PoE Sales?

[Palmtuna]

Has anyone heard how many copies have been sold (excluding the backers)?

[Marceror]

9er

 

(That may not be an exact figure)

[RedSocialKnight]

According to Steamspy, 308K people own the game on Steam, and according to Steam achievements, 16% of owners are backers. So, very very roughly, that looks like about 250K Steam sales.

[anameforobsidian]

According to Steamspy, 308K people own the game on Steam, and according to Steam achievements, 16% of owners are backers. So, very very roughly, that looks like about 250K Steam sales.

 

That's $7.8m before Paradox's cut.  Not bad for pure profit.

Edited April 14, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[Marceror]

 

According to Steamspy, 308K people own the game on Steam, and according to Steam achievements, 16% of owners are backers. So, very very roughly, that looks like about 250K Steam sales.

 

That's $7.8m before Paradox's cut.  Not bad for pure profit.

 

I guess ole Feargus gets to buy himself a private island in Fiji after all!

[Byeohazard]

Good Ol' Feargus has been around for a good long while..I rememeber seeing video of the Fallout 2 launch party back in the day!  That game ruined me to where I am today lol!  He and Obsidian deserve the accolades! I'm sure he will reinvest back into Obsidian and we will get to see more great games!

[yaggaz]

There's more than just Steam around too.  Direct2drive, Good old Games and Gamersgate are some where the game is also sold digitally.  Isn't there even physical versions too?    Combine all that and we're probably approaching 750k to 1 million sales

[apolloooo]

i hope the budget for POE 2 is 100 million or something and there are 30 athkatla-sized cities, 50 twin elms sized villages and 100 level megadungeon and 250 overworld map...

 

plot twist:

 

it come out at 2095

 

Edited April 14, 2015 by apolloooo

[PrimeJunta]

There's more than just Steam around too.  Direct2drive, Good old Games and Gamersgate are some where the game is also sold digitally.  Isn't there even physical versions too?    Combine all that and we're probably approaching 750k to 1 million sales

 

Sounds optimistic. I believe Steam has about 80% of the market share for this sort of thing. So 300,000 is more realistic at this point. (I believe the physical non-backer versions are Steam also.)

 

It seems to be doing well enough though. A million in a year isn't unrealistic.

[Volourn]

Million or bust.

[Marceror]

No one will be able to count my non-DRM game disk on any of those sites! HAH!

 

Whenever it finally arrives, that is.

[Zoraptor]

Direct2drive [..] Gamersgate are some where the game is also sold digitally. 

 

Both of these sell steam keys, so they're counted as part of the steam numbers they're just not bought from steam itself. GOG certainly would be separate though, and I think Origin too as it was mentioned as having a separate patch along with GOG.

 

If there are non backer physical editions they'll be counted as steam too most likely. Even if they actually have a disk in them and aren't just codes-in-a-box it'll be a steam launcher disk with code, not a proper disk. It is Paradox after all, their days of being drm free are far behind them.

[dickeywang]

According to the SteamSpy data:

 

BG:EE has about 430k owners,

 

BG2:EE  230k,

 

PoE: 308k,

 

Skyrim: 8,2m.

 

I hope PoE's sales will accelerate in coming weeks and reach 7 figures eventually.

[Grand_Commander13]

There's more than just Steam around too.  Direct2drive, Good old Games and Gamersgate are some where the game is also sold digitally.  Isn't there even physical versions too?    Combine all that and we're probably approaching 750k to 1 million sales

Sounds optimistic. I believe Steam has about 80% of the market share for this sort of thing. So 300,000 is more realistic at this point. (I believe the physical non-backer versions are Steam also.)

80% is probably conservative. I'll be conservative too and say 85%, but my gut says 90%.

[anameforobsidian]

 

There's more than just Steam around too.  Direct2drive, Good old Games and Gamersgate are some where the game is also sold digitally.  Isn't there even physical versions too?    Combine all that and we're probably approaching 750k to 1 million sales

Sounds optimistic. I believe Steam has about 80% of the market share for this sort of thing. So 300,000 is more realistic at this point. (I believe the physical non-backer versions are Steam also.)

80% is probably conservative. I'll be conservative too and say 85%, but my gut says 90%.

 

 

80% is actually the best number we have.  Which brings the whole think up to $10m before Paradox and 323k new sales.  That beats the crap out of their kickstarter budget.

[achaye]

The 80% steam sales may be pretty off, as I recall somewhere where GoG sales are quite strong for this game. As of this moment, it's still hovering in the top 3 places.

 

Regardless, I hope PoE sells a bajillion (that's 10 to the power of zatillion) copies so that PoE2 will be a game that requires 400 yottabytes of HD space and 20 zettabytes of memory to run, because each inhabitant of the game world is actually a fully-realized AI entity per every game instance, and will react depending on the game state and your decisions prior.

 

Make it so.

[Idleray]

ok, so according to people so far, there are 250k Steam sales, which account 80% of total sales, which means 100% is 312k. 

 

 

Steam and GOG's cut seems to be 30%. The price is currently $45.

 

 

So 312,000 * 0.7 * 45 is $9,828,000 in terms of total revenue so far, or we might as well call them profits since the development's been paid by Kickstarter.

 

Now the average salary in California where OE is located is $51,900

 

So 9829000/51900 is 189, so its enough to pay a staff of 190 a years worth of salaries, or a staff of 60 three years (my estimate for the manpower needed to make another game). Sounds good to me

 

Incidentally does anyone know the full-time staff size for POE?

