been an overwhelming success, an its only been what? A month and a half?

[Prime-Mover]

 

 

Well after looking at the Steam Figures,

 

Pillars of Eternity has sold approx. 400,000 on JUST STEAM at present.

 

Do you have a source for that? The best information I could find is steamspy, which says that there's approximately 377667 owners. I'm guessing about 50000 of them are probably backers.

 

 

Well that's why I used the words approximately. None of us here know the real figures.

 

All we can do is make estimates. I just gave a rough estimate based on what we currently know. At present... the STEAM sales are selling at approx 4000-6000 per day from what I could see in the charts at Steamspy. I estimated approximately 400,000 sales which is reasonable.

 

I can definitely say... the estimate I gave is reasonably accurate.

 

And again this is ONLY regarding STEAM sales... and doesn't even include CD/DVD sales or GOG.

 

NOW i'll go into speculation...

We know that Obsidian estimated their asking budget of 1.5 million to produce the game on Kickstarter.... they got almost 4 million. From what I can see in the Making of Video... its likely they never spent that full 4 million and the ACTUAL cost was probably in the 2 million range to make, because it sure doesn't look like they splurged... so the Cost vs Risk might even be smaller than I originally stated. So they've still got the leftovers to be able to guarantee an expansion pack too on top of that which is why they're already saying its in the works.

 

The cost vs profit margin on this is HUGE.

 

No matter how I look at it... this one has been an overwhelming success, an its only been what? A month and a half?

 

 

I don't follow. Steamspy says specifically  377,667 ± 16,323. That is the best approximation we have. Not 400.000. And as the other person said, all the backers who opted for a steam copy are part of that number, which is a significant chunk. That puts the total number closer to 300.000 than 400.000. It's still not bad, but I just don't see why you insist on calling 400.000 a reasonable approximation. It's not.

 

http://steamspy.com/app/291650

Edited May 24, 2015 by Prime-Mover

[Phoenixus_01]

 

 

 

 

I don't follow. Steamspy says specifically  377,667 ± 16,323. That is the best approximation we have. Not 400.000. And as the other person said, all the backers who opted for a steam copy are part of that number, which is a significant chunk. That puts the total number closer to 300.000 than 400.000. It's still not bad, but I just don't see why you insist on calling 400.000 a reasonable approximation. It's not.

 

http://steamspy.com/app/291650

 

 

Well that is up to you,

 

I'm not here to split hairs with you... I'm making a reasonable estimate on copies sold. An stated so to you directly.

 

And I'm pretty sure I'm SERIOUSLY underselling it.... given those are ONLY STEAM numbers not the other sales outside of STEAM.  Likely the number is much higher than even I estimated.... I was pretty conservative.

 

18 Million dollars up to this point on a 4 million budget. Heck its more likely a good 20+ million on a 2.5 million budget.

 

But either way... it proves everyone wrong that a game like this in this day and age isn't a moneymaker... its actually a really big moneymaker... Because the cost vs risk is incredibly low and the profit margin much higher than in other games.

[Marky]

I agree, it appears to have been a big success, and expansions/sequels/other gamers are now very likely to come. Woohoo!