Edited April 14, 2015 by Idleray

[mrmonocle]

ok, so according to people so far, there are 250k Steam sales, which account 80% of total sales, which means 100% is 312k. 

 

 

Steam and GOG's cut seems to be 30%. The price is currently $45.

 

 

So 312,000 * 0.7 * 45 is $9,828,000 in terms of total revenue so far, or we might as well call them profits since the development's been paid by Kickstarter.

 

Now the average salary in California where OE is located is $51,900

 

So 9829000/51900 is 189, so its enough to pay a staff of 190 a years worth of salaries, or a staff of 60 three years (my estimate for the manpower needed to make another game). Sounds good to me

 

Incidentally does anyone know the full-time staff size for POE?

u forget taxes, social deductions, rent, facilities, etc, etc. The salary is far from being the only figure in an enterprise's overall budget. 

Edited April 14, 2015 by mrmonocle

[Bryy]

The paychecks of people we don't know are none of our business.

[FlintlockJazz]

ok, so according to people so far, there are 250k Steam sales, which account 80% of total sales, which means 100% is 312k. 

 

 

Steam and GOG's cut seems to be 30%. The price is currently $45.

 

 

So 312,000 * 0.7 * 45 is $9,828,000 in terms of total revenue so far, or we might as well call them profits since the development's been paid by Kickstarter.

 

Now the average salary in California where OE is located is $51,900

 

So 9829000/51900 is 189, so its enough to pay a staff of 190 a years worth of salaries, or a staff of 60 three years (my estimate for the manpower needed to make another game). Sounds good to me

 

Incidentally does anyone know the full-time staff size for POE?

 

I was wondering if people were counting Steam and GOG's cut in there.  As others have said, there are more costs other than salaries to count, better method would be to see if they have earned more than the Kickstarter raised for them, if so then it is a success.

 

The paychecks of people we don't know are none of our business.

 

No one is wanting to know their paychecks, and no one said it was our business.  We are just theorycrafting on how much they need to keep producing games.

[Sven_]

 

No one is wanting to know their paychecks, and no one said it was our business.  We are just theorycrafting on how much they need to keep producing games.

 

 

 

As a comparison, this is from an interview with Brian Fargo regarding Wasteland 2 from 2013. I don't think the scope and budget of both games was hugely different. In the end, it will also come down to if the guys want to pursue this further, i.e. work on smaller scaled projects when they have the opportunity to also do bigger ones (which having some of the industry's best talent, they still do). I don't know if he was being a bit tongue-in-cheek at that point, but I read an interview with Chris Avellone that he'd love the studio to work on multiple projects like this simultaneously. Exactly like in Black Isle's heydays.

 

 

Where do you think the stumbling block is with the old publisher model, when you guys have proven so definitively—two or three times now, between you and Obsidian—that there's a market for this stuff? Why do they have such a hard time working with you guys on that?

 

I think it's a matter of perspective. If you think about… Let's take Torment for example. Let's say we have about 60,000 backers, roughly. We may get to 60-70,000, whatever the number is. Then let's say we roll out and sell another 100,000 digital copies. It could be much higher, but let's just say 100,000. That would be great for us. We'd make a nice little profit. I could have some security for my guys. We could keep doing it.

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/brian-fargo-interview-torment-micromarkets-and-the-ongoing-war-with-the-clowns/

[Bryy]

We are just theorycrafting on how much they need to keep producing games.

 

A million a month based on interviews with Feargus.

[FlintlockJazz]

 

We are just theorycrafting on how much they need to keep producing games.

 

A million a month based on interviews with Feargus.

 

Hmm interesting, thanks for the info.  So either the money raised for Pillars only covered the additional costs of production, not the running costs, or Pillars was a lot cheaper to produce overall.  If the former, then Pillars needs to raise at least 30 million to cover the running costs, not counting other games that they produced in this time period that can also go towards paying this (such as Stick of Truth, which did do well as I recall).  Makes it harder to gauge whether Pillars is a financial success or not...

[Tanred]

 

 

 

 

We are just theorycrafting on how much they need to keep producing games.

 

A million a month based on interviews with Feargus.

Hmm interesting, thanks for the info. So either the money raised for Pillars only covered the additional costs of production, not the running costs, or Pillars was a lot cheaper to produce overall. If the former, then Pillars needs to raise at least 30 million to cover the running costs, not counting other games that they produced in this time period that can also go towards paying this (such as Stick of Truth, which did do well as I recall). Makes it harder to gauge whether Pillars is a financial success or not...

I think it should be one million for the whole company, not only the PoE team.

[FlintlockJazz]

 

 

 

We are just theorycrafting on how much they need to keep producing games.

A million a month based on interviews with Feargus.

Hmm interesting, thanks for the info. So either the money raised for Pillars only covered the additional costs of production, not the running costs, or Pillars was a lot cheaper to produce overall. If the former, then Pillars needs to raise at least 30 million to cover the running costs, not counting other games that they produced in this time period that can also go towards paying this (such as Stick of Truth, which did do well as I recall). Makes it harder to gauge whether Pillars is a financial success or not...

I think it should be one million for the whole company, not only the PoE team.

 

Oh I didn't assume it was just Pillars team but general running costs, which is why I mentioned not counting other games they produce in that time period, since it wouldn't have the pay the whole costs all by itself, but working out whether it is 'profitable' then becomes more... complicated